Re: [tied] Re: Origin of Latin carbasus

On 2006-07-19 01:39, Roger Mills wrote:

> Dempwolff, who was usually aware of Indic loans, reconstructed Austronesian
> (= Malayo-Polynesian in today's classification) *kapas 'Baumwolle, Faden'
> with witnesses in his Indonesian languages (all glossed 'Baumwolle') as well
> as Melanesian Fijian, and Polynesian Tonga, Samoa (all glossed 'Bindfaden').
> Provided the Oceanic cognates are correctly aligned, it implies either MP
> origin (thence > Indic), or a very early loan from the mainland, likely
> prior to the known massive Indic influence in the archipelago. Perhaps a
> Wanderwort for "various useful plant-fibers"?

Or, also possibly, a Middle Indic loan (kappa:sa < OInd. karpa:sa-)
diffusing via Indonesia and meaning precisely 'cotton', superimposed on
an older, perhaps unrelated, word. Greek, for example, has a couple of
plant names very similar to <kárpasos> but apparently not related to it.

> Gonda, and later scholars, consider Ml/Ind. kapas an Indic loan; but do not
> explain the Oceanic witnesses.
>
> (In modern Ml/Indonesian and areas influenced by them, kapas does indeed
> mean 'cotton'; some Moluccan languages attest a variant *kabas.
>
> Blust's comparative AN dictionary does not include the word, perhaps by
> oversight (it's still "in progress"). Zorc's Core Etym.Dict. of Pilipino
> cites _kapas_, but as a presumed Ml. loan ult. < Indic "kappa:sa" (per
> Gonda). He also gives other PI forms pointing to *kap&s (&=schwa). An older
> Pilipino dictionary (Panganiban 1970) doesn't list it.

Thank you. This is very informative.

Piotr