----- Original Message -----
From: danjmi
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, September 29, 2002 8:46 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] again the slavic methathesis

> The German "Plattensee" would seem to my limited knowledge to point to adaption from the earlier Slavic 'Blatno Ozero' rather than the later Hungarian 'Balaton'.  Is this phonologically correct, and historically likely?
 
Both, I think, and that's what I assumed in my posting.
 
> And would a German interpret this as "Flat Lake"?
 
More like "plate lake", at least in High German. Incidentally, all lakes I've ever seen were flat. [BTW, flach and flat -- another pair of pseudo-cognates.] The really remarkable thing about Balaton is that it's so shallow.

> The Latin name Lacus Pelso sounds vaguely similar.  Was this the same 'marshy" word in some other I.E. Language?
 
I don't know. *pVl- for 'swamp' does occur (e.g. Latin palu:s, palu:d-). We'd need something like *pels-(H)en-.
 
Piotr