Zompist Bboard Again

I open this thread to descongest the main one. In Klimov's Kartvelian Etymological Dictionary there's a number of isoglosses between Kartvelian and PIE which could been interpreted either as: 1) A loanword Kartvelian -> PIE, 2) A loanword PIE -> Kartvelian, 3) Inheritance of borrowing from a common source. For example, PIE *pah₂ur 'fire' looks like a loanword from Kartvelian *px-ul > Georgian za-px-ul 'summer', from *px- 'to be clear (said of weather)' and *za- 'year, season', and PIE *h₁es-r- 'blood' would be a loanword from Kartvelian *zisxl 'blood'.

On the other hand, Kartvelian *diɣwam- 'fertile soil' is likely borrowed from PIE *dhg`h-om 'earth', but *tiqa- 'soil, clay' would be a cognate of the latter and *dheig'h- 'to mould (clay)'.

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 9:15 am I open this thread to descongest the main one.

That's a good move, thank you. I'll perhaps comment on the loanwords you posted later; but don't expect much as I don't know much about Kartvelian lexicon.

Don't forget PIE, PII, and PGmc loans in Uralic languages, too.

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 9:39 am

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 9:15 am I open this thread to descongest the main one.

That's a good move, thank you. I'll perhaps comment on the loanwords you posted later; but don't expect much as I don't know much about Kartvelian lexicon.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 10:07 am Don't forget PIE, PII, and PGmc loans in Uralic languages, too.

The main references are Klimov's etymological dictionary for Kartvelian and Gramkelidze-Ivanov's Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: A Reconstruction and Historical Analysis of a Proto-Language and Proto-Culture.

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 10:29 am

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 9:39 am

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 9:15 am I open this thread to descongest the main one.

That's a good move, thank you. I'll perhaps comment on the loanwords you posted later; but don't expect much as I don't know much about Kartvelian lexicon.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 10:07 am Don't forget PIE, PII, and PGmc loans in Uralic languages, too.

The main references are Klimov's etymological dictionary for Kartvelian and Gramkelidze-Ivanov's Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: A Reconstruction and Historical Analysis of a Proto-Language and Proto-Culture.

I can't say how good Klimov's dictionary is, but Gamkrelidze and Ivanov's book, I think, has to be approached with care. It is interesting, but contains many highly controversial ideas. Their word lists contain many spurious items, their reconstruction of the PIE ablaut system differs substantially from the standard reconstruction (it is almost identical to the same Gamkrelidze and Machavariani's reconstruction of the Proto-Kartvelian ablaut system, which is likewise far from the standard reconstruction - the real things are not particularly similar to each other!), the glottalic theory makes less sense than it seems at first glance (and most Indo-Europeanists reject it), and their PIE homeland just south of Georgia is also unsupported by the facts. Yet, I do think that the Late PIE verb aspect system is quite similar to the Georgian (and perhaps Proto-Kartvelian) one, and I don't know what to make of that.

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 1:12 pmI can't say how good Klimov's dictionary is, but Gamkrelidze and Ivanov's book, I think, has to be approached with care. It is interesting, but contains many highly controversial ideas. Their word lists contain many spurious items, their reconstruction of the PIE ablaut system differs substantially from the standard reconstruction (it is almost identical to the same Gamkrelidze and Machavariani's reconstruction of the Proto-Kartvelian ablaut system, which is likewise far from the standard reconstruction - the real things are not particularly similar to each other!), the glottalic theory makes less sense than it seems at first glance (and most Indo-Europeanists reject it), and their PIE homeland just south of Georgia is also unsupported by the facts. Yet, I do think that the Late PIE verb aspect system is quite similar to the Georgian (and perhaps Proto-Kartvelian) one, and I don't know what to make of that.

It has some interesting material about loanwords into or from IE, although I don't agree with everything. For exemple, they stick to the traditional view which links *pork'o- 'piglet, young pig' to *perk'- 'spotted' (which in fact it's applied to some animals), but in my opinion this is a Wanderwort, probably with a NEC intermediate of ultimate Austronesian origin (*beRek 'domesticated pig'), from the region where pigs were first domesticated.

A useful starting point: is there anything in (P)IE which is not a loanword?

alice wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 3:03 pm A useful starting point: is there anything in (P)IE which is not a loanword?

I already asked that:

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2026 1:11 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2026 12:50 pm

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2026 12:41 pm In my opinion, among the +2,000 lexical items reconstructed for PIE there must be hundreds of borrowings of different chronologies (substrates, cultural loanwords, Wanderwörter, etc.), while the true native lexicon remains obscured.

I may regret asking this, but if all these things are not the ‘true native lexicon’, then what do you think is?

If we were able to identify and classify all those loanwords (by means of external comparison, internal analysis, etc.), the remainder must be the native lexicon, although there probably would be still a number of dubious items for lack of enough information. For example, some kindship words have a *-h₂tēr suffix attached to a lexeme which can be further compared (in the case of 'father' and 'mother' they're the nursery words pa/ma.)

alice wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 3:03 pmA useful starting point: is there anything in (P)IE which is not a loanword?

Sherlock Holmes: Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 2:28 pm For exemple, they stick to the traditional view which links *pork'o- 'piglet, young pig' to *perk'- 'spotted' (which in fact it's applied to some animals)

There's two different roots *perḱ-. One is "coloured, speckled", which as you observe produces a lot of zoological words but also "freckle, sunspot" in Albanian and "dewdrop" in Greek. The other is "dig", which in my opinion is the more plausible candidate for *pórḱos given how pigs behave.

Ketsuban wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 4:11 pm

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 2:28 pm For exemple, they stick to the traditional view which links *pork'o- 'piglet, young pig' to *perk'- 'spotted' (which in fact it's applied to some animals)

There's two different roots *perḱ-. One is "coloured, speckled", which as you observe produces a lot of zoological words but also "freckle, sunspot" in Albanian and "dewdrop" in Greek. The other is "dig", which in my opinion is the more plausible candidate for *pórḱos given how pigs behave.

I seriously doubt they were used as ploughs.

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 4:18 pm

Ketsuban wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 4:11 pm

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 2:28 pm For exemple, they stick to the traditional view which links *pork'o- 'piglet, young pig' to *perk'- 'spotted' (which in fact it's applied to some animals)

There's two different roots *perḱ-. One is "coloured, speckled", which as you observe produces a lot of zoological words but also "freckle, sunspot" in Albanian and "dewdrop" in Greek. The other is "dig", which in my opinion is the more plausible candidate for *pórḱos given how pigs behave.

I seriously doubt they were used as ploughs.

?????

bradrn wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 4:21 pm

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 4:18 pm I seriously doubt they were used as ploughs.

?????

Yes, pigs can dig, but only humans plough.

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 4:18 pm I seriously doubt they were used as ploughs. :)

Nobody said they had to for "digger" to be a reasonable etymology for a word meaning "pig" (they rather famously dig with their snouts for truffles) but it turns out using pigs to dig furrows for agricultural use is a thing you can do today if you want.

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 4:29 pm Yes, pigs can dig, but only humans plough.

The PIE root for "plough" is *h₂erh₃-, not *perḱ-.

Ketsuban wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 4:36 pmNobody said they had to for "digger" to be a reasonable etymology for a word meaning "pig" (they rather famously dig with their snouts for truffles) but it turns out using pigs to dig furrows for agricultural use is a thing you can do today if you want.

What kind of response is that?

Ketsuban wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 4:36 pm

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 4:29 pm Yes, pigs can dig, but only humans plough.

The PIE root for "plough" is *h₂erh₃-, not *perḱ-.

*h₂erh₃- is likely a Semitic loanword related to agriculture (Neolithic farmers), and *perḱ- isn't attested as a verb but only in derivated nouns such as English furrow.

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 4:53 pm

Ketsuban wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 4:36 pm

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 4:29 pm Yes, pigs can dig, but only humans plough.

The PIE root for "plough" is *h₂erh₃-, not *perḱ-.

*h₂erh₃- is likely a Semitic loanword related to agriculture (Neolithic farmers), and *perḱ- isn't attested as a verb but only in derivated nouns such as English furrow.

I don't know about Semitic cognates of *h₂erh₃-, but I have no objection against Neolithic agricultural Wanderwörter shared by PIE and Proto-Semitic. In fact, they can be expected; cultural innovations of this kind often involve words traveling together with them. But if *perḱ- isn't attested as a verb as such (or is it?), that doesn't necessarily invalidate the etymology. The verb may have been lost and only nouns derived from it survive. At any rate, "Yes, pigs can dig, but only humans plough" doesn't invalidate *perḱ- either, because digging and ploughing are not the same concept, and thus the words are different. As so often, Talskubilos is dodging our questions.

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 4:53 pm *h₂erh₃- is likely a Semitic loanword related to agriculture (Neolithic farmers)

Not buying it, especially if Hittite ḫarra- "crush, grind" shows the derivation of "crush soil" > "plough" to be purely internal to Indo-European.

Ketsuban wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 5:10 pm

Talskubilos wrote: ↑Fri May 29, 2026 4:53 pm *h₂erh₃- is likely a Semitic loanword related to agriculture (Neolithic farmers)

Not buying it, especially if Hittite ḫarra- "crush, grind" shows the derivation of "crush soil" > "plough" to be purely internal to Indo-European.

Ah, I forgot about that one. That pretty much rules out a Semitic Wanderwort here