--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> Sanskrit _simplified_ a more complex original state of affairs by
merging several inherited clusters as <ks.>. This is one of those
cases where Iranian reflects the PIE distribution of phonemes more
faithfully as is therefore more archaic than Sanskrit in this
respect. Tamil won't do it, since the words in question have IE
cognates. The "earth" word (or its derivatives) can be found in all
the branches of the family. Hittite and Tocharian show clearly that
the initial cluster was *d(H)g^H-.
Some old Tamil words:
ukam 'earth, world'; il.ai 'the earth'; ka_cin-ai 'the earth'
Sanskrit also has the following lexemes:
ila_, ilika_ 'earth'; ks.iti, ks.ma_, ks.aun.i_ 'earth'; ku-
ruha 'growing from the earth, tree'.
On, ila_, the very first r.ca of the R.gveda contains the
phrase, 'agnim i_l.e purohitam' a complex verse which has been
translated in a variety of ways.