----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2008 7:44
PM
Subject: [Courrier indésirable] Re:
[tied] Re: PIE-Arabic Correspondences (was Brugmann's Law)
I will add :
sekw "to follow" = Arabic *saq
***
There is _no_ *saq meaning 'follow' in standard
Arabic.
Patrick
***
Very often, I wonder why such a level of incompetence is put up with on
this forum.
You claim proto-world- esque reconstructions
but you don't even have a good Arabic dictionary :
Kazimirski tome 1 page 1167 :
sâq : "suivre, aller à la suite ; se suivre les uns les autres"
Arnaud
***
I repeat: there is _no_ saq meaning 'follow' in standard Arabic.
In the latest communication, the word now appears as "sâq", with the
circumflex indicating a long <a>. Thus, the verbal root is thus
not s-q as suggested by "saq" (to correspond with *sekW-) _but_ s-w-q,
which is obviously not a match for *sekW. I have no way of knowing why the
author failed to indicate the length of the vowel which is necessary to
specify the root, and define its triliterality.
The dictionary I am using by Lane is the premier standard for Arabic
dictionaries in English, and obviously, has an entry for sâqa (s-w-q),
meaning 'to drive'. This is the word from which suq, the Arab market, is
derived.
The dictionary mentions an isolated usage in which this word is
translated by 'follow (one another)' by a German lexicographer but suggests
that the better translation within the confines of the established meaning
is 'driven together', creating a similar physical result.
In any case, *sekW- is the _usual_ word for 'follow'; s-w-q (or, as it
appears in this rare usage: sâwaqa, which does not even correspond actually
with sâqa), is either a mistranslation as suggested by Lane, or a very rare
usage.
If the author's source in French does not makes these facts clear, it
must unfortunately be regarded as incomplete and inferior for scholarly
work.
Sadly for the French, truly competent linguistic work is sometimes not
to be found in French: what is the French equivalent to Wörterbuch or
Pokorny.
To wrap up the bundle in a neat ribbon, s-w-q is probably cognate with
PIE *sweng/k-, which has, among others, the meaning 'beat, cause pain for',
which certainly describes a common way of 'driving' herd-animals.
Patrick