From: alexandru_mg3
Message: 64091
Date: 2009-06-09
>Slavic veselU could well be a loan from Balkan via OCS
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@> wrote:
>
> > I have a new tentative proposal concerning the "wisent" word. Not
> > anything seriously developed yet, but perhaps worth considering as an
> > alternative to the usual stinker etymology. We have this evidently
> > archaic root *wes-, which occurs in Hitt. wesiya- 'graze' < *wés-je/o-
> > and westara < *wés-tor- 'shepherd', OIr. fess and OIc. vist 'food' <
> > *wes-tah2, PGmc. *wes-a-/*wis-i- 'feast', etc. I am pretty convinced
> > that the 'spring' word *we:s-r./*wes-n- belongs here as well, with the
> > etymological meaning of '(the onset of) the grazing season'. So perhaps
> > the Germanic wisent was, somewhat prosaically, 'the grazer' (*wés-(o)nt-
> > > *wesanð- ~ *we/isunð-) rather than 'the stinker'.
>
> And Proto-Slavic *veselU (c) 'merry' < *'satisfied' (pace Vasmer: to Old Indic vásu- 'good')?
>
> Sergei
>