--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "A." <xthanex@...> wrote:
>
> David,
>
> A heartfelt thank you for your detailed response!
Oh you're most welcome.
> I'd also like to apologize for not having grasped the finer
> distinctions between linguistic "antecedents" and "roots",
> hopefully I now have a handle on the matter.
Well it's very common for "root" to be used in the way
that you did. Again and again whenever etymologies are
being discussed in front of her, my own mother will
interject "Oh yes, they (referring to all languages)
all come from the Latin root". I've tried to explain to
her more than a few times why this isn't true, but she
insists that this is what she was taught in high school.
She may be right too, at least about what she was taught,
as one of my own high-school Spanish teachers included
English in the languages that evolved from Latin.
> So PIE *H2rtó- > PII *H2rtá- > both rta- and asha-
Yep.
> Your closing paragraph summarized the issue nicely for me.
> Sadly (from my POV), having read your words, it seems there
> is no evidence to support a cognate to Rta among the European
> languages - so much for the ambition of discovering one!
Well there might have been a concept of something like
Rta, only under some other name. Think on how 'moksa-'
and 'nirvana-' refer to more or less the same thing,
and how if all evidence of 'moksa-' had disappeared, we
might now suppose that the concept was first introduced
from Buddhism.
> Again, I am deeply indebted to you for taking the time to
> thoroughly explain this all.
Oh not at all, and there are surely people on this list
better qualified to answer your questions than me, but
is bothers me so whenever your questions go unanswered
that I just had to give it a try myself.
David