19-08-03 22:02, Richard Wordingham wrote:
> *k-? Pokorny (root #919) has a nice set of 'magpie' words, e.g.
> Sanskrit _sa:rika:_ 'Indian magpie' (read on before objecting
> to /s/!), seemingly also _s'a:rika:_ and s'a:ri:, Lithuanian s^árka,
> Russian soroka 'magpie', Armenian _sareak_ 'starling'. Albanian
> _sorrë_ (if I interpret Starostin's copy correctly) 'crow' may
> complicate matters, as it is derived from *k^we:rna:. *k could
> derive from onomatopoeic reshaping in Satem languages, as you have
> pointed out with regard to 'cuckoo'.
Discussed last April; see:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/20975
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/20980
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/21001
My own analysis is therefore *k^worh2-, with variants (*k^w- is also
supported by Serbo-Croatian). Since the occasional loss of *w in initial
clusters is not unprecedented, and since loss is anyway more likely than
a creation of *w _ex nihilo_, there are good reasons for regarding
*k^worh2- as the original form.
From the point of view of an ornithologist, magpies (as well as jays)
are classified as corvids, but they are rather different from ravens,
crows, rooks and jackdaws in terms of appearance and of the calls they
make: they chatter rather than [krrr]oak. Pokorny lumps the 'magpie'
words together with the 'crow/raven' under *ker-, but in my opinion they
ought to be kept distinct. The Albano-Romanian (not to say Dacian)
semantic shift 'magpie' > 'crow' is a local affair, just like 'magpie' >
'myna' in India.
Piotr