Re: Li

On 2008-01-30 20:39, fournet.arnaud wrote:

> We have already reached the conclusion that PIE was long gone
> when gold became something interesting.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. The oldest gold jewellery found so far
(5th millennium BC) is from the Black Sea coast:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna_Necropolis

and they had copper as well.

> And that the reason why
> western PIE has a loanword *zahb > *ahw-s
> central PIE invented a word out of *ghel.
> Arnaud
> =============
>
> Instead, they used *Hawes-, 'dawn(-colored thing)' and *g^hel-dh-,
> 'shiny-nugget'.

The latter actually reflects *g^Hl.h3'-to- (Germanic) and *g^He/olh3-to-
(Balto-Slavic). Eng. gold derives from PGmc. *Gulþa, and the change of
*-lþ- > OE -ld- (not to be confused with Verner's Law) is regular.

Piotr