Re: Sos-

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Arnaud Fournet" <fournet.arnaud@...>
wrote:

>
>
> >
> > ==========
> >
> > I would rather compare this *sos to
> >
> > Number: 929
> > Proto: *sOsV-
> > English meaning: to become wet
> > German meaning: nass werden
> > Finnish: (suostu- 'feucht werden' - rejected by Redei)
> > Komi (Zyrian): sez- 'feucht werden'
> > Khanty (Ostyak): lal- (V) 'feucht, nass werden', jal- (Vj. id.;
> > frisch, weich werden', tat- (Kam.) 'quellen, dicht werden (im
> > Wasser)', lol (Kaz.) 'feucht, naß machen, befeuchten'
> > Mansi (Vogul): tat' (TJ), tot- (KU), tit- (P), tit- (So.) 'nass
> > werden'
> >
> > All the more so as this root is massively attested in Ob and
> > Yenissei waterbasins in hydronyms.
>
> That root? How do you know?
> It makes no sense to call a river 'the wet one', a name must have
> the property of singling its referent out among the potential
> candidates, thus to mention a special, not a general property of
> the water body in question.
>
> =======
>
> It may make no sense to you.
>
> but there are twenty pages full of Uralic Hydronyms in Werner
> Yeniseic Dictionary.

If you are this fuzzy all the time, I won't know if you have made any
sense of what I said.
In what sense are those words Uralic hydronyms? Do they mean
"wetness"? I can accept a word for "river" like 'Avon' being loaned,
but not words for general humidity.


Torsten