Re: Finnish KASKA

Well, Wikipedia is not really decisive, is it?

But OK, what would like to say about thu(n)?

I cannot imagine a PIE root as a good candidate for a word for 'one' having
a form similar except something like *te:u-, 'swollen' for 'thumb'; and the
thumb usually seems to be reserved for more important uses: Egyptian <djw>,
'five', 'thumb-like-number'.


Patrick

----- Original Message -----
From: "etherman23" <etherman23@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 11:28 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Finnish KASKA


--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@>
> wrote:
> >
> > I consider Manaster Ramer a friend.
> >
> > We had some discussions on his article, and a few of you may be
> interested
> > in some thoughts of my own on the subject:
> >
> >
> > http://geocities.com/proto-language/critique-PKNumerals.htm
>
> Interesting. At one point you mention deriving *dwo: from a dual of an
> unattested **dwo meaning one. The suggestion was made to indicate an
> absurdity and you weren't seriously proposing it. However, what if
> this suggestion is correct? Of course it would be hard to prove
> without an attested form of **dwo for one. But perhaps such an
> attestation exists. Not in PIE, but in Etruscan. The Etruscan number
> one is tHu(n).
>
>
> ***
>
> Sorry, but I am not aware pf thu(n), 'one'.
>
> Where does this come from?

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

The nasal appears in the ordinal form but not the cardinal form.