Re: [tied] Re: kinship systems

----- Original Message -----

From: Jeffrey S. Jones

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2000 10:10 AM

Subject: [tied] Re: kinship systems

Ancient Greek aia did exist, but it was a rare dialectal word meaning 'aunt' or 'nurse' ('tethis'/'maia'), more likely a nursery term than anything corresponding to Latin avia. One could imagine it to be the feminine counterpart of Slavic ujI (< *xaux-j-os) 'uncle') but on such meagre evidence that would be a leap of faith. I've no idea where Cyril took the 'grandmother' interpretation from; presumably somebody mixed "aia" up with a family of words derived from a(i)ei 'ever, always, etc.; eternity' (< PIE *xaiw-, cf. Latin aevum).

 

Piotr

> Cyril I think speaks of Proto-Greek *aia as Grandmother.  Could
this
> be from the same source?
>
> John

I think it would have to be something like *aFia (where 'F', or
digamma, is a /w/, like the Latin 'v'). This sound was usually lost 
early.

Jeff