Re: [tied] ambra ( it was Fwd: Aryanism and Journal of Indo-Europea

From: alex_lycos
Message: 18005
Date: 2003-01-23

Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "alex_lycos" <altamix@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 7:26 PM
> Subject: Re: [tied] Fwd: Aryanism and Journal of Indo-European Studies
>
>
>> BTW, we discused "zambru" here; George, is there any explanation of
>> this name "Zambara" there in RV?
>
> Alex, Sanskrit had no /z/. In the Harvard-Kyoto transcription of
> Sanskrit the Latin _letter_ "z" represents the sound we usually spell
> <s'> ("s" with a stroke over it, as in Polish) -- a _voiceless_
> alveopalatal fricative. The word is really <s'ambara->. It doesn't
> even smell like a bison
>
> Piotr


Thank you Piotr. I am happy I just asked and nothing more. I have indeed
no clue about the phonetic rules of languages from non European space:-(
BTW "smell". I am not sure the name is given because of the smell but I
cannot forget that it could be because of the smell.
One more tought for the connection with the smell is the name of a
plant. The plant in question is savory, Romanian "cimbru (tSimbru)"
The DEX gives "cimbru" with no etymology but not with unknown etymology.
There is said " conform Greek "thymbra".
But I fail to see the connection here. Let us just discusee the greek
word. Does the last part " -mbra" means something?
So far I remmeber there is a word "ambra, ambrosie" which is an aromatic
food of the goods.
It seems this "-mbra" is connected with "smell".
The slavic nasalised "o" shows too this "onbra"= "ambra"
It can be there is just a coincidence but something which smells bad=
*sambros, good smell = *kimbros, aromatic = *ambros
This is just a joke ok, you dont need to take it seriously since I have
nothing in the hand , just the 3 words which seems to point to smell.
s/zambras, ci/thymbras, ambros(ies)
Funny:-))