Re: Nori

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
<richard.wordingham@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@> wrote:
> >
> > At 3:53:38 PM on Saturday, September 13, 2008, Arnaud
> > Fournet wrote:
> >
> > > By the way, as you are talking about Germanic homeland,
> > > you can check in Starostin's databases the word "child",
> > > Yeniseian zi-l < g^il
> >
> > You won't find either form in his Yenisseian etymology
> > database at
> >
> <http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/query.cgi?

root=config&morpho=0&basename=\data\yenisey\yenet>.

>
> Or http://preview.tinyurl.com/574cgl to get directly to the entry,
> which I would have written as *Z1l if I, like Arnaud, had more
> confidence than Starostin in the vowel to reconstruct. (I'm afraid

I

> didn't realise that 'i-' was meant to be a vowel symbol.) 'z^_l
> (vowel unclear)' is probably the best way to cite it. 'Vowel

unclear'

> actually makes the etymology look less weak, for then one can

include

> the possible Swedish and Danish cognates. If you insist on the

vowel,

> all you have for Germanic cognates is Gothic _qilþei_ 'womb'.

English

> _child_ is not a word for which one can confidently clain a
> Proto-Germanic origin.
>
> Richard.
>

That's <kilthei> "womb" not <qilthei>, beside
<inkiltho:> "pregnant". Thus sufficiently similar to OE <cild> and
NE <child>. Cf. the ME (and still NE) expression "with child"
= "pregnant" - perhaps the *kelth- words originally referred to the
pregnant womb, and then in English came to be associated with what
was in the womb that made it pregnant -- i.e. "foetus" or "product of
parents", then extended to after the foetus was birthed, a "child"
("foetus" > "baby" > "infant" > "child").

Andrew