Re: Cognates & etymology of English net

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 50643
Date: 2007-11-30

On 2007-11-30 19:41, tgpedersen wrote:

> 3) so are Lat. natrix "viper" (German "Wasserschlange"), German Natter
> "adder", which occur in the set of Italic-Germanic root pairs with
> vowel /a/ (which can't be original in Latin)

It can. *R.HC- seems to have been vocalised as RaC- in Latin (and in
Celtic), and since WGmc. had long-vowelled *na:d(V)r- with *a: < *e:,
the snake word makes sense as *neh1-tor- ~ *n.h1-ter-, *n(e)h1-trih2,
with *(s)neh1- 'thread, spin, sew'.

Piotr