Re: My version

dgkilday57:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@...> wrote:
>> [...]
>>
>> Hmm, <aequus> and the tribal name <Aequi>, <Aequicoli> have not to my
>> knowledge been satisfactorily explained, but I do not see how to tie
>> them in with <aes>. On the other hand Lehmann did write something
>> about how <aeger> could be related to <aes>, something about smiths
>> getting sick from the fumes. I'll have to look that one up.

[Here's an answer to your previous message that I've tried to send a
couple of times today, but it was rejected by the system. Finally it
occured to me to read the rejection message and find out that I sent
from the wrong address. -- Added later: Didn't help. It seems that my
e-mail-settings with Yahoo groups had been reset. Has anyone else
experienced that?]

Why can't those tribal names simply mean "the equals", "the equally
honoured"?

Being blissfully ignorant (as you well know from our earlier encounters)
I had an idea a couple of years ago that <aeque> "equally, evenly"
should be parsed as <ae>+<que> in the same way as <susque> and <deque>.
That would make <ae-> a prefix with the meaning "even" or some such,
incorporating words like <aemulor> "copy" <- *"become equal to" and the
Greek icon-word <eikenai>. The whole idea started with the endings Gmc
*-ikaz (?), Lat. <-icus> and Greek <-ikos>.

(Taking it too far, maybe <aevum> and its relatives could fit as an
extension *h2/3ey-w- "force of life" <- "*stamina" <- *"invariability".
I don't know if it's significant, but some WGmc words for "law;
agreement" seem to be from the same root as <aevum> (and 'ever').)

[...]

The fumes of the <aedes>?

[But I see that your actually knowing something adds a certain flavour
of ... plausibility. I'll add something more as an answer to this post:]

> In FS Risch 85-89 Lehmann derives <aes>, <aeger>, and numerous other
> words in various IE languages from PIE *h2ey- (Pokorny's *a(:)i-(4),
> IEW 11); the original sense was apparently 'to light on fire' vel sim.
> (whence also *aidh-). This is not applicable to <aequus>. However, I
> think we can explain it on the basis of *aiwo- and *okwo- (or *h2eyw-
> and *h3ekW- if you like). The original sense of *aiwo- 'having life
> force, youthful' etc. could have become 'persistent, enduring, steady'
> in Old Latin, hence Lat. <aevum>, <aeta:s>, <aeternus> referring to
> duration of time. With Lat. <anti:quus> we have a compound along the
> lines of *anti-okwos 'looking before' > 'existing before (us)', so we
> might posit a parallel *aiw-okwos 'looking persistent' > 'being steady'
> > 'uniform, level', Old Lat. *aivoquos, later *aiviquos, *aiquos,
> <aequus>. As for the tribal names, perhaps the early annalists used
> <Aequicoli:> 'Plain-Dwellers' as a catch-all term for certain plain-
> dwellers south of Rome, with this term reinterpreted later as a
> diminutive, 'the Little Aequi', and <Aequi:> following as the preferred
> generic term for these people in later annalists like Livy. There may
> be a problem with that explanation, however, and the whole derivation
> needs some additional work.

My idea above arose as speculation in the newsgroup
no.fag.spraak.diverse. When reading your second message I remembered
having suggested <anti:que> as a parallel, so I retrieved my old
message, and I see that my discussion partner came up with <posti:cus>
as well. You use *okW- for the suffix of the former, but would
"back-looking" fit the semantics of the latter?

--
Trond Engen
- crossing fingers and all