--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Check it also for 'cow' and/or 'cattle' and compare to the
> > > proposed cognate pair Old Chinese *n,Wiu ~ PIE *gWow. The former
> > > wins.
> > >
> >
> > Correction: Chinese níu, Old Chinese *n,W&´w/*n,W&´G (Pulleyblank)
>
>
> from
> http://www.ancientscripts.com/linearb.html
>
> "
> Some syllabograms also double as logograms. Curiously, the phonetic
> values of these syllabograms do not match the word they represent.
> For example, the logogram for 'sheep' is the qi syllabogram, but
> 'sheep' in Mycenaean Greek should be owis (compare with Classical
> Greek ois, Latin ovis, etc). In the following example, you can
> compare the syllabogram's phonetic value ... with the reconstructed
> Mycenaean Greek word ... :
> ...
> [(syllabogram)
> phonetic value: mu
> meaning: ox
> Mycenaean Greek word: *gwous
> ]
> ...
>
> It is theorized that these dual-role signs represent initial
> syllables of words in the language underlying Linear A, as
> many ancient writing systems create phonetic signs by using
> pictographs of objects to represent the initial sound or syllable
> of the objects' names (a contrived example in English would be
> using a picture of an apple to represent the [a] sound).
> "
Gamkrelidze/Ivanov: Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans,
notation here 'normalized'
"
Such facts increase the plausibility of the relatedness of PIE *gWou-,
*gWu- and Sumerian GUD 'bull; cattle' proposed long since by Ipsen
(1923:175ff.). The word reflected in Sumerian gu(d) 'bull; cattle',
phonetically g.u = [n,u] according to Diakonoff 1967:49, is evidently
a Near Eastern migratory term of wide distribution. It is found in
Egyptian (beginning with the Old Kingdom) in the form ng3w 'type of
large bull with long horns, especially as a sacrificial and harness
animal', 'god in the form of a bull' (Erman and Grapow 1955:II.349);
it also the later attested gw 'type of bull' (ibid. V.159). It is
highly plausible that the Sumerian and Egyptian forms are connected
perhaps via other languages with the postulated Indo-European forms
*gWou- and *gWu-. The sequence of a velar nasal /n,/ and a
pharyngeal in Egyptian is comparable to the glottalized labiovelar of
Indo-European.48
"
Or rather, the PIE root was really *NgWou, *NgWu- and the tradtional
PIE phonemes b, d, g^, g, gW are not glottalized as G/I want, but
prenasalized: Mb, Nd, Ng^, N,g, N,gW.
"
Further to the east a similar term for 'bull; cattle' is found in
ancient East Asia, specifically in Old Chinese in the forms 'kuo and
,ngy&u (Nehring 1935:73-77) and in a number of Altaic languages
(Ramstedt 1946-1947:25) which show a distinctive semantic shift from
'cow' to 'female quadruped' to 'mare': Manchurian geo 'mare; cow;
female (of quadrupeds)', cf. geo murin 'mare' (literally 'female
horse'), Jurjen k'ó mù-lîn 'mare', Evenki ge:G 'mare', goGo 'female
wild deer', Cl.Mong. gegün 'mare' (Cincius 1975:145).
The agreement among various forms of linguistic evidence for terms for
'wild bull' and 'domesticated bull' pinpoints the Near East as the
area of first acquaintance with the wild and the domestic bull.
"
Or rather, the use of the term for wild animals point in the direction
of East Asia as the area of domestication.
"
48. A similar root gu- 'stockyard' can also be posited for Northwest
Caucasian Abkh. a-gup 'collective of herders', a-gWarta 'herd',
Bz^anija 1973:85.
"
Torsten