Re: [tied] Just a word about Austronesian

It could be, but I strongly suggest a connection with Sanskrit kapa:lam
'skull, pan', and thus a match with the Greek. There does seem to be a lot
of irregularity in the IE matches - Latin caput but Germanic *xaubudam (>
English head).

The languages of Further India, extending as far as the Phillippines, are
full of Sanskrit loans, which are not always immediately recognisable.
Dempwolff even included some of them when he reconstructed
Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, on the (false) assumption that they were old
enought to be inherited, or at least to show correspondences as though they
were. Shades of the Proto-Algonquian words for whiskey and rifle!

Richard.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Almogàver" <almogaver69@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2003 12:13 AM
Subject: [tied] Just a word about Austronesian


I was browsing the Net when I found a list of cognates between several
Austronesian languages and their meanings.

The line corresponding to "head" started with an Indonesian "kepala" that
didn't seem to match any of the other languages (Tagalog "úlo", Fijian
"ulu", Maori "uru" and Hawaiian "po'o" - well, maybe the last ones does).

Can I take this as just a coincidence with Greek?

Thanks.