Re: [tied] *ekwos and esel?

From: michael_donne
Message: 12629
Date: 2002-03-07

--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> Which Anatolian language has this 'ass' word? Perhaps you mean
Hurrian es^s^i- 'horse', which is suggestively similar to Arm. e:s^

Yes, but 'es' is also close to the Latin <asinus>. And wouldn't we
expect the Hurrians to have gotten the word for horse, along with the
animal, from the supposed "Superhorsemen of the Plains" the Indo-
Europeans and not v.v.? This is idea seems rather central to many
attempts to locate the Urheimat.

> Of the Indo-Iranian word for 'ass', *kHara- (Av. xara-, Ved. kHara-
) is a loan of disputed origin.

Is this a reply to my previous question:

"I just noticed in Harmatta's article in Dani's book that the Persian
word 'gor' means wild ass. Is this cognate with Hindi 'ghora' for
horse?"

If so, I don't understand the answer.

What is the general opinion of Harmatta's "The emergence of the Indo-
Iranians" in Dani's _History of civilisations of Central
Asia, Vol. I_ where he lays out eleven stages of IE? And what is the
general opinion about his work? Is it respected?

In the same article, he also talks about the significance of the wide
spread of the words 'Kaspoi' (Gk), Iranian 'Kasp', Sodgian 'Kas' and
even Chinese 'Kasa' (these are only a few examples) and links it to a
possible spread of the Kassites across all of C. Asia. What do you
(y'all) think?