From: Richard Wordingham
Message: 68306
Date: 2011-12-27
> PARALLEL WORLD?The old dictum that the connection between meaning and form is arbitrary should be replaced by the observation that the connection between meaning and form is *weak*. For example, these parallels remind me of Thai _klom_1_ 'round, spherical', _klum_2_ 'classifier for balls of string' and _klum_1_kO:n_2_ 'mass, clump'. (Numbers are tones, counting from 1.)
> Finally, the only remaining remark worthy of mentioning on this subject is the unusual respective similarities of I.E. terms with those found in Classical Arabic which, as you all know, is from an unrelated family language.