Re: Hercynian (again)

At 5:14:56 AM on Thursday, March 1, 2012,
Bhrihskwobhloukstroy wrote:

> 2012/3/1, Brian M. Scott <bm.brian@...>:

>> At 5:34:14 PM on Wednesday, February 29, 2012,
>> Bhrihskwobhloukstroy wrote:

>>> Yet it's quite curious that we find crash 'to fall with
>>> a noise' apparently with the very *-sk- inchoative
>>> suffix suffix and the root of crack 'to resound', Dutch
>>> kraken, but Old High German krahhon with expected -hh-,
>>> Armenian krkač̣ 'to make noise' again with /k/ =
>>> Germanic /k/ and Lithuanian girgiždė́ti 'to creak', Old
>>> Indic gárjati 'roars'. It really looks like a PIE
>>> *grog'-sk'oh2

>> It really looks like a Middle English echoic formation,
>> parallel to <clash> and sharing a sound-symbolic final
>> element with <dash>, <smash>, <splash>, etc.

> If crash is of Middle English origin, how do You explain
> the corresponding words in other languages?

Outside of Continental Scandinavian, where they also seem to
be late and look like parallel echoic formations, I see no
corresponding words in other languages. In particular, I do
not think that <crash> and <crack> are related by any
regular derivational process.

Brian