Re: Temarunda (follow up)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:

> > > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh
> > > <gknysh@> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Is there anything radically impossible about the
> > > "Indic" analysis
> > > > of Temarunda?

> ****GK: Or leaving (1) and (2) aside. I think that it
> is more than incredible that Indians would not have
> had experience of the "sea", whether at the R.vedic
> stage or afterwards. That's a complete non-starter. If
> "temarunda" (or something similar) means "mater
> matris" (and why doubt Pliny?)

I don't doubt a faithful recording of the given meaning, but if a language didn't have
cases, trouble could easily arise in a stage along the way.

> then it's clear there
> must be something in it that's seaworthy (:=)))
> Sanskrit (judging by dictionaries) seems to have quite
> a large vocabulary referring to things that, one way
> or another, are associated with the sea. It seems to
> like circumlocutions. So what, then, if this ar.na
> isn't in Apte or Monier-Williams? It's "wet" enough I
> believe. At least "tem-" and "da" work.

But they don't work. If -ple meant 'full' and tem- 'dark' then e>a didn't happen, so -da
couldn't be from *dhexY- at all. The form of the supposed compound is very odd, and
it's very unlikely -arun- is a unit or connected with any word for 'sea' when there are
plenty of other more likely ones.

> Close enough.
> It might look like circular reasoning to feel that
> perhaps the Sindic "arun" was closer to "sea" than
> classical Sanskrit was, but on balance, Hesychius and
> "Sindica" are all it really takes to label these
> populations. And there is plenty more. Feel free to be
> skeptical.I'm not.****

The best explanation is that Temarunda had *mater > temar- and *udna- > -unda :
'mother' and 'water' sim. to the gloss but actually meaning 'Mother Sea'. Why would a
people living by a small sea call it the mother of a larger sea they have no contact with?
The only supposed connection of the name with the Black Sea is the thought that tem- is
from 'dark', but it's actually part of the word 'mother'; there's no 'dark' in the gloss. The
slightly distorted form is probably from some misunderstanding in the initial translation.
Since I don't know the necessary characteristics of the original language or what it was
first translated into on its way into history, that's about all I can say.