----- Original Message -----
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