Re: woad

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@...> wrote:

>
> > 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.
>
> See message #68217, which corrects my earlier posts. I regard the /z/r/-less forms 'meed', 'woad', 'kien' as borrowed from NWB *me:do:-, *waida-, *kaina- in which the */z/ between a vowel and a voiced consonant was vocalized. OE <weard>, <werd> reflect inherited Gmc. *wazDa- 'woad', and Go. <ouisdil> (etc.) reflects Gmc. *wizDila- with /e/-grade, from PIE *wezdH-. In my opinion the Greek and Latin words are unrelated to this.
>

I strongly disagree. Firstly, 'woad' is semantically linked to 'glass', because in ancient times glass had a blueish colour. This is why Germanic *glása-/*glazá- 'glass' is cognate to Celtic *glasto- 'green, blue', reflected in the Gaulish word glossed in Latin as glastum 'woad' (Pliny). They're derivates from PIE *g´helh3-/*ghelh3- 'yellow, green'.

Secondly, the voiced fricative in Germanic must be a consequence of Verner's Law, leading to a protoform (I won't call this a "PIE" root) *wai-t-, while the other forms would lead to *wai-s-t-/*wi-s-t-/*wi-t-r-. I regard these formations as being parallel to the Baltic outputs of "PIE" *k´wei-t- 'white', e.g. Lithuanian svitra-s 'sand; glass; sandpaper'.

IMHO this as a Vasco-Caucasian loanword from NEC *?VqqWo-ji- 'white, light, blueish', a derivate of *=eqqwA 'yellow'. So I guess the 'woad' words ultimately derive from some Neolithic language where the initial labiovelar cluster was reduced to /w/. As many other plants, woad (Isatis tinctoria) was imported to Europe in the Neolithic.

This Vasco-Caucasian etymology is also the source of "PIE" *gWhai- 'light, bright', with Baltic outputs such as Lithuanian gai~sa-s 'glow, redness in the sky', Latvian gàiss 'air, wheather', gàis^s 'bright, clear', gaisma 'light'. IMHO Latin caesius 'light blue' and caerul(e)us 'blueish' are Etruscan loanwords from this root.