Paleo-European languages

[Talskubilos]

The Germanic word for 'iron' is a loanword from Celtic. But what is the etymology of Celtic *îsarnon?

Warren Cowgill proposed a derivation *h₁esr-no- from *h₁esr '(flowing) blood', a semantic shift with parallels elsewhere.

[Talskubilos]

What concerns the semantic connection between 'iron' and 'star', keep in mind that the first iron known to humans was from meteorites. The ancient Egyptians and Sumerians called the metal 'sky-metal'. Then there is this old chestnut Greek sidêros 'iron' vs. Latin sîdus (gen. sîderis) 'star, constellation'. As similar as these words look, they do not actually match; but AFAIK neither has a good IE etymology, and they may be borrowings from related sources.

I've read De Vaan's book on Leiden-Brill and once again he disaapointed (I think I already mentioned his is a rather mediocre work). To begin with, he links sīdus with the verbs consīderō 'to examine, to contemplate', desīderō 'to desire', which is a different etymology!

[WeepingElf]

The Germanic word for 'iron' is a loanword from Celtic. But what is the etymology of Celtic *îsarnon?

Warren Cowgill proposed a derivation *h₁esr-no- from *h₁esr '(flowing) blood', a semantic shift with parallels elsewhere.

Yes, that makes more sense than my suggestion (not originally by me; I have read it somewhere, but don't remember where, may merely have been a post in some Internet discussion group of little value) involving Basque izar. Cowgill was an accomplished and respected Indo-Europeanist, which doesn't automatically imply that he was always right (even the greatest minds make mistakes), but I see no reason why this etymology should be wrong. At least, he knew vastly more about such matters than I do!

[hwhatting]

I've read De Vaan's book on Leiden-Brill and once again he disaapointed (I think I already mentioned his is a rather mediocre work). To begin with, he links sīdus with the verbs consīderō 'to examine, to contemplate', desīderō 'to desire', which is a different etymology!

It's not he who links them, he's quoting other scholars who do; it's only right for an etymological dictionary to discuss the previously proposed etymologies. Rather than being dismissive, it would be better if you said why you think that the words are not related and what you think the correct etymology is and on what basis.

[Talskubilos]

I've read De Vaan's book on Leiden-Brill and once again he disaapointed (I think I already mentioned his is a rather mediocre work). To begin with, he links sīdus with the verbs consīderō 'to examine, to contemplate', desīderō 'to desire', which is a different etymology!

It's not he who links them, he's quoting other scholars who do; it's only right for an etymological dictionary to discuss the previously proposed etymologies. Rather than being dismissive, it would be better if you said why you think that the words are not related and what you think the correct etymology is and on what basis.

Fair. On one hand, the etymology proposed by Rix would explain Latin consīderō, desīderō as being cognate to Greek ithús ~ euthús 'straight, just' and Gujarati sīdhũ 'straight(forward), upright', Sanskrit siddha 'acomplished', etc. from an IE root *seHdh- 'to acomplish a goal'. But IMHO there's no way Latin sīdus would semantically fit here, so I consider it to be a homonymous word with no obvious IE etymology (*sweid- 'to shine' would explain sūdus 'dry; sunny'), atlhough probably related to Greek sidēros.

[Talskubilos]

And finally, I don't think that Etruscan, whether it originated in Anatolia or Italy, was a member of this family. There are AFAIK no meaningful resemblances between Etruscan and the pre-Greek loanwords in Greek.

Not really. Take for example Etruscan zamathi 'gold' and Greek ksanthós 'yellow' ~ ksouthós 'golden yellow', or Etruscan spur, śpur 'city' and Greek labúr-inthos. However, the connection between Etruscan and Pre-Greek wouldn't be too close.

[Moose-tache]

...he links sīdus with the verbs consīderō 'to examine, to contemplate', desīderō 'to desire', which is a different etymology!

Perhaps he recognized the similar shapes. Do you think that's what happened? Like, he saw that the words were superficially similar, and he thought "Well hot damn, those words must be related!" Do you think maybe he made that fallacy, being just a little too credulous in assuming similar words come from the same source? What sort of punishment do you think is appropriate for doing that? Can you see it? Can you see what he's doing wrong here? How can we learn from that and grow? What should we, as observers of this mistake, take away from it? What are your thoughts on this, Talskubilos? Look at it. Go back and look at it again. What does it make you think about?

[bradrn]

Oh dear, here we go again…

[hwhatting]

Fair. On one hand, the etymology proposed by Rix would explain Latin consīderō, desīderō as being cognate to Greek ithús ~ euthús 'straight, just' and Gujarati sīdhũ 'straight(forward), upright', Sanskrit siddha 'acomplished', etc. from an IE root *seHdh- 'to acomplish a goal'. But IMHO there's no way Latin sīdus would semantically fit here, so I consider it to be a homonymous word with no obvious IE etymology (*sweid- 'to shine' would explain sūdus 'dry; sunny'), atlhough probably related to Greek sidēros.

It can be related to sidēros only if of you assume it's a wanderwort loaned into both languages. It can't be an IE cognate, because initial /s/ in Latin cannot corespond to intital /s/ in Greek (PIE /*#s-/ > /#s/ in Latin, but /#h-/ in Greek).
Also did you note that de Vaan actually makes some of the same points you make about the semantic mismatch between ithús ~ euthús and sidus? I mean, de Vaan is certainly not the only acceptable fount of wisdom, but his disctionary is a solid work reflecting current scholarship. So I wouldn't be that dismissive about it.

[Talskubilos]

What are your thoughts on this, Talskubilos? Look at it. Go back and look at it again. What does it make you think about?

Moose-tache, who is currently on your ignore list, made this post.

[Talskubilos]

Fair. On one hand, the etymology proposed by Rix would explain Latin consīderō, desīderō as being cognate to Greek ithús ~ euthús 'straight, just' and Gujarati sīdhũ 'straight(forward), upright', Sanskrit siddha 'acomplished', etc. from an IE root *seHdh- 'to acomplish a goal'. But IMHO there's no way Latin sīdus would semantically fit here, so I consider it to be a homonymous word with no obvious IE etymology (*sweid- 'to shine' would explain sūdus 'dry; sunny'), atlhough probably related to Greek sidēros.

It can be related to sidēros only if of you assume it's a wanderwort loaned into both languages. It can't be an IE cognate, because initial /s/ in Latin cannot corespond to intital /s/ in Greek (PIE /*#s-/ > /#s/ in Latin, but /#h-/ in Greek).

That's obviously right.

Also did you note that de Vaan actually makes some of the same points you make about the semantic mismatch between ithús ~ euthús and sidus? I mean, de Vaan is certainly not the only acceptable fount of wisdom, but his disctionary is a solid work reflecting current scholarship. So I wouldn't be that dismissive about it.

Taken on the whole, De Vaan's dictionary is a rather mediocre work, unworthy of its selling price (84,56€ in Amazon store). By contrast, Matasović's Proto-Celtic is much better. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact he doesn't belong to Leiden IE school.

[Moose-tache]

What are your thoughts on this, Talskubilos? Look at it. Go back and look at it again. What does it make you think about?

Moose-tache, who is currently on your ignore list, made this post.

Every time I am reminded of this fact it makes me smile. It's like knowing you're banned from the state of Florida.

[keenir]

What are your thoughts on this, Talskubilos? Look at it. Go back and look at it again. What does it make you think about?

Moose-tache, who is currently on your ignore list, made this post.

On whose ignore list? It can't be your own, because you replied to it.

[Talskubilos]

On whose ignore list? It can't be your own, because you replied to it.

I did it because he adressed to me.

[keenir]

On whose ignore list? It can't be your own, because you replied to it.

I did it because he adressed to me.

Are you sure your ignore list is working?

[Talskubilos]

Are you sure your ignore list is working?

Of course, but there's still the option to read the ignored posts.

[abahot]

How much do we know about the typologies of pre-IE languages of Europe?

I understand there are some theories on the phonology of a pre-Greek substrate, and a fair bit is known of phonology and morphology of the attested languages of the Mediterranean area, but how much is known about the totally unattested languages of Northern Europe?

I'm mostly wondering if we know anything about how the languages would fit into modern linguistic areas. Specifically, do we know if the paleo-European languages were typologically similar to other Eurasian languages? Or is it all completely lost to time?

[WeepingElf]

Very little is known for sure. The "Standard Average European" phenomenon does not appear to be old enough to be ascribed to a Paleo-European substratum, and all we have are a handful of words without satisfactory etymologies which some scholars ascribe to such languages, but these words don't tell us much about the typology of the source languages.

[Zju]

You could probably get a hint of phonology typology of North Europe if you get your hands on a list of words with unclear etymology from languages of that area. (and doing some internal reconstruction at first, of course)

There was specifically some paper that looked at words for sturgeon and beans in some european languages (not necessarily northern), but I can't recall its title on top of my head.

[abahot]

I was thinking more along the lines of, say, head-marking vs. dependent marking, ergativity, morphological typology, and so forth, the kinds of things Nichols covered in Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time. But that's almost certainly completely lost without a trace.