From: Abdullah Konushevci
Message: 38124
Date: 2005-05-28
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>and
> 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
> don'twarg
> > always mean 'wolf'. We have e.g. OE wearg (n.) 'felon, outlaw,
> villain,
> > monster, evil being' and (a.) 'evil, malignant, cursed', OHG
> > 'demon, criminal' and MHG warc 'monster'. ON vargr alsowe
> means 'outlaw,
> > malefactor' in addition to 'wolf', so there's little doubt that
> arewith
> > 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)
> > Toch.A wa:r(s.)s.e 'robber' (despite some formal difficulties)and
> Hitt.case
> > hurkel 'sin, abomination, crime of a sexual nature', in which
> theregular
> > 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
> PIE root, in which case it can't be a loan in Old Norse. I'mafraid
> it doesn't follow. The Iranian word has been borrowed to Finnishand
> Slavic, so the word is obviously not un-loanable.************
>
>
> Torsten