Re: leopard

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

>
> > > Russian <bars>, according to Gamqrelidze & Ivanov, is borrowed

from

> > > Turkic <ba:rs>, in turn from Persian <pa:rs>.
> > >
> > > G & I (not unexpectedly) claim that the word is PIE, based on

Hitt.

> > > <parsana>, the Persian word, as well as the Grk. and Skt. forms

you

> > > mention above (plus Sogdian <pwrD'nk>). I don't recall how they

want

> > > to explain the *pard- ~ *pars- alternation. Not very likely.
> >
> > IMHO this isogloss can be explained as two different results from a
> > dental affricate in NEC *bX\erts'i 'wolf; jackal', a root apparently
> > cognate to Altaic *borso 'badger' (Turkic, Korean, Japonic).
>
> If you want to use Starostin's rec., at starling.rinet.ru there is

ev. for the word 'badger'. In Turkic languages this is borsuq, morzuq,
etc.

>

That's right.

> Now, grouped within North Caucasian:
>
> Meaning: badger
>
> Tsezi: birušo
>
> Ginukh: birušo
>
> Bezhta: beruse
>
> Gunzib: miruš
>
> The alt. b/m is diagnostic of relationship between 'badger' and

'badger'; much more likely than 'badger' and 'wolf'.

>

But this clearly can't be a native word but a *loanword*. By contrast,
genuine cognates in distantly related language families most often show
semantic drifts because of the large chronologies involved, measured in
a scale of tens of thousands of years.