From: cewhalen
Message: 71186
Date: 2013-04-12
>PGmc. * wrat(i)jo:N > X wrette OE; not wrætte = madder OE; (as * sodeyo/e- > * satiyanaN > settan). It MIGHT be from PGmc. * wratujo:N since mid u > u/i/a opt.
>
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > Sumerian _urud_ 'copper' (the -u is the Akkadian nominative suffix from glossaries) is in my opinion borrowed from Balkano-Danubian *wrod- 'red', cognate with PIE *h1r(e)udH-. We are not talking about a specialized color like mauve or taupe. All of us have cut ourselves and seen blood, and we label it red.
> > To the northwest, *wrod- in the sense 'red pigment, red dye' appears to have yielded some obscure OE and OHG glossary words (discussed in papers by O.B. Schlutter which I do not have handy) and survives in the first element of HG _ritzerot_ 'intensely red', which is to be understood as 'red pigment-red, as red as red pigment'. (The usual explanation labels this along with _gritzegrau_ and _blitzeblau_ as expressive formations. In my opinion _ritzerot_ is an etymological compound and provided the model for the others, which are analogical rather than expressive.)
>
> The relevant material by Schlutter is in Anglia 30(N.F. 18):248-9, 1907. OE _wraettere:ad_ is identical to NHG (Bavaria, Wetterau) _ritzerot_. The OE simplex is _wraette_ wk. f. (var. _wraet_ st. m.) 'Rubea tinctoria, or red dye obtained from it'. The OHG counterpart is _rezza_ glossed 'coccinum', 'coccum', 'murex', etc. The Gmc. protoform *wratja- corresponds exactly to *wrodja:, the Italic protoform of Sabine *rosa:, borrowed into Latin as _rosa_ after inherited *-s- had already been rhotacized (ca. 350 BCE).
>