Re: [tied] Re: Accepted cognates of Arya?

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

From: michael_donne

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Friday, February 08, 2002 7:25 AM

Subject: [tied] Re: Accepted cognates of Arya?

> Irish "Fat, fertile" would, I assume, refer to the Eire as a "fat,
fertile country or land" or a "noble land" in the same way as you
call a good horse a "noble steed"; German 'honor' is obvious and the
Greek analogy with 'super' or 'extremely' could have originally
meant 'very good' and then later applied in different circumstances
just as 'super' meant 'high' but broadened its usage as in the
contradictory term 'super low'.

> Understanding that linguistics is historically full of this kind of
loose thinking, is there any even remotely reasonable liklihood
that 'arya' might have been carried over into these languages?

 

The less loose thinking, the better science. An etymology based on non-matching forms is not worth the paper it's written on. Words that have demonstrably independent origin cannot have been "carried over" as loans. <Eire> and <Ehre> _cannot_ be related to (hypothetical) *arjo- by any stretch of the imagination. Such a root, whether inherited or borrowed, would not have produced such reflexes in Celtic and Germanic. Schglegel did not know that, but we do.

> What does "Celtic *ario- " refer to?

 

Old Irish aire 'nobleman, freeman', Gaulish title (or name?) ariio-, supposed to mean the same. Here a connection with *arjo- is formally possible, but note that Celtic *ari 'before' (Gaulish ari) _certainly_ derives from PIE *prh3-i, and that the root *prh3- 'fore, first' yields derivatives meaning 'important person' in many languages (suffice it to mention Latin pri:ma:s and German Fürst).

Piotr