Re: Are hares grey? [was: ka and k^a [was: [tied] *kW- "?"]]

Grzegorz Jagodzinski wrote:

> And we have a problem here because some data

What _data_?

> could suggest that this *kHoi-

Note that *s^e^rU (as in Pol. szary) is geographically restricted in
Slavic and may well be nothing else that Gmc. *xaira-. The rest of
Slavic has *se^rU, which is a regular reflex of *k^oiro-, cognate to the
Germanic word.

> was related to *k^as- (*k^H-s- then). We have Skr. <çaçá-> (from *<çasá->),
> Gmc. <haso:n->. Lat. ca:nus < *kasnos 'grey' may also belong here. Old
> Prussian <sasins> is read by Brückner as zasins.

Oh, don't take Brückner's readings and etymologies too seriously.
There's a lot of outdated stuff there.

> The same formant -in- seems
> to occur in Slavic zaje,cI. Initial z- is "mysterious" but cf. also Lith.
> zuikis, Lett. zak,is. They may be loanwords or may be not as the word for
> 'hare' likes to develop irregularly, cf. Russ. zajac, gen. zajca with
> unexpected fleeting -a- on the place of Proto-Slacvic -e,-.

If the Baltic words are borrowings from Slavic (and they can hardly be
anything else), *zajeNcI is perhaps derivable from the root *g^Hei-
'hurl, move quickly', cf. Skt. háya- and Arm. ji 'horse'. Details later.

Piotr