Re: Germanic 'bear'

At 5:40:53 PM on Saturday, March 3, 2012, Tavi wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
> <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>> It's *Ber-an-, actually, and it's derived from
>> *g^Hwe(:)r- by many, including Don Ringe (2006, _From
>> Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic_, p. 106). He
>> follows Seebold (1967) in claiming that word-initial *gWH
>> and (diphonemic) *g^Hw give Germanic *B "regularly".
>> While the proposal is not uncontroversial (being
>> supported by a very small amount of data), this etymology
>> of Germanic 'bear' is at least more elegant than the mere
>> root equation between 'bear' and 'brown'.

> IMHO this is nothing but a fairy tell (in any case, the
> color would be derivated from the name of the animal and
> not the other way around).

Not if it were a taboo replacement, 'the brown one'. Mind
you, I prefer the derivation that makes it cognate with Gk.
θήρ (the:r) and Lat. ferus, but that doesn't change the fact
that such a replacement is possible.

Brian