Re: proof that most etymologies are only fairy-tales

On Aug 2, 8:35 pm, analys...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Aug 2, 2:13 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:





On Sat, 2 Aug 2008 10:28:54 -0700 (PDT),
<analys...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:26435655-6ef8-4997-8c48-04b05a05f03f@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
in sci.lang:

From our own Chris Culver's review of Don Ringe's book:
start quote:
Ringe has maintained correspondence with today's other
eminent Indo- Europeanists, and his book includes a
number of ideas which, though hitherto unavailable in
print, have been floating around in e-mails for some
time. Also, though Ringe generally sticks to the
consensus view in his reconstructions, he occasionally
expresses his own opinions on matters, and these are
often thought-provoking. For example, for the ancestor of
English "bear (animal)", Ringe would posit PIE *gwer
"wild animal" (cf. Gr. ther, Latin ferus) instead of the
usual conjecture that it is from a tabooistic
circumlocution meaning "the brown one".
end quote.
there are any number of fanciful etymologies for "bear" ,
"wolf" etc. ("the brown one", "the tearer", "honey eater"
etc.)

No one etymologizes 'bear' or 'wolf' as 'honey eater'; that
etymology applies to the Slavic words akin to Russian
<medved> 'bear'. Similarly, Welsh <melfochyn> is
etymologically 'honey-pig' (<mel> 'honey', <mochyn> 'pig'),
and Lithuanian <lokys> is 'licker'. There is nothing
fanciful about these etymologies; on the contrary, they're
quite straightforward. The euphemisms that they incorporate
aren't even particularly fanciful.

So one must bear in mind that erroneous etymologies are
another source of noise in reconstructions and I was
surprised to find that even something so written about as
"bear" is subject to scholarly disagreement.

As Joachim has already pointed out, none of this supports
the claim made in your subject line. I'll add that you've
provided exactly *one* example of a disputed etymology,
which wouldn't be proof that *most* etymologies are
fairytales even if uncertainty did equate to fairytale.- Hide quoted text -

You guys' lack of imagination is somewhat saddening. If something
could be derived either from "brown one" or "wild animal" - clearly
one of them is sufficiently wrong to be classified as a fairy tale.


The etymology of the word "bear" is extremely difficult. It is a
logical hypothesis that the name of "bear" comes from the "brown"
color (brown bear). Don Ringe has wrongly conceived a "new-to-be-born"
bear-etimology as well as it happened to many of his other
etymological items, which are mostly built on shaky grounds.

First things he forgot is Russian "бурый медведь" (buriy medved 'brown
bear') and the Old Slavonic word бьрлог (lair; Serb. brlog). Of
course, Vasmer rightly rejected the direct relation between
"brlog" (lair) and "bear". The Russian buriy (brown) is derived from
the Slavic verbs bariti/variti (boil; Russ. бурлить boil) or puriti
(burn; Serb- purenje = burning).

In fact, these words were derived from the Bel-Hor basis (hence Eng.
boil/er; Lat. bullire) and with a small metathesis (I have already
discussed it in my earlier posts: (h)o-blo-(h)re-gne "a round motion")
"bel-hre" became the Slavic *burl-. The Serbian verb
"prljiti" (related to Russian burlyit) has the meaning "to scald,
singe" and from there comes the Serbian adjectiv prljav (dirty, dusty;
prljava boja = dusty color; the color of dust) and oprljen (singed,
scorched, dusky, murky; cf. Serb. ubrljan/uprljan dirty).

Namely, beside Serbo-Slavic ubrljan/oprlljen and Russ. buriy (brown)
there is the Serbian word smeđ (brown), which has been "obtained" in a
similar way as "buriy", because "smeđ" comes from the verb
"osmuditi" (burn superficially, singe). Of course, it seems
unnecessary to mention that the English word "burn" is the "source" of
the brown color.

While considering the above arguments, everyone can see that Don
Ringe's "bear etymology" cannot be taken seriously.

DV

The next step is induction - if there is guranteed to be a fairy tale
etymology for such a common word (that seems to have been quite
written about)- how is one to trust any etymology?
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Greek Psi
    ... PIE etymology of bear as the brown one. ... It's called a conjecture, and everyone recognizes it as such, and understands that it goes away if it is found inconsistent with anything that *is* firmly established or if a better conjecture comes along. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Greek Psi
    ... PIE etymology of bear as the brown one. ... that each and every scienticif hypothesis and claim ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: open letter to the Google company, on the value of the scientific groups
    ... You thought you don't need evidence ... the brown one is found ... convince you either that bear is the brown one or that bear is not the ... etymology and learn why philologists nearly two centuries ago decided ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Greek Psi
    ... as the brown one, you can't look up a book, science ... bear as the brown one in literature, ... the slightest interest in the etymology of 'bear', ... They are available on google books. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: proof that most etymologies are only fairy-tales
    ... (the bown one, or the wild one, or the overcomer). ... the overcomer and is not happy with the brown one. ... a bear so outstanding that the animal would have been named ... I consider my Magdalenian etymology ...
    (sci.lang)
Quantcast