From: Gerry Reinhart-Waller
Message: 2030
Date: 2000-04-04
>Gerry: So, because egoups has downgraded their software, does this mean
> Mark, From your post below I am perplexed by the relationships of the
> different language groups. You mention Germanic, Homeric, Armenian and
> Tocharian. Then you mention PIE, Celtic, Russian, Avestran and Ossetic.
> Finally you mention Armenian (Greek, Tocharian and possibly Italic).
> Please tell me what I should determine from this listing?
> Gerry
>
> There is likely a messy dupe of this, with raw html. Egroups has
> downgraded their software.
> What shows up in German as burg is interesting. German of course alsoGerry: Perhaps obvious to you but NOT to me. So "burgen" relates to
> has berg, 'mountain'. EIEC , in two separate articles, by separate
> authors cover the word EIEC renders as bergh.
>
> Under the article "Fort", p. 210, Angela Della Volpe puts the Germanic
> reflex together with Homeric purgos, Armenian burgn, suggesting
> relationships with Tocharian words for 'hard' 'solid', and possible
> connection with Latin fortus/fortis. Old Indic brmhati, 'fortifies' is
> also cited. The main sense cited is 'height', 'fort'.
>
> Douglas Q. Adams, in the article "Hill", p. 269, using the identical
> transcription, flatly says this is PIE for 'high', 'hill', 'mountain'.
> He cites where it shows up in the daughters. It's mountain in Germanic,
> hill in Celtic. OCS bregu and Russian bereg: 'riverbank'. Avestan and
> Ossetic use it for mountain or mountinous parts too.
>
> Della Volpe ignores the mountain meaning, though both share the
> identical semantic space of 'high place', and since mountains are safer
> than plains when you are being invaded, the extension to 'safe high
> place' and then to 'artificial high place' and then 'fort' is obvious.
> Am I missing something? I think it's the same word.Gerry: Again Hmmm. Do you have any idea what the connection might be?
>
> In the case of Armenian and Greek, she notes the forms are unexpected.
> Greek should be **parXos (and not purgos), while she says Armenian
> should be **barjn (and not burgn). Some inter-IE borrowing seems to be
> at work.
>
> Della Volpe also mentions tantalizing parallels in non-IE languages,
> Syriac burga, 'tower', and Urartian burgana- 'bulwark, fortress'.
> Borrowings from IE? It's easier to posit a borrowing from IE in this
> case that to have to explain how it shows up everywhere from Germanic
> and Celtic to Tocharian (and possibly Italic) and by probable borrowing,
> to Greek and Armenian. I think she or Adams would have mentioned an
> Anatolian reflex if there was one.