Re: Metals

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Marco Moretti"
<marcomoretti69@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>

wrote:

> >
> >
> > http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/bHrs.html
> > http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/pld.html
> >
> > Single origin?
> > Anyone care to comment?
>
>
> As for me, the origin of *bHrs is single, and is Sumerian
> bar-zil, "iron".

And we might play with it, as Miguel suggested: *zil-bar

>Apparently this is a compound of Sumerian
> bar, "white", "shining", and "zil", to cut.

White, shining cut? Hm.

>Sumerians were
> unable to work this metal, but they know it as a meteoric
> substance. From Sumerian the word was borrowed (very early)
> into Proto-Semitic as *P.rs or something similar.
> In particular, Akkadian persillum was the source of some
> forms found in two IE languages such as Latin ferrum and OE bræs.
> We cannot reconstruct an IE *bHrs, because this root is attested
> scanty and has no other cognates in IE languages.
> Latin ferrum < *bHersom, but this *bHersom is suspected to be of
> Etruscan origin. Etruscan has other loanwords from AfroAsiatic
> langauges, such as vinum, "wine", thevru, "bull", zich "book" (form
> Egyptian /zh_3/ "to write" (later Kartvelian borrowed it from
> ProtoTyrrhenian, Georgian c.igni, "book"), etc...

> We cannot project in ProtoIE a form attested only in few western IE
> languages or even an isolated one.
> IE is not monolithic.

> Old English bræs is a loanword from some pre-IE language spoken in
> the Northern areas befor the arrival of Indoeuropeans. There are
> hundreds and hundreds of germanic words with no known etymology,
> apparently ancient substratum item. We cannot say that words like
> silver, drink, sheep, ship, land are from IE roots.
>

Yup. But the question was: Is it cognate with the others?

> Also *pld is quite interesting.
> You have forgotten Basque berun, "lead" from Pre-Basque *belun.
> It is another pre-IE substrate item. We cannot derive it from IE
> *bHlei-, morphological details are too aberrant.
> The word for "lead" from "to radiate" is like canis a non canendo,
> lucus a non lucendo, aqua a qua juvamur.

I think so too. Or *bar-zil from "white cut". I only copied my source.

> I derive Latin plumbum and Celtin *loudon, *loudia: directly from
> Tyrrhenian *plumdH-. Celtic *loud- < *plobd- < *plumdH-.
>
> From the Mediterranean area these words spread into Asia, so we

have

> matchups in Proto-Hesperonesian, etc...
>
> I hope my explanations will be of some help.
> I would be happy to receive comments.

Hm. Here's a comment. Three dots do not constitute an argument that
metals spread not from Sundaland to the Middle East and Europe but
the other way. Some of the metal finds in IndoChina are older than
the ones on this side of the continent.
It's a long story and I've been trying to sell this theory for a long
time as the archives will show (which also contain long discussions
of metal names). Most of it takes place in the 'Austronesian' group
these days, but you have to a member (which is easy to become and
stay, as long as one behaves oneself).

Torsten