W dniu 2012-06-03 20:24, Tavi pisze:
> The etymology makes perfectly sense, because the plough breaks earth in
> the same way than a rudder breaks water.
The prototype of the Celtic word(s) would have been something like
*plu-iH, possibly alongside *plu-i-o-. Semantically, given its
morphological derivation, it has to do with the notion of sailing
(that's what *pleu- means), not with breaking water (or earth, or wind).
It certainly doesn't mean 'plough' in Celtic: the plough doesn't sail or
float, you know. There are formal difficulties as well. The NW Germanic
word is *plo:Ga- (or possibly *plo:Gu-), with a long vowel incompatible
with the Celtic short *u, and a velar suffix not seen in Celtic (how did
it get there?). If you can't explain the formal details and correlate
them with the trajectories of borrowing, *plu-iH/o- and *plo:Ga/u-
remain just a pair of lookalikes, not cognates, whether inherited or
borrowed.
Given the attested pattern of vowel substitution between Germanic and
Slavic (*o: -> *u), Slavic *plugU is likely to be a loan from Germanic
rather than the other way round. I don't pretend to know its ultimate
source, but I prefer to admit my ignorance on matter this than to patch
it up with so-so stories.
> IMHO these Germanic-Afrasian (especially Semitic) isoglosses must
> reflect the languages spoken in Central Europe Neolithic.
I can see what your opinion is, but it still looks completely unfounded.
Piotr