Re: swallow vs. nighingale

>
> > 4. "Blackbird": if Germanic *a- in *amVsla- was from a
> > laryngeal, it would be rather strange since Germanic, as a rule,
> > has not preserved initial laryngeals as vowels. But if the word
> > is Semitic, and *a- was the article, which are its cognates in
> > known Semitic languages?
> >
>
> > A.F (old)
> > *a being the article is not the only possibility.
> > You have the Form IV in verbs that allow C_C_C to become
> > ?_C_C_C. This can be something like that in PIE waiting to be
> > described properly
>
> from Möller: Vergleichende Indogermanisch-semitisches Wörterbuch
> ==============
>
> A.F : new
> My point of view about these "bird-names" with #a- ""mutable""
> first syllable supposedly being not from PIE is this :
>
> 1. A lot of words in Greek display #i- or #a- as a kind of
> "prothesis".
>
> This ruins the hypothesis that western PIE words displaying #a-
> could be from a substrate.

It would, if they had been the same words, but they're not (except for
the 'bird name language' *(a)raud- vs. PIE *h1reudh-(ro-)).

> This must be inherited, even though not properly described so far
> in the standard theory of good old PIE.

Why must that be inherited?

> 2. The idea that this #a- could ""just"" be the semitic article is
> "forest-gumpish".

Do you want the rest of us to adopt similar tactics when arguing with you?
Besides, this is not what Möller advocates in the quote which you
obviously haven't read.

>
> Next
>
> Concerning the word lark, a couple of words display -iw- as the
> reflex of -l- in Germanic :
>
> lalarka > laiwarka. Cf. alauda : the singing bird
>
> maiwa "gull" : Cf. Saami bup-mal-as and Norse ful-mar. *mal =
> maiw- = gull
>
> This could be a PIE substrate in Scandinavia before Germanic got
> there.
>
> =====
>
> Next
> as another possibility to be investigated,
> is there a class in North-Caucasian for birds starting with prefix
> #a- ?
>
> or animals or anything the like ?

In which way is this proposal not forest-gumpish?


Torsten