tgpedersen wrote:
> If there were no encounters between Iranian-speakers and Germanic-
> speakers, it is a freak accident, yes.
Reflexes of *wargaz are actually pretty widespread in Germanic and don't
always mean 'wolf'. We have e.g. OE wearg (n.) 'felon, outlaw, villain,
monster, evil being' and (a.) 'evil, malignant, cursed', OHG warg
'demon, criminal' and MHG warc 'monster'. ON vargr also means 'outlaw,
malefactor' in addition to 'wolf', so there's little doubt that we are
dealing with a metaphorical epithet.
> And does *w-rg- have non-Germanic relatives?
Opinions vary whether Germanic *wurgjan- 'kill by violence, esp. by
strangling' (OE wyrgan, OFris. wergia, Ger. würgen) and *wargaz are
related, but I don't see any serious problem here. At any rate, there is
no reason to question the cognacy of *wargaz to Slavic *worgU 'enemy,
fiend', OPruss. wargan (n.) 'suffering, evil' and Lith. var~gas 'misery,
hardship', all the meanings having to do with malign and destructive
forces. It's tempting to compare the whole lot (see the EIEC) with
Toch.A wa:r(s.)s.e 'robber' (despite some formal difficulties) and Hitt.
hurkel 'sin, abomination, crime of a sexual nature', in which case the
root would have to be reconstructed as *(h2/3)wergH- '(approx.) harm, do
evil' (the laryngeal attested only in Hittite), of which *worgHo- is a
regular derivative.
Piotr