From: C. Darwin Goranson
Message: 51030
Date: 2007-12-28
I recently bought John Colarusso's "Nart Sagas from the Caucasus", and already I have noted an interesting (possible) connection to Indo-European in the decidedly native Circassian name [tatémq°e], which Colarusso analyzes as /t-at-ta-m-q°a/ 'father-INTIMATE.POSSESSION-father-OBLIQUE-son', and translates as "grandfather" (p. 16, "How Warzameg and Yimis Came to Be).
While, having taken 3rd year undergraduate Historical Linguistics, I recognise the danger of making connections based on small phonemic sequences, I nevertheless find it interesting to note the Indo-European *tat- "father" would match the first two elements of this name perfectly, i.e. t-at 'father-INTIMATE.POSSESSION', which I propose to mean something like "dear father" or "my dear father". Again, however, this could just be coincidence; even so, such common phrases have a habit of surviving in strange ways, as I've read in many articles by Calvert Watkins, not least "How to Kill a Dragon" (1995).
I have only begun to read the Nart book, so I have little doubt that I will come across other potential connections.
Also, while searching through Tower-of-Babel's North Caucasian database, I was pleased to notice the reconstructions for the number 5, *f_ɦE and even moreso upon seeing the Proto-Sino-Caucasian reconstruction, *xÅwäHV. What pleased me was the similarity to the Indo-European *peÅkWe (the "W" should be superscript). If a parallel were to be made, one might suppose that the final syllable of the Proto-Sino-Caucasian was dropped, leaving something like *xÅwE; the Å would become syllabic, and later re-analysed as a zero-grade form. The *x would undergo a transformation similar to in North Caucasian, and become *p (perhaps strengthened from /f_/).