--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> > 2. It's often stated that Lithuanian <vis^ta`> and Lettish
<vista> 'hen' are cognates of Old Indic <vi'->/<ve'-> and Avestan
vi:s^ 'bird', Latin <avis> etc. But where does that Baltic *-s't-a: <
*-st-ah2 / -k^t-ah2 come from? The suffix looks rather unusually.
>
> Indeed, perhaps it's time someone started looking for a bran-new
etymology :)
>
A brilliant idea have just occured to me: what if from *h2wi-sd-ah2
'sitting bird'. Faultless semantically, such etymology has its weak
points: li`zdas 'nest' < *nisdos and probably even pizda`/pyzda`
'vagina' demostrate that Baltic would prefer regressive assimilation
here, *sed- was inclined to pre-agglutinate prepositions rather than
nominal roots, why two nil-grades (early generalization or -a'h2)?
*h2wi-sth2-ah2 'standing bird' is more reliable formally, but rather
unnatural semantically: a hen rather sits on the eggs like an active
object rather than 'stands' being put there.
Sergei