Re: Afro-Asiatic substrate (re "folk" "polk" "pulkas")

From: tgpedersen
Message: 64496
Date: 2009-07-31

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- On Wed, 7/29/09, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> --- In cybalist@... s.com, george knysh <gknysh@> wrote:
> --- On Wed, 7/29/09, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@> wrote:
>
> > Slavic *pUlkU definitely looks like Germanic *fulkaz borrowed
> > through the usual phonological filters (an inherited syllabic /l/
> > would have been much more likely to vocalise as *Il). Lith.
> > pu~lkas and Latv. pu`lks are loans via old East Slavic rather
> > than directly from Germanic.
> >
> > GK: And is *fulkaz also inherited or does the Semitic loan
> > notion have some credibility? ****
>
> (TP)You have all the facts before you, you decide. Often the
> situation doesn't get better than this.
>
> ****GK: To me it looks as though the Slavic borrowing from Germanic (and the Baltic from the Slavic) is the best current solution. In the sense that this scenario brings together very acceptable linguistic and historical data. While the connection between Germanic and Semitic seems linguistically arguable the historical context involved is more than elusive. Perhaps there is another connection and the Semitic parallel is just an interesting coincidence.****
>

Whatever it is, *folk-/folg- can't be native in Germanic; the isolation in Germanic and Balto-Slavic, the alternating auslaut, the root vowel /o/ all say it must be a loan.

BTW, on *b/p-r/l-k-:

Nikolayev & Starostin
A North Caucasian Etymological Dictionary
'*pVrVcËi wooden plough:
Av.-And. *pirVc:V;
W.-Cauc. *p&z´a.
| Av.-And. *pirVc:V wooden plough:
Av. purúc;,
And. rebc:u;
Akhv. ?ebec:e;
Cham. bijaca;
Tind. bec:i;
Kar. bec:e;
Bagv. perc.
Av. paradigm C (purc:í-l, púrc:a-l).
In And. the form is metathesized (probably under influence of another PA root, *ric:i q.v.). On the laryngeal in the Akhv. form see under *Hra:jcu: Several languages reveal secondary (dissimilative) voicing *p- > b-. Cf. also Kar. Tok. peric:.
| W.-Cauc *p&z´a ploughshare:
Abkh. a-p&z´a;
Abaz. peza;
Ad. cwa:-bza;
Kab. va:-b3a;
Ub. cwa:-bz´á.
PAT *p&za (cf. also Bzyb. a-p&´za);
PAK *cwa-bzá.
The first part of the Adygh and Ub. compound, despite Shagirov 1977, 104-105, is connected neither with PWC *c:we 'ox' (q.v.) nor with PWC *zwa 'to plough' (q.v.), but reflects a separate PWC root (see under *Hra:jcu:). Again, pace Shagirov ibid., since the correspondence between Abkh. and Ad. here is quite obvious, it is impossible to connect the second part of the compound with PAK *bz& 'to cut' (q.v.). Finally, since Ub. has a palatal z´, the Ub. form (again despite Shagirov ibid.) can not be regarded as an Adygh loanword. The correspondence between PAK *-b3a, PAT *p&za and Ub. -bz´a is quite regular.
A typical 'culture word'. Although similar words are widely spread in the Caucasus and nearby regions, only the Av.-And. and WC forms can be regarded as genuine. The Tsezian forms (Tsez. birus, Gunz. b&rus, Bezht. bo?os, Khvarsh., Inkh. buruc; note that Av. Chad. burús^, because of its phonetic structure, is most probably a back-loan from Tsezian languages) are more or less recent loans from Av.-And. languages; the Av. word is also borrowed in Kum. purus. There is also a number of quite enigmatic forms: Bagv. Tlond. perec.:, Ud. penec: 'plough' which are probably also borrowed, but the source is not dear. We should also mention Lezg. bazu 'pole of the plough', obviously connected with Azer. bazi id., but without a certain etymology (cf. the WC forms).'


Torsten