Re: Tokharian

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "C. Darwin Goranson"
<cdog_squirrel@...> wrote:

> > > I wonder, is there any connection between "Yamornikte"

and "amor"?

> >
> > Um, nevermind that question, actually. I checked myself:

DEFINITELY NO

> > CONNECTION. Good thought, better hope, but no. Pi-ty!
> >
> Actually, thanks to the help of an erudite student in the

Institute of

> Comparative Linguistics at Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität,

I've

> managed to get a wonderful, literal translation of the poem. A

pleasant

> surprise in it was that I was correct the first time here -

Yamorñikte

> does indeed mean love-god, though he's identified with karma as

well.

> Yamor surely has connections with Latin's "amor" - whence does

this

> arise, then?

Toch.B ya:mor is the verbal noun of ya:m- 'do' and means 'deed,
karma'. There is no obvious way its y- could be secondary, and there
is no way Latin amor could lost a *y-. Therefore the two words are
not etymologically connected.

> Also, there are two words that are apparently yet untranslatable:
> "stalle" (as in "me te stalle s'ol wärnai," "not this-one/it

_______

> life time.")
> "nane" [might mean pretense] ("Taiysu pälskanoym: sanai saryompa

sayau

> karttses saulu wärnai snai tserekwa snai nane.", "so I thought:

with

> one lover I will live for the goodness for lifetime. without
> separation, without _________.")
> Any thoughts on possible explanations of "stalle" and "nane"?

Adams gives sta:lle as the gerundive of a verb sta:l- 'shrivel'
(base-verb), 'astringe' (causative), from older *sta:lalle. He also
suggests 'pretense' for na:ne which he tentatively connects with the
root na:n- 'appear, be presented', caus. 'show'. The reading hiwever
is insecure, for <t> and <n> are almost impossible to separate,
unless a word is very well known.

Jens