Re: Existence of PIE

On 2008-01-27 01:41, Richard Wordingham wrote:

> When did Sardinian diverge? 12th century Sardininan for 'bishop'
> seems to be _piscupu_, so I think you're relying on 'episcopus' being
> well established with its secular meaning.

Sardinia was annexed by Rome in the 230's BC, but Latin took some time
to become the dominant language of the island, and innovations would
arrive all the time with new colonists (like, say, non-rhoticity in the
port towns of the East Coast almost two centuries after the
establishment of the first British colonies in America). I'm not quite
sure what happened first: the relative isolation of Sardinian Latin or
the arrival of Christianity (if the story of St. Antiochus is anything
to go by).

> Will the 'priest' (< Greek _presbyter_) words do? Romanian _preot_
> looks a plausible inherited item, but I don't know the Sardinian form.

<prède> is one of them, and I think it also has the look of an inherited
word.

> Will the 'war' words lile _guerre_ and _guerra_ do? What's the
> Proto-Romance - *guerra? The absence of a Romanian reflex might be
> viewed as suspicious.

It might, indeed.

Piotr