[tied] Re: Latin Volcanus and Ossetic Værgon

Thanks all. I can see that any connection to *wlkwo- is definitely
out, but I'm still confused as to whether there is any evidence that
Vulcan and Wærgon are cognates. Was there a Proto-Indo-European
Vulcan and if so why is there no trace in any other branch of Indo-
Iranian than Ossetic? Are the velars in *welk- and *werg- labio-
velars? If not, wouldn't they result in something like *wærs- or
*wærz- in Ossetic? Also is it possible that Abaev misanalyzed
Kurdalæwærgon as Kurd-Alæ-Wærgon "The Alan Smith Wærgon"? I would
have expected an *Alæ-Kurd-Wærgon or an *Alon-Kurd-Wærgon if
anything. It also seems strange that Alans speaking to one another
in their own language about one of their own gods would bother to
include in his name that he was an "Alan" god. Is this sort of thing
typical? A few scholars have been overly zealous to find traces of
the words Alan or Sarmatian in Ossetic.
-David

--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> I agree that formal difficulties militate against connecting
*wlkWos with Vulca:nus; and I'm not aware of any totemic association
between smiths and wolves either. *welk- as a semantically
vague "fire" or "lightning" term is marginally attested and more
plausible as the basis for the Latin and Ossetic theonyms (Ossetic,
by the way, has lost the Indo-Iranian "wolf" word *vrka-).
>
> Piotr
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: João S. Lopes Filho
> To: cybalist@...
> Sent: Friday, July 06, 2001 3:17 PM
> Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Latin Volcanus and Ossetic Værgon
>
>
> What I know is that Vulcanus and Vaergon < *welk- "to shine, to
burn", cf.
> Sanskrit Varcas "shine, fulgor" and ulka "metteor".
> Vulcanus < *vulca:
> Although Latin for wolf is lupus (<*lukwos < metathesis < *wlkwos),
the
> non-metathesis form would be *vulcus,volcus. With a -nos ending, it
would be
> *wlkwonos > vulcinus . If there's some link to wolf, *vulca: would
mean
> "she-wolf". So, Vulcanus would be the "Lord of the She-wolf".
> I don't know any relation between Vulcanus and the wolf.