Dear Sergeju and Piotr,
I find Comrie's etymology difficult to accept, as I think the
similarity betwween russian and turkic is hardly a coincidence. I find
the dissimilation explanation very attractive if there are other such
examples. The number "fourty" is the origin of the name Kirghiz, it may
have been loaned because of its strong symbolic meaning.
> Usually this phenomenon, *kIrk or kirk (front vowel, like in today's
> Turkish,
Sorry, in modern turkish it is kIrk. In Old Turkish (as describded by
AM von Gabain 1950) and bashkir it is qIrq. Do you know any dialect
that has a front vowel for this word ?
Guillaume