Re: Odp: IE Lithuanian-Mediterranean connections

Piotr wrote:

> Dear Sabine,
>
> Something funny has happened to the Gk characters in your message, but
> I guess from the context that you regard hElios and Elektron as
> related. I don't think they can be related, even though ElektOr
> "beaming sun" is an obvious cousin (and presumably the etymological
> source) of Elektron. Note that Homer has ElektOr but (very
> consistently) hEelios; the latter is from *sa:welios with loss of
> intervocalic *w and aspiration of initial *s (cf. also Cretan a:velios,
> spelt abelios), and of course IS related to Latin so:l, etc. Dialectal
> h-dropping occurs in Old Greek, to be sure (there are "sun" words like
> a:elios or even a:lios), but for Elektron we don't find alternative
> forms like *Eelektron, *a:lektron or *hElektron anywhere. Nor do we
> find such variants for the other words of the Elektron family
> (Elektris, Elektri:nos, ElektrOdes, etc.). ElektOr and Elektron are
> morphologically Elek+suffix. Whatever the meaning and origin of *Elek-
> (?*Eleg-, ?*Elekh-, presumably "beam, scorch"; any ideas from other
> Cybalists?), it's something different from the IE "sun" word.
>

I agree with the statement that hElios and Elektron are not obviously
related, but one could hardly call such processes like *segh->ekh- 'have'
and *swedho->ethos 'tradition,custom' dialectal.

Sergei