Re: Fire and the naughty little squirrel

--- In cybalist@egroups.com, "petegray" <petegray@...> wrote:

> >It's a good question: is there some PIE name for marmot or ground

squirrel

>
> Yes. Pokorny offers (13) *wer- (usually reduplicated) = squirrel,

polecat,

> marten, and the like (page 1166).

And the like. The point is here - the root is too polysemantic to be
relevant. Eg, it's (indeed reduplicated) descendants mean '(red)
squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris)' in Baltic (*va:ver-) and Slavic (*ve^ver-
). But a burrow and a tree is not the same...

Sergei