Re: Sard

I have great difficulty seeing the term mean 'penis inside the vagina'.

It seems to me that sardi- simply identifies the _place_ where 'fastening' is made, at least in sexually competent females.

Melchert 'bring together . . .' has just added (and, IMHO, unnecessarily) a nuance to 'fasten', the basic meaning of *ser-, which shows up in Egyptian as s3, 'cattle-hobble', written with a multiply looped and knotted cord.

Now I do not doubt the existence of a *ser- meaning 'rub' or something similar. There is Egyptian s3, 'sift', which substantiates it, I think.

Of course, we do not have a **ser-, 'rub, wipe', in Pokorny.

Or do we?

Pokorny does have *streub- and *streudh-, meaning 'wipe, plunder'. Though you will probably vehemently disagree, I think it may be possible to derive these from a stress-accent shift with euphonic -t- from *sér-, namely *s(t)ré-w-b/dh.

The proposed connection with *ser-p- is totally unwarranted, and poor semantics, IMHO. There is also a *ser- that means simply 'creep', which corresponds to Egyptian z3, 'betake one's self, maggot (for caterpillar?)'.

These deductions illustrate perfectly why IE etymology cannot be successfully done within the bounds of exclusively PIE words. Each of these meanings for *ser- is tied to an earlier pre-PIE word thst differed from each other. Fortunately, those differences are recoverable but I will not further irritate some readers by detailing them.

Patrick

----- Original Message -----

From: Piotr Gasiorowski

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 10:27 AM

Subject: Re: [tied] Sard

Patrick Ryan wrote:
> Pokorny lists it under *ser-, 'fasten together', giving some of the same
> examples.
>
> This certainly looks like an ancient way of expressing 'coupling'.
>
> Do you disagree with Pokorny and seek another source?

Just thinking aloud. I don't believe Wel. serth 'offensive, obscene', is
cognate, first because the initial <s-> is a doubtful match and the
final <th> no match at all, and secondly because <serth> also means
'sloping, steep', and the meaning 'obscene' may be a mere case of
figurative extension. The other Celtic words don't really match Gmc.
*serð-e/a-, so we are left without any plausible extra-Germanic cognates.

However, I've just come across an article by Craig Melchert (Journal of
American Oriental Society 122, 2002) on Skt. sárdi-gr.di- 'the portio
vaginalis of the uterus' (used in the description of the sexual part of
the as'vamedHa- ritual), interpreted literally as 'vaginal penis' ("the
penis inside the vagina") -- hence the reconstruction of Skt. *sarda- or
*sardi- 'vagina', not attested on its own. Now Hittite has the verb root
sart- 'wipe, rub', and in addition to ON serða there's also <sarða>
meaning 'polish, touch', so the story begins to make sense if one
reconstructs *serd(H)- 'rub' with an obvious semantic potential (Skt.
lacks the aspiration for some reason) or even, as Melchert does, *ser-
'bring together with different degrees of violence' plus various "root
extensions" (also *ser-p-, for example).

Piotr