Re: [tied] Albanian

I still prefer to accept the Martin Bernal's etymology for APHRODITE < Egyptian Pr-WDJ-T (Goddess Wadjet).

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

From: Piotr Gasiorowski

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2001 11:23 AM

Subject: [tied] Albanian

A few etymological curiosities for Alvin.

I've checked the etymology of Alb. det 'sea'. All my sources support *dHeub-eto-s (from *dHeub- 'deep') as the protoform. Alb. thellë 'deep', which you asked me to explain, is derived from *k^ouH-ilo- 'empty, hollow, cavernous', which is an adjective derived from the word *k^ouH-r 'cavern, cavity' (these English words are also related to the same root via Latin). As you may remember, PIE *k^ > Alb. th.

The mysterious -di:te: in the name of Aphrodi:te: can hardly be anything else than the feminine form of PIE *dih2-to- 'bright' from the verb root *deih2- 'shine' (related, BTW, to *dje:us 'daylight, Sky God', cf. Gk. Zeus, Skt. Dyaus, etc., which is a different extension of the same morphological base *dei-). Whether Aphro-di:te: was originally "as bright as foam" (the most natural-looking but not necessarily true etymology) or "something-else-bright" is hard to ascertain. If it's a comfort to you, Albanian ditë 'day' is supposed to come from the related noun *dih2-ti-s 'brilliance, shining', which means that it is also a member of that family of words.

Piotr

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