Re: OE *picga

--- In cybalist@..., "Richard Wordingham" <richard.wordingham@...>
wrote:

> --- In cybalist@..., "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> > --- In cybalist@..., Piotr Gasiorowski <piotr.gasiorowski@...>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: tgpedersen
> > > To: cybalist@...
> > > Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2002 1:05 PM
> > > Subject: [tied] Re: OE *picga
> > >
> > >
> > > > Considering that Manansal's/my list contains less than 100
> roots
> > of coincidence, isn't it surprising how much mileage I can get

out

> of
> > it? Every time a central idea in IE comes up I can find a match

for

> > it on the list? Unless one wants to consider the alternative:

there

> > was contact?
> > >
> > > Finding root equations is easy. I've just perused a list of

about

> > 100 Malgasy words and found several intriguing matches between
> > Malagasy and Russian. Here are the most suggestive ones:
> > >
> > > Mal. vorona 'bird' : Russ. vorona 'crow'
> > > Mal. volo 'hair', Russ volos 'hair'
> > > Mal. riaka 'current', Russ. r'eka 'river'
> > > Mal. zato 'hundred', Russ. sto 'hundred'
> > > Mal. fasika 'sand' : Russ. p'esok 'sand'
> > > Mal. feno 'full' : Russ. polno 'full'
> > > Mal. eto 'here' : Russ. eto 'this'
> > >
> > > Piotr
> >
> > Fun, isn't it? Now try it with Navaho.
>
> Piotr's Malagasy-Russian correspondences certainly beat my Bagirmi-
> English correspondences. Bagirmi is a 'Nilo-Saharan' language
> (Central Sudanic family), spoken in Chad and Nigeria. I chose
> Bagirmi because it seems to be a long way from any conceivable
> Sundaland influences. My Bagirmi source is the Swadesh 100-word

list

> at the Rosetta project. The best matches I could come up with are:
>
> Bagirmi ma 'I' : English me
> Bagirmi debne: 'female' : English deb 'young woman starting in
> Society'
> Bagirmi Ngab(a) 'man' : English guv 'term of respect for a man'
> or English guy 'man'
> Bagirmi mag(a) 'belly' : English maw 'stomach'
> Bagirmi kamkIdi 'knee' : English kink 'bend (n.)'
> Bagirmi dIka 'say' : English dictum 'saying (n.)'
> Bagirmi nJ\o 'night' : English night
> Bagirmi sUNwo 'warm' : English sunny
> Bagirmi nJ\ei(e) 'know' : English know
> Bagirmi sIJaka 'sand' : English shingle 'mass of pebbles on a

beach'

> Bagirmi kab 'young (n.) (unhatched)' : English cub 'young (n.) (of
> carnivore)'
>
> /J/ is the platal nasal and /J\/ is the voiced palatal plosive.

I've

> omitted the tone marks.
>
> Richard.

That's not fair. You're supposed to analyse each language back to the
earliest stage reachable with your ability. I don't think you've done
that for the English set of roots. As for the 'ma' "me", more daring
minds than mine have built splendid linguistic edifices on pronoun
similarities such as this.

As for Sundaland reachability, there are plenty of Chadic words on my
site, e.g. for the notorious *bH/p-r/l- root(s).

Torsten