Re: [tied] Lat. niger once again

On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 11:08:15 +0100, Piotr wrote:

>In view of the fact that Lat. niger means practically the same as Gk.
>eremnos 'murky, black, dark', I'd like to propose an etymology:
>
>*h1regW-no-s > pre-Lat. *regnos > *rignos > *nigros (metathesis) > niger
>
>Advantages:
>
>(1) It explains the /i/, which is not accounted for by the assumption of
>*negW-ro- (*e > Lat. i before <gn> [Nn], as in <dignus, lignum> but
>_not_ before /gr/).
>
>(2) <niger> has an external cognate with the same meaning.
>
>Piotr

That's very ingenious, and I'd certainly like it to be true. A
possible problem: if */regnos/ = *[reNnos] > *[riNnos], the immediate
outcome of n/r metathesis would be *[niNros]. The outcome of *[Nr] is
uncertain, but would one not expect *[niNgros] */ningros/ rather than
*/nigros/?

Kim Bastin