Re: Portuguese, Spanish bode "buck"

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@...> wrote:

>
> > *Bhr.: Professor Hubschmid's views about non-Indo-European etyma
> > indeed changed, though very late, between late Eighties and early
> > Nineties; after some years of shocked astonishment I realized that

the

> > classical Pre-Indo-European schema was based upon a stratification

of

> > unverified assumptions and that Proto-Indo-European etyma were
> > immensely more trustworthy, but I'm still open to change my mind

again

> > and again if I'll have time to be made persuaded.
>
> I agree that ceteris paribus, we should prefer an IE etymology for a

word attested in an IE language, but it is possible to go overboard with
this principle. (And also overboard in the other direction, ascribing
almost every difficult word to non-IE, like Tavi and the early
Bertoldi.)

>

It depends on whether one considers the material found in IE languages
to be from a single "PIE" layer/protolanguage as a result of a single
linguistic event, or rather from several stratified layers resulting
from different linguistic events. In the former approach, there's no
room for non-IE, as everything (except perhaps a small residue) must be
IE by definition. But in the latter, one can argue if only the most
recent layer is IE or also the older layers (e.g. *akWa: 'water' or
*abVl- 'apple') should be considered to be IE. To quote two different
points of view, Villar labels them as "paleo-IE" and Beekes as "non-IE".

> > As to lambs' stoutness (does this word exist?), I perfectly agree
> > with You, but You should rather ask our beloved Old (High) German

(or

> > Germanic or regional Indo-European) ancestors, because Butze is

really

> > 'Lämmchen' and butz, butzel (sorry I had mistakenly omitted -l,
> > although my reconstruction implied it) does mean 'Person oder Tier

von

> > kurzer, dicker Gestalt'
>
> Yes, and lambs could be fattened up for feasts, so I have no serious

objection to this connection.

>

But if you replace 'lamb' by 'plumcake' it would work the same!