From: dgkilday57
Message: 66195
Date: 2010-06-11
>This connection is denied by Osthoff (IF 6:9-14, 1896), who refers the Skt. word to IE *mr.k^-, citing also the noun <mars'anam>. Vulcan is not known for touching things lightly, but for melting metals, and his epithet <Mulciber> (with the suffix *-dHro-) is most likely 'Melter', indicating that Lat. <mulceo:> literally meant 'I cause to melt' or 'I soften', later used in a figurative sense.
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
> >
> > An IE root *merk^- is found in the zero-grade in Sanskrit <mr.s'áti> 'he touches, grasps, handles' and in Greek <brakeîn> 'to come together, meet, assemble', <bráketon> 'crowd', <bráttein> (*brákyein) 'to fill, load heavily' and <dusbrákanos> 'hard to handle'.
>
> The Sanskrit word comes from IE *mºlk^- 'to touch lightly', a root also found in Latin mulceo: 'to stroke, touch lightly, fondle'. See Mallory & Adams (2006), p. 335.
> > It is plausible that the normal grade of the same root occurs in Italic with Latin <merx> 'merchandise, wares', <merce:s> 'price, reward', <merca:ri:> 'to conduct trade', <Mercurius> 'god of trade', Faliscan <Mercus> 'god of trade', and Oscan <amiricatud> 'without remuneration'. The basic sense of *merk^- is likely 'to handle'. The development in Italic is then parallel to German <handeln> 'to trade', <Handel> 'traffic, trade'. A similar development in Greek would explain <bráketon> originally as 'market-place', like Latin <merca:tus>, then 'crowd at the market-place, crowded assembly, mass of people, full load', etc. But <dusbrákanos> preserves the original force of the root.No we must not. Hofmann and Watkins, who support this, do not specialize in the field of Etruscan loanwords in Latin. There is no parallel for Latin or (Italic) borrowing a whole set of stems, *merk-, *merka:-, *merku-, *merke:d- from Etruscan, and no evidence for such a root in Etruscan texts. An IE etymology is very likely.
> >
> If Latin merx is indeed related to Greek brakeîn, an IE etymology is most unlikely. According to several authors, the Latin word is most likely an Etruscan loanword, so we must look in that direction.
> The Greek word has a doublet parptó: 'to catch, seize, lay, hold off, overtake'. Beekes then devises a Pre-Greek root *mr(a)kW- > brap-, brak- with different outputs of the labiovelar cluster. Long-range relatives of this root might be:Beekes's error of making only superficial changes to Furne'e's completely wrong-headed Pre-Greek reconstructive methodology is most unfortunate, but such matters probably belong on the other list.
>
> - Sino-Tibetan *mre:(H) 'to buy, debt' ~ IE *per- 'to exchange' (in particular Baltic *pi~rk- (*pe~rk-a-) 'to buy')
> - Uralic *mOrV 'hollow hand, palm of hand' (in particular Hungarian márok, marék 'hollow hand; handful; fist, palm')