From: Rick McCallister
Message: 57311
Date: 2008-04-15
>but it seems as if the word never existed in Egyptian
> > > > There is supposed a Nubian form qadis (vel
> sim) but it
> > > > makes you wonder why no similar forms in
> Coptic or Berber
> > > > Your explanation seems as good as any.
> > > > Who knows, perhaps Messapia was where cats
> first
> > > > arrived in Italy from Egypt
> > >
> > > I ran across the "Nubian" word cited in an old
> paper, and I don't
> > > know what I did with the reference, but it
> seemed to me like a
> > > mere chance resemblance. The author didn't say
> whether this
> > > "Nubian" word was dialectal Amharic, or from
> some non-AA language,
> > > or what.
> >
> > Nubian is a Nilo-Saharan language from Sudan, very
> likely the same
> > language as that spoken by the ancient Nubians,
> just south of Egypt.
> >
> > > It seems highly unlikely that Europeans would go
> beyond Alexandria
> > > for cats, and highly unlikely that they would
> adopt a word for
> > > 'cat' from distant Nubia, rather than whatever
> Alexandrians
> > > called them, if indeed they needed to adopt a
> new word at all.
> >
> > Given the lack of a similar Egyptian word, I agree
>
>
> Isn't the standard explanation with a geographical
> distribution like
> that to assume the word disappeared in the middle?
>
>
> Torsten
>