[tied] Re: Of cows and living

> Gamkrelidze and Ivanov
> attempted to link the ST(and IE) terms to Sumerian and Old Egyptian,
> assuming an original (onomatopoeic?) velar nasal, but Sumerologist
> now agree that Sumerian <gud> had an initial /g-/, not /N-/ (the
> latter would correspond to /m-/ in the Emesal dialect, but the
> Emesal forms are <gud>, <gu2-ru>). It has been conjectured
> (Whittaker 2004) that the Sumerian term is of IE origin.

If it's a loan, it doesn't matter much. BTW, per the above reference,
Mandarin niu, but Minnan (Taiwan) gu: "cow".


Torsten