--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Daniel J. Milton" <dmilt1896@...>
wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex_lycos" <altamix@...> wrote:
>
> > Thwe word "copitã"=hoof ( Germ Huf, is there an IE *kup/*kop?. I
> guess
> > this is in latin to find too as a compound word) should come
from
> Slavic
> > kopyto. You see it seems not so easy with these nasals.
> > Alex
> ******
> From the online Pokorny:
> Record number: 844
> Root / lemma: ka:>pho- oder k^o:>pho-
> English meaning: hoof
> German meaning: `Huf'
> Material: Ai. s/apha/- m. `Huf, Klaue', av. safa- m. `Huf des
> Pferdes';
> aisl. ho:fr, ags. ho:f, ahd. huof `Huf'.
>
> Iranian and Germanic only? So what about Russian "kopyto"?
> Dan
******
I should have thought when I posted the above that Slavic as a
satem group shouldn't have the intial "k". I just looked in Z.
Golab "The Origins of the Slavs, a Linguist's View (1991) and
find 'kopyto' "hoof" on a list of 59 Slavic kentum words with the
note "the details of word formation [for 'kopyto'] are not clear."
Golub notes that 8 of the words (including 'kopyto') refer to cattle
breeding. He suggests there were two ethnic layers to the early
Proto-Slavs, a kentum substratum dominated by a satem
superstratum. He speculates that "the Proto-Slavs seem to be
descendants of a satemized early kentum population of the northern
half of the so-called Tripolye culture. That earlier kentum
agricultural population could in its turn represent some
indoeuropeanized descendants of the oldest non-IE ethnic layer of
the primary Tripolye culture." I have no idea whether he's right or
wrong, but it sounds like something to consider.
On another thread (Alex at 20440) "little bride" for "ferret" is
certainly secondary. I've seen somewhere a list of cultures
(including French dialects as I remember) where ferrets are seen as
slinky and feminine and given names accordingly.
Dan