[tied] Re: Of cows and living

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
wrote:

>
> On 2006-02-20 13:50, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > The three PIE roots *lak(t)-, *galak(t)- and *melg^-/*melk^-

*taken

> > together* look like they were loaned from a (predominantly)
> > prefixing language, eg Sino-Tibetan. The fact that there is a
> > similar root with matching semantics in PTB *m-/s-lyak- and in

OC

> > *luk makes it likely that this is the case.
> >
> > So, no cognacy, in the strict sense of the word.
> >
>
> Note that PIE *h2melg^- is a verb root, perhaps with the original
> meaning of 'rub, press, squeeze out' (hence 'to milk'), cf. Skt.
> má:rs.t.i. The verbs based on it (e.g. Gk. amelg-o:, Slavic *melz-

ti)

> are primary, not denominative, which shows that the Germanic noun

itself

> is deverbative ('the product of milking', cf. Slavic [inherited!]
> *melzivo 'colostrum, the first milk after calving').
>

BTW Matisoff:
Proto-Sino-Tibetan *n,wa "cattle"
Proto-Lolo-Burmese (a subgroup) *nwa "cattle"
Proto-Sino-Tibetan *g-na "live, stay"

which definitely doesn't prove that "cattle" and "live" are related
within Sino-Tibetan, but does disprove a connection if they are
loaned from elsewhere. Note the discrepancy between PLB *nwa and PST
*n,wa.


Torsten