--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Abdullah Konushevci"
<akonushevci@...> wrote:
> Çabej treats it as cognate with Skt dalyati "to split, to separate"
> and as an unchauvenistic linguist, even with Slavic *delbto/*dolbto.
> Regards,
> Konushevci
> ************
The Skt. forms are actually <dalati> 'burst, fly open' and its
causative <da:layati>. There are well-known problems with Indic /l/,
and it's hard to guarantee that this particular word reflects PIE
*del- rather than being a by-form of Indic {dar-} < *der- 'tear', but
let's leave Indic alone and assume that Pokorny's reconstruction of
the root *del- is basically correct.
Your earlier claim was that <daltë> could be derived from "*da-", so
let's note for the record now that you seem to be claiming something
else now (*del- can't be an extended root). Balto-Slavic *delb- is
almost certainly related to Germanic *delb- (cf. Eng. delve) -- a
typical North European root restricted to these three branches and
reconstructible as *dHelbH- (therefore unrelated to *del-).
Now let me repeat my question in this new context: If Albanian <daltë>
derives from *del-, can you present the derivation in some detail? In
particular, I'd like to see in what way this hypothesis is superior to
the widespread opinion that <daltë> 'chisel' and <baltë> 'mud' are
early loans from Slavic (reflecting unmetathesised *dolto, *bolto).
Piotr