--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "fournet.arnaud" <fournet.arnaud@...>
wrote:
>
> Note that the Germanic word *sajwa "sea"
> has exactly the same phonetic structure as the Kartvelian word
*zaghwa "sea, lake"
> with -gh- being a voiced velar spirant.
> So I suppose that the word *sajwa was borrowed from some *zaghwa or
zajwa
> with gh > j.
I think you're looking at the problem backwards. In Celtic the
ocean was from PIE *ver-x-gwyos < *barxag+wa+y+s '(on the) swelling
(water)' with the adj.*ver-x-gwo+s 'swelling' given *y 'as a place,
on, in, etc.'. Then *ver-x-gwyos > *wergwiyos > /wergiwyos/ with
metathesis to change the difficult cluster.
Knowing such an odd *Cwy can exist, the PIE *sax+ 'fill up, satiate'
can be used: *sax-wo+ 'filling up, full (of water)' >> *sax-wyo+s
'(on the) full lake' (vs. dried up, etc.).
In Germanic the strong stem *sax-wyos > *sax-i-wos but the weak stem
*sax-wi+ remained. They mixed together > *sax-i-wis > *sai-wiz.
So the Kartvelian word *zaGwa < *saxw(y)os if borrowed.