From: Tavi
Message: 68964
Date: 2012-03-13
>Speaking of 'woad', I've seen the Germanic protoform reconstructed as *waizda- (cfr. Greek isatis) elsewhere on this list. As the Latin form is vitrum, there's no possibility of reconstructing anything remotedly similar to a "PIE" root. This is consistent with this being a highly specialized word.
> By the way, *taGla- and *waiDa- are both common Germanic, with only
> tentative cognates outside the branch; the older word supposedly
> translatable as 'tail' survives as Eng. arse -- also an old and
> respectable meaning, very possibly the original one for this word, if
> Hittite evidence is anything to go by. I wonder why 'tail' is number 35
> on the Swadesh list while 'arse' never made it there.
>