From: Joao S. Lopes
Message: 68783
Date: 2012-03-06
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <bm.brian@...> wrote:
>
> > BTW, if <horse>, <hros>, <Ross> are loanies from the
> > Alanian-Iranian *urSa & al. Asian vocabularies, has Lat.
> > ursus the same (PIE) origin?
>
> Like Gk. ἄρκτος (árktos), it's from *h2rtk^o- 'bear', though
> Sihler suggests that it may have passed into Latin from
> another dialect.
>
Not impossible. This root is difficult to reconstruct as a single IE protoform because of the various reflexes of the sibilant affricate found in the NEC cognate *XHVr[ts´]V 'marten; otter' and corresponding to the rare cluster *tk´.