>As far as I am aware, <steam> and <vapor> are synonyms (cf. Webster's
>Dictionary or Webster's Thesaurus). Indeed, vapor may has also the
>meaning of "fog", "mist", "smoke", but it is not a big shift of
>meaning. [WAPOR] I can't find in any English dictionary.
Of course you can't: this was meant to be the phonetic transcription
for "vapor" in classic Latin, in order to underline that there
could have been a corresponence uapor - abur.
Besides, there has dialectally never been a strict distinction
between [p] and [b] and between [o] and [u], so that what could
have been UAPOR for Caesar's ears could have been in the "plebs"'s
ears UABUR.
A speculation, but IMHO one worth taking into consideration
prior to any trial to squeeze some nanodroplet out of the Illyrian-
Dacian lemon. :-)
e.g. what's for a number of Italians & al. Romance speakers
COLOMBO/COLUMBO is for a number of other Italians & al. Romance
speakers COLUMBU. (In classic Latin times in the Roman Empire
people were MORITURI, in Romanian they are MURITORI.) Etc.
>Konushevci
George