From: stlatos
Message: 62301
Date: 2008-12-28
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "stlatos" <stlatos@> wrote:I don't know it's correct, it's just ev. of another possible
> > (like asparagus > sparrowgrass, *harbena- > hornbeam, etc.).
> Off the topic: what is this "*harbena- > hornbeam"? Both OED and
> Webster's say "hornbeam" is merely from <horn> + <beam>, being a hard
> tree like horn (also formerly "hardbeam"). Where did you find that
> etymology and how do you know it's correct? (Latin <carpinus>, the
> name if its genus, does have a form similar to *harbena- if the latter
> is a Gmc form.)
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> I haven't got G/I at home, but as far as I recall, *(s)grobHo- is
based mainly on Slavic *grabU (though it doesn't account for the
Slavic long vocalism); supportive evidence is provided by Latin
carp-i:nus (with formidable phonological complications, of course, and
the possibility that English hornbeam is a folk-etymological
distortion of a related word), plus several obscure Italic, Illyrian
and Macedonian terms containing <grab->. I'll check the hornbeam
tomorrow in Friedrich's article on PIE trees and in the EIEC, in case
I've forgotten something important.
>