From: fournet.arnaud
Message: 51586
Date: 2008-01-20
----- Original Message -----From: Patrick RyanSent: Sunday, January 20, 2008 1:23 AMSubject: [Courrier indésirable] Re: Re: [tied] Re: PIE-Arabic Correspondences (was Brugmann's Law)
If we find a word in Arabic, we have two choices: 1) to regard it is deriving from Semitic, or 2) to regard it as a loanword. I think most would agree that native words greatly outnumber loanwords, so it is a fair presumption that the odds favor any Arabic word being native, I.e. derived from Semitic.===============To start with,we have to make sure it's Arabic in the first place,and this can be presumed when this word has connections with other wordssuch as batt, balata, batala, barata, batara, bataka,In such a case, b_t makes a rather solid Arabic root.===================We have excellent Arabic dictionaries which facilitate etymological comparisons.==========I'm afraid *you* don't.==============Unless we have good reason to label an Arabic word a loanword, it is likely (but not certain) that the word derives from Semitic.===============kleb "dog" is an obvious pan-Semitic loanword (from south-asia)thawr "bull" is an obvious pan-Semitic loanword (from a late IE language)=========================Our Egyptian sources are also well developed so that it is often possible to match Egyptian and Arabic words.========Very few people work on the connection between Coptic and Egyptianwhich is the first step *before* anything else.=============Of course, I add Sumerian, which gives us some insight into the original vowels.Patrick==========Sumerian is written in an awkward systemwhose reconstruction is based on Akkadianbeing itself a rather "decayed" form of Semitic.Most cuneiforms have more than one reading.Arnaud===========================
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