Piotr:
>*bHleg- ~ *bHlag- / *bHlog- 'burn', as in "flagrant", "phlegm",
>"flame" and "phlogiston". OE blac still meant 'shining' or 'pale'
>rather than 'black' (the original colour term was <sweart>). At the
>Indo-Aryan end we have <bHrgu->, a race of fire-beings. There are of
>course other similar roots that have to do with shining or burning,
>and perhaps they are all extension of *bHel- 'shine'. Still, *bHlag^H-
>remains difficult.
Thanks for the input. And now a theory...
What if *bHlagHmen- does in fact relate to *bHleg-? How? Am I mad?
Perhaps. But here is the explanation.
I still can't get it out of my head that, at some point in the
murky Pre-IE past (early Late IE, if you will), that voiced plain
stops that were immediately followed by an aspirate (either *h or
*x) often merged together as a single "voiced aspirate" phoneme.
Thus cluster sequences like *dx- or *dh- would end up becoming a
single phoneme *dH-. We should then see stuff like *daxnu- versus
*dHan-, let's say, and scratch our heads wondering why they look so
much alike but yet they are unrelated... or so one would assume.
We could also explain *bHlagHmen- in the same way. The *bHlagH-
in *bHlagHmen- could merely be *bHlag- + *-x- [transitive]. Hence,
the function of a *bHlagHmen- (< *bHlagx-men-) is to burn things...
Erh, well that admittedly sounds like a pyromaniac until one
realizes that "burning" is connected with concepts like "offerings"
and "ritual". Thus, it is a name very fitting for a priest devoted
to such things.
Just a thought, cuz I can't think of a better one.
- gLeN
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