Re: Limitations of the comparative method

From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 52093
Date: 2008-01-30

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