Re: Metals

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
> wrote:

> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "marcomoretti69"
> > <marcomoretti69@...> wrote:

> > As for me, the origin of *bHrs is single, and is Sumerian
> > bar-zil, "iron".

> And we might play with it, as Miguel suggested: *zil-bar

Yes, I think so, this *zil-bar is not attested at all, but we can
imagine that it is the source of several names of another metal:
silver (ProtoGermanic *silubhro- > Gothic silubr, etc...)
We have also Basque zilar, zirar, zidar < Pre-Basque *ziraR, or
zildar < Pre-Basque *ziLaR (see Michelena, Trask)
AfroAsiatic knows this item as well.

> >Apparently this is a compound of Sumerian
> > bar, "white", "shining", and "zil", to cut.

> White, shining cut? Hm.

The translation of zil is here rather temptative. In isolation,
Sumerian zil stands for "to cut", "something cut".
Perhaps in the compound bar-zil, this zil is a remnant or another
disappeared root, we aren't sure. In absence of a better
explanation, "to cut" may be at least reasonable (see below).

> > 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...

> Yup. But the question was: Is it cognate with the others?

Are loanwords cognates? Some authors use the term Wa"nderwo"rter for
these items.

> > 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 think so too. Or *bar-zil from "white cut". I only copied my

source.

Sumerian has a very peculiar structure. Many words are in reality
compounds. This is certain. When we cannot analyse a Sumerian word,
this is often a substratum term. The name Buranun (the Euphrates) for
example is not understandable.
But we have occurrences of words like the following:

aba, "ocean" < ab, "hole" + a, "water"
Abzu, Ocean God < "ab(a)", "ocean" + zu, "to know"
anna, "tin" < an "sky" + na "stone"
egal, "palace" < e, "house" + gal, "great"
ekur, "temple" < e, "house" + kur, "mountain"
kua, "fish" < ku, "food" + a, "water"
kubabbar, "silver" < kug, "metal" + babbar, "white" (reduplicated)
kusig, "gold" < kug, "metal" + sig, "yellow"
lugal, "king" < lu, "man" + gal, "great"

I can mention a plenty of these compounds. All this is not a point of
view of mine.
It is very interesting to notice that in late Sumerian many of these
words evolved in shorter forms:

aba, "ocean" > ab
kua, "fish" > ku

This must be taken into account when someone affirms that
kua, "fish", is a distant cognate of English whale (Old Norse (h)
valr, etc.), Finnish kala, "fish" etc.
Sumerian etyma are not always comparable to folk etymologies.
We need a particular care in analysing them.

> > From the Mediterranean area these words spread into Asia, so we
> > have matchups in Proto-Hesperonesian, etc...

> Hm. Here's a comment. Three dots do not constitute an argument that
> metals spread not from Sundaland to the Middle East and Europe but
> the other way. Some of the metal finds in IndoChina are older than
> the ones on this side of the continent.
> It's a long story and I've been trying to sell this theory for a

long

> time as the archives will show (which also contain long discussions
> of metal names). Most of it takes place in the 'Austronesian' group
> these days, but you have to a member (which is easy to become and
> stay, as long as one behaves oneself).

I don't have still sufficient evidence of a far eastern origin, but
of course it is possible. If you can demonstrate your theory, then I
must accept, for example, that Sumerian bar-zil is a remote loanword
and that underwent a folk etymology already in ancient times. I'm
very interested.

Marco