Re: [tied] "Niggers of India"

On 12/15/05, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:

--- Patrick Ryan <proto-language@...> wrote:

>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Piotr Gasiorowski" < gpiotr@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2005 1:45 AM
> Subject: Re: [tied] "Niggers of India"
>
>
> > Daniel J. Milton wrote:
> >

****GK: As Dan and Piotr have pointed out, "niger" is
a Latin term of doubtful origin meaning "black"
(etc..).  It takes a very special kind of logic to
believe that an original meaning of "incapable of
growing a lock" (or something along those lines) in
some non IE language would have developed into the
attested Latin sense of "dark" "black" etc. You seem
to say that the "original" "lockless" was
misinterpreted by Latins (or others, or other IE's if
there are such indications) to mean "black" etc..
because those so designated happened to be black, a
characteristic more evident to the IE's than that they
were "lockless", and that SUBSEQUENTLY this term
("niger") began to be applied to things "dark" etc..
OTHER than humans. Not very likely.******
************

 

Why we don't not assume that *nekW-t is a denominal from verbal root  *negW- 'to be dark, be night' and to see <nigger> as derivative in suffix -er.

 

Konushevci