Zompist Bboard Again

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 4:46 pmThere're many names of fruits with no IE etymology. For example Greek ákherdos, akhrás ‘wild pear tree’ has correspondences in Catalan gerd, gerdó, jordó, Gascon jordon, Aragonese chordón, churdón 'raspberry', but apparently not elsewhere.

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 9:45 am

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 4:46 pmThere're many names of fruits with no IE etymology. For example Greek ákherdos, akhrás ‘wild pear tree’ has correspondences in Catalan gerd, gerdó, jordó, Gascon jordon, Aragonese chordón, churdón 'raspberry', but apparently not elsewhere.

It would be a metathesis of *dhergh-(no-) > Albanian drédhë ‘strawberry’, dardhë ‘pear’, Celtic *dragenā ‘sloe, fruit of the blackthorn’. Old High German dirn-baum, Russian derën ‘cornel cherry’. This appears to be derived (with denasalization of the initial nasal) from an Eurasiatic root *NEkˀrV 'thorny bush' found in Uralic *nakrV 'cedar nut' and other similar words in Altaic, Kartvelian, Dravidian and Eskimo-Aleut.

In Paleo-European, this root would give (with loss of the initial nasal) Insular Celtic *agriniā (Old Irish áirne, Welsh eirin), Gaulish *agranio- 'sole, fruit of the blackthorn', Germanic *akarna-/*akrana-/*akirna- 'acorn', Latin agresta 'green grape', agrestis and Greek ágrios 'wild', conflated wih Latin ager and Greek ágros by a folk etymology.

Ketsuban wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 1:01 pm Moreover they seem to be assuming that because there's a couple different Indo-European languages which have a non-Indo-European word for a thing they must have the same origin, which is not remotely valid reasoning. The Greek and Macedonian terms (G ἀχράς, ᾰ̓́χερδος, M ἀγέρδα) come from Turkic (compare Turkish kertme, Kipchak kärtmä which have an internal derivation from kertmek/kärtmäk "indent, notch") while the Romance terms come from Basque. (To explain a Turkic word in Greek one need only point out the documented interaction between Scythians and the Hellenic world; to explain a Basque word in Catalan and Aragonese one need only point out that they're right next to each other on the map, come on.)

Ketsuban wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 1:01 pmMoreover they seem to be assuming that because there's a couple different Indo-European languages which have a non-Indo-European word for a thing they must have the same origin, which is not remotely valid reasoning. The Greek and Macedonian terms (G ἀχράς, ᾰ̓́χερδος, M ἀγέρδα) come from Turkic (compare Turkish kertme, Kipchak kärtmä which have an internal derivation from kertmek/kärtmäk "indent, notch") while the Romance terms come from Basque. (To explain a Turkic word in Greek one need only point out the documented interaction between Scythians and the Hellenic world; to explain a Basque word in Catalan and Aragonese one need only point out that they're right next to each other on the map, come on.)

I suppose you're in "ironic mode", are you?

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 2:19 pm

Ketsuban wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 1:01 pmMoreover they seem to be assuming that because there's a couple different Indo-European languages which have a non-Indo-European word for a thing they must have the same origin, which is not remotely valid reasoning. The Greek and Macedonian terms (G ἀχράς, ᾰ̓́χερδος, M ἀγέρδα) come from Turkic (compare Turkish kertme, Kipchak kärtmä which have an internal derivation from kertmek/kärtmäk "indent, notch") while the Romance terms come from Basque. (To explain a Turkic word in Greek one need only point out the documented interaction between Scythians and the Hellenic world; to explain a Basque word in Catalan and Aragonese one need only point out that they're right next to each other on the map, come on.)

I suppose you're in "ironic mode", are you?

Ketsuban wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 2:39 pm I put the [/i] exactly where I wanted to: before the full stop and close bracket at the end of the sentence.

Ketsuban wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 2:39 pm I put the [/i] exactly where I wanted to: before the full stop and close bracket at the end of the sentence.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 2:46 pm No, you wrote [i], not [/i].

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 12:37 pm

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 9:45 am

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2026 4:46 pmThere're many names of fruits with no IE etymology. For example Greek ákherdos, akhrás ‘wild pear tree’ has correspondences in Catalan gerd, gerdó, jordó, Gascon jordon, Aragonese chordón, churdón 'raspberry', but apparently not elsewhere.

It would be a metathesis of *dhergh-(no-) > Albanian drédhë ‘strawberry’, dardhë ‘pear’, Celtic *dragenā ‘sloe, fruit of the blackthorn’. Old High German dirn-baum, Russian derën ‘cornel cherry’. This appears to be derived (with denasalization of the initial nasal) from an Eurasiatic root *NEkˀrV 'thorny bush' found in Uralic *nakrV 'cedar nut' and other similar words in Altaic, Kartvelian, Dravidian and Eskimo-Aleut.

In Paleo-European, this root would give (with loss of the initial nasal) Insular Celtic *agriniā (Old Irish áirne, Welsh eirin), Gaulish *agranio- 'sole, fruit of the blackthorn', Germanic *akarna-/*akrana-/*akirna- 'acorn', Latin agresta 'green grape', agrestis and Greek ágrios 'wild', conflated wih Latin ager and Greek ágros by a folk etymology.

You posit a 'Eurasiatic' and 'Paleo-European' that most certainly have not been demonstrated here.

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 2:21 pmNot at all. I find his explanations make a lot more sense than yours.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 2:54 pmBeekes claims that ἀχράς and ᾰ̓́χερδος come from a Pre-Greek substrate, but I take that with a grain of salt, as Beekes claims that everything comes from a Pre-Greek substrate. (Wiktionary specifically identifies ᾰ̓́χερδος as likely coming from a Turkic source.)

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 3:00 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 2:21 pmNot at all. I find his explanations make a lot more sense than yours.

Really? A Turkic loanword into Ancient Greek and a non-existent Basque word into Romance?

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 3:06 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 2:54 pmBeekes claims that ἀχράς and ᾰ̓́χερδος come from a Pre-Greek substrate, but I take that with a grain of salt, as Beekes claims that everything comes from a Pre-Greek substrate. (Wiktionary specifically identifies ᾰ̓́χερδος as likely coming from a Turkic source.)

Wiktionary is a second-hand, and very often, unreliable source. Beekes's Pre-Greek is a miscellanous category which includes lonawords from extinct IE languages (e.g. Thracian) as well as from non-IE ones (to which he equals all Pre-Greek). For example, thálassa 'sea' has a nice IE etymology from *telh₂- 'terrain', seeing it as a large plain.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 3:23 pmTurkic loanwords into Ancient Greek are perfectly plausible given the Turkic presence around the Black Sea (and the fact that the Turkic word transparently means 'pear' and has been loaned into other languages around the Black Sea with this meaning such as Chechen, Ossetian, and Ingush), and Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana states that the source of Catalan gerd is likely Vasco-Aquitanian gĭrd-.

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 3:37 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 3:23 pmTurkic loanwords into Ancient Greek are perfectly plausible given the Turkic presence around the Black Sea (and the fact that the Turkic word transparently means 'pear' and has been loaned into other languages around the Black Sea with this meaning such as Chechen, Ossetian, and Ingush), and Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana states that the source of Catalan gerd is likely Vasco-Aquitanian gĭrd-.

There's no evidence for such word. I've already warned you about secondary and unreliable sources.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 3:27 pmRegardless of the imperfect reliability of Wiktionary, in many cases it is much more reliable than wildly throwing about things like 'Eurasiatic' and 'Paleo-European'.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 3:39 pmSo Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana is a "secondary and unreliable source", but whatever Eurasiatic 'roots' you pull out of thin air are reliable? Yeah.