--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "kishore patnaik"
<kishorepatnaik09@...> wrote:
>
> While linguistically it might be anything.
No, linguistically, if linguistics it truly be, there are
limitations on what it might be. If it were otherwise we
would have no basis to be here arguing, and could keep to
ourselves and believe whatever pleased us best.
> Mittani word Aruna, so far I know, means sea. Thus, the
> borrowing, to my mind is clear- it is from IA (the unknown-
> the cosmological sea) to the known(a physical sea).
As a rule that's not how it works, though, even if 'aruna'
was Hurrian for 'sea'. Abstract and mythological concepts
are normally named after the real-world physical entities
that they're thought to resemble, not the other way around.
One knows of a real-world sea and has a name for it before
he ever imagines a mythological one and uses the same name
for it.
> It is interesting to note that the word Aruna in Skt has also
> grown from Varuna.
It hasn't. As far as I know there's no known sound change
in the evolution from Proto-Indo-Iranian to Vedic involving
the dropping of initial 'v'.
A great many words can differ from others, even others from
the same language, by no more than one letter or phoneme,
and yet still be patently unrelated etymologically, it must
be kept in mind.
David