Re: fungus = mushroom

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:

>
> What may be related to the root is English punk "street criminal, miscreant, homosexual," originally meaning "tinder, soft wood," but also confused with "punch" i.e. to "get punked" --i.e. "to be anally raped." I'm guessing it's one of Torsten's NWB/Venetic words.
> 

The OED considers English spunk to be a loanword from Gaelic spong 'tinder', itself a Latin borrowing ultimately from Greek. So this is no "root" but rather a Wanderwort.

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Tavi" oalexandre@ wrote:
>
> Not really, because this isn't IE at all, although it could be remotedly linked to an IE root. For example, in Greek itself we've got mýke:s 'mushroom', possibly linked to Latin mu:cor 'mould' (but possibly not mu:c(c)us), as well as Germanic *mu:gV, *mugg-o:n, *mug-l-io:n 'mould' and Baltic *muk-l- 'wet, soak', the latter with a semantic shift.
>
> From my own experience with Starostin's reconstructions, I think IE *m- could correspond to *m in NEC *sX\w@...'k'V, thus making them cognates.
>

A similar correspondence can be found e.g. between NEC *wimq'V 'witness; true' and Sino-Tibetan *mjuk- 'eye'. As NWC and Sino-Tibetan are largely monosyllablic, I think bisyllablic NEC roots like these ones are actually *fossilized* compounds prefix+root or root+root.

Also notice that NEC *m has *nothing* to do with the nasal "infix" before the former glottalic stop in *paNka, fungus, etc.