Re: Limitations of the comparative method

Hebrew us not the oldest anything.

The reason gold was probably the first used metal is because it typically
occurs in rather pure nuggets which can be immediately pressure-worked.

Other metals usually occur in compounds that must be refined so gold is
lower and presumably earlier tech.

Incidentally. Arabic dhahab is related to a number of other Arabic words
meaning 'smelt'.

Applying my rules for conversions between Arabic and PIE, dhahab can easily
be related to PIE *ta:w-, 'smelt'.


Patrick

----- Original Message -----
From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 3:44 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Limitations of the comparative method


--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:
>
> AHD says Hebrew.
>
> Because gold is probably the oldest metal man used.

And Hebrew is the oldest language man used? I've read that book too.


Torsten