--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
wrote:
> On 05-03-04 14:15, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > which makes one suspect it's a loanword (some religious term) in
IE.
>
> You could add the Akkadian theonym Ea (< *h.ayy- 'living'). The
Etruscan
> comparanda are not particularly impressive,
Analyze it as avi + gen. -l + gen. -s and it starts looking
interesting. Cf. Latin aevalis and Hittite gen. -l.
>but the formal and semantic
> match betweem PIE *h2jw- and Semitic *h.yw- is striking indeed and
may
> point to ancient borrowing (or to Nostratic inheritance, _if_
there are
> possible matches in other families).
cf. for further semantic elucidation
*H-y- "live" Semitic
+ n-
H.a:na "its time came,
he was tested by calamity,
he perished" Arabic
II "he apppointed a time
(-hu for him)" Arabic
IV "(God) caused him to die" Arabic
H.inuN "a space, period of time" Arabic
H.aynuN "calamity, death,
the time of the appointed
term (of life), time of death" Arabic
which is what strengthened my suspicion it's an export of the idea
of some agricultural "principle of life", cf.
*aB(a)la- Proto-Germanic
afol "power" Old English
afli "strength" Old Norse
afl "strength, power, activity" Old Norse
avl "harvest yield, offspring" Danish
avl id. Norwegian
avel id. Swedish
"strength, power" Swedish dial.
avle also "beget" Danish
Torsten