Re: Uralic Loanwords in Germanic

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...> wrote:

>
> At 9:10:08 PM on Tuesday, February 2, 2010, stlatos wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "bmscotttg" <BMScott@>
> > wrote:
>
> >> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "david_russell_watson"
> >> <liberty@> wrote:
>
> >>> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Arnaud Fournet"
> >>> <fournet.arnaud@> wrote:
>
> >>>> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "david_russell_watson"
> >>>> <liberty@> wrote:
>
> >>>>> The latter from P.I.E. *kan-tlom, no doubt.
>
> >>>> How do you explain -tele out of -tlom- ?
> >>>> Why should it not be kantolo or kantala !?
> >>>> => very strange vocalic scheme.
>
> >>>> 8 messages. None of them explains how kan-tlom could be
> >>>> become kantele.
>
> >> And here, ladies and gentleman, we have a fine specimen
> >> of homo inattentus.
>
> > Did you also consider the first reply an obvious joke,
>
> Next time you respond to a year-old message, at least have
> the courtesy to give a link;

The previous messsages in the thread can be seen on the website; look at the links below the message.

> Yes, it was an obvious joke, for reasons that have nothing
> at all to do with the word itself; apparently you're as
> inattentive as Arnaud was. Look at the original post, which
> you will find at
> <http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/62491>;
> in particular, note the last line before the signature.

I know it was meant as a joke; it shouldn't have been made at all (later he saw that Piotr had made the same comparison I did years before, and apparently with someone he saw as a "competent linguist" saying so, went back on his belief they were unrelated (or, at least, obviously unrelated)). Seeing the "smiley", whether Arnaud saw it or recognized it, wouldn't make his meaning clear since the two words were obviously related in some way and Arnaud merely wanted an explanation of the -e-e instead of -(a)-a; the joke assumed they were obviously unrelated and only an incompetant fool (presumably meant to be Sean Whalen) would think they were, hence there was no -tle: > -tele or -tlom > -tala possible.

Assuming Arnaud had recognized the "smiley", he would have no reason to think it indicated that the joke was that two words were unrelated to begin with, hence Arnaud's question had no answer besides a joke at any who thought it did. For example, it could have been meant, still in the context of contempt for Sean Whalen's ideas, of course, that all that recent discussion about words < *kantlo+m that don't look EXACTLY like *kantlo+m certainly was foolish, but here's the real deal, no silly Whalen-style method needed to see the obvious; or that, though he had been arguing against certain words < *kantlo+m, he's happy (smiling) to agree that this does since it fits known sound changes; or just that he's happy (smiling) to give help (and that what he wrote above was true and simple); or some other reason people use emoticons.

The biggest problem Arnaud, or anyone else reading the message, would have is that the two words were obviously related (assuming a basic knowledge of IE linguistics), so someone with that knowledge and speaking of it and saying that the two words were obviously related would have given no reason to show that he thought that the two words were obviously unrelated, that he was being sarcastic, and he had said the exact opposite of what he believed for some unknown reason I still can not explain or understand.

> > since you don't believe they're related by borrowing?
>
> You have no idea what I believe about them:

Yes, hence my question.

> I've never said
> anything about the matter at all, directly or indirectly.
> (No, my comment to Arnaud has nothing to do with my
> understanding of the history of the word in question.)

And now I have the answer to my question. Yet, as I said, even if Arnaud had known it was meant as a joke in from the beginning, he would have had no way to interpret it as it was meant. That is, how would he know it was meant that he shouldn't believe the two words were related (since they obviously were, he would have believed the respondent believed it too, especially since that's what he wrote, and the "smiley" could indicate something else).