Re: Res: [tied] Reindeer domestication : two orig ins

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>
> On 2008-12-15 01:51, Joao S. Lopes wrote:
>
> > *k^rh2-ino ?
>
> That would have given something like +xurina- > OE +hyren rather than
> *xraina- > hra:n. Incidentally, *k^erh2- means 'head' rather than
> 'horn' by itself, as opposed to *k^erh2w-.
>
> Another word often thought to belong here but difficult to derive
> is OE hry:þer 'cattle', OHG hrind , MDu. runt, clearly from
> something like *k(^)rent-es-/*k(^)rn.t-es- > *xrinþiz- ~ *xrunðiz-.
> I'm beginning to wonder if *xurna- 'horn' isn't related to _that_
> rather that *k^erh2(w)-.

Why would a word for "reindeer" not be a loan in Germanic?
According to Tacitus, amber was 'glaesum' in Aestian. If that word is
from PIE *gel- "freeze, coagulate" or *g^el- "shine" (probably the
same root *g^el- anyway), Aestian did not have initial stress, nor did
the language(s) from which *xraina- and *xrinþiz- ~ *xrunðiz- were
borrowed.


Torsten