Re: Albanian and the Q-Celtic languages

"Darkstar" <darkstar100@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:1185141215.038475.189480@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Jul 22, 5:20 pm, "Richard Wordingham" <jrw0...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Darkstar" <darkstar...@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message

> (Please excuse the non-standard notation with a
> few errors - it's from Isidore Dyen's IE database from the 60s - but
> just enough to give you an idea.)

The database also contains cognation assessments. Did you look at those?

Maybe they're wrong?

Yes, but they're more likely to be right than a single unaided person's assessments.

> THREE
> Albanian TRE
> Irish TRI

Likewise, _too close_! Cf. Ossetic /aerte/, Armenian /ererkh/,
Persian /se/, Latin /tres/.

What are you suggesting? Recent loans throughout the IE area?

> GRASS
> Albanian BARI
> Irish FEAR

And you passed this one over? It's probably has the same law /f/ : /
b/

I couldn't offer pukka IE etymologies.

> Note the /k-/ : /c-/ correspondence
> FOUR
> Albanian KATER
> Irish CEATHAIR

Welsh _pedwar_ as well. Well-nigh universal in Indo-European. The '/k-/ :
/c-/' correspondence reflects derivation from PIE *kW.

Welsh /pedwar/, Germanic /fidwor/ sound like a far cry from /
ceathair/. That's why I say Q-Celtic, not P-Celtic.

> WHEN

WHERE and WHO are 'wh- words' - the initial consonant descends from PIE *kW,
as in English.

But they all end up in different positions in different languages. For
instance, Greek has /p-/, Armenian has vowels, etc.

I think Sardinian has a nice clean development Latin <qu> > Sardinian /p/. This change in Brythonic also shows up in Welsh _pryf_ worm, the cognate of Albanian (Tosk?) _krimp_ and Irish _cruimh_.

> WORM
> Albanian KRYMI
> Irish CRUIMH (PEIST)

> (Note /d-/ : /cr-/)
> TREE
> Albanian DRUNI
> Irish CRANN

Unlikely. _Tree_ and _druni_ have decent cognates in Sanskrit, Avestan and
Greek, as well as the presumed Celtic origin of _druid_.

Indo-Iranian had roughly */deraht/, Slavic */drevo/, Greek /dhendron/,
Welsh /coeden/, Germanic /tre, trad/, Armenian /car/. They are all
different. But /cran/ and /druni, druja/ seem to be a particularly
close match.

The widespread form has a clear PIE frame *d-r-w:

Old English _treo(w)_ - <w> is optional in the uninflected form, but always appears before case endings; Gothic _triu_.

Sanskrit d/a:ru (nom.), dró:.h/drú.na.h (gen.s.), dá:ru.ni (loc. s.), dru- (compositional form); Avestan _da:uru_ 'beam'. What's Indo-Iranain 'deraht'?

Also Classical Greek _dóru_ 'tree shaft', with a variety of genitive singulars - _dourós_, _dorós_, _douratós_, _doratós_, best explained as coming from an earlier *dorw-. Note also _drûs_, (gen. _druós-_) 'oak'.

Pedersen offers Armenian _tram_ 'firm'.

Latin _du:rus_ 'hard' may also belong here, possibly a dissimilation of *dru:rus < *dreu-ro-s.

Old Irish has a few 'oak' words as well: _derucc_ 'acorn' (or am I missing something subtle in Pkorny's gloss 'glans'?), _daur_ 'oak'. Welsh has _derw_ 'oak trees', singulative _derwen_. Look at the entry in Pokorny, available free at http://tinyurl.com/3as5ss .

Welsh _coed_ 'wood, forest', of which _coeden_ is the singulative, is generally seen as cognate with English _heath_ and German _heide_. Presumably the sense has developed along the lines of 'untamed land'.

> BURN
> Albanian DJEG
> Irish DOGHADH

PIE *dHegHW. Sanskrit _dah_ , Lithuanian _degti_, Latin _foveo_ 'to warm',
Tocharian A _tsak_. Possibly also English _day_,

Again, you should take into consideration a particular proximity
between these two words. Cf. Breton /devin/, Latin /foveo/, Wakhi /
thau/, they're all different to some extent. Only Lith. /degti/ is
sufficiently close - I should agree to that. Tocharian /tsak/ is also
close, but Tocharian seems related to the Italo-Celtic (or a broader)
group in several ways, so there's a good reason for it to be close.

Pokorny reckons Breton _devi_ 'burn' is related to Old Irish _do:i:m_ (1s) 'burn' - a different word. The Latin root corresponds precisely with the Irish root.

> Note /d-/ : /d-/ : /l-/ (Albanian : Breton : Irish)

> HAND
> Albanian DORA
> Breton DORN
> Irish LAMH

I don't think Irish _lamh_ belongs here. I've never heard of a
correspondence between Brythonic *d and Irish /l/.

...I haven't either. I simply trust what I see.

Dig deeper. Of course, the evidence so far is that you'll find nothing.

> DOG
> Albanian KJENI (GEN)
> Breton KI
> Irish GADHAR

PIE *kwon > Gk. _kuo:n_, English _hound_, Welsh _ci_, Sanskrit _cvan-,
Armenian sun (shibilant), Lithuanian suo, Thai _sunak_, Latin _canis_ (?),
Russ/Polish _suka_ 'bitch', Latvian _kuna_ 'bitch'.

Hey, only /k-/ instances count here.

Why?

So again, that leaves us with the
"Kentum" languages which are bound to Western Europe.
Again, this example places Albanian as Greek-Italo-Celtic, but it
doesn't help to distinguish from Greek or Latin, to which I should
agree.

Oh, loanwords everywhere... The dog has been "invented" long before
agriculture. Even Australian aborigines have dogs. . . what Latin
loanwords in the most basic vocabulary?. . .

It happens. When preparing a Swadesh list, it can easily happen if you're working from a dictionary. The recommendd practice there is to take the first translation offered. That makes the Thai entry for 'dog' _sunak_ rather than native _ma:_ (rising tone). Actually, the normal Thai word for 'animal' seems to be a loanword, as in English. And in my 'lect the normal words for 'belly' are _tummy_ and _stomach_ - Greek loanwords in the basic vocabulary.

> BELLY
> Albanian BARKU
> Irish BOLG

False cognates. 'Inflatable bag' seems to be the original meaning.
English
_belly_ is cognate with Irish _bolg_, Sanskrit _barhic- , Persian _ba:lis_,
Slovenian _blazina_. PIE *bHelg^H.

The problem with this cognate is not that it's incorrect, but rather
that it's found in too many other IELs. But! Only Celtic, Slavic,
Germanic, Singhalese languages have /b-/. And one can pinpoint the
isogloss as Albanian-Irish by noticing a nearly complete coincidence
in the second syllable /-rkV/ : /-lg/.

Old High German _balg_, Old Norse _belgr_ (the -r is the nominative singular ending), Gothic _balgs_ (the -s is the nominative singular ending). Through Grassman's law, Indo-Iranian also has b-.

Actually, I haven't said this but I've performed a matrix comparison
by contrasting the most stable 10-20 lexemes in the 20 IE language
groups, so I simply know that Albanian is not close to any group in
the East. It is a "Kentum"-type language located somewhere within the
Western European habitat.

Also, there seems to be roughly the same distance in Irish-Albanian-
Welsh (and possibly Latin) rows, while other European Kentum languages
like Germanic and Greek stand a little aside. Because we have (once
again):

uisce-uit-dwr-*unda (Umbran "uttor")
athar-ati-tad-pater
suil-syni-llygad-oculis
croidhe-zamber-calon-cordis
teanga-gjuxena-tafod-lengua
ceathair-kater-pedwor-quattur
ainm-ember-enw-nomen

On this basis, Albanian seems to go either into the Celtic or into
Italo-Celtic supergroup. And, such innovations as uisce/uit < *uidwr
(?) and suil/suni < *ocsulis (?), morr/miol (louse), ainm/ember/enw <
*onomen seem to brand Albanian and Irish (and possibly Welsh) as a
group which apparently had a single source at one time.

There certainly do seem to be quite a few similarities between Latin and Albanian which seem to be too old to be Latin loans. It is nicely symmetric - Germanic looks like a satem language and Albanian, in so far as its roots are discernible, has centum features.

Richard.

.

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