On 05-03-23 20:56, João Simões Lopes Filho wrote:
> What's the current view of the origin of words for lead and purse?
>
> Lead:
> Latin plumbum
> Greek molibos, molybdos (*molubyo-), bolimos
> We may guess a non-Greek *mulubo-, *molubo-, *mlubo- ?
>
> plumbum <* blumbo- <*mlumbo- ?
>
> Or plumbum is akin to *ploudHo- > Celtic *loud- > Germanic *laud-
We have discussed this before (the reference may be hard to find), and
Miguel showed on that occasion how the Greek words (and, if I remember
aright, Basque berun as well) could have developed from an ultimately IE
wanderwort filtered through non-IE Iberian phonotactics. Certainly
*pleudHo- is a plausible protoform for Celtic *(F)loudo-, *(F)loudja: (>
MIr. luaide), which in turn is the source of the Germanic word. Lat.
plumbum looks as if it had developed from *pludH-no- > *pluDno- >
*pluBno- > plumbo-.
> Purse:
> Is there a relatioship between Greek byrsa and marsypon, marsipon ? I
> remember to read a mention to byrsa as from Anatolian kursa. May we
> guesse *gWursa- ?
I don't think <bursa> and <marsippos, marsippion, etc.> could be related
in any way; both look like foreign words, but I don't know the origin of
either. Such technical terms for handicraft products are always and
everywhere easily borrowable. Hittite kursa/gursa 'skin, fleece' (itself
of obscure etymology) is indeed attested, but a hypothetical connection
with <bursa> is pure guesswork.
Piotr