Re: [tied] gwen etymology

At 22:47 12/3/00 +0100, you wrote:

 
Lots of questions -- and a vast topic. First, a general remark. You should be careful with diacritics, length marks, etc. They are important when discussing historical changes.

Yes, I see.  I suppose I just don't write them out enough, at least when communicating via 'puter, to know how to do it.  (I usually write the marks and things by hand, or at least have the opportunity to print it out first...)

 The normal transcription of the Slavic "woman" word is z^ena (with an upside-down "^" over z) < *gWena:- . The Polish word is z*ona (with a dot over z) and its present-day meaning is 'wife' rather than 'woman'.

I assumed the dot or carat or whatever the particular spelling convention was meant it was a fricative (I think...).  So they both mean that / the same thing?

The Classical Armenian form is kin < *gWen- (k is a regular reflex of *gW in Armenian, and i < *e before a nasal).

Aaah.  Where do you people learn all of these little intricate things about so many languages?  =)  I know a few and can figure out many more, but knowing that an e would change to an i before a nasal is pretty deep!  Just a hobby to study all the various sound changes, or do you just happen to know Armenian?

The Classical Greek word should be gune: (your h is a misinterpretation of Greek eta <H>).

I wrote it that way to get the eta across so it wouldn't be thought of as an epsilon.  Apparently it just caused other confusion.  =/

The Sanskrit forms are as follows:

jani-, jani:- < *gWen-i- 'woman, wife'
ja:ni- 'female' (adjective) < *gWe:n-i-
gna:- a goddess or female genius, "superwoman" < *gWn-a:-.
It's strange how I never found the information without another source completely conflicting with it.  At any rate, your list particularly makes sense.

 The neuter noun ga:na- (N.sg. ga:naM) has nothing to do with the "woman" etymon ans means 'song, singing'

Ah, I see.  I don't believe the dictionaries (in Sanskrit or otherwise) that I was looking at bothered to mention the genders.  Well, it definitely clears that one up.

*gW@...) may have survived in Hittite and Luwian, but the evidence is very uncertain (in Hittite, only the ending of the word is written phonetically). The most

Interesting... Similar to Egyptian heiroglyphs?  (Or am I way off on that?  It's been awhile.)

Thank you so much for entertaining me with all the information.  It was very useful, and I think I have a much better grasp of the situation...  =)