Me:
>At any rate, any direct contact between Sumerian and IndoEuropeans
>at any date is absurd.
Marco:
>Hello, dear Glen
>is everything OK?
Why, yes it is, Marco. And I stand by my statement. I'm just as much
against the pseudoscience as you note on the scriptaminoa forum.
But it must be fought against with neverending debate and
communication.
These Sumerian-IE connections have been proposed for a long time
without credible results. No educated IEist thinks that IE and Sumerian
were side-by-side. So any contacts _must_ be secondary unless you
are energetic enough to refute archaeology, linguistics and the whole
nine yards.
Marco:
>However, it is wiser to consider Sumerian /girgir/ as derived form an
>expressive form.
Reduplication was typically used in Sumerian for plurals, but yeah.
Sadly, things never change and we had this discussion before more
than three years ago:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/5201
>The match between Sumerian /urudu/ and IE /*roudh-/ is almost
>certainly valid (and I have read about it long time ago), even if
>there are some phonetic difficulties. But, I'm sorry, attempt to derive
>Sumerian /urudu/ from Afro-Asiatic are idle and worthless.
Perhaps the debate would be more productive if you directly
confronted how a Semitic form like *weru:-?arDi meaning "earth
metal" is unlikely for the source of the "copper" word. I admit
to still being unsure of what underlies Akkadian /eru:/. Is it
*weru: or something similar? Or am I wrong -- Is it not even
a Semitic word at all?
I will graciously ignore your inappropriate use of a verb as a
ditransitive in the following quote in order to respond to it:
"I must remember you the true nature of Sumerian language.
/urudu/ has internal matchups: /urum/ 'bright thing', /ur/ 'bright'
[...]" Reminds me of when some people say "Can you borrow
me that pencil?"
If /urudu/ is derived from /ur/ "bright", then what is /-udu/?
Your solution could never hope to be indisputable until you can
at least explain the word in toto. Otherwise, it's amateurish
slice-n-splice etymology that doesn't fly in the real linguistic
world. I don't think we can seriously relate "copper" from a
compound meaning, say, "bright sheep" (ur-udu). How
about "bright sun ten" (ur-ud-u)? Obviously, this etymologizing
is awkward. So, I don't see where you can go with this.
Even if you could, you still are presented with the expansive
problem of positioning IE anywhere near Sumer or Sumerian
anywhere near the Ukraine. Again, this was all explained
against some three years ago but either people haven't been
paying attention or new people haven't read old posts.
>I have read many inconsistence about linking Sumerian items with
>something else, due to erroneous analysis of word structure.
>Examples: /a/ "water" is not from /ab/ ( /ab/, "ocean", "sea", etc...
>is merely a reduction of /aba/ < /ab/ "hole, cavity" + /a/ "water"!!!).
That could only be John A. Halloran's dillusions at sumerian.org.
There's no need to even go on about him although his sumerian
glossary is impressive, even if suspect at times. However, this shows
exactly why these lazy etymologies, including yours on /urudu/,
don't work.
>Now, I recomend you a deep study of Sumerian, supported by good
>vocabularies that can be found on line.
I recommend the same for you. There are even better resources in
a library which have been subject to much scrutiny by the publisher
before being printed.
= gLeN
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