Re: [tied] a(i)s-

--- In cybalist@..., tgpedersen@... wrote:

> --- In cybalist@..., Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <mcv@...> wrote:
> > On Mon, 01 Oct 2001 11:23:53 -0000, tgpedersen@... wrote:
> >
> > >--- In cybalist@..., Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <mcv@...> wrote:
> > >> Gmc. *aiz (> Eng. <ore>) has nothing to do with Gmc. *i:sarn-

(>

> > >> Eng. <iron>). The froms <ayas>, <aiz>, <aes> etc. derive from

a

> PIE
> > >> *aio- (*h2ai-o-) "copper (ore)".
> > >
> > >All this assuming, of course, that the words weren't loaned, in
> which
> > >case there's no telling whether or not they were related.
> >
> > There's telling. The form *h2aies- {this is the correct form}
> > "[copper] ore" (secondarily in Indo-Iranian "iron") is found, with
> > regular correspondences, in Indo-Iranian, Latin and Germanic,

which

> > surely means that the word, if borrowed at all, must have been
> > borrowed at least as early as the period of "post-Anatolian

PIE".

> The
> > form *i:sarno- "iron", is limited to Celtic (and borrowed from
> Celtic
> > into Germanic), and, if borrowed, must have been borrowed as late

as

> > the proto-Celtic period. Since copper metallurgy is native to the
> > area where, IMHO etc., PIE first emerged (the Balkans), there's no
> > reason at all to suppose the word *h2ayes- is anything but native
> IE.
> > The Celtic word *i:sarno- may well be a borrowing, and we have two
> > possible known candidates in Etr. <ais> "god", pl. <aisar> and in
> > Basque <izar> (/isar/) "star". Iron is known as the "sky metal"
> (e.g.
> > in Sumerian and Ancient Egyptian) because of its earliest use as
> > meteoric iron. Both candidates are defective in that there is no
> > known evidence from either Etruscan or Basque that <aisar> c.q.
> <izar>
> > were ever used in those languages to denote "iron" or any other
> metal
> > (I don't know the Etruscan for "iron", and the Basque is

<burdina>

> [+
> > variants]).
>
> I wondered what "native to" would mean wrt metallurgy and regions.
> Does it mean "was first used (in this part of the world) in"? Does

it

> mean "was discovered in"? In the latter case you would expect the
> name of the product to be derivable in the language spoken in the
> region (cf "plough" from *pl- "swim" or "split"). In the former,

you

> would expect an opaque word, but with difficult-to-derive cognates

in

> other languages in case the word was borrowed several times over
> (which a word related to an important insight would be more often
> than not, cf. *bh:p-l:r- "getting across to the other side, >

growth,

> strength"). Oppenheimer argues for very early copper technology in
> South East Asia.
> Suppose you are in the Balkans at the proper time. You discover
> (probably by accident) that heating copper ore gives a useful by-
> product. Would you then say: I think I'll call this *h2ai-o-? The
> only example of that I can think of is Helmondts naming of "gas"

(and

> even that calqued on "chaos").
>

Sorry, *h2aies-.

> Torsten