Re: Latin merx

> --- 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'.
>
> 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.
> 
> > 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.

>

There's also the root *bhrak-/*bhark- reflected in Greek phrásso:, phratto: 'to crowd together', Latin farcio: 'to fill'.

Although I don't exclude the possibility of semantic contamination in some cases, IMHO Latin merx and related words aren't etymologically connected to 'handle' or 'crowd'. As I mentioned before, we've got the related Etruscan form marXar, pressumably 'trader', which I derive from a protoform *m-HarXwV related to NEC *=HirfVr 'to change' (I implictly assume f=Xw).

With a different output of the cluster *Xw, we've got a root *merH- reflected in Celtic *mar-na- 'to bretray', *mrato- 'to deceit'. The latter is the origin of the Romance verb *barata:re 'to trade; to cheat; to barter', borrowed (through French) into English barter. Also Sino-Tibetan *mre:(H) 'to buy, debt' belongs here.

With a different prefix, we've got *p-HarXwV > *prak-, reflected in Greek prásso:, prátto: 'to deal with, to trade', pratós 'sold'. And with a different output of *Xw also *perH-, reflected in Baltic *pi~rk- (*pe~rk-a-) 'to buy'.