[tied] Re: PIE's closest relatives

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:

> On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 15:24:18 +0000, Marco Moretti
> <marcomoretti69@...> wrote:
>
> >> >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.
> >
> >The proposed etymologies are sometimes strange, but in most cases
> >valid. It is not a suspect lexicon: the only thing I suspect is

that

> >nobody read it.
>
> I've read it. The lexicon is valuable as an online source of

Sumerian

> vocabulary, in as much as it's based on serious dictionaries. What

I don't

> like is the awkward ordering of the items, not the baseless
> etymologizations. The reason for both of these idiosyncrasies is
> Halloran's thesis that the Sumerians not only invented writing

(which may

> well be true), but that they were also responsible for the

invention of

> language itself (which is totally off the wall).
>
> Sumerian core vocabulary consists mainly of short monosyllabic

words (like

> <a> "water"). As anyone approaching Sumerian from the sane side

will

> understand, the most likely cause for this is that Sumerian as

attested is

> the result of a long process of phonetic wear (e.g.

French /o/ "water" is

> the result of 2,000 years of phonetic erosion of original Latin

<aqua>).

> Halloran needs to prove that Sumerian is the original language, so

<a> for

> him cannot be a reduced form of equally attested <ab>, but must be

the

> original word for "water" (not just in Sumerian, but in general!).

None of

> this can of course be taken seriously.

Hello, Miguel

I think the same, that Halloran's hypothesis of Sumerian invention
process has a crackpot smell. I never said that Sumerian is entirely
derived from expressive items. The word /a/ is surely a phonetic
consumption of a longer, more ancient form, but nobody ensure us
that /*ab/ is a credible ancestor. I can guess that NEC *x_a">nhIy
(or something similar) is better. Why not?

> <urudu> is too long to be a native Sumerian word. It's a

borrowing, and

> the source is quite clearly PIE *h1roudh-.

In Sumerian there are many long words, but those are compounds:

/lugal/ king (lit. man + great, big)
/urugal/ Ades (lit. city + big)
/kubabbar/ silver (lit. metal + white)

and so on.

If the source would be PIE *h1roudh-, we still must explain from
where this root was borrowed. Sumerian worked precious metals already
in remote times, while IE speakers hadn't this technology. So IE
metal names are borrowed from more "civilizated" people. No one of IE
metal name is really native (even if ultimate source is often
unknown).

Best wishes

Marco