Re: [tied] Re: The Brahman and the Brain

This "Iberian filter" between early western IE and Greek is a good idea indeed if <molubdos> and <plumbum> are to be connected at all.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: Miguel Carrasquer
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2002 12:44 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: The Brahman and the Brain



As I have argued before, the Iberian peninsula was in Antiquity a main
source of metals in general and lead in particular. The two pre- or
para-Celtic (Indo-European in any case) words for "lead", *plowdhom
(*plowdhia:) and *bli:wom (or *bli:wa:) [the latter only attested in
Germanic, but borrowed from Celtic if from PIE *bhle:w-] would in
Iberian (whose phonotactics are known to be like those of Basque) have
given *bolobdo (no /p/, no initial clusters, no /w/) and *bilibo (no
initial clusters, no /w/). Not surprisingly the two got mixed up in
Iberia into something like *bolib(d)o or *bolub(d)o, from which the
Greeks got their word, attested as <molubdos> ~ <bolubdos> (Att.) ~
<molibos> (Hom.) ~ <bolimos> (Epid.) ~ *<bolibos> (Rhod.). A form
*belumbo (from the same source, or from Latin?) could well be
ancestral to Basque <berun> "lead" (if from Latin, it would have to be
a very early borrowing, as in later loanwords pl- gives l-, e.g.
<pluma> "feather" > Bq. <luma>).