Re: Why borrow 'seven'? (was: IE right & 10)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Exu Yangi" <exuyangi@...> wrote:

> >--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
> >wrote:
> >Within the lunar month the moon has four phases, each about a
> >week 7 days long. That's sacred for ya.
> >
> >So perhaps a tendency to become a taboo word. That might explain
> >the independent Uralic borrowings from different branches of IE.
> >
>
> Perhaps, although the breaking up into FOUR groups of seven seems

fairly

> arbitrary. Why not 3 groups (new, 1/3, and 2/3), or even just two

(new/full)

> ?

How would you correlate 3 groups with the appearance of the moon?
New, waxing, full, waning seems natural to me.
[waxing = ) = Danish 'tiltagende', like the stem of a written T,
waning = ( = Danish 'aftagende' , like the left of a written A]
is how my grandmother told me.

>The seven day week seem a new thing, although there are evidences
>of four
> day weeks from northern and central Africa.

No later than Genesis was written down, I suppose, which contains
the tern shabbath. Is that too late for the word to spread?

>Perhaps not four groups of
> seven, but seven groups of four?
>

Like the seven phases of the moon?

> As for being a taboo word, and hence borrowed from elsewhere ---

usually

> taboo words find their replacements from within the native stock.

Withness

> Japanese shi (death;four) being replaced from another counting

heirarchy.

But no one called it a taboo replacement or noa word.

Torsten