Re: [tied] Re: etmyology of Germani

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 20532
Date: 2003-03-29

----- Original Message -----
From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 29, 2003 1:44 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: etmyology of Germani


Russsian put' "road", Latin pont- "bridge", Iranian I-forgot-what
have p in Anlaut which would > f in Germanic. Thus it might be a loan
and Iranian is a candidate.

As a matter of fact, it can hardly be anything else but Iranian (the Iranian word is -- surprise -- *paþ- < *pn.th2-). No other form of the 'path' word in any IE group fits the bill so perfectly. A fairly late loan, may I add; later than Grimm's Law. Germanic also has a native cognate (from the root *pent(h2)-): *finþ-/*fanþ-/*fund-, which underlies English <find>.

Piotr