Miguel:
>[Piotr's comments] are [valid]. I was just surprised that you
> >emphatically claimed the wine word was *not* analyzable in IE, when >the
>IE analysis (applicable both to *woino- and to the Anatolian >variant
>wiyana-) is the only analysis I'm aware of. Honest question, >again:
>what's the analysis in Semitic?
Alright, we'll say that it IS analysable (weakly) in IE... but still, it's
not the best hypothesis available at all.
Secondly, upon close inspection... Did you mention a term like Egyptian
/w-n-s^/?? This means "jackal" no? The correct term for wine would be /yrp/
(Coptic /erp/) and grape is /y3r.t/, I would imagine. Call me crazy. But
there is also Etruscan /vinac/ "vineyard" which looks like it did a little
borrowing too.
>I don't follow how the three options follow: there are some hidden
>assumptions here about a time frame [6000-4000 BCE] and about who was
>where [Europe, Anatolia] during that time frame that you haven't
>spelled out, and that I wouldn't necessarily accept even if you had.
Taking into account probability is not assumption. That's reasoning. The
most likely position for common IE is still in Europe/North Pontic, not
Anatolia. Sorry, Miguel, but that's just the way it is. After accepting
this, we must take note of two important dates - the date of IE split and
the date of earliest wine-making which as far as I know is around the same
general time as agriculture, isn't it? These two dates provide the time
frame [6000-4000 BCE] within which the "wine" word was either borrowed into
IE, or the word began its spread into surrounding languages like Kartvelian
and Semitic like you speculate.
>Playing the devil's advocate, this option is not crazy at all: did or
>did not the words "potato", "chocolate", "tomato", "maize", etc.
>spread AGAINST the flow of colonizers coming OUT of Europe into the
>Americas INTO Europe?
Yes this is true but it doesn't work with *weino-. First of all, *weino-is
not a complete word, in case you didn't notice. That dash at the end means
that it requires a suffix to complete it's meaning and make it a whole word.
We might think of there being *weinos, *weinom, etc. but never **weino...
unless maybe we're drunk and we're talking to the wine itself in the
vocative case :) "Oh wine, why hast thou forsaken me... BARRRRRRFFFFF...."
The Semitic version *wainu (Hebrew yayin) has no IE suffix attached to it
like a nominative *-s or anything, nor do we find this imaginary suffix in
Kartvelian. Ergo, it can't credibly be from IE. Plus, Semitic is a couple
thousand years older than IE. This being so, we have a word *wainu
reconstructable for this language that dates much earlier than IE's *weino-.
However, you'd be pleased to know that the online American Heritage
dictionary says the following (
http://www.bartleby.com/61/10.html):
"The words for many other agricultural products may provide clues as to
the original homeland of the Semites, though this is a matter of
conjecture and dispute: they were acquainted with figs (*tin-), garlic
(*m-), onion (*baal-, replaced in Akkadian by a Sumerian word), palm
trees (*tamr- or *tamar-; see tmr), date honey (*dib-), pistachios
(*bun-), almonds (*aqid-), cumin (*kammn-; see kmn), and groats or
malt (*baql-), as well as oil or fat (*amn-; see mn). The early
Semites cultivated grapes (*inab-) growing on vines (*gapn-) in
vineyards (*karm- or *karn-), from which they produced wine (*wayn-,
akin to Indo-European words for wine and probably a loanword in
Proto-Semitic as well)."
On the one hand, the paragraph is careful to only mention a connection
between the Indo-European and Semitic terms. On the other hand, it gives
doubt to Semitic origins of the word. On yet a THIRD hand, we might call
into doubt the opinions of the entire article when, more than once, the
author proudly attributes many Semitic terms to IndoEuropean loans!
But even if this word is not ultimately Semitic and is a word of yet further
origin, I don't think that any Semitoid-speaking people were the ultimate
discoverers of agriculture or wine-making anyway (based on archaeology and
the remote likelihood of Semitic being far to the east! :P). Perhaps this
word might be best analysed under a Caucasic tongue like Hattic or Hurrian,
dunno.
Miguel:
>Which numerals are you referring to? The Kartvelian numerals are:
>
>1. *s'xwa- (Svan es^xu) / *ert- (Geo. er(t)-)
>2. *jo(:)r- (Svan jo:ri, Geo. (v)or-)
>3. *sam- (Svan semi, Geo. sam-)
>4. *os'txwo- (Svan wos^txw, Geo. otx-)
>5. *xwis't- (Svan woxwis^d, Geo. xut-)
>6. *u(k)s'wa- (Svan usgwa, Geo. ekvs-)
>7. *s^wid- (Svan is^gwid, Geo. s^vid-)
>8. *arwa- (Svan ara, Geo. rua-)
>9. *c'xra- (Svan c^xara, Geo. cxra-)
>10. *as't- (Svan jes^d, Geo. at-)
>20. *oc'- (Geo. (v)oc-, Megr. ec^-)
>100. *as'ir- (Svan as^ir, Geo. as-)
Oh, cool, I didn't know all the reconstructions for these numerals before.
Thanx! I was refering to "six" which you have listed as *uks'wa-. The
initial sibilant is gone.
Anyways, by my own glance, *s'xwa "1" and *sam "3" are NorthEast Caucasian
while "5" to "10" plus "100" are Semitoid. Not sure whether "six" can
actually be IE. We wouldn't expect Kartvelian *k out of IE *k^ based on the
previous correspondance *ok^txW- > *os'txw- and yet Georgian and Svan seem
to have the velar there. I also don't quite grasp how Semitic can be spread
so thin as to affect or be affected by IE AND affect Kartvelian too. This is
why I think of these words as Semitish (a related but separate language to
Semitic based further north before 5000 BCE and the first farmers of West
Anatolia/Balkans). Perhaps the following scenario:
Semitish *s^ikTu ==> Mid IE *swekse (IE *sweks)
==> PreKartv *s'uks'we (Kart *uks'we)
And I almost get the impression that *s' is "dental" in some way. Maybe like
*c (and thus corresponding to Semitish/-ic thorn *T, NEC *c and IE dialectal
*k^/*c^)... Perhaps we should re-write it this way...
Kartv PreKartv
1. *cxwa <= NEC
*erte *erte
2. *yo:ri
3. *sami *sa'mi <= NEC
4. *octxwe --- <= IE dialectal *oc^txW-
5. *xwicte *xawi'cte <= Semitish *xabistu
6. *ukcwe *cu'kcwe <= Semitish *s^ikTu
7. *swide *sewi'de <= Semitish *seb`itu
8. *arwa *arwa' <= Semitish *arba`-
9. *c^xra *tixra' <= Semitish *tis`a-
10. *acte *a'cate <= Semitish *`as^ratu
20. *oc^i *oti
100. *acire <= ? Semitish
Apostrophes indicate accent. Don't be alarmed by my bold suggestion of
palatalisation of Pre-Kartvelian *t to *c^ and how that might be important
in understanding the Kartvelian pronouns in a Nostratic context... Just
thoughts.
Joao:
>Basque zazpi is so similar to Etruscan Cezph "8".
No, not at all. Etruscan /cezph/ is a native word starting with a voiceless
inaspirate velar stop /k/ and is a compound meaning "three from (ten)",
hence "seven". Note Etruscan /ci/ "three", pronounced /ki/.
Basque /zazpi/ is pronounced /saspi/ because "z" is /s/ and "s" is /s^/ in
Basque orthography.
- gLeN
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