Re: Mitanni, Hurrians, etc.

From: JoatSimeon@...
Message: 561
Date: 1999-12-13

In a message dated 12/13/99 1:50:37 PM Mountain Standard Time,
brentlords@... writes:

<<For now I have two questions. The first is one I have also been wondering
about for a while: How does a linguist distinguish between borrowed words,
between two glossaries, and those that are inherited or derivative between
the groups. I have speculated on my own what the factors might be – but I
would really appreciate the learned answer of an expert. This reference you
gave us brought the question into sharp focus.

-- you can generally tell whether it's a loan-word or a cognate by whether it
follows the rules of sound development in the language concerned.

Eg., in English we have "cow" and "bovine".

They're both derivatives of PIE *gwous, but in the Germanic languages PIE
*gw- invariably ends up as a "k", so obviously "bovine" is a loan-word (and
from some other Indo-European language).

As it turns out, it's from Latin... but the Latin word (bos) is itself a
loan, because in Latin PIE *gw- becomes "v". (which would give "vos").
Probably a loan from Oscan, a related Italic dialect.

Likewise, the Germanic word for "iron" is a loan-word from Celtic, and it
undergoes the first series of sound-shifts in Germanic, which enables us to
date those shifts. (Post-700 BCE.)