From: Tavi
Message: 69781
Date: 2012-06-06
>As I said before, this etymology would explain plug but not plough. In case you haven't noticed, vowel quantity is different in both words.
> Then you pretty much solved "plow" --it's from IE *bhelg- "a thick plank, a beam" which is exactly what wooden and metal-tipped wooden plows look like in Central America and other places that I've seen in pictures.
> *bhlugo- > Celtic or NWB/Venetic/Rhaetic *blug- > Germanic *plux- "plug or block, plug or block shaped thing (such as a plow" which makes a whole hell of a lot sense more than "land rudder"
>
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@...> wrote:
>
> > As many other Germanic words with initial p-, 'plug' is possibly a NWB
> > loanword corresponding to native 'block':
>
> Lucky for you, Torsten is on vacation. Hans Kuhn's NWB substrate does not work this way. It preserves inherited PIE */p/, unlike Celtic, and loans words to post-Grimm's Law lowland West Germanic, so that the latter has a few words with initial /p/ which would have initial /f/ by ordinary inheritance. You can find examples in Kuhn's paper "Anlautend P im Germanischen".
>
In that case, there must be other substrates from which Germanic words with initial p- have originated, as truly native words with that consonant are extremely rare, and I'm sure 'plough' isn't among them. Considering the likely relationship with Latinized Rhaetic plaumoratum, which one would you suggest?