Re: [tied] Re: Euxine Event.

From: João Simões Lopes Filho
Message: 4145
Date: 2000-10-04

"(...)and Greek elephant­  corresponding to Gothic ulbandus, Tokharic *alpi, "camel". In the second
case, the "camel" meaning may be the original one, if we assume a migration through camel­rich Central Asia to Greece, where trade contacts with Egypt made the elephant known; the word may be a derivative from a word meaning "deer", e.g. Greek elaphos. (...)"
PIE must had a word for "lion" only if it came from Anatolia or Balkans. I think it's most plausible that PIE had a word for "tiger". The problem is that even there were such words (lion, monkey, elephant/camel, leopard, ass) in PIE, these words only could survive in Indo-Iranian, Tokharian e Hittite. An interesting case is name "panther". Panthers (leopards) has never existed in Greece, but I think that panther is some kind of mythical animal, maybe connected to Indian "gandharva" ( panther < *gwhandher), or connected to the Sanskrit pundarika "tiger, leopard".
 
"(...) A word for "monkey" is common to Greek (kepos) and Sanskrit (kapi), and Gamkrelidze and Ivanov argue for its connection with the Germanic and Celtic word "ape", which does not have the initial [k], for such k/mute alternation (which they derive from a pre­existing laryngeal) is also found in other IE words, e.g. Greek kapros next to Latin aper, Dutch ever, "boar". (...)"
 
There's no possibility of PIE had a word for "monkey", unless we consider PIE as coming from Tibet, the more northern region in Asia where there are monkeys.The Germanic word must have a North African or Indian origin, but I can't realize by what way.
----- Original Message -----
From: Piotr Gasiorowski
To: cybalist@egroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2000 4:17 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Euxine Event.

 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2000 5:01 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Euxine Event.

I don't remember 'camel', but G&I do reconstruct a PIE term for 'elephant'/'ivory'. Their "linguistic palaeontology" is flawed in many ways. PIE may have had a word for 'lion' (several thousand years ago lions still lived as far north as Romania and as far west as Italy), but the words that are actually attested seem to be borrowings -- ultimately from non-IE languages, in all likelihood. Latin leo must be a loan from Greek, since PIE **lewo:n would have given an entirely different Latin reflex. Germanic and Celtic languages copied their 'lion' terms (OE le:o, OHG lewo, Welsh llew etc.) from Latin or Greek. Slavic *lIvU is certainly a loan mediated by Germanic; hypothetical **lewo:n would have developed into **lovy/**loven-.
 
Piotr
 
 
Joao wrote:
And the Gamkrelidze theories about IE names for "lion", "leopard", "camel" and "monkey"? I don't agree with these ideas because have many zoogeographical problems. There's no monkey nor camel/elephant in Anatolia. The analysis of Latin leo:, Greek leont- and Slavic levu is interesting, but I've ever think Latin leo < Greek leon. A word for "leopard" is geographically plausible, but there's so many languages to compare.