--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Joao S. Lopes" <josimo70@...> wrote:
>
> [...] A PIE *swelp- 'burn, smoulder', which occurs as an attested
verb in Tocharian (i.e. sälp- 'be set alight, burn', has an old
nominal derivative *swélpL- (gen. *Sulplós), that shows up in Both
Germanic (OE swefl) and Lat sulphur as the word for 'sulphur'(that
which burns) [...]
Germanic yes, but I do not agree that <sulphur> belongs here, since
lumping it with <swefl> and the rest fails to explain the aspiration
and the -r. I prefer to take <sulphur>, <mamphur>, <scintilla>, and
<ra:menta> as a group entering classical Latin from Sabino-Latin
(hence their peculiar phonology) in connection with the fire-making
ritual. I see the second element of <sulphur> and <mamphur> as the P-
Italic for 'fire', with secondary aspiration in this position in the
Sabino-Latin dialect (not in Sabine itself).
> I picked these lines from The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-
European and the Proto-Indo-European World (J. P. Mallory, D. Q.
Adams), via Google Books.
>
> My point is... this *swelp- seems very plausibly akin to Greek
thalpos (gen. thalpous) "sun heat". Obviously a correspondence th<sw
is not regular, it seems an IE "Para-Greek" adstratum. Is
it plausible?
> If some Para-Greek dialect has *th- < PIE *sw-, we'd be able to
find more words. Let's try:
> *swe- "own" > *the-
> *swel- (*sh2wel-) "sun" > *thel-, *thal-
> *swerd- "black, soothy" > *therd-
> *swen- "to sound" > *then-
>
> I didnt found good words fitting in this scheme, until now,
although ethnonyms beginning with *THE- like Thesprotos, Thespios,
Thessalos, Thestios could came from *swe-. At least
thessalos/phettalos comes from *qHetYalos, which could avoid such
comparation. Trying again with an usual compound *swe-bHwo- (cf.
Suabii, Sabazius, svobodI, Sabinus), we may suppose a *thepho- >
*tepho- (or *thebo-)
The form <Petthaloi> shows that two aspirates are required in
<Thessaloi> and I believe we can connect with Epic <thessomai> and
<pothos>, from a root *ghwedh- 'to long for' vel sim., the idea being
that the Thessalians longed for wealth, stable homes, etc.
DGK