Re: Scantily Attested PIE Roots in Wiktionary

At 2:03:41 PM on Monday, December 6, 2010, Richard Wordingham wrote:

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

>> At 12:47:31 PM on Sunday, December 5, 2010, Richard
>> Wordingham wrote:

>>> *gHreh1 Eng green, grow, grass

>> It's in Pokorny: (gHre:-), gHro:-, gHr@ 'wachsen, grünen'
>> (p. 454). It's also in Watkins.

> I've now found the entry in Pokorny. He gives some
> uncertain Slavonic cognates, but he also suggests that it
> is probably the same as the homonymous root *gHerh1 'to
> stand out', used of projections from plant stems and of
> bristles. (For the sense, recall that New Guinea Pidgin
> English for 'beard' is literally 'face grass'.) For
> *gHerh1 we have, amongst other words, Russian _gran^_
> 'facet; border' and Bulgarian(?)

I didn't check, but I assume that 'bg. skr.' is Bulgarian
and Serbo-Croatian.

> grána 'branch' and Middle Irish _grenn_ 'beard'.

For what it's worth, Matasovic gives no PIE source for
PCelt. *grando-, *grendo- 'beard', and I didn't spot the
Slavic words in Derksen's inherited Slavic lexicon.

Brian