Re: Mitanni and Matsya

----- Original Message -----
From: "david_russell_watson" <liberty@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 9:41 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Mitanni and Matsya


--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:
>
> I guess you must not have access to Pokorny.

You've been given no reason to assume so. In fact Richard
Wordingham gave me a copy of Pokorny a few years ago.

> Pokorny has 3. *ar-, 'nut'. What color are nuts usually?

The hazelnuts and pistachios that I just got through eating
were dark brown and green respectively, and the walnuts in
my freezer are a light brown color. Though it would be of
no significance if all nuts were pale anyway, because the
meaning we have for *ar- is 'nut', not 'pale'.

***

After you eat the skins of the nuts, what do you do with the pale nutmeat?

***

Anybody at all can play a game like yours of connecting one
word to another, then the second word to a third, and so on,
to get from any meaning to any other meaning they wish, but
the results will have no linguistic significance whatsoever.
It's no more than a game.

***

Etymology is the science of connecting form and meaning through
transformations.

***

I could follow your lead and claim that *aryo- originally
meant 'squirrel' on the same basis of *ar- meaning 'nut',
and it would make more sense than your 'pale' argument, if
I wanted to join in on such nonsense.

***

Yes, perhaps you would.

***

> Secondly, you are neglecting PIE root structure, which is *CV or
> *CVC.

I'm not neglecting anything; P.I.E. root structure doesn't
enter the question.

> *ar- = *CVC, I.e. *Ha(:)r- or *H2er- as some would have it.
>
> Neither *aru- nor *ario- can be PIE roots.

I didn't say anything about *arya- being a root, Proto-Indo-
European or otherwise, and I claimed nothing about *aru- at
all.

What I said was that the meaning of the Indo-Iranian ethnonym
'arya-' is not known with any great degree of certainty, and
that the few, more likely connections, have nothing to do with
color, all your diversionary commentary not withstanding.

***

And I say it is known.

***

> Since the root comes first, we have *Ha(:)r-u- and *Ha(:)r-i-o-
> with the *i representing derivative -*y(V).
>
> PIE *Ha(:)r- has other meanings besides 'pale'.

Why are you telling _me_ that when it was _you_ who claimed the
meaning 'pale'?

***

Candor is my weakness.

***

Moreover *arya- may not even ascend to Proto-Indo-European, did
you never consider?

So as it stands you've still failed to show that 'arya-' has
anything to do with paleness, and to explain what 'aru-' is
supposed to be.

David

***

For you, perhaps.


Patrick

***