--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
> On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 13:19:12 +0000, Marco Moretti
> <marcomoretti69@...> wrote:
>
> >Perhaps the word "parochial" isn't nice. Sorry, I won't cause
offence
> >to anyone. It wasn't direct to any member of the forum. These
IEists
> >lived in the last century, and reconstructed IE protoforms
> >for "elephant", "monkey", "leopard", "lion". They derived
> >*(s)teuros / *tauros from the IE root meaning "swell", they
derived
> >Greek (w)oinos and Latin vinum from another IE root (these items
are
> >Semitic loanwords!)
>
> Are they? In the case of "wine", there are good reasons to believe
that
> the Semitic word was borrowed from IE. Anatolian wiyana- and *woi
(h1)nom
> can easily be derived from the root *weih1- "to wind", which yields
many
> other denominations for vine- and ivy-like plants.
>
> PIE *woy(h1)nom would easily have given Semitic acc. *wayna-m ->
nom.
> *waynu-m.
It is not proven. The root *weih1- "to wind" is naturally the origin
of Latin words like vi:men and vi:tis. I don't understand how a root
meaning "to wind" > "ivy" or something similar can shift to indicate
a precious liquid. Wine wasn't a product of steppe, it was simply
unknown to proto-IE speakers in the time preceding the spread of the
IE linguistic family. They can only know wine in late times by trade,
importing it from some southern country. We have an unique evidence
of a proto-IE word for an alcoholic drink: *medHu-.
The *medHu- (English mead, German Met) is a drink based on honey,
water and yeast. I home-brew it with success, and I like it. It looks
like a sweet white (an powerful) wine.
Within IE, as far I know, we have evidence of *woy(h1)nom only in
Greek, Italic, Armenian and Anatolian (Hittite wiyana-, wayana-). In
Celtic and in Germanic it is a loanword from Italic or from Etruscan.
We find this root in Semitic, in Etruscan (vinum), in Rhaetian
(phelna vinutalina, phelvinua, perhaps a Wine God), in Kartvelian
(Georgian ghvino), in Hattian (windu).
The item is simply unknown in Indic.
Sincerely
Marco