Re: Nordwestblock, Germani, and Grimm's law

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, johnvertical@... wrote:

>
> > > > Occam would love me. So much explained from so few entibus!
> > > > Whatever extra in the sociology/ethnology department has to
> > > > be accepted would have to be assumed to explain the
> > > > distribution of *kaN-t-, and further *saxn- (vel sim).
> > > >
> > >
> > > Hmmm. It seems you're not counting insufficiently estabilish'd
> > > sound laws and propagation pathways as "assumptions"? And
> > > you'll need a ton of both to make those complexes work.
> >
> > Naah, I'll just claim they're wanderwords and then claim the same
> > privilege for them of exemption from that stuff that they enjoy.
>
> What privilege where? I'm not aware of any that require a handful
> of idiosyncratic innovations every other step.

These do
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanderwort

> (Wanderwords, unlike your complexes, also come with narroly defined
> semantics related to some specific technological innovation.)

*kan,-t- "organized set of people, hundertschaft (cavalry)"
*Lun,- "non-organized set of people" and
*san,- "quest, trial"
is good enough for me. Remember that both bad samurai on the Iranian side and good samurai on the Uralic side would need those organizational concepts, once the horse was invented.


Torsten