Re: The ur-/ar- language

From: Brian M. Scott
Message: 59109
Date: 2008-06-07

At 12:09:03 PM on Saturday, June 7, 2008, tgpedersen wrote:

>> Thus the Nahar had a sounded /h/, and can originate from
>> an inherited root *nagh- or *na:gh-. The Greek for
>> 'duck', Attic <nêssa>, Boeotian <nâssa>, can be regularly
>> derived from *na:gh-ya, and the duck is a diving bird.
>> The Nera, which plunges over waterfalls in its course
>> through the Appennines, is a diving river. The nominative
>> ending -ar (from *-ars) is found in Oscan/Paelignian
>> <casnar> 'old man' (cf. Lat. <ca:nus> 'gray, hoary with
>> age', etc.), Lucerian <loucar> 'grove', and probably Lat.
>> <caesar> 'infant cut from the womb' if, as seems likely,
>> the word is borrowed from Sabine.

>> Attic <né:kho:>, Doric <ná:kho:> 'I swim' (originally 'I
>> dive'?) probably comes from the same root, *(s)na:gh-, an
>> extension of *sneH2-, *sna:- 'to swim', the root-postfix
>> perhaps signifying 'downward'. The fact that Umbrian did
>> not lose the /s/ in <veskla snata asnata> 'wet and dry
>> vessels' (IIa:19) is not problematic to this etymology of
>> <Nahar>. In England, Nottingham is from earlier
>> Snotingham, but noses are still snotty, not *notty.
>> Place-names can lose "s-mobile" while appellatives retain
>> it.

> The logic is impeccable: Ducks dive, water falls.

> How about this etymology: Niag-ara "Duck river"?

> That would have interesting implications.

> How do you feel your etymologies compare to Vennemann's?

Unless backed up by specific criticism of Douglas's
proposal, the above derisive paragraphs are linguistically
worthless. (In particular, they certainly don't invalidate
the assertion that <Nar> *can* be given a P-Italic
etymology.)

Brian