Re: work

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" <alxmoeller@...> wrote:

> Daniel J. Milton wrote:
> > Alex, can't you make it clear what you're talking about? What
> > word in what Slavic language are you talking about? Cz.
> > treba, "perhaps" perhaps? Your subject line suggests you may

have

> > some t-initial form of the rab- group, with a well known

etymology <

> > I.E. orbho (Pokorny 1427).
> > Pokorny also gives one nonGermanic reflex of dhreibh, in
> > Lithuanian.
> > Dan Milton
> > **********
>
>
> Dan, Rom. "treabã" means "work" as well as trabajo, travaille,

trabaho. DEX

> consider to be a loan from Slavic "trEba". I assumed in Slavic the

word

> meant too "work".

False friends! The Western Romance words derive from
_trepalium_ 'an instrument of torture' - the implication is
unpleasant work. The Romanian word doesn't seem to have that sort
of implication, and indeed there's Russian _treba_ 'religious
ceremony'.

Furthermore, I would expect a cognate of French _travail_, Spanish
_trabajo_ etc. to be stressed on the second syllable, not the first.

Richard.