--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Anthony Appleyard" <a.appleyard@...>
wrote:
> It is to be wondered why Finno-Ugrian needed a new word for "hawk".
> Birds of prey (goshawks in forest, gyrfalcons on tundra) would have
> been familiar to FInno-Ugrian speakers before the IE-speakers spread.
>
I think it is plain that the word was there first. Both Finno-Ugric
and Indo-European cover such a large territory that they cannot be
original in all places. So, in places where the population later
abandoned their native language and adopted FU or IE (by force or by
choice, what do I know?), they just did not learn *all* words of the
new language. Some words were so specialized that the alternatives
would not really fit, or they just did not learn the new language that
well, anyway, some words of the old - now substratum - language simply
stuck and were not replaced. I think that is how a substratum works.
Jens