Re: [tied] PIE Stop System

27-09-03 21:28, etherman23 wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
> <piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:
>> To make things worse, those shifts would have to be very recent:
>> Gmc. *ri:k- shows the effect of *e: > i: in Celtic, and the 'hemp'
>> word can't have been borrowed before hempen products or the plant
>> itself reached Northern Europe (probably about the 6th c. BC,
>> courtesy of the Scythians). Greek has <baite:> for Gmc. *paido:.
>> Would you be prepared to defend the view that there was a change of
>> *p > Gk. b during the first millennium BC?
>
> Can we be sure that the Celtic word meant hemp originally, and not
> something else that was later changed to hemp with the arrival of
> hempen products?

The 'hemp' word (Gmc. *xanap(i)- < *kanabi-) isn't Celtic; it probably
originated somewhere in Central Asia, and, yes, it means 'hemp'
everywhere, cf. Gk. kannabis. Gmc. *ri:k- 'rule(r)' is from Celtic ri:g-
< *(h3)re:g^-. The diagnostically Celtic feature here is the change of
*e: > i:, which can't have occurred in Proto-Germanic.

Piotr