Re: Res: [tied] Reindeer domestication : two origins

From: tgpedersen
Message: 62108
Date: 2008-12-16

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Arnaud Fournet" <fournet.arnaud@...>
wrote:
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
> >> >
> >> ===================================
> >> I don't understand "much worse" ?
> >> Could you comment on that ?
> >>
> >> A.
> >
> > That the situation is much more complicated than we would like it
> > to be. My personal guess is that what we see is a transfer of
> > some idea of how the world is run (a.k.a. 'religion' and
> > 'geometry' and 'physics' in other contexts).
> > Try searching 'Torsten' and 'bull' in the archives.
> > (You don't need to comment that line, Rick)
> >
> > Torsten
> >
> ===========
>
> Well, we can make everything complicated thru lumping everything
> together and then admire the huge awesome mountain thus created.
> I'm not sure this is a scientific method.

Your mother must have loved you very much.


> The relationship between *kor-nu- "horn" and *ker-H2-w "head" may
> be an illusion.
> If *kornu is a LW from Semitic *qarnu, as it seems to be,
> then we got something interesting.
> And Semitic itself is from *qar-

Obviously Semitic is a stopover on the way from the Far East.


> I see nothing compelling with the idea that "horns" are
> half-circles or whatever.

I am sure your mother would consider that statement compelling evidence.

Horns are considered to be a symbol of the crescent moon.
Google 'bull' 'horn' crescent'.


> Why should a horn not just be a horn ?

Because if it were, there would be no reason to borrow a word for it.
The same goes for *taur- etc.

> A.
>

Torsten