Re: Etymology of "Ketzer"

Holly wrote:
me wrote:
Neeraj Mathur wrote:
"Holly" <noon_union@xxxxxxxxx> wrote ...

me wrote:
Holly wrote:
I read that the Dravidian word for fish "min" is the same sound as
their word for star; therefore they use the fish pictogram with
other pictograms when writing about a star.

Dravidians don't use pictograms and use [mi:n] only for "fish", not
for star. Star is [vel.l.I] in Tamil.

One of the places that I got my information was from here.
http://www.ancientscripts.com/indus.html

That doesn't say that Dravidians *currently* use pictograms. Today's
Dravidians typically use "abugida" scripts and don't use pictograms.

1) A proposed reconstruction for the Proto-Dravidan word for fish
matches that for star, giving *mi:n. (I suppose that Dravidianists will
be able to give us the evidence for these reconstructions; it is of
course not nearly good enough to say that because one particular
langauge, Tamil, has no reflex for *mi:n in the meaning 'star' that the
word could not have existed in that meaning in Proto-Dravidian, which
me is suggesting.

I said it *is*n't *the* Dravidian word. With the meaning "star", [mi:n]
is used only as a morpheme; it isn't used as a word. That is, Dravidians
use words containing the morpheme [mi:n] meaning star but Dravidians
don't use
[mi:n] as the word for "star". "vAnil mIn irukku" and "AkAs;attil mIn
[uNDu"
would invite quzzical frowns since they would mean ONLY "there are fish
in the sky" in Tamil and Malayalam, respectively.

Thanks for the explanation. I had not understood that from reading the
article.

Even words using [mi:n] as a morpheme are not used by most Dravidians,
especially illiterate ones, since they are esoteric words.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Etymology of "Ketzer"
    ... therefore they use the fish pictogram with other ... pictograms when writing about a star. ... That doesn't say that Dravidians *currently* use pictograms. ... Dravidians typically use "abugida" scripts and don't use pictograms. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Etymology of "Ketzer"
    ... therefore they use the fish pictogram with other ... pictograms when writing about a star. ... That doesn't say that Dravidians *currently* use pictograms. ... Dravidians typically use "abugida" scripts and don't use pictograms. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Etymology of "Ketzer"
    ... is used only as a morpheme; it isn't used as a word. ... Dravidians don't use ... their word for star" ... register in English (it's modern form is 'queen'); ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Etymology of "Ketzer"
    ... is used only as a morpheme; it isn't used as a word. ... That is, Dravidians ... English (it's modern form is 'queen'); for the general context we prefer ... as 'star' for Proto-Dravidian and then challenge it, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Etymology of "Ketzer"
    ... therefore they use the fish pictogram with other ... pictograms when writing about a star. ... Star is in Tamil. ...
    (sci.lang)