Re: [tied] Wolf, varg

--- 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