From: stlatos
Message: 64221
Date: 2009-06-20
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Miguel Carrasquer" <mcv@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 4:43 PM
> Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Yellow as an PIE word
>
>
>
> > Lat. viridis, from vireo "to be green", root *wis-/*weis- "to grow".
>
> This reminds me of European rivernames with *-w(e)is-, such as the Wear, the Weser, and the Vistula. They are traditionally assigned en masse to the 'stink, poison, mud' root, together with <virus> (*weisos) and <bison> (*wis(o)nto-). How about connecting them (or at least some of them) with German Wiese 'meadow' and OE wi:sc (*weiska-) 'piece of meadow in the bend of a river' instead? From the purely topographical point of view a Germanic *weisk-(V)lo: would make more sense as the etymology of Vistula/Viscla.
>
> Piotr
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> my proposal
> concerning the wisent word does not invalidate the reconstruction of
> *weis- as in Lat. vi:rus etc. or its hydronymic connections.
> Babik (2002) devotes five pages to the Wisl/a in his book on the oldest
> layers of Polish toponymy. According to him, the cluster -stl- is in all
> likelihood original (Lat. <-scl-> and later forms with <-sl-> being
> secondary) and the -x- in Weichsel (first attested in the late Middle
> Ages) may reflect an epenthesised -k- of Baltic (Old Prussian) origin or
> some sort of hypercorrection/folk etymology in German. Babik regards the
> name as too old to be safely attributable to any known linguistic group;
> he even doubts if it's etymologisable at all. I wouldn't bee so
> pessimistic. The traditional etymology *weis-tlah2 doesn't look bad to me.
> Piotr
Did you notice you connected a word for 'river' with another for 'meadow' and both have a form with and without k?
Instead of 'river', I'll start with 'meadow' or 'valley' (later > 'river valley', etc., in some forms. One word is often reconstructed *walsu\welsu+ \ *waslu\weslu+ with some details left uncertain because of apparent oddities.
Since there is alt. e/a, I'd say the l was really L (with velar effects like k), which would cause Ls > Ls. in IE branches (like *LaLs > *LaLs. > las.-, lasci:vus, etc.). Ks. > s.K could also occur (like *tags.o+ / *tas.go+ 'badger', *gWHd.er.+ > S ks.ar-, Av Gz^ar- / z^gar- 'flow') so:
weL-su+
weL-su+ waL-su+
weL-s.u+ waL-s.u+
weL-s.u+ wes.-Lu+ waL-s.u+ was.-Lu+
This word formed an adj. / loc. weLs.uyó+ (like S sáras-, sarasyá-) which > G E:lúsion pedíon :
weL-s.u-yó+
weL-_us.-yó+
we_-Lus.-yó+
wee-Lus.-yó+
E:lúsion
The met. likely occurred because us > us. also, so it was a possible location for s., etc. L moved to fill the vacancy left by s., then that vac. (which, in the coda, counted for a mora) was filled by the vowel (in a way common across many languages).
In Slavic and Germanic, a similar met. occurred after Ls. > Lks., as well as alt. like s.k > s.t., etc., which I've mentioned before.
weL-s.u-yó+,
weL-s.u-yááx, etc.
weL-s.u-yááx
weL-s.u-yáá
weLk-s.u-yáá
weyk-s.u-Láá
weyk-s.u-Láá weyt.-s.u-Láá
weyk-s.u-Láá weyt.-s.u-Láá
weys.-ku-Láá weys.-t.u-Láá (opt)
In Slavic
weys.-ku-Láá weys.-t.u-Láá
weis.-ku-Láá weis.-t.u-Láá
weis-ku-Laa weis-tu-Laa
weis-kU-Laa weis-tU-Laa
wiis-kU-Laa wiis-tU-Laa
wis-kU-La wis-tU-La
wisk-La wist-La
and
weyk-s.u-Láá weyt.-s.u-Láá
wiks-Laa wits-Laa
wiks-Laa wis-Laa
In Germanic (among other forms; not important)
weys.-ku-Láá weyt.-s.u-Láá
weys.-ku-wáá weyt.-s.u-wáá
weys.-káá weyt.-s.áá (w-w>0 dis)
wi:sc Wiese
The uL > uw just as in:
sxuLn.a:x
sxuLn.a:
sxuwn.a:
sxun.wa:
sxunwa:
sxunna:
sxunno:
sunno:
The w-w>0 dis. also deleted u as if from original CCw > CCuw (a regular change), with no u in the deep structure (since speakers at the time had no way of knowing that this w < L unlike most others).