Re: Latin /a/ after labials, IE *mori

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Andrew Jarrette <anjarrette@...>
wrote:

> could the IE word for "sea" have been *mari after all? I'd like to
> point out that the Old Irish word for sea, <muir>, has the form
> <mara> in the genitive singular and nominative plural, and the
> Cornish word <mo:r> has the compositional form <mari->

As a side note, it may be added that the Old Indo-Aryan name for the
Great Indian Desert -- the Thar -- is Maru. This etym has long since
been considered a cognate to Latin mare and the other IE forms
(discussion in Mayrhofer, EWA II 321). The underlying semantic
connection here would be: the desert is as vast and lifeless as the
sea.

Regards,
Francesco Brighenti