Re: [tied] Rag (was: Craciun, Romanian for Christmas)

At 10:15:22 AM on Tuesday, December 30, 2003, Richard
Wordingham wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
> <piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

>> Gk. hrakos comes from older *wrakos, I think (and
>> certainly not from *krak)

> Pokorny concurs - k-extension of *wer 'tear', root #2168,
> and cites Aeolian <brakos>. Any chance of it being related
> to English _rag_, from Old Norse ro,gg 'tuft or strip of
> fur'. I don't know whether Norwegian and Swedish _ragg_
> 'rough hair' tell us anything about whether an initial /w/
> has been lost.

ON fem. <ro,gg> has gen.sing. <ro,ggvar>, so it should be
from *rawwo:-. I believe that Swedish usually reflects
/wr-/ as <vr-> (e.g., Sw. <vräka>, ON <(v)reka>; Sw.
<vränga>, ON <(v)rengja>; Sw. <vrist>, ON <(v)rist>).

Brian