I WROTE:
>"Sinew" seems to be considered as solely Germanic in origin,
"P&G" <petegray@...> REPLIED:
<<Pokorny gives a range of non-Germanic languages with connected forms (Skt,
Armenian, Greek, Latin, Albanian, Lithuanian, Tocharian). The root seems well
attested as a PIE root.>>
Neither the OED nor the Oxford Dict of Eng Etym. give any non-Germanic
cognates (p-Germ = *senawo:) and the word has been mentioned in lists of
non-IE words in Germanic. I believe the reason is that a strict reading of
the word in Germanic does not admit connections like "bind" or "strap". If
Pokorny saw the wider definitions, he is displaying a sense of historical
process he does not always show elsewhere (e.g., in his connection of 'soap'
to 'seive').
With regard to 'sinew' and 'sinus', the semantic link I believe might be to
the physical form that 'tendons' or muscles take as viewed in the exterior of
animal and human bodies (but perhaps also when the skin or hide is stripped
off.) Thus we have in Latin a later analogy to 'folds' in clothing and more
abstractly 'curves'.
The Old English readings tends to make tendons a source of strenght or
support, which would be a more mechanical sense of what tendons do in the
body.
This more functional meaning for tendons looks a bit different from the
tradition that analogized tendons as <sinus> to 'curls', 'coils' and
therefore 'binding' -- these meanings would appear to derive from experience
in the well-documented and common usage of both animal tendons and cartilage
and plant 'fibers' as binding and coil, braid, stitching, bow and arrow and
cord-making material. (The word 'cord' itself however suggests the use of
gut as a cord-making material in Greek.) This usage would indicate a
connection to end-product rather than appearance. And that might reflect
different kinds of people using the same word group with different meanings
within the same language.
Again, anthropology would suggest that words like these do not spread
immediately and universally throughout a language, but are at first limited
to distinct linguistic communities (e.g., certain kinds of crafts or trades)
where they may develop separately. Thus we'd have different perceptions of
'tendons' -- some practical, others based on appearance.
Regards,
Steve Long