fournet.arnaud pisze:
> So if we sum up that theory,
> Tokharian lost the generic I.E word *pisk- "fish"
How did you figure out it was a generic PIE word? It's found in Italic,
Celtic and Germanic. Cognates of *lok^so-, by the way, have a wider
distribution than either of the other terms.
> and then lost the generic eastern I.E word *T-gheu "fish" ,
> so that some unknown language got there in Central Asia
Why in Cental Asia? Ringe argues that the Tocharian 'fish' word is one
of the oldest borrowings detectible in the language, older than the bulk
of Iranian loans in Tocharian. It may have been borrowed somewhere in
Eastern Europe before the eastward migration of the Proto-Tocharian
speakers.
> to make sure Tokharian could borrow the word *laks "salmon",
> and misinterpret this loanword as meaning "fish".
What's so strange about is? Slavic has the otherwise unknown innovation
*ryba (possibly a colour term, originally) as the generic word for
'fish' and almost no trace of *d(H)g^Huh1-. Even very basic vocabulary
can be replaced with loans and newly coined words, like English <animal>
or <beast> (both borrowed) for PIE *g^Hwer- and Germanic *Deuza- or
<bird> (of God knows what origin) for PIE *hawi- and Germanic *fuGla-.
Piotr