On 05-03-17 08:27, Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:
> The meaning developed from 'flat/wide expanse' to something more
> abstract like 'the Country'. Similarly in Sanskrit: the earth is not
> necessarily flat everywhere, but the term <pr.thivi:> must have been
> considered apt enough.
P.S. I forgot to say that there _are_ Germanic cognates, although the
exact form of the stem has beem modified there. Old English folde 'land,
earth' (= OSax. folda) comes from PGmc. *fuld-o:n- (f.), which is no
other than *pl.th2(&)w-ih2 transformed into a nasal ("weak") stem. In
other words, <folde> is the closest match for <pr.thivi:> in Germanic.
For Aydan's information: PIE *l merged with *r in Indo-Iranian, and the
medial *-t- in this word developed into Gmc. *d because of the
successive application of Grimm's Law (> *þ) and Verner's Law (*þ > *d)
because of stem-final stress). The aspiration in Sanskrit is an effect
of the following laryngeal (*h2).