From: Francesco Brighenti
Message: 56796
Date: 2008-04-05
>
> At 11:21:46 AM on Saturday, April 5, 2008, Francesco
> Brighenti wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "david_russell_watson"
> > <liberty@> wrote:
>
> >> By the way last night I came across another etymology for
> >> Varuna, from 'The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-
> >> European Roots':
>
> >> wel-ยน. To see. 1. Suffixed zero-grade form *wl-id- in
> >> Germanic *wlituz, appearance, in Old Norse litr,
> >> appearance, color, dye, akin to the source of LITMUS. 2.
> >> Suffixed form *wel-uno- perhaps in Sanskrit Varuna,
> >> "seer, wise one", sovereign god: VARUNA. [Pok. 1. uel-
> >> 1136.]
>
> [...]
>
> > But there's something even odder in your American Heritage
> > Dictionary etymology. The quote (copied above) you
> > reproduced in your message is *not* from the current
> > online version of Calvert Watkins' IE roots index at
>
> > http://www.bartleby.com/61/IEroots.html
>
> > Where is it from?
>
> The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots,
> revised and edited by Calvert Watkins, 2nd edn. 2000.
> According to the front matter, it contains about twice as
> many entries as the appendix to AHD4, which is what's
> available online.
>
> [...]
>
> > Is this entry from an older version of Watkins' index of
> > IE roots, or what?
>
> A more extensive version.
>
> > Moreover, I am puzzled by the fact that the entry,
> > supposedly written by Watkins, you quote in your message
> > directs to Pokorny's entry <*u_el-1> 'to see', whose link
> > is given by me above, and which doesn't mention at all a
> > "suffixed form *wel-uno-" (= *u_el-uno).
>
> If at least some of the material in an entry, or the root
> itself, is treated in Pokorny, Watkins includes a pointer;
> this doesn't mean that his treatment is the same. Sometimes
> he assigns to one root items that Pokorny assigns to two
> different ones, in which case there are pointers to both.
> Some entries are for items -- suffixes, for instance -- for
> which Pokorny has nothing comparable, and then there's a
> note to the effect that the root isn't in Pokorny.
>
> > What a mess! *Who* is exactly the proponent of this
> > etymology for the name Varun.a?
>
> Watkins apparently supports it, but there's no way to tell
> from the book who originally proposed it.
>
> Brian
>