Re: [tied] Wolf, varg

From: tgpedersen
Message: 38123
Date: 2005-05-28

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
wrote:
> 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 said *wurgjan and *wargaz might be related, not that *wlkWos
and *warg- were. Sorry.
What I think he's otherwise trying to say is that *warg- is regular
PIE root, in which case it can't be a loan in Old Norse. I'm afraid
it doesn't follow. The Iranian word has been borrowed to Finnish and
Slavic, so the word is obviously not un-loanable.


Torsten



Torsten