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

From: Brian M. Scott
Message: 28969
Date: 2003-12-30

At 11:11:39 AM on Tuesday, December 30, 2003, tgpedersen
wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <BMScott@...> wrote:

>> 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>).


> Actually, Da., Sw., Norw. have vr- for PGmc *wr-, where ON
> has r-, which shows ON is not their direct ancestor.

Of course it's not; who suggested otherwise? Preservation
of */w-/ (as /v/) is EScand. Norw. predictably has a split
personality: at least some of these words have /r-/ in
nynorsk.

Brian