Re: Ducks and Souls

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

> 11-09-03 13:19, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > How come your opponents never have a shred of evidence?
>
> Don't be silly. They often do, and if they do I concede my point.

You,

> Torsten Pedersen, haven't got a shred of evidence in this

particular

> case, have you?

Duck on the menu:
http://www.niagara.com/~jezovnik/national_and_cultural_treasures_of_sl
ovenia_part_i.htm

>
> > The word exists in the neighbor families, so presumably I must

have died out

> > at some time in Proto-Celtic. Where's your evidence, shredded or

not,

> > that the word disappeared before Halstatt?
>
> Toi be precise, it died out and was replaced by other terms _not

later_

> than Proto-Celtic, and possibly before Proto-Celtic. It's you who

are

> theorising about ducks and souls in a language unknown to you or to
> anyone else, so the burden of the proof is on you.

Proof of what?

>Without some positive
> evidence you duck symbolism theory has no foundation.
>

I think you mean to say that my duck symbolism theory rests on some
assumptions.

> > Let me walk you through this piece of logic.
> > WRT the 'duck' word and Halstatt, there are two possiblities:
> > 1) They knew it
> > 2) They didn't
> > Assuming 1) is the case, they would be able to pun on it.

Assuming 2)

> > is the case, they wouldn't be.
>
> Actually, you make a further assumption. Point 1) means that the
> Halstatt people had a 'duck' word based on the IE root *h2anh2t-

(or

> however you reconstruct it). But you also assume 3) that their word

for

> 'soul, breath' was homophonous with their 'duck' word (the

similarity of

> the roots is not enough, cf. Lat. <anas> vs. <animus>, not much of

a

> pun). Only then would punning have been possible.

Near-homophonous. For most people, that's enough for a pun.

>The far-reaching
> conclusions I mentioned were the non-linguistic ones about the
>alleged
> symbolic meaning of duck representations in Halstatt.

They seem to have reached similar conclusions in Slovenia.

> >> Actually, there are some Greek and Roman anatiform artifacts,

including

> >> fine duck oil lamps.
>
> > And I have a collection of illustrated stories of an American

family

> > of ducks. But somehow I don't think they should be read

symbolically.

>
> I merely falsified your claim that the Romans made no duck

figurines.

> How do you know that the Halstatt ducks (as opposed to the Roman

ones or

> to Donald Duck) had a cultic meaning?
>

I trust the Slovenians.

> >> BTW How did the Romans produce duck oil?
>
> Stress "OIL" in the phrase <duck oil lamps>.
>

Oh. I thought they ground them.


Torsten