From: Bhrihskwobhloukstroy
Message: 68640
Date: 2012-02-29
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
> <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
>>
>> > Given that dogs were domesticated in East Asia, the suggestion the
>> > Sinitic word for 'dog' is an IE loanword (rather than the other way
>> > around) is plainly RIDICULOUS.
>>
>> If domestication was as long ago as 33,000 years BP, the word could
> have passed either way if it is a loan.
>>
> The language involved must have been an ancestor of IE, because the IE
> family didn't exist at that time. I'm also afraid IE-ists weren't aware
> of such a deep chronology before making that proposal.
>
>> More significant is that the word is not just Sinitic, but general
> Sino-Tibetan (no grouping implied), apparently > with Tibetan and Karen
> cognates.
>>
> If you look carefully at data
> <http://newstar.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=/data/si\
> ntib/stibet&text_number=2591&root=config> , you'll see that Sinitic has
> an extra /n/ not found in Tibeto-Burman. This made me suspicious they're
> actually two different words, one for TB and another for Sinitic. And
> while the former is related to the NEC word for 'dog', I think the
> latter evolved from an older root designating some kind of carnivore and
> represented by Yeniseian *ku:n´ (~ g-) 'wolverine' and NEC
> *h\n@:q'q'w@: (~ *h\q'q'w@:n@) 'mouse, rat'.
>
> Interestingly, Altaic has a possible cognate *pHjun[e]
> <http://newstar.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=/data/al\
> t/altet&text_number=1803&root=config> 'a small wild animal' (with
> reduction of the initial labiovelar cluster), from which another 'dog'
> word has developed: Uralic *pene, Kartvelian (Megrel) pin-.
>
>