Re: fungus = mushroom

--- 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.
>

This root could be reconstructed as *meuk- ~ *mu:k- ‘mould’. Notice that IE etymological dictionaries give different Greek cognates: mykté:r ‘nostrils, nose’, mýssomai ‘to blow one’s nose’, which IMHO don’t belong here but to a different root (see below). Definitively, mushrooms aren’t exactly the kind of things one would expect to find in noses.

> 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.
>

Oops! I was thinking of CVC(V) roots, which are actually *disyllabic*. But NWC has true monosyllabic CV roots, which constitute a large part of its lexicon and IMHO are a relict of an older stage in language evolution.

This way, NEC *sX\w@...’k’V (~ -?\-) ‘mushroom, tinder’ would be a fossilized compound whose second member is *mVk’k’V, which I relate to the fore mentioned IE *meuk- ~ *mu:k-. And with a bit of speculation, I’d link the first member to these roots:

Altaic *pHoNe ( ~ -i) ‘mildew, slime’

Burushaski *baN ‘gum, resin’

As in the case of Latin mu:c(c)us, the meaning ‘gum, resin’ must be secondary.

 

Similarly, NEC *wimq’V ‘witness; true’ can be analyzed as a prefix *wi- plus a root *mVq’V, which IMHO is genuinely Vasco-Caucasian (Basque begi ‘eye’). Unfortunately, in his own "PSC" reconstruction, Starostin included Burushaski *-moq- ‘face, cheek’, which is at least questionable, but Bengtson made it worse when he added Basque moko ‘beak; extremity, point; face’:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/55833
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/55895
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/55896
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/55898
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/55903

IMHO the Basque word has the same origin than Celtic *bekko- ‘beak’ and Latin bucca ‘mouth; cheek’, with m- arising from secondary nasalization, a non-native feature found also in other words (e.g. berroilo, morroil ‘bolt’). Preservation of *-kk- also points to borrowing, because Paleo-Basque has *h by Martinet’s Law (e.g. Basque aho ‘mouth’).

On the other hand, I think Burushaski *-moq- could be linked to IE *smek(´)- ‘beard, chin’ and possibly also to Greek mykté:r, mýssomai.

 

> Also notice that NEC *m has *nothing* to do with the nasal "infix"

> before the former glottalic stop in *paNka, fungus, etc.
>

In many NEC languages, the resonant is regularly lost in RC (resonant+stop) clusters, so the nasal found in these words must have another origin (e.g. pre-nasalization).

> To the Latin and Uralic forms I’d add Sanskrit páñka- ‘mud,

mire,

> dirt’, Gothic *fanga- ‘mud’ (borrowed into Spanish fango and similar

> Romance forms) and Germanic *funx-t(i)a- ‘wet, moist’, with

> straightforward semantic shifts.

>  

I’d also add these words:

Dravidian *baNk- ‘gum, resin’

Nakh *b(h\)ak’a ‘pine tree; resinous root of pine tree’, wrongly linked by Starostin to NEC *nVk’k’wV ‘pine tree’.

Basque muki (Baztanese) ‘gum, resin (of trees), with secondary nasalization before a back vowel (a non-native feature).

IE *pik- ‘pitch’