From: Joao S. Lopes
Message: 70738
Date: 2013-01-21
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Tavi" wrote:
> Latin ursus looks like a loanword from a "satem" language,
> possibly Georgiev's "Pelasgian".
De Vaan (Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the Other Italic Languages, s.v. ursus) proposes that "some kind of tabooistic distortion probably affected the word for 'bear' [in Latin]."
> From our previous discussion about sound correspondences of the
> IE 'bear' word, I'd recall the velar stop in Hittite hartagga-
> doesn't derive from a "thorny cluster" but rather from a suffix like
> Turkic qarsaq 'steppe fox', a long-range cognate.
The Hittite form is phonetically hartak(k)a- < hartka-, perfectly explainable as a reflex of PIE *h2r.tk'o- 'bear'. See Puhvel at
http://tinyurl.com/ayra9ga
Regards,
Francesco