Re: My version

From: dgkilday57
Message: 63581
Date: 2009-03-05

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Trond Engen <trond@...> wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
> >> [...]
> >>
> >> Hmm, <aequus> and the tribal name <Aequi>, <Aequicoli> have not to my
> >> knowledge been satisfactorily explained, but I do not see how to tie
> >> them in with <aes>. On the other hand Lehmann did write something
> >> about how <aeger> could be related to <aes>, something about smiths
> >> getting sick from the fumes. I'll have to look that one up.
>
> [Here's an answer to your previous message that I've tried to send a
> couple of times today, but it was rejected by the system. Finally it
> occured to me to read the rejection message and find out that I sent
> from the wrong address. -- Added later: Didn't help. It seems that my
> e-mail-settings with Yahoo groups had been reset. Has anyone else
> experienced that?]

I haven't, but I've been using this system less than a year.

> Why can't those tribal names simply mean "the equals", "the equally
> honoured"?

Possibly <Aequi:> does refer to a nominally egalitarian warrior class. Plenty of tribal names refer to the warrior class rather than the people at large. In fact, that is more plausible than what I suggested about 'Plain-Dwellers'.

> Being blissfully ignorant (as you well know from our earlier encounters)
> I had an idea a couple of years ago that <aeque> "equally, evenly"
> should be parsed as <ae>+<que> in the same way as <susque> and <deque>.
> That would make <ae-> a prefix with the meaning "even" or some such,
> incorporating words like <aemulor> "copy" <- *"become equal to" and the
> Greek icon-word <eikenai>. The whole idea started with the endings Gmc
> *-ikaz (?), Lat. <-icus> and Greek <-ikos>.
>
> (Taking it too far, maybe <aevum> and its relatives could fit as an
> extension *h2/3ey-w- "force of life" <- "*stamina" <- *"invariability".
> I don't know if it's significant, but some WGmc words for "law;
> agreement" seem to be from the same root as <aevum> (and 'ever').)
>
> [...]
>
> The fumes of the <aedes>?

Lehmann thinks the smiths got sick from the arsenic used in early bronze. It seems more likely that this "early bronze" was actually arsenical copper, and the arsenic was not added intentionally. Either way, early smiths would likely have gotten sick, but I cannot agree with L. that the lameness of Hephaistos represents that. Arsenic poisoning and lameness are entirely different afflictions. Kitto, I think, suggested that lame men were more likely to become smiths because of the difficulty doing fieldwork, and that is why the god of smiths is himself lame.

> [But I see that your actually knowing something adds a certain flavour
> of ... plausibility. I'll add something more as an answer to this post:]
>
> > In FS Risch 85-89 Lehmann derives <aes>, <aeger>, and numerous other
> > words in various IE languages from PIE *h2ey- (Pokorny's *a(:)i-(4),
> > IEW 11); the original sense was apparently 'to light on fire' vel sim.
> > (whence also *aidh-). This is not applicable to <aequus>. However, I
> > think we can explain it on the basis of *aiwo- and *okwo- (or *h2eyw-
> > and *h3ekW- if you like). The original sense of *aiwo- 'having life
> > force, youthful' etc. could have become 'persistent, enduring, steady'
> > in Old Latin, hence Lat. <aevum>, <aeta:s>, <aeternus> referring to
> > duration of time. With Lat. <anti:quus> we have a compound along the
> > lines of *anti-okwos 'looking before' > 'existing before (us)', so we
> > might posit a parallel *aiw-okwos 'looking persistent' > 'being steady'
> > > 'uniform, level', Old Lat. *aivoquos, later *aiviquos, *aiquos,
> > <aequus>. As for the tribal names, perhaps the early annalists used
> > <Aequicoli:> 'Plain-Dwellers' as a catch-all term for certain plain-
> > dwellers south of Rome, with this term reinterpreted later as a
> > diminutive, 'the Little Aequi', and <Aequi:> following as the preferred
> > generic term for these people in later annalists like Livy. There may
> > be a problem with that explanation, however, and the whole derivation
> > needs some additional work.

<Aequi:coli:> is scanned with a long antepenult, so it cannot have arisen as I suggested, or given rise to <Aequi:> that way. Pliny refers to <Aequiculani>, and this term also requires explanation.

> My idea above arose as speculation in the newsgroup
> no.fag.spraak.diverse. When reading your second message I remembered
> having suggested <anti:que> as a parallel, so I retrieved my old
> message, and I see that my discussion partner came up with <posti:cus>
> as well. You use *okW- for the suffix of the former, but would
> "back-looking" fit the semantics of the latter?

I believe so, but no *postiquus is attested as far as I know. More likely it represents *posti-ikos, with the adverb *posti becoming Old Latin <poste>, L. <post>.

DGK