From: fournet.arnaud
Message: 54965
Date: 2008-03-10
----- Original Message -----
From: tgpedersen
EDWIN G. PULLEYBLANK:
Central Asia and Non-Chinese Peoples of Ancient China
IV The Chinese and Their Neighbors in Prehistoric and Early Historic
Times, p 451
"
The few Hsiung-nu words transcribed in Chinese characters for which semantic
glosses are
supplied show a number of striking contacts with Kettish or with
recorded items of vocabulary from the extinct Palaeo-Siberian
languages.
===================
Do you have these words ?
or a reference ?
Arnaud
=================
XIII EARLY CONTACTS BETWEEN INDO-EUROPEANS AND CHINESE, p 15
"
In my 1962 article, following a suggestion in Ligeti (1950),
I proposed a connection between the Xiongnu language and the Yeniseian
languages now represented by one sole survivor, Ket, but formerly more
widely spoken in southern Siberia. Though some of the etymological
connections I proposed between Yeniseian words and Xiongnu words in
Chinese transcription still seem to me quite plausible, I never
regarded this idea as more than an interesting hypothesis for further
research.
===============
If the identity proposed between the Huns and the Hsiung-nu/Xiongnu
holds, perhaps we should look for unexplained Germanic words in Ket?
Torsten
============
There are at least four clear words :
Germanic *skip-am "ship" = PY *qa?p
Germanic *dannwo "fir-tree" = PY *dinje
Germanic *laub "leaf" = PY *jeep
Germanic *sku:ra "rain" = PY *xur
and PY *sir "summer" is interesting
in connection with *ya:r "year".
http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE597.html
A better reconstruction is *zar.
The word *laub is probably a loanword
as Chinese has *ngap and Algonkin has niip.
This word does not look like a possible cognate.
Arnaud
==============