The oddities of Basque

[bradrn]

That's right, but this is a bad reconstruction, because this lexeme is only attested as *prḱ- in nouns derivated from it. Correct me if I wrong, but there's no such verb **perḱ- 'to dig' in IE.

Sanskrit parśāna 'precipice' would derive from an o-grade *porḱ-, but still there're no verb attestations.

The "paper" in "paper wasp" (to name the animal I saw most recently) isn't a verb either.

I think the argument is that the PIE word for ’pig’ was supposedly a derived form of the verb *porḱ-, but if the verb itself is unattested, then this is more probably a chance resemblance. Not that animal names have to be verbs.

[Talskubilos]

I think the argument is that the PIE word for ’pig’ was supposedly a derived form of the verb *porḱ-, but if the verb itself is unattested, then this is more probably a chance resemblance. Not that animal names have to be verbs.

They're often Wanderwörter, especially domesticated ones, as it happens in this case.

[Nortaneous]

Sanskrit parśāna 'precipice' would derive from an o-grade *porḱ-, but still there're no verb attestations.

The "paper" in "paper wasp" (to name the animal I saw most recently) isn't a verb either.

I think the argument is that the PIE word for ’pig’ was supposedly a derived form of the verb *porḱ-, but if the verb itself is unattested, then this is more probably a chance resemblance. Not that animal names have to be verbs.

Could be a derived form of a verb, could be a form analogous to a hypothetical OE *furhdēor (Modern English, unfortunately, has no native generic animal word) with the same formation as *h3órbʰos, whose root is AFAICT only preserved as a verb in Anatolian.

It's also possible that both things are true, and "pig" was borrowed as something like *bokos or *brokos and deformed to *porḱos by folk etymology. But what would be the point of that? Especially when there isn't a path of intermediate forms the way there is for musa?

[Talskubilos]

It's also possible that both things are true, and "pig" was borrowed as something like *bokos or *brokos and deformed to *porḱos by folk etymology.

I think there's no need of a folk etymology here.

[keenir]

Secondly, it looks like a NW regional word related to agriculture,

which is...? {read: which word??}

I think Talskubilos meant that **perḱ- looks like it’s a NW regional word.

ah. my bad; i'd thought Talskubilos meant it looks like a particular word (like how no looks like noh)

First of all, the purported protoform **perḱ- 'to dig' isn't attested as such but only as noun derivatives from a 0-grade *prḱ-, namely Latin porca 'ridge between two furrows'.

sounds like pig action to me.

so most likely a substrate loanword.

Wow, I'd heard rumors that the Piraha could keep their words unchanging for 400 years...how did the NW people manage to keep this word (and perhaps others) unchanging from an age before Latin, all the way to the modern day when & where we can record the word(s) as being proper NW ?

I don’t even have a clue what you’re trying to say here.
[/quote]

I was re-asking how the NW languages managed to stay unchanged, keeping the same words from the Classical Era to today. i just didn't ask as nicely or as well as before, which is my bad, not Talskubilos'

[keenir]

I think Talskubilos meant that **perḱ- looks like it’s a NW regional word.

That's right, but this is a bad reconstruction, because this lexeme is only attested as *prḱ- in nouns derivated from it. Correct me if I wrong, but there's no such verb **perḱ- 'to dig' in IE.

Sanskrit parśāna 'precipice' would derive from an o-grade *porḱ-, but still there're no verb attestations.

so, in order to not be a loanword into IE, there need to be nouns and verbs descended from it?

not sure I've ever heard, say, eagle or shark as a verb, but, granted i don't get out much.
(my original counterexample was camelleopardus as a verb)

[Richard W]

so, in order to not be a loanword into IE, there need to be nouns and verbs descended from it?

not sure I've ever heard, say, eagle or shark as a verb, but, granted i don't get out much.
(my original counterexample was camelleopardus as a verb)

Well, eagle is a loanword in English, and shark may derived from the well-nigh obsolete verb. Other suggestions make it a loanword.

[Talskubilos]

so, in order to not be a loanword into IE, there need to be nouns and verbs descended from it?

In this and other cases (e.g. English horse < *krs-o-) the lack of verb attestations is linked to a 0-Ablaut grade, which looks to me as a trademark of "pre-Kuganic" words. In my own framework, "Kurganic" would be roughly equivalent to the horse-and-wheel PIE of Mallory-Gimbutas' theory. i.e. the language(s) spoken by the nomadic shepherds of the Pontic Steppes.

[hwhatting]

In fact, 'apple' happens to be a Wanderwort found in several families, including IE itself (although somewhat disguised).

What families? Why is the loanword hypothesis better than the idea that *h₂ébl̥/*h₂ébōl is an irregular metathesis of *méh₂lom, which has much the same relationship to *méh₂- "ripen, mature" that *webʰl- "beetle, worm" (English weevil) has to *webʰ- "weave"?

Honestly, the loanword theory looks better than that convoluted explanation. A priori, fruits are exactly the kind of item that for which words are loaned, and the structure of the apple word doesn't look typically IE. It may have entered NW IE from the so-called "bird name language", which seemed to have other forms with a prefixed #a-. As we know that the cultivation of apple started in Central Asia, that looks like a good place from where such a wanderwort could have spread.

IMHO, *ab(ō)l isn't a PIE-native word but a Paleo-European substrate loanword which I'd link to Hittite šam(a)lu-, Uralic *omɜrɜ ~ *omena 'apple' and Basque udare, udari, madari 'pear'. The origin would have been the lexeme found in Nakh-Dagestanian *mhălV- ~ *mhănV- 'warm' and IE *meh₂l-o- 'apple' plus some kind of prefix.

I don't see the link between "warm" and "apple". Is actually a word meaning “apple” or “fruit” derived from the Nakh-Dagahestani lexeme attested in Eastern Caucasian?
The Hittite form could belong if we assume the ša- is another prefix from a substrate. I also don't see how the Basque belongs here - how do you get from something like mVl- to the Basque forms?
If we’re at words that look like they belong here, we could add Turkic alma “apple”, which would involve metathesis.

I would have to ask why you would expect this not to be the case. That a probable internal etymology is not the case certainly requires a higher standard of proof.

I'd rather say "possible" than "probable". Among other things, *prk- 'to dig' is a 0-grade lexeme restricted to a few branches and related to agriculture, therefore most likely not a "native" word, i.e. it doesn't belong to the horse-and-wheel pack of the Kurgan people.

Well, words for primitive agriculture can be reconstructed for PIE. Purely cattle-based nomadism is a development that is later than the spread of the iE languages. But all that is a red herring. Etymologising *pork'o- as going back to "dig" is already in Pokorny (IEW 821), but there is also PIE *perk'- "spotted, mottled, multi-coloured" (IEW 820/21)*), and if the original meaning of *pork'o- was "piglet" or "young boar", you'll know that the designation is spot on (pardon the pun).
*) LIV thinks that both roots may be identical, but that's not really relevant here.

[Pabappa]

In fact, 'apple' happens to be a Wanderwort found in several families, including IE itself (although somewhat disguised).

What families? Why is the loanword hypothesis better than the idea that *h₂ébl̥/*h₂ébōl is an irregular metathesis of *méh₂lom, which has much the same relationship to *méh₂- "ripen, mature" that *webʰl- "beetle, worm" (English weevil) has to *webʰ- "weave"?

Honestly, the loanword theory looks better than that convoluted explanation. A priori, fruits are exactly the kind of item that for which words are loaned, and the structure of the apple word doesn't look typically IE. It may have entered NW IE from the so-called "bird name language", which seemed to have other forms with a prefixed #a-. As we know that the cultivation of apple started in Central Asia, that looks like a good place from where such a wanderwort could have spread.

People seem to like postulating metathesis all over the place in PIE ... in the word for wolf, the word for wheel, one of the words for nudity (in pre-Greek), etc.... I dont believe in any of it myself, but if we can establish that metathesis really did happen in PIE, it would be at least fair enough to apply it to case like this since there are other arguments pointing towards a sound change of /ml/ > /bl/ in Greek and perhaps in other branches.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

As far as *h₂ébl̥, *h₂ébōl goes, I don't think it's likely to be cognate to *méh₂lom directly, especially not *h₂ébōl. I could se something like *h₂é-m(é)h₂l- becoming irregularly *h₂éb(é)h₂l-, but that would leave unexplained what the initial element is (possibly *h₂el- "grow, nourish"), but there are quite a number of unsatisfyingly irregular and vaguely implausible developments to make that particularly satisfying. This is pretty good evidence that it's either an untraceable substratum borrowing, or inheritance of a term which became obscure in other varieties of Indo-European. I don't think I buy the wanderwort put forward in earlier posts for it.

The "multicoloured" etymon for "pig" is also plausible.

[keenir]

so, in order to not be a loanword into IE, there need to be nouns and verbs descended from it?

In this and other cases (e.g. English horse < *krs-o-) the lack of verb attestations is linked to a 0-Ablaut grade,

so, is that a Yes or a No? I don't know what 0ablauts are.

which looks to me as a trademark of "pre-Kuganic" words. In my own framework, "Kurganic" would be roughly equivalent to the horse-and-wheel PIE of Mallory-Gimbutas' theory. i.e. the language(s) spoken by the nomadic shepherds of the Pontic Steppes.

*perks up* Can we read your framework? I enjoyed reading Anthony's book on the people on all sides (spatial and temporal) of PIE, so I believe I would enjoy reading what you've written on the subject.

[Skookum]

I know Burushaski báalt "apple, apple tree" is sometimes connected to the IE forms, but this gets us even further away from Western-IE so its probably just a coincidence.

[WeepingElf]

IMHO, *ab(ō)l isn't a PIE-native word but a Paleo-European substrate loanword which I'd link to Hittite šam(a)lu-, Uralic *omɜrɜ ~ *omena 'apple' and Basque udare, udari, madari 'pear'. The origin would have been the lexeme found in Nakh-Dagestanian *mhălV- ~ *mhănV- 'warm' and IE *meh₂l-o- 'apple' plus some kind of prefix.

I doubt that there is a discernible connection between any of those items. They simply have too little in common. A connection between the NWIE and Hittite apple-words has been drawn, BTW, by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, but it involves an entirely fictitious phoneme and is IMHO just wishful thinking.

You dodged a question again, should we assume you can't answer it?

Mallory & Adams (2006) define "NW regional words" as the ones found in any two or more of Celtic, Italic, Germanic, Slavic and Baltic, but not in Anatolian, Indo-Iranian, Greek, Armeanian, Tocharian or Albanian. See Koch's (2020): Celto-Germanic. Later Prehistory and Post-Proto-Indo-European vocabulary in the North and West.

Thank you for the link; this looks very interesting. It appears as if Koch has abandoned the "Celtic from the West" nonsense after the Anatolian hypothesis it depended on has become untenable in the light of archaeogenetics (if it hadn't already been untenable for linguistic reasons anyway).

[Talskubilos]

IMHO, *ab(ō)l isn't a PIE-native word but a Paleo-European substrate loanword which I'd link to Hittite šam(a)lu-, Uralic *omɜrɜ ~ *omena 'apple' and Basque udare, udari, madari 'pear'. The origin would have been the lexeme found in Nakh-Dagestanian *mhălV- ~ *mhănV- 'warm' and IE *meh₂l-o- 'apple' plus some kind of prefix.

I don't see the link between "warm" and "apple".

'warm (season)' > 'ripe (fruit)'.

Is actually a word meaning “apple” or “fruit” derived from the Nakh-Dagahestani lexeme attested in Eastern Caucasian?

Not necessarily so, but it would provide the "missing link" for IE *mah₂l-o-

The Hittite form could belong if we assume the ša- is another prefix from a substrate.

Not exactly. The Uralic form points to a "laryngeal" *h₃ here, just like sākuwa- 'eye' < IE *h₃ekʷ- 'to see' and sankuwāi- 'nail; a unit of linear measure' < IE *h₃n(o)gh-

I also don't see how the Basque belongs here - how do you get from something like mVl- to the Basque forms?

Apparently, m disappeared and was replaced by a (seemingly) prosthetic d, as in ahari 'ram' (with the dialectal variant adari) < *a-mari or adar 'horn' < *kam-ar-. On the other hand, udare, udari would be related to uda 'summer'.

[Talskubilos]

so, is that a Yes or a No? I don't know what 0ablauts are.

In this context, 0-Ablaut is CRC, where R represents a resonant, either a liquid /l, r/ or a nasal /n, m/. e-Ablaut is CeRC and o-Ablaut CoRC.

[keenir]

so, is that a Yes or a No? I don't know what 0ablauts are.

In this context, 0-Ablaut is CRC, where R represents a resonant, either a liquid /l, r/ or a nasal /n, m/. e-Ablaut is CeRC and o-Ablaut CoRC.

ah. okay; thank you.

IMHO, *ab(ō)l isn't a PIE-native word but a Paleo-European substrate loanword which I'd link to Hittite šam(a)lu-, Uralic *omɜrɜ ~ *omena 'apple' and Basque udare, udari, madari 'pear'. The origin would have been the lexeme found in Nakh-Dagestanian *mhălV- ~ *mhănV- 'warm' and IE *meh₂l-o- 'apple' plus some kind of prefix.

I don't see the link between "warm" and "apple".

'warm (season)' > 'ripe (fruit)'. [/qouote]

wait, how is "warm" <-> "apple" permissible to you, but "dig" <-> "pig" is not?

Is actually a word meaning “apple” or “fruit” derived from the Nakh-Dagahestani lexeme attested in Eastern Caucasian?

Not necessarily so, but it would provide the "missing link" for IE *mah₂l-o-

wait, why do we need a missing link, when you said the Nakh language provides a better origin than PIE does? if you're using Nakh as a source for a missing link, then where is the language that Nakh gets it from?
(from PIE to Nakh to IE?)

[Talskubilos]

wait, how is "warm" <-> "apple" permissible to you, but "dig" <-> "pig" is not?

These cases are very different.

wait, why do we need a missing link, when you said the Nakh language provides a better origin than PIE does? if you're using Nakh as a source for a missing link, then where is the language that Nakh gets it from?(from PIE to Nakh to IE?)

Perhaps I didn't explain myself well enough. On the one hand, we've got an "apple" Wanderwort in several languages, and on the other IE *meh₂l-o- 'apple'. The Nakh-Daghestanian word would be the "missing link" between both.

[bradrn]

wait, how is "warm" <-> "apple" permissible to you, but "dig" <-> "pig" is not?

These cases are very different.

Yes, indeed they are extremely different “warm”↔“apple” makes very little sense, whereas “dig”↔“pig” is perfectly plausible.

[Talskubilos]

Yes, indeed they are extremely different “warm”↔“apple” makes very little sense, whereas “dig”↔“pig” is perfectly plausible.

As I said before, there's no such verb 'to dig'.