--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
>
> http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/bHrs.html
> http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/pld.html
>
> Single origin?
> Anyone care to comment?
As for me, the origin of *bHrs is single, and is Sumerian
bar-zil, "iron". Apparently this is a compound of Sumerian
bar, "white", "shining", and "zil", to cut. Sumerians were
unable to work this metal, but they know it as a meteoric
substance. From Sumerian the word was borrowed (very early)
into Proto-Semitic as *P.rs or something similar.
In particular, Akkadian persillum was the source of some
forms found in two IE languages such as Latin ferrum and OE bræs.
We cannot reconstruct an IE *bHrs, because this root is attested
scanty and has no other cognates in IE languages.
Latin ferrum < *bHersom, but this *bHersom is suspected to be of
Etruscan origin. Etruscan has other loanwords from AfroAsiatic
langauges, such as vinum, "wine", thevru, "bull", zich "book" (form
Egyptian /zh_3/ "to write" (later Kartvelian borrowed it from
ProtoTyrrhenian, Georgian c.igni, "book"), etc...
We cannot project in ProtoIE a form attested only in few western IE
languages or even an isolated one.
IE is not monolithic.
Old English bræs is a loanword from some pre-IE language spoken in
the Northern areas befor the arrival of Indoeuropeans. There are
hundreds and hundreds of germanic words with no known etymology,
apparently ancient substratum item. We cannot say that words like
silver, drink, sheep, ship, land are from IE roots.
Also *pld is quite interesting.
You have forgotten Basque berun, "lead" from Pre-Basque *belun.
It is another pre-IE substrate item. We cannot derive it from IE
*bHlei-, morphological details are too aberrant.
The word for "lead" from "to radiate" is like canis a non canendo,
lucus a non lucendo, aqua a qua juvamur.
I derive Latin plumbum and Celtin *loudon, *loudia: directly from
Tyrrhenian *plumdH-. Celtic *loud- < *plobd- < *plumdH-.
From the Mediterranean area these words spread into Asia, so we have
matchups in Proto-Hesperonesian, etc...
I hope my explanations will be of some help.
I would be happy to receive comments.
Greetings
Marco Moretti