Re: Meaning and analysis of *Dye:us

From: richardwordingham
Message: 71678
Date: 2014-01-19

In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, <vajradanta5@...> wrote:

> *h2we1-yu, would be closer to Hindi "hawa" wind

*h2we1-yu is a typographical error for *h2weh1-yu.

One has to consider the sound changes during the development of the languages considered.  If one does not do this, one is swamped by random coincidences.  In this case, _hawa_ and *h2weh1 are both suggestive of the wind, so a coincidence is even more probable than normal.

Very few languages have 'proper' consonants corresponding to PIE laryngeals (h1 and h2) - the best one usually gets is a glottal stop, though some of Vedic Sanskrit makes more sense if the laryngeals had not yet vanished.  *h2 generally survives as /h/ in Hittite and there are suggestions of survival as /h/ in Armenian, and /h2/ has modified preceding consonants.  Other than the last modification, there is no survival of *h2 as a consonant in Indic languages.

Richard.