> > Without knowing the exact details of the soundlaws which governed
> > borrowing, I still find it implausible (i.e. unprincipled) that an
> > IE word with four consonants would enter Arabic (or any Semitic
> > language) with only three. Note for example Hebrew <pilleges>
> > 'courtesan, concubine' which is identical to Doric <pallax>, Latin
> > <paelex>, etc. The ultimate source is unknown, but Hebrew-
> > speakers did not squeeze out one consonant in order to fit the
> > triliteral system. Plenty of words in Sem. lgs. exist outside the
> > triliteral system.
Sorry, I see what you mean.
The problem would be to explain how Germanic *sk- > Arabic Å¡- (shin).
Now the -k- of *sk- in the Germanic languages, unlike the -t- and -p- of *st- and *sp-, did undergo Grimm-shift in West Germanic ([sx-] in Dutch, further > Å¡ in German and English), but not in North and East Germanic. I imagine there might have existed loans in pre-Grimm Germanic of the type *kY- -> *ks- which by Grimm -> *xs- (or *Å¡-) and finally -> *sx- (-> *sk- in some languages, cf. Zeeuws and Afrikaans).
If so Germanic would have had, at least from the onset of Grimm, two pronounciations of those words, namely with both *sx- and with *Å¡-. English has both *sk- and Å¡- in related words, which is speculatively explained as the first being loans from Norse, the second being native, but I think my explanation covers it better.
That means "shackle" would be both *skakul- and *Å¡akul-, and the latter would have been the source of the Arabic word.
Or slighty differently: consider a loan of *ktiN-, related to Thracian *kti(n)-st- "pure"
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/66719
and Romanian cinste "honor"
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/66734 .
Assume it was borrowed by pre-Grimm Germanic. By Grimm
*ktiN- -> *xþiN-.
By various ad hoc rules (since there is nothing comparable in Germanic) we could get *xsiN-, *ksiN- and *Å¡iN-, whence
*sxir-/*sxin-, *skir-/*skin- and *Å¡ir-/*Å¡in- (sheer, shine).
Torsten