--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "C. Darwin Goranson"
<cdog_squirrel@...> wrote:
> > PIE. leubh-o-z
> > (But there is another homonymous <leubh-> "love".)
>
> Perhaps it's not an aspirated "b"?
>
> If it's possible, perhaps "liber" etc. arise from some alteration of
> the word "*litho," meaning "rock." But it seems to be of non-PIE
> origin, my dictionary suggests. (Heritage Illustrated dictionary of
> the English Languae International Edition)
> The closest I can find is *skri:bh, an extension of several degrees
on
> *sek, "to cut". Also, there's the idea of a book a a teacher - that
> would go back to *deik, "to show" or "to direct." So, what kind of
> ending would make "*deik" a noun meaning "shower" or "director"
*********
There seems to be no reason to doubt that the Latin 'liber'
'liber' meant originally "inner bark, bast, rind" from an IE root
meaning "peel" attested in a number of languages (according to Pokorny
"'liber', *luber, *lubh-ro-s < **leubh-"), then such used as a writing
material, and finally an assemblage of such.
Some of the modern references I've checked say the rind in
question was that of the papyrus, others say it was tree bark
putatively used before the availability of papyrus. Cassiodorus
(~490-585) was of the later opinion, writing: "Hinc et priscorum
opuscula libros appellavit antiquitas: nam hodie quoque librum
virentis ligni vocitamus exuvias."(Liber XI, XXXXVIII 4).
"For does a crop grow in any field to equal this [papyrus], on which
the thoughts of the wise are preserved? For previously, the sayings of
the wise and the ideas of our ancestors were in danger. For how could
you quickly record words which the resistant hardness of bark made it
almost impossible to set down? No wonder that the heat of the mind
suffered pointless delays, and genius was forced to cool as its words
were retarded. Hence, antiquity gave the name of 'liber' to the books
of the ancients; for even today we call the bark of green wood
'liber'. It was, I admit, unfitting to entrust learned discourse to
these unsmoothed tablets, and to imprint the achievements of elegant
feeling on bits of sluggish wood." But he could be wrong.
Dan Milton