> > >
> > > Illich-Svitych has in his reconstruction of Nostratic
> > > Proto-Nostratic **/bok/a/ "to run away"
> > > Proto-Indo-European *bheug/bhegw- id.
> > > Proto-Uralic *pok-tV- "to run"
> > > Proto-Altaic *p[']Vk- "run"
> > >
> > > It occurred to me that the two senses of the root might be
> > > reconciled, namely as "acknowledge defeat" (> "bow down",
> > > "flee"),
> > > cf Danish 'bukke' "bend", 'bukke under' "succumb, perish".
> >
> > And also that English 'to buck' is also a nice middle ground
> > between "bend, flex" and "flee". Perhaps the original sense should
> > be "struggling to get free"?



> I thought English 'to buck' had more to do with 'buck' the young

male deer.

> Now that word must have a complicated history - Proto-Germanic

*bukkaz,

> *bukkon, Armenian buc 'lamb', Old Irish bocc 'he-goat', Old French

bouc

> 'he-goat', Avestan bu:za 'he-goat', Sanskrit bukka 'he-goat'. (The

Germanic

> forms are Old English buc, Middle Dutch boc, OHG boc, ON bukkr,

bokkr 'male

> deer', OE bucca 'he-goat', ON bokki 'my good fellow, old buck'.)
>

I just looted Benveniste for further roots:

fungor "to discharge a function" Latin
bugjan "buy" Gothic
buy English
bhuj- "eat; fold" Sanskrit
fugio: "flee" Latin
pheúgo: "flee" Greek
bhun.kte present middle
"enjoy" > "enjoy food, consume" Sanskrit
bucanem "nourish, bring up" Armenian
baog- "undo, detach" (garment, girdle) >
"set free" > "save" (relig.) Avestan >(loan)>
buzem "save from illness, cure" Armenian
baoxtar "the liberator" Avestan
bo:z^a:Gai "the liberator" Parthian
bo:ze:Gar "the liberator" Persian

so therefore I think it's a tr. (note the -j- in Gothic)
and intr. form of the same verb, thus:

"get free" and "set free" (from as predicament), secondarily
"at a price", whence "buy, consume, eat".

Torsten