From: stlatos
Message: 65813
Date: 2010-02-08
> > I'd also add, if you did take Piotr's message seriously, that he once was open to the consideration that F Suomi << Indic *ks.oom 'earth', which is similar in its lack of certainty and its need for assumptions to my *kantli:x \ *kantla:x >> kítharis \ kithára: (in this case, I'd say the former was actually much less likely than the latter, since F Suomi < suo + maa 'swamp land' or 'fen land' is nearly certain).The stem is Suoma-, and several Finnish words ending in -i have stems with -a- (this is because of an old nom -y (corresponding to Old Japanese words in -e with compounds in -a-)).
> You seem to be tossing "nearly certain" around lightly. *so:mi < *so:-ma: is certainly not "nearly certain" in the sense of being the accepted option, nor in the sense of being problemless (no regular process based on this etymology explains the final *-i, and Finland Proper is not particularly swampy).
> (Which is not to say that *ks.o:m sounds any better - but not really much worse either. This should yield **ho:mi.That depends on when it was borrowed. ks > s could have happened at the start of a word at any time; o: > uo at one time.