In a message dated 5/16/02 6:47:43 AM Pacific Daylight Time, DeepStream@... writes:


To argue that both languages carried a similar
term for "beard" from the original IndoEuropean,
it would be necessary to demonstrate that the
term were used in other circumstances in Norse.
As the word used in other circumstances is
"skegg", it is clear that Norse and Latin
developed their respective words for "beard" from
different sources (possibly still both
IndoEuropean:


Kom heil,

As far as I can see, the word 'beard' came from the same IndoEuropean word into both the Germanic and Romance language groups.  The word exists in Old English (beard), Dutch (baard) and Old High German (bart).  Old Norse only retained it in secondary meanings, and used skegg for the primary meaning of "beard".

Below is a quote from one of my favorite books: Carl Darling Buck, A Dictionary of Selected Synoyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages.  It gives the following comments on "Beard", p. 205:
"For 'beard', there is a group common to Latin, West Germanic and Balto-Slavic, probably cognate with the words for 'bristle', 'point', etc.  Several of these are used also for 'chin', as in the Romance languages and Slavic, and the interchange between 'beard' and 'chin' is seen in several outside this group.
An interesting secondary develoment rests on the similarity in shape betweeen the beard and the blade of an ax, hence OHG barta, etc. 'ax'.
IE *bhardha-, probably from the same root as ON, OHG burst, OE byrst 'bristle', Skt. bhrsti- 'point, edge', etc.
Latin barba (Romance forms and Welsh barf, Breton Barv); OE beard, OHG bart, etc., general West Germanic.  (ON barð only in secondary senses, 'edge, brim, prow', etc.)...

ON skegg, Danish skaeg, Swedish skagg: OE sceaga ME, NE shag 'rough hair' (whence the more common NE shaggy), ON skagi 'promontory..."

John Ayto, Dictionary of Word Origins, says about "Beard":
Old English 'beard' came from West Germanic *bartha, which was also the source of German bart and Dutch baard.  A close relative of this was Latin barba 'beard', which gave English barb (via Old French barbe), barber and barbel, a fish with sensitive whisker-like projections round its mouth."

Wahrig, Deutsches Woerterbuch says:
Old High German bart, English beard, from Germanic *barda-, from indogermanic *bhar-dha "beard", related to Borste Bürste, barsch.

Ver sæl,
Birgit