[tied] Re: 'Dog' revisited

From: tgpedersen
Message: 27638
Date: 2003-11-26

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "ehlsmith" <ehlsmith@...> wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
wrote:
> .....
> > You're probably right. So, the proper theory is then, that as the
> > domesticated dog passed out of SE Asia from one linguistic
> community
> > to the next, the languages of those communities did not borrow
> words
> > similar to *kwon along with the dog, but decided independently to
> use
> > words similar to *kwon for that particular trade article,
> presumably
> > for onomatopoeic reasons, since dogs go "kwon, kwon" in erh, some
> > language?
>
> Torsten,

>
> Nice sleight-of-hand! I admire the way you deftly slipped an
unspoken
> assumption in there. Even disregarding the cautionary note that
> Piotr has raised regarding the whole SE Asia point of origin
> hypothesis, what evidence is there that dogs spread by trade? Given
> the propensity of domestic dogs to seek out human company, and the
> length of time involved, the movement of strays from group to group
> could account for the spread of dogs without the need for any inter-
> group contact.

Yes you are right. If that is so, then all the *kwon words _must_ be
onomatopoeia.

>
> How does one say in PIE "He followed me home, Mom. Can we keep him?"
>
> ;-)
>

Was that "He followed me home off the ship, Mom. Can we keep him?"
Would some other language do? Eteo-Cypriot? Minoan? Sardic? On the
other hand, how can I possibly maintain with certainty that the dog
did not swim after the ship, instead of sitting aboard it? Yes, I
_am_ a sneaky character, and you caught me out! Kudos to you!

The pig and the dog are _the_ Austronesian animals. They alway carry
them on ships going places.

Let me return the compliment by admiring how you deftly slipped in
the assumption that that all cultures, after the initial dispersion,
were sedentary. I read somewhere that this is a British -ism, but now
I can't find the reference.

Torsten