RE : [tied] Re: North of the Somme

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "caotope" <johnvertical@...> wrote:

>
> > > You're not paying attention. Let's go over this again - there
> > > are two Baltic-Finnic words here, and you seem to be confused
> > > as to what applies to what:
> > > *piki "pitch", a trivial loan from Germanic (which might itself
> > > be a substrate loan, but that's not relevant for BF)
> > > *pihka "resin", regularly cognate with Khanty *peG@...; this link
> > > means it cannot be a West European substrate loan, and confirms
> > > that the *h is from former *S.
> >
> > No, *you* are not paying attention. I said 'substrate loan', not
> > 'West European substrate loan'. A substrate common to FU/Uralic
> > and northern IE.
>
> How far do you think this stretches exactly?

Oh well. I'll repeat myself. The language I'm talking about is Kuhn's ur-/ar- language and Schrijver's language of geminates and language of bird names, all three of which I think is one and the same language.
Kuhn: Das letze Indogermanisch
(in ar-/ur- languages, in the Files section, look at left panel)
'Hier beschränke ich mich nunmehr auf das, was für mein jetziges Thema, wichtig ist.

Dies ist zunächst das Verbreitungsgebiet. Es ist größer als das der
Kraheschen Namengruppen und scheint weithin die Grenzen Europas, die
ich in meine Arbeiten einbezog, zu überschreiten. Es reicht sowohl im
Norden und Westen wie im Süden bis an die Außenküsten unseres
Erdteils, und im Südosten bis mindestens in die Länder um das
Schwarze Meer. Eine Ostgrenze ist mir gänzlich dunkel. In den meisten
Ländern sind diese Namen, soweit ich sehe, dünn gestreut. In
einigen großen Landschaften fehlen sie so gut wie ganz, in anderen
aber geht ihre Häufung weit über den Durchschnitt hinaus. Dieser
starke Wechsel gehörte zum ersten, was meine Aufmerksamkeit auf die
ur-/ar-Namen lenkte. Der nach meiner Kenntnis an ihnen reichste Raum
ist der weite Umkreis der Ardennen. Er läßt sich mit vier Urk-Namen
ungefähr umreißen: im Westen die Ource (zur oberen Seine) und die
Ourcq zur Marne), im Norden die alte Insel Urk (in der Zuidersee) und
im Osten die Orke (zur Eder in Nordhessen, vgl. NoB. 59, S. 55). Urk
als Inselname zeigt uns, wie auch das nun Folgende, zugleich, daß die
erörterten Namen nicht auf Flüsse eingeschränkt waren - es sind viele
Inselnamen unter ihnen, von Griechenland bis Norwegen hin -.'

And Schrijver includes Finno-Ugric in those languages which have borrowed from his substrate language(s?).
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/62677

> Khanty is spoken a few thousands of kilometers away from the
> Germanic hartlands. I don't buy the idea that pre-IE/Uralic
> northern Europe/Siberia spoke only one language.

Because?
At least read Kuhn's articles.

> > > > Anyway, you were saying
> > > > you shouldn't have taken the easy option
> > > > of choosing Germanic in the first place.
> But I'm positing Germanic origin only for Finnic *piki, and this
> link works without problems AFAICT (and as you say, it is also the
> easiest explanation).

Except now you have a BF *pis^k- different from Gmc. substrate *pikk-, after which you declare they're probably related but you don't know how. Occam no like.

> It seemed to me you thought I was trying to make *piSka also a
> Germanic loan?

Of course not. You do it by the book, I've gathered that much.

> And to repeat the part you're failing to grasp with *piSka: Khanty
> *L (voiceless lateral fricativ) can in no way come from
> "preaspiration" or anything of the sort.

How would you know that?

> Taken together with Finnic, this unequivocally points to *-Sk-.

Yes, taken together with Finnic and nothing else. But the languages around them swarm with lookalikes which must be ultimately related, and solving that riddle satisfactorily means finding out how they are related.

> If we want to devise a deeper connection, I would rather compare
> this with *pec^a.

If you leave out one of the supposedly reconstructed FU words your connection won't get very deep.

> > > > Not if the loans was later.
> > >
> > > Too hypothetical for my taste, I like the contamination
> > > explanation
> > > better (thanks for bringing the 2nd word to my attention BTW).
> >
> > Well, suit yourself. But the presence of two similar-sounding
> > reconstructions for similar-meaning sets of cognates should have
> > alerted you to suspect loan.
>
> To clarify: I don't like positing "substrate alternation" or other
> non-explanations

??? What do you understand by 'substrate alternation'?

> (strikes me as akin to sweeping dirt under a
> carpet)

The substrate alternations is the dirt people most often sweep under the carpet (cf. Pokorny *si- "tröpfeln" etc with plenty extensions).

> for irregularities that can be done solidly away in some
> other fashion.

But people don't, because it's not possible.

> Now sure, there might still be a relation between the two roots we
> have remaining after this. That's a whole different topic.

You wish.

> But I think the evidence points to at least *pec^a being an
> original Finno-Permic root, not something that was independantly
> loaned to each branch.

Okay, so
pec^ä ~ penc^ä 'Kiefer, Föhre; Pinus sylvestris' FP
is an original Finno-Permic root, and
pihka FU "resin" (I persevere)

are not related, at least not in a way you'd care to explain?

> > > > > *s'äla > salava "crack willow" (back-harmonized by influence
> > > > > from:)
> > > > > Gmc *salaka > halava "willow"
> > > >
> > > > That one is odd. I see that so many times: Uralic or FU word
> > > > gets influenced in Finnish by some Gmc/IE word which happens
> > > > to sound like it and mean something similar.
>
> > > The only thing coming to my mind are cases where an insecure
> > > and irregular Uralic etymology has later simply been replaced
> > > by a Germanic loan etymology.
> >
> > What's insecure about *s´ala-, *kansa- and *sal3- ?
>
> *kansa "people": Outside of Fennoscandia, the only posited cognates
> are Udmurt kuz, Komi goz, which do not correspond even to _one
> another_ (viz. the initial stop voicing; otherwise possible from
> *kansa). Also, they mean "pair". Germanic > Samic contacts are
> kno'n to exist so that doesn't pose a problem.

Please explain how Germanic-Lapp contacts solve the problem.

> Question remains what should we make of the Permic words, but it's
> clear this cannot be an inherited Uralic word.

How about ascribing it to a substrate?

> And I see no "influence" taking place here at any step - it's quite
> straightforward.

Erh, what? Did I say 'influence'?

> *sal3" "salt": no coherence in vocalic correspondences, and the
> Finnic vocalic structure VV_a points to a loan origin. The initial
> c'- in Mari is also irregular. Finnic *uo ~ Mordvinic *a exists in
> other Iranian loans (eg. *jaana "streak").
>
> *s'ala "elm": Finnic *sala- and Mari *Sol are back-vocalic,
> Mordvinic *s'äl'ej and Hungarian /sil/ front-vocalic. So one
> possible explanation might be:
>
> 1) original Uralic root *s'äla- "to cut"
> 2) a tree name "crack willow" is derived from this

"cut" <-> "break" ?? I don't get it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_willow

> 3a) a secondary (tertiary?) meaning of "elm" develops
> 3b) Finnic and Mari, under IE influence, revert to front-vocalism

Ok, so they are influenced by the IE *sal-ik- which happens to sound and mean similar? That's exactly the uncurious reasoning I'm objecting against. Why were they similar in the first place?

> I however don't get why should there be a common switch to "elm",
> and why should Mari be influenced after that. (Note that elmwood is
> quite sturdy, so the derivation from "to cut" > "tree whose wood
> easily splinters, is easily cut" only works via "willow").
>
> Alternate scenario:
> - Finnic *salaka is an older IE loan (the substitution *s > *h in
> *halaka is typical of Germanic loans only)

?? I thought s > h was a BF development independent of the source of the word (which makes halaka an old, salaka a young substrate loan)?

> - The "elm" words are unrelated, and since the vocalic
> correspondences are irregular, likely from a substrate of some sort.

So they borrowed a word for "elm" which was similar to their own word for "willow"?

> The UEW apparently proposes:
> - original Uralic root *s'ala "elm"
> - *a > *ä in Mordvinic, > i in Hungarian (for whatever ill-defined
> reason)
> - meaning shifts to "willow" in Finnic
> But this is all fairly ad hoc, I'm afraid. At least, I think
> original *ä would work better, since Finnic does have a motivation
> for the change to *a.
>
>
> > And all UEW has to say is 'cf.'
>
> Well, I've said it before: the UEW works mostly as a repository of
> data. (Aluckily a more up-to-date Uralic etymological dictionary is
> in the works.)

I wasn't criticizing UEW's reconstruction. I was criticizing its nonchalant attitude to the mysterious fact that the *sal-ik- root is distributed over all of the FU and IE fanilies.

>
> > (BTW Danish 'savl' "saliva", guessed, with '?', to be from 'a
> side form' *sak- of *sag- "humidity", seems to suggest a substrate
> word *saG-l- instead, which could > *sal- or (metathesis) *sal-G-,
>
> What does saliva have to do with willows anyway?

Slush. Mud. Unhealthy fluid.

>
> > Remember also that the fact that some Baltic Finnic dialect was >
> > spoken in eastern Poland
>
> No. This is very much not a fact, but your own hypothesis.

No. It's documented by
1) Hydronyms
2) Roman authors.

> It would be advisable to keep the two separate.

It is not advisable to keep the question of loans to and between FU and IE languages separate from the question of where they were in contact with each other and with a substrate language.

> > > > > > I add
> > > > > > Lerchner
> > > > > > Studien zum NWGermanischen Wortschatz
> > > > > > 'pit, peddik "merg, zaadkorrel; kracht"
> > > > > (etc.)
> > > > >
> > > > > Stretching the semantics here. I don't think this can be
> > > > > related to "pitch", "resin", "pine".
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > I disagree.
> > > > Pokorny *pei-, *pi- "fat" etc. (I'd say, rather *pi(:)-)
> > >
> > > Via an indirect derivational link
> > > and a variety of suffixes - maybe. But not directly to the
> > > "resin" cluster (the different medial also prohibits that).
> >
> > I've explained how to get rid of the reconstructed BF *-s^-, after
> > that, no problem.
> >
> > Torsten
>
> Derive *pik- from *pei, fine; also derive *piT- from *pei, maybe.
> However, I don't see *piT being derivable from *pik (or vice versa).

But both are from *pit-ik- etc.

> One thing I think makes your thought process hard to follow is that
> you list huge amounts of data but do not explain how exactly do you
> think it's all related.

Don't hesitate to ask.


Torsten