--- I wrote:
> And in fact Greek has a huge vocabulary built on "pour" words, some
of which may match the Grk/Latin <Goth-> perhaps better than <*gud->.
--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> replied:
> Namely? The Greek words in question are items like <kHe(w)o:>. How
do you propose to derive <goth-> from them? The <-th-> question has
been discussed before...
--- My Reply:
First of all, <kheo:> yields forms like <khu^ton> (pp; poured, heaped
up, mounded) and <khute:n> (adv; poured, flooded). In these alone,
the word starts to approximate the various actual or proposed forms
of the Goth word in both meanings and sounds. These forms of <kheo:>
were applied to everything from burial mounds and dykes to streams,
cast metals and libations -- all things that might be associated with
the Goths.
Secondly, how would Germanic speakers borrow such a word in, say, the
first century BC (as a name given to them by Greeks), given their own
phonotactics or even as a calque? A change from an unvoiced velar to
voiced stop might even be expected -- given what they heard and how
it translated into a word they knew.
Also, there are words in Greek like <kutos>, jar, vessel; <kutis>,
small chest, trunk; <ko:tho:n> a soldierÕs drinking cup; <kuttoi>,
receptacles; <kottabus>, a bowl used in a game; <guthisso:n>, trench;
<gouttaton>, a sunken cake; <keutho:>, cover a grave; <kautos>,
smelted metal, burnt-offering for the dead (Cf., Gothic, <sa:uths>,
sacrifice, burnt-offering); <kudar>, funeral-rites; <goe:te:s,
goe:tou>, wailer (pouring forth sounds?); <goe:s, goe:tos>, sorcerer,
wizard (Jordanis makes mention of this related to Gothic priests);
<zuthos>,"the beer of northern nations;" <Guthion> a seaport (in
Laconia); <Ko:tho:n>, a harbor; etc.
How would such words have been borrowed from Greek?
Steve Long