From: stlatos
Message: 66479
Date: 2010-08-23
>>
> > The existence of Khowar òhts 'bear' makes it likely that Finnish otso \ ohto was borrowed from an Indo-Iranian l. like Kh, possibly even proto-Kh.
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, johnvertical@... wrote:
>
> No, _otso_ is a recent hypercorrection based on _ohto_ (cf. Tampere dialectal _ketsu_ pro _kettu_ "fox"), which derives from older *okti . The unsuffix'd form _oksi_, gen. _ohden_, has been depreciated for taboo reasons but survives in placenames.
>
> Also cf. Mordvinic _ovto_ (where -o would be regular from either of -o and -i).
>
> The IE original needed to explain this *whole* bundle would need a shape similar to *okti; that some Dardic language happens to have a reflex that also has -tso is clearly nothing but a coincidence.
>
There is no IE l. with -i; it's an o-stem and IE shows s/t variation itself (árktos/ursus), with no need for an explanation internal to Finnish (many languages change t>s in certain positions; Fin. didn't before o; I've seen no ev. for *okti). Nuristani has íts < *ihtsÀ < *xiRks.ò (perhaps being closely related to Khowar would somehow invalidate it for you, but if you absolutely can't live without *okti you could assume metathesis; I don't see any need for any l. but Khowar here).
Khowar òhts has -hts-, not just the -tso you said, which had already been posited as the source of otso/ohto (as the proto-l. apparently had no 3-C-clusters, and so borrowed it in both ways with 2) before Khowar òhts was known. No other possibile form in any branch of IE can match it, and Khowar matches it exactly.
Your supposed "Dardic ... coincidence" is rationally impossible since the forms otso/ohto lack -r- in spite of their IE origin and Khowar changed r>R>X>h (in newer borrowings R>X>x) there, still perfectly detectable.