Re: Fw: [tied] Re: "As"

----- Original Message -----

From: george knysh

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Sunday, October 21, 2007 12:16 AM

Subject: Re: Fw: [tied] Re: "As"

--- Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@ yahoo.com> wrote:

> But it's an exonym, compare this with the Cherokee.
> There is no -o- in the Cherokee language. Or with
> the
> Germans --who don't have the /dj-/ sounds --that
> obviously makes them non-Teutonic, right?
> I have no clue whether YueZhi means anything in
> Chinese, but it could be a calque on their own name
> for themselves or it could have passed through other
> languages before the Chinese picked it up.

============

A.F

Yue Zhi and Niu Zhi have been selected because of what they sounded like

not because of what they meant.

Yue is "moon", Zhi is "tree-branch" and Niu is "cattle", obviously absurd...

This means either Moonbranch or Cattlebranch. Chinese rendering of foreign names most often deliberately makes no sense, in order to avoid confusing them with native chinese words.

So this name has not been coined in Chinese : it's a rendering of something heard and hesitation about the best match produced two variants.

==================

****GK: Cf. the material at
http://depts. washington. edu/silkroad/ texts/hhshu/ hou_han_shu. html#sec13,
esp. the popup at footnote 1.

In any case, what's important here is not so much what
the Chinese meant by "Yuezhi" as the archaeological
evidence, and the evidence of Western classical
sources such as Strabo and Trogus/Justinus. ****

========

A.F

Sorry, but I do think that this name "YueZhi" is relevant.

Archaeological "evidence" (passive stuff to be interpreted in a way or another) and western "evidence" (hearsay transmitted thru how many km ?) have no particular reason to prevail upon linguistic issues.

==

Torsten wrote in another mail :

I'm really beginning to like this *ans- word:
>
> *ansi- > *a~si- > *n,si , vel sim.
> A:s people again.
>
> BTW, is this relevant:
> http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Ashina ?
>
>
> Torsten
==========

A.F

This story about a "grey she-wolf" is interesting :

"Ashina was one of ten sons born to a grey she-wolf (see Asena) in the north of Gaochang"

My two proposals for this ethnonym were : *ngjawtsix or *ngiwatsix.
I will add that :

Tibetan ngaw means mastiff, big wild dog

Vogul (Uralic) ngamp "dog" < *ngab-m ? (probably a loanword from Turcic)

If we take this story into account when it comes to "YueZhi",

the best match should be *ngjaw-tsix = Meaning is : Dog-born / Wolf-born ??

And we are back to the fact that YueZhi people look bad as Indo-Europeans.

They most probably are some Altaic (Turcic ?) tribe.

Chinese people did not understand what YueZhi could mean.

In modern Chinese, "dog-born" is an insult, something like "damn bastard". 

Form is gou3ri4de.

=============================

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