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Post by Teuta1975 on Mar 23, 2008 5:32:16 GMT -5
I doubt anybody is gonna read this, but just in case, I am posting it...even though it's too long!!! Cannot be read in one day/
First Part THE CRADLE OF THE INDO-EUROPEANS'; LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE. By Stuart E. Mann. [The Indo-European primitive types are 64 here ,resented in a spelling which is easier to print than the one usually adopted. The apostrophe is a palatalizing mark, j and w are semivowels, 6 is the IE shva, usually represented by turned e. The endings -os, -is are noun and adjective endings, -om denotes a masculine not normally occurring in the nom. sing., & and j& are collective endings, -Lmay have once denoted a collective adjective but has come to be regarded as a sign of the feminine.] From the blind acceptance of the ' Aryan ' theory and all that it implies it is easy to swing over to the opposite view, namely that the 'Aryan' theory is a Nazi ad hoc invention and a myth, and that it is clear, therefore, that such a people as ' Aryans ' never really existed. This is, of course, totally wrong. That the Germanic, Slavonic, Italic, Hellenic, Indic, Celtic, and other groups of languages are all descended from one almost homogeneous original has long been known. Moreover, this can be proved by the fact that several thousands of words of the original speech have been reconstructed by scientific processes ; in many cases their endings, stress and precise meaning have been established, and the reconstructed grammar of proto-Indo-European speech even makes it possible to write the language, using simple constructions and short sentences, with a high degree of accuracy. All this we owe to the patiently accumulated studies of comparativists for the last 150 years or so. EGen Dr. Johnson, in the Preface to his Dictionary, suspected that such a language as ' Indo-European ' may have once existed.
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Post by Teuta1975 on Mar 23, 2008 5:35:37 GMT -5
Second Part It is clear, therefore, that if in prehistoric times there was a single ' Indo-European ' speech, there must have been a people to speak it. Our problem is to discover who these people were, and where and how they lived. SO far as we know, they have left no written records of themselves in their original home, so that the picture can only be reconstructed slowly, piece by piece, like a jigsaw puzzle, from the evidence we have at hand. The linguistic picture is essentially a one-sided one. A more nearly perfect one could be restored if we were to pool the resources of archeology, anthropology, linguistics, and comparative folklore. The last-mentioned of these sciences is probably the least studied subject of all, yet it may prove in the end to be the most fruitful, provided, however, that folklore findings are subjected to scientific rules, and are cross-checked I July-August, 1943.1 MAN [No. 64 by the stricter disciplines of the other three sciences. Legends, folk-tales, superstitions, annual customs and rituals, dances, children's games and nonsense rimes-all these will one day yield invaluable material. What are the limits of linguistic interpretation ? Firstly, I fear that linguistics may never yield much physiological evidence, though it is just possible that a close study of the ' Indo- European ' phonological system might, in the hands of an experimental phonetician, yield some facts about the size and shape of the jaw and the cavity of the mouth. Though climate is undoubtedly the chief factor shaping the sounds of a language, the contour of the mouth certainly plays a part as well. The first problem which arises is that of determining the cradle of the 'Indo-European' speakers. To do this I propose to deal with some of the names of wild animals, trees and plants, domestic animals, and inhidental data, including the names of some tools and devices, and so arrive at an approximate location of the primitive home by a process of elimination. bhebhrus,os ' the beaver ' The name of this animal occurs in most of the known and fully documented IE languages, though in Sanskrit the meaning is ' red-brown,' i.e. the color of the beaver. The word does not occur in Greek, Armenian or Albanian, though it survives as an ancient Dacian word in Rumanian breb ' beaver.' The Avestan bavra ' beaver ' seems to be the same word as Ossetian babur ' yellow,' Persian babar ' lion.' If this is so, the suggestion is that the name survived after the animal had been forgotten. The same name was then applied to a totally different animal. Compare the application of the word ' holly ' by Americans to a totally different shrub, the English holly being almost unknown in the U.S.A. The ' beaver '-word is of doubtful occurrence in Modern Celtic, and the Welsh use a totally different word for the animal. Yet the animal was well known to the ancient Gauls (bebro-). In Scandinavia the animal is called by its Greek or by its Low German name, though a native word (bjdrr) occurs in Old Norse. Many place-names, ancient and modern, testify to the wide occurrence of the beaver. Towns situated on rivers, and rivers themselves, are named after the animal. The ancient Fibrenus River (' Beaver ' river) flows along the frontier dividing Latium from Campania, and is 41.30 N., 13.30 W., this being the southern-most record we have of the beaver in place-names. In Gaul we find Bibrax, Bibracte, Bebriacum, etc., in Alemannic Switzerland we find a Biberist near Solothurn, as well as a Biberbruck. The village of Bevers, the valley of Bever, and the River Beverin in the Grisons give us a noun and an adjective of the extinct Ligurian language. There are two Biberachs in Germany, a Bevern (Low German form) in Brunswick, Beverungen in Westphalia, a Beverwijk in Holland, Beaverbourne, Beverage, Beverstone and Beversbrook in Britain, besides Bobrinets and Bobrov in Ukrainia, the latter place being as far E. as 40'. Similar names occur in White Russia, Silesia, Galicia and Bohemia. I have discovered no ' beaver ' place-names in Iceland, Ireland, Wales, Scandinavia, Southern Italy or in the Balkans. Though I cannot trace the word as a place-name in the Baltic countries, the word itself is well attested iin Lithuanian bebras, Lettish bebrs and bebris ' beaver.' The above evidence is largely borne out by natural history. Briefly, the Old World beaver is confined to Northern and Eastern Europe, and parts of Western and Northern Asia. They are reddish-brown in color, and inhabit wooded areas where there are narrow streams with slow currents. Remains of the beaver have been found in England and S. Scotland, but no traces of the animal have been found in Ireland. The bodies of prehistoric beavers have been recovered from the Macocha caves of Central Moravia. The animals were found until recently in the Rhone valley. In the Pleistocene age they reached as far south as Rome. In Poland and Lithuania a few survive ; in Lapland they have recently become extinct. In Scandinavia three large colonies are preserved near Arendal, Norway (58.28' N.). wiiiwerii, wiwerii ' the squirrel ' The first of these two forms occurs in Baltic (i.e. Lithuanian and Lettish), the second form in Celtic (Welsh and Irish), and in Latin. Both forms occur in Slavonic. The Germanic for (aikwem6) has been changed by folk-etymology. The word does not occur in Greek, Albanian, Indic, Iranian and Armenian. The Latin word is recorded by Pliny only, and is described as ' ferret,' probably in error. The word is held by Walde to be of non-Latin origin, since it does not occur in modern Romance. There is a village of Viv6r in the Grisons, however. In spite of the incidence of a long vowel in the first syllable of wliwerl there can be no doubt that the root of this word is wei-' to twist, curl, wave, turn,' etc. Cf. Skr. vaivarnya ' changing in appearance.'
No. 641 MAN [July-August, 1943. SKETCH-MAP ILLUSTRATING THE Though the distribution of the squirrel is almost world-wide, the European species alone being found throughout Europe, including Sweden and S. Norway, and Northern Asia, the squirrel is unknown in 8. Italy, the Caucasus and Crimea. Even so, as in the case of the Scandinavian beaver, we must always bear in mind the possibility of the animal's extinction in these regions within the historic period. Squirrels occur as far north as Lapland and Siberia. mtisis ' the mouse ' This word is of nearly universal distribution, lacking only in the Baltic and Celtic languages. Its meaning is universally ' mouse,' though the Albanians, Armenians and Persians apply the word to the rat as well. The distribution of the word would seem to indicate that the animal was unknown to the extreme northern and western settlements of the ' Indo-European ' colony, these having first come into contact with the animal after regionalization. The mouse is said, moreover, to have come to Europe from Asia, but the evidence is inconclusive.
1: CRADLE OF THE INDO-EUROPEANS. wlquos ' the wolf ' This word occurs in all the existing IE groups except Celtic and Armenian, where the word for ' wolf' descends from a type wailos (Irish faol, Arm. kajl, cf. Lith, vailokas ' kind of fur '). me Latin and Greek forms deviate from the normal, a fact which indicates borrowing. Wolves are said to inhabit both open country and forests. They are unknown in Africa and S. America, but are found all over Europe (except where recently extinct), including Ireland, Spain and Scandinavia, and spread over the greater part of Asia north of the Himalayas as far east as Japan. alhnis, eliinis,, m. and f. ' the red deer ' This word occurs in Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, and Armenian. The red deer is said to be found all over Europe, except in Russia, where it is found only in the Crimea and the Caucasus. It is less plentiful in the Mediterranean forests and in Scandinavia than in the forests of Central and Eastern Europe. On the Continent the red deer is a forest animal, which feeds in the open after sunset. 76 I July-August, 1943.1 MAN [No. 64 eg'his ' the hedgehog ' animal,' beside toksji ' hunting equipment ' in This form of the word is found in Baltic, Baltic, Germanic and Greek. Slavonic and Ancient Phrygian. The Greek luk'sis, luk'snis, luk'snos ' lynx ' form is adjectival (eg'hinos), the Germanic form This word occurs in Baltic, Germanic, Greek is a diminutive (eg'hilos), the Ossetian and and Armenian. Armenian forms are adjectival and in 0-grade, The true lynxes are mainly a northern group, i.e. with -0- as the base vowel (og'hinos). The being unknown in India, Africa and South word does not occur in the Indic and the remain- America. The lynx now inhabits N. Sweden, ing Iranian languages, nor in Scandinavian or Norway and Russia, but has been exterminated Celtic. Its absence in Albanian may be due to in Central Europe, Germany and France. Rethe presence of Albanian edh ' kid ' (aig'is), with mains have been found in caves in England. which the eg'his type wpuld nearly coincide The lynx extends eastward throughout most of (*jedh). The existing Albanian words are loans Asia north of the Himalayas, ranging through the from Old Slavonic and an Italic dialect respec- Altai into Ladak and Tibet, and occurring in the tively. Indus valley as far west as Gilgit. In Europe the The European hedgehog is not found in N. animal lives in forests, and is an expert climber. Scotland, but ranges from 63" N, in Scandinavia The Tibetan variety lives in open barren country. to the South of Italy, and is found in Asia Minor, The lair of the lynx is usually found where there Syria and the Caucasus. It is common in both are rocks. Another type, the Mediterranean highlands and lowlands. Other species of hedge- lynx, is found in Spain, Sicily, Sardinia, Greece hog are found in India and Afghanistan. and Turkey. lak'isos ' the salmon ' ek'wos ' the horse ' This is an important piece of evidence. The word apparently derives from a root ' to jump,' This name for horse is common to Latin, and occurs in Germanic, Slavonic, Baltic, Tocharic Germanic, Celtic, Baltic, Indic and Persic. The and Ossetian. In Tocharic, however, the word is irregular form in Greek may be due to borrowing said to mean ' fish ' in general. The Russian (the aspirate suggests Asia Minor). I cannot doublet lox ' male salmon ' may be loaned from a agree with Childe and Schrader in regarding the neighbouring IE language. The Italian laccia word as derived from a root meaning ' swift,' nor ' &ad,' Sardinian laccia ' gudgeon ' are doubtful can I ikace any such root in IE. The usual words relatives, though the shad, like the salmon, enters for ' swift ' are figurative derivatives of well- fresh water to spa-. The Bask la; ' dogfish ' known verb-roots, such as elnghus,wos ' light, may be an early loan from IE. light-footed,' twrtos ' pressing, hastening,' also The salmon is found only in the temperate and ' ~ressedf,i rm,' cf. the Greek type tnghus ' press- arctic zones of the Northern Hemisphere, the ing, hastening,' elsewhere ' pressing, weighing southern limits of all salmon-types being the down, heavy, etc.' Hindu Kush and the Atlas Range. But the true The word ek'wos may, in my view, apply to any salmon (Salmo salar), which is probably the fish horse, swift or otherwise. Remains of the pre- denoted by lak'isos, is not found in the Old historic horse have been found in Europe, includ- World south of 42"N., and is unknown in any of ing France and Italy, N. Africa and N. India. the rivers which flow into the Mediterranean or The Equus robustus of the Pleistocene period Black Sea. It is essentially a sea-fish which only existed in Britain in the Bronze Age alongside a ascends rivers to spawn. slender-limbed type. That the horse was prob- In determining the site of the ' Indo-European ' ably tamed by the ' Indo-Europeans ' is indicated home an important piece of evidence is the word by the widespread occurrence of the type sed- for ' sea.' The typical word, not found in the dhlom ' sitting-thing, saddle ' as well as sed- sense of ' sea ' east of the Caucasus or in Asia dhliirios ' saddler,' a word bhrunjos, bhrunji Minor, is a collective neuter marji ' the wastes ' ' harness, trappings ' (common to Baltic, slavonic (cf. Skr. rnarh ' desert,' mars ' earth,' and Germanic, cf. Irish bruinne ' breast, front '), rnnra ' field I ) . The English word sea derives and a word jsj6 ' I ride on horseback,' common to from a type common to Germanic, Celtic and Baltic and Indic. Cf. Skr. yhyu ' horse.' There is Latin : saiwos ' excited, turbulent, etc.' The a common word ghwen6 ' I chase ' (Alb. zd ' I usual Baltic word derives from curs ' the wide,' seize,' Germanic winjan ' win,' cf. Goth. winja one of the Greek words means ' the salt,' and the ' pasture,' lit. ' driving place,' Trift, vygon). Albanian word perhaps derives from a type There is some evidence of a type toksos ' hunting diitm or doitm ' tide, division of time.'
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Post by Teuta1975 on Mar 23, 2008 5:38:56 GMT -5
Third Part Note on ' codjish ' Slav share a word for swan ; Baltic and Germanic There is a widespread fish-name of type 8 word for seagull. treskos,&, trskos,l ; the phonology following ATote on ' seagull ' that of Lat. corpus, AS. hrif, Russ. fierep, etc. The word occurs in Germanic, whence the The Baltic and Germanic words for seagull Slavonic and Irish forms may be borrowed. reduce to a type m6wos,&,. The difference of Armenian durrex, however, means ' herring.' gender in Baltic and Germanic suggests nonborrowing. Irish has a word meabk (mewii) k'orm6 or k'armd ' stoat, ermine ' ' hen,' which, like the word for gull, is onomatopoeic. This word is discoverable only in Germanic and trusdos, tursdos ' the thrush ' Baltic. ghansis, g'hansis ' the goose ' This is a widespread IE word for ' thrush ' ghanser ' the gander ' (Latin, 0. Irish, Germanic and Armenian, the last two being diminutives), but no word has so This word seems originally to have been in far been ascertained for the blackbird. imitation of the bird's cry, and affords some clue Five varieties of thrust nest in Europe and as to the sound of gh- in primitive IE. Both the N. Asia, though these do not normally migrate. masculine and the feminine forms occur in The blackbird, on the other hand, tends to avoid Germanic and Slavonic, in Latin only the mas- the more northerly parts of Europe, and is resiculine form occurs, whereas in Baltic, Greek, dent all the year round in S. Spain, Algeria and Celtic and Indic only the feminine form is used. the Canaries. The thrush builds its nest of dry In Irish the fem. form means ' swan,' in Sanskrit grass, moss and sticks, and usually nests in ' water-fowl,' elsewhere it is uniformly ' goose.' hedgerows, ivied walls, low shrubs and fruit-trees. In Baltic the masc. form is an adjective derivative In the treeless valleys of Scotland they nest on of the feminine (i.e. g'hansinos), while English rocky ledges. Their food consists chiefly of gander is probably of independent origin (cf. Lith. worms and insects. gandms ' stork '). The irregular terms applied indiscriminately to The wild varieties of goose are of wide distribu- thrushes and blackbirds by the Balts, and tion throughout Europe and N. and Central Asia variously to both birds by the different Slav as far as India. They breed in N. Europe and peoples, suggest that they were borrowed into Siberia, wintering in the Mediterranean area, Baltic and Slavonic from another dialect of IE. their favourite habitat being marshes, lakes, Or they may be entirely unrelated words. moors and open plains. teterwos,&, tetrwes,ii, ' the black cock,' angtis ' the duck ' ' capercailie ' This word is found in Latin, Baltic, Slavonic This word occurs in Scandinavian, Baltic, and Germanic in the sense ' duck.' Even if we Slavonic, ancient Medic, Modern Persian and restrict its meaning to the mallards these are of Armenian, with variants in Greek. In Modern such wide distribution as to afford little evidence Persian it means jungle-cock, pheasant, in for locating the IE cradle beyond indicating an Armenian wood-pigeon. In Czech the word for abundance of fresh-water lakes, marshes or pools. ' heathcock ' is distinguished from the word for The presence of small slow-flowing streams in the ' capercailie ' by a diminutive suffix. original home is implied by the word ' beaver.' The word is clearly based on the male bird's cry A type udros,ii/iidros,& ' otter ' confirms this to the female. Whether the original sense is view. The word simply means ' water-one,' ' heathcock ' or ' capercailie,' the regional impljcaand occurs in Baltic, Slavonic, Germanic and tions are similar. Ossetian in the sense ' otter,' in Greek in the The black grouse, black cock, or heathcock sense of 'hydra, water-snake ' (aspirated no doubt (Tetrao tetrix) is found chiefly in the neighbourby the influence of the Greek word for ' rain '), hood of pine and birch forests bordering moorand in Sanskrit in the sense of' water-animal.' In land, where bilberry, cranberry, heath, and Irish the word means ' dun, brown,' and a deriva- bracken abound. Much of their food consists of tive of the word means ' water-parsnip.' The buds and flowers, but they eat grain in autumn. Irish call the otter ' water-dog.' Another indica- They frequently crossbreed with capercailie. tion of the presence of water is a type g'ergnos,is The capercailie abounds in the pine forests of ' crane,' though the original form of the word is Northern and Central Europe and Asia. They not certain. Of other water birds Germanic and live among pines, and feeds upon pine-needles. [ 78 I July-August, 1943.1 MAN [No. 64 qwrmis ' the worm ' This word is of almost universal occurrence, but the implications of the word are confused by the fact that it means variously ' worm ' and ' grub.' ghelwos,g, g'helwos,8 ' the tortoise ' This word is one of the IE words for ' yellow ' (from which are descended Eng. yellow, Latin helvus, Latin from ( 2 ) Ligurian gilvus (cf. Ladin gelc, fem. gelgua ' yellow '), Lithuanian gelsvas beside z'elvas, etc.) so that the variety of tortoise indicated by ghelwos would seem to be Testudo graeca, which is found only in Southern Europe. The vaEiety imported as a pet to England is a native of the Balkan Peninsula, and is yellow with black markings. In general the tortoise is said to reach far N. in E. Europe, but not farther than 46" N. in W. Europe. The word ghelwos,g is, however, of limited currency, occurring only in Greek and Slavonic. The European tortoises frequent dry, sandy places and do not like rain. wopsg ' the wasp ' medhus ' liquid honey, mead ' melit ' hodey ' It is a curious fact that no common word for ' bee ' has survived from the mother speech, especially as the existence of bees in the primitive home is implied in the words for honey. There is even some evidence for a bee-hive in a type kuk'sis,os ' basket, bee-hive,' though more evidence is needed on this point. The semantic value of these words is that they imply the existence of honey-bearing flowers and blossoms in the original home. Medhus is also a drink of the ' mead ' type. Such is the evidence afforded by the names of wild animals and creatures in ~rimitive IE. Other names must have existed, but these vet remain to be discovered. One or two names are ambiguous with regard to their meaning. Such is the type ~ ~ W O Sw,hich is ' bull ' in Celtic (variant : tkwos), Germanic (ON. thjdrr), Italic, Greek and Albanian (dim : tiur8kos). whereas in Baltic and Slavonic the word is aiplied to the ' bison.' Negative evidence, for what it is worth, is afforded by the absence of a word for ' rabbit ' (a native of W. Europe, but unknown in N. and E. Europe), and there is no certain word for ' hare,' nor is the name of the ' bear ' of certain documentation. The tropical animals as a whole are unrepresented. There is a word anghwis ' snake ' or ' eel ' (Lat. Lith. Slav. Arm.). There may have existed a type iquilg ' black bird, I: 79 night bird, dark bird, or blind bird ' ( 2 ) cf. Lith. alclas ' blind ' and Gmc. uhwil6 ' owl,' though the latter may just as easily be an onomatopoeic word (uhu-) with a diminutive suffix. bherg'os,ii ' the birch ' The birch tree is literally the ' bright ' tree, and there can be no doubt as to it's identification, as it bears the meaning ' birch ' in Germanic, Baltic, Slavonic and Ossetian. There is a related form in Skr. bhcrja, a kind of birch whose bark was used as writing paper in Kashmir as late as the sixteenth century A.D. The two European birches, Betula verrucosa and B. pubescens occur as far north as 65" and 70" respectively, and is the most northerly of Europe's trees. In the south the first extends to Sicily and N. Spain, the second to the southern foot of the Alps. The birch is found in Central and E. Asia, and a variety occurs in Afghanistan and the Himalayas. It grows up to an altitude of about 1500 metres. The birch is one of the few trees that can grow where there is heather (see wroik'os, below). silikis ' the willow, sallow-tree ' witis, witjg ' withy ' (root wei- ' twist ') The first of these words occurs in Celtic, Latin, Greek and Germanic ; the second is found (with variations) in Germanic, Latin, Celtic, Greek, Slavonic, Baltic, Persic (mod. Persian ' willow ') and Ossetian, being absent from Albanian, Armenian and Indic. The willow is essentially a northern tree, but is found in the Himalayas, occurring abundantly in E. Asia, especially round the Bering Sea. It is a water-loving tree favouring warm districts. Except for the Arctic varieties the willow (unlike the poplar) is pollinated by insects. apsg, apsnb ' the aspen ' This is the only kind of poplar widely documented in IE, occurring in Germanic, Celtic (Welsh type : apsnb), Baltic and Slavonic. The aspen has a wide distribution reaching to E. Asia and N. Africa. The tree largely gives place to the poplars in S. Europe. bsis, bsnos, bsnb ' the ash ' The word occurs in Baltic, Slavonic, Latin and Celtic. The tree is distributed over the north temperate zone, and most of its 40 varieties are Asiatic in origin. The manna-ash is a Mediterranean- oriental tree. The common ash (Fraxinus excelsior) stretches from Southern Europe to 62" N. In Central Europe it inhabits moist lowland woods, but reaches an altitude of 1350 m. Reaching a I No. 641 MAN [July-August, 1943. rnaxirriurn age of about 200 years it is a shortlived tree compared to the oak or the lime. In Homer's time spears were fashioned out of ash. The leaves have always been used for sheep and goats' fodder. Among the ancients the sap of the ash was used against snake-bite, and the practice of planting an ash outside the house to keep away snakes still persists in Europe. It was the most important tree in Norse mythology. eiw8 ' a tree ' This word occurs in Germanic and Celtic in the sense ' yew,' in Lithuanian ' bird-cherry,' in Lettish ' black alder,' and in Slavonic ' aallowtree.' Though all the recorded forms agree, I cannot find any common meaning for the word. If ' yew ' were the original meaning one might relate the word to aiwom ' age,' perhaps owing to the slow growth and extreme longevity of the tree (said to reach 2000 years). The word is, however, a complete enigma. bhlg'os,8 ' a mast-bearing tree ' siis ' the sow ' ; pork'os ' the hog ' gwel&ndis,os' the acorn ' I have grouped these words together because, presumably, the rearing of swine depended on a supply of food such as might be afforded by the oak and the beech. There is no certainty as to the original word for ' oak,' for which Greeks and Celts agree in using a type derwos/drwos, which in Germanic, Slavonic, Hittite (dorwos) and Albanian (drwos)simply means ' tree ' or ' wood.' The type perquos, which in Latin means ' oak,' is the Germanic word for ' fir,' and is a tree sacred to the Balto-Slavonic Thunder God. The word bh8g'0~,8occurs only in Latin and Germanic in the sense of ' beech,' and in Greek in the sense ' oak with edible acorns.' Other alleged connexions are almost certainly false. A probable relation is Skr. bhGjci ' portion,' cf. Hindi bhGji ' vegetables,' and with short vowel bhaj ' to share,' Greek phagein ' to eat,' though the occurrence of a word bagas ' bread ' in Old Lithuanian implies the existence of both a palatal and a guttural root. Cf. further ' buck- ' in ' buckwheat.' The type gwel&ndis,osoccurs in Slavonic, Latin, Greek, Albanian, Persic (mod. Persian ' oak ') and Armenian, where the oak is called ' hog's acorn.' The two main kinds of oak are the Quercus, native of the north temperate zone, and the Pasania, which being peculiar to E. Tropical Asia need concern us no further. Of Quercus some 200 varieties are known, three in Central Europe and over 12 in S. Europe. The Turkey Oak (Q. cerris) occurs in a natural state in Lower Austria, S. Switzerland, Nloravia, Hungary and S. Europe generally, and bears edible acorns. Quercus vallonea is common to Asia Minor ant1 the Balkans, and its fruit is likewise edible. Que.rcus serrata occurs in the Himalayas. The distinct holm-oak is a native of the Mediterranean basin. kosglos ' the hazel ' This word occurs only in Latin, Germanic and Celtic (Gaulish coslo-). Armenian gnynen ' hazel ' is an uncertain relative. The origin of Slavonic lbka and Albanian lajthi ' hazel ' is unknown. The commonest variety of hazel is ,Corylus avellana, and is found almost everywhere in Europe as well as in Asia Minor, Algeria and N. Syria. Fossilized remains of the hazel have been found in Arctic regions dating from the middle tertiary period. In' Switzerland the hazel grows up to an altitude of 1350 m., in the S. Alps to 1730 m. elimos, glimos, lmos ' elm ' The word for ' elm ' has no singie IE form. The above types occur in Latin, Germanic, Slavonic and Celtic (Irish ailm). The usual Celtic word for ' elm ' seems to have become confused with a Germanic term for ' lime ' (leimos,&) while Albanian m,llenj is described as ' mountain elm.' ~h~ elm is said to be a disappearing tree, and was formerly more plentiful than at present. It thrives well only in tropical forests. The mountain elm (UZmus scabra) seems to have been the firstelm to recover from the Ice Age, and reaches a latitude of 70" in Norway, whereas the field elm (u.campestris)reaches only to 664" N. Charred remains of elm have frequently been found in the Danish and Jutland mussel-heaps of the first neolithic period, indicating that it was once coextensive with the oak, until it became largely displaced by the beech. Another term for ' elm ' (weng'is or weg'is) is common to Slavonic and Albanian (cf.AS. wice ' witch-elm '). Xote on ' pine ' The difficulty of tracing a word for ' pine ' in Indo-European seems to be linked with a taboo. The Slavonic types k'akin8, k'akn8, and bhurwos, the usual terms for ' Scotch fir,' literally mean ' needles ' and ' dark (tree )' respectively, the firtree word mostly reduces to a type elis,os,8 and possibly elewos, which simply means ' tree ' or ' wood,' and is the base of Greek 2Aa+os, ' wood-animal,' i.e. elmbhos. The taboo-word may have resembled peuk'8 or peuk9t&,but the evidence is inconclusive.
July-August, 1943.1 MAN [No. 64 iibblis, gbglis, abglis ' the apple-tree ' piiris,os ' a kind of wheat ' miilom ' the apple ' This word occurs in Baltic in the sense of The first of these words is common to Slavonic, ' winter-wheat,' in Slavonic as ' corn,' ' millet,' Baltic, Germanic (short initial) and Celtic (short ' spelt ' and ' couch-grass ' ; in Greek it means initial). The second form is common to Latin, ' wheat,' while in Indic it is a kind of cake Albanian and Greek, and may be a loan-word (Sanskrit type piiros, Hindi type piiris). In (see map). Finnish it occurs as a loan-word meaning ' por- All other evidence of IE trees is uncertain. ridge.' In Baltic and Anglo-Saxon the word is The word for ' alder ' is difficult to reconstruct used in its plural form, and in the latter language from the similar but not homogeneous words means ' rye-grass.' Czech sucho-pyr (' dry ' piiros) found in Latin, Germanic, Slavonic and Baltic, is a kind of sedge growing in damp hollows, the and there is no trace of a general word for either flowers collectively having the appearance of mist the lime-tree or the larch. Latin and Germanic (cotton-grass ?), while the Greek word agro-pyron have a common word for maple ; Latin and (' field ' piiros) is ' couch-grass.' Clearly, then, Hittite share a tree-type karpinos. When we piiris,os is an inferior kind of wheat. consider that there is'no common Indo-European The Triticum class includes couch-grass, aegiword for common things like ' bread ' or ' grass ' lops, ' Einkorn,' spelt, and wheat proper. The the absence of so many tree-names is not sur- ' corn in Egypt ' is said by Warburg to have been prising. T. spelta, and is grown to-day by small farmers in We now turn to the grains. There is an almost Central Europe as winter corn, the grains of which universal word for ' graih,' i.e. g'rnom. The are frequently added to soups. Besides spelt, the existence of a word gwernus, gwernowos (in T. dicoccum variety is said to have been cultivated Baltic gwrnus,owos) for a hand-mill or ' quern,' by the Egyptians, and its grains are held to have as well as a word meljb (mgljb, mlj6) ' to grind,' been found in the remains of neolithic and Bronze and a Celto-Slavonic type taistos ' dough ' Age pile dwellings. T. dicoccum is said to grow indicate that the primitive people made flour, wild in Palestine at an altitude of 1330 m., and it though what they made of it afterwards is not is still cultivated to a small extent in Spain, clear from linguistic evidence. It is difficult to France, Italy, Switzerland, S. Germany, Serbia, see why, for instance, the Slavonic word for Egypt and Arabia.
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Post by Teuta1975 on Mar 23, 2008 5:39:29 GMT -5
Fourth part Grains of a wheat approach- ' bread ' should be a loan-word from Germanic, or ing the modern variety have been found, accordwhy the Lithuanians should have once regarded ing to Warburg, in Egyptian tombs, as well as in their bread as a ' gift ' (= Skr. dhand ' grain '). the neolithic pile dwellings of Robenhausen. Fortunately we can reconstruct four grain-names Wheat is an almost universal grain, growing up in IE with certainty, and others with a fair degree to 60" N., except in Norway, where the warming of probability. effect of the gulf stream makes cultivation posrughis 'rye ' sible up to 69". In the Alps it is found at an alti- This word is well attested, and occurs in tude of 1400 m., but requires better soil than rye. Slavonic, Baltic, Germanic and Celtic, and as a loan-word in Finnish, all in the sense ' rye.' jewos, pl :jewoi, collective : jewjg ' a grain ' The true rye, Secale cereale, is said to derive This word occurs in Sanskrit, Avestan and from thc mountain rye, a plant found on rocky Lithuanian in the sense of ' wheat,' but in scrubby slopes of the Mediterranean basin and the Modern Persian it means ' barley,' and in Ossetian Near East as far as W. Persia and the Caucasus. ' millet.' In the Romani dialects of Europe it The grain is cultivated almost up to 70" N., and means ' barley ' but the word is sometimes flourishes in Switzerland up to an altitude of applied to ' oats.' The occurrence of all three 2100 m. It is a much hardier plant than wheat, types rughis, piil'os and jewos in Lithuanian does growing in drier and colder regions than the not allow us to conclude that jewos was used in latter. It is little cultivated in the south temperate those regions where the word piiros was unknown. zone (including Hungary and Rumania) where The picture is further complicated by the existwheat is the staple grain. More than 90 per cent. ence of a type g'hridh-tg ' cereals ' in Albanian, of the world's rye is grown in Europe. ' barley ' in Anglo-Saxon, and g'hridhii ' barley ' According to Warburg the prehistoric peoples in Greek, a type bharisis, of uncertain documentaof Western Europe did not know rye. It occurs tion, and a third, albhis ' the white (grain) ' in Eastern Europe for the first time in the Bronze noun-type of albhos ' white,' cf. Turkish arpa Age, and is held by Warburg to have come to ' barley,' probably borrowed from an extinct IE Europe via S. Russia. language. [ 81 I No. 641 MAN [Jdy-August, 1943. Some clue as to the meaning of jewos is afforded by the existence of a root jew- ' to well up, seethe, ferment, move, stir, etc.' (cf. Lat. jCs, Gk. zymE), hence jewos would seem to be primarily a ' grain used in fermentation or brewing.' The barley cereal is essentially a grain of the south temperate zone, though being hardier than either wheat or rye it will grow in the north of Europe and in mountains where wheat and rye fail. Barley will grow up to an altitude of 2100 m. in the Alps, and to the immense altitude of 4300 m. in t,he Himalayas. Barley has not the appetishg flavour of bread, but boiled barley makes a nourishing mucus. Warburg holds barley to be one of the oldest of cultivated plants, barley-corns having been found in prehistoric pile-dwellings, in the Lorthet Cave in France, and at the Campigny site. It was known to the early Egyptians, by whom it was malted for brewing, to the ancient peoples of Palestine, and to the ancient Greeks, of whom Pliny says it was the earliest known grain. In modern times three-fourths of the world's barley is grown in Europe and Asiatic Russia together. It is still the staple grain of Tunis, Algeria and Greece, and is an important article of diet in Portugal and Turkey. In N. Europe it is largely cultivated for beer-brewing. meli, meljom, meljg ' millet ' That this word simply meant ' millings ' is indicated by Serb and Slovene mega 'flour,' Irish meile 'hand-mill.' But Latin milium, Breton mgl, Albanian me1 and Greek melint? (adjective form) all mean ' millet.' The word is related to type melj6/mlj6 ' to grind ' as is indicated by the Russian type pisin6m ' millet ' and its relation to type pisjb ' to grind.' The common millet (Panicum miliaceum) has not so far been discovered in a wild state. It is said to have come to Europe from Central Asia, where the summers are longer and warmer than in Europe. The millet is sensitive to cold. It is one of the oldest cultivated plants, having been found in neolithic sites in Switzerland, the pile dwellings of Italy, and in Germanic graves. It functioned in Chinese springtide rituals as early as 2700 B.C. It is the staple food of nomad Mongols and Kirghizes throughout Central Asia and in N. China to-day, and it is widely cultivated in India. A great deal of the grain is lost by grinding. There is little evidence of the early cultivation of oats whether as food or fodder. There may have been a type kopgros or kap&ros,ii,which, as it applies (with variations) in Slavonic to ' dill,' 'moondaisy ' and ' nettle,' and only in Germanic to ' oats ' (cf. ' haver-sack '),may originally have been regarded as nothing more than a ' feathery weed.' The Finnish word Eakras I hold to be 01 different origin (Finno-Ugrian '2). Beyond this, Latin, Slavonic and Baltic have a word for oats, of which only the first syllable aw- agrees. Smaller plants are exceedingly difficult to trace in primitive IE. Even in the more backward countries of to-day only those wild plants seem to be known which serve some specific purpose, i.e. as medicine, dyes, food, or for keeping away insects. I recall the difficulty I experienced when trying to collect wild plant names in Albania, and how, when a name was found, there was little agreement among the natives as to the precise plant designated thereby. It would sound a hopeless task, therefore, to establish plant names in a speech which has been dead for perhaps more than five thousand years ! Only about thirty names, apart from loans, are common to English and German, languages separated by a. mere 2000 years. The most certain of the plant names are those which denote dye-yielding herbs. modhgros,ii ' fragrant dye-plant, galium, madder ' This word-occurs in Germanic and Lettish in the sense ' madder,' with the additional meaning of Galium verum, (' lady's bedstraw ') in the latter language. In Old slavonic it is 'an adjective ' livid,' and the general meaning in modern Slavonic is ' blue.' The Czech adjective type modhrinos is ' larch,' probably owing to the redness of its wood, and the resin derived therefrom, while type modhrinii-means ' bruise, black eye.' The Irish type modhktos means ' discoloured.' In Sanskrit there is a plant name, presumably identical with Sindhi madhurci ' aniseed,' though this does not yield a dye but an aromatic oil. Albanian has madergon 'nightshade,' but the connexions of this word are not clear. The plant is clearly a dye-yielder, one of the Rubiaceae (Galium and Rubia), but whereas madder is a native of the Mediterranean, yielding a red dye, Galium is more common in N. Europe. In Scotland and Latvia the roots of G. verum are used to produce a fast dye, and the rest of the plant is used for curdling milk. It is a favourite plant of bees and has & strong honeyed scent. For this reason Sanskrit madhurd ' sweet,' Gaelic modhar 'soft ' may indicate the original meaning of the word (cf. medhus ' honey '). weroik'os,ii,wroik'os,ii ' heather ' ; adj. ' twisted, knotted ' This word occurs in Celtic, Slavonic and (E-grade) in Greek in the sense ' heather.' In 1: 52 I July-August, 1943.1 MAN [No. 64 0-grade the word means ' bent, knock-kneed ' in Greek, ' paralysed, crippled ' in Lithuanian, while Latin eriica, urCca is the ' canker-worm.' Albanian urith ' mole ' (lit. ' twister ') is in the same grade as Eng. wry. The common ling, Calluna vulgaris 1 is found in most parts of Europe, and grows as far north as Siberia. Its SE limit is given by A. Grisebach (quoting Bode) as running ' from Khotin on the Dniestr via Kaluga and Kazaii to the Urals, intersecting in turn the NE boundary of Fagus near Brody, Acer pseudoplatanus at &ev, Carpinus betulus in the Ukraine, Fraxinus on the Volga and Quercus pedunculata E. of Kazaii. I have traced this on the accompanying map (p. 76). The Calluna is easily the most useful of the heathers, being used both for dyeing and for making brooms. It is an astringent and has a flower attractive to bees. melis ' a staining plant, stain, dark mark ' This type in. Welsh and Lithuanian means ' blue, violet,' but Lith. mdle is ' woad,' and Gothic mdljan ' to write,' German mcilen ' to paint ' derive from this word. Short-grade cognates are probably Cornish me1 ' poppy,' Old British mel-gafr (' goats ' melis), Sanskrit mala (Romani mel) ' dirt,' beside longgrade mdlinya. A. Grisebach, Vegetation der Erde, Vol. I, pp. 146-7, says : ' The evergreen erica is decidedly a Western ' European type. It is true that calluna, the heather of ' the Baltic plain occurs again in Russia, but here it ' mostly requires the protection of shady trees to keep the ' ground moister. Thus the need of the erica-types for ' moisture is indicated. The open heaths of the Baltic ' plain are a product of the beech-climate. In Scotland ' calluna (59" N.) only goes a little beyond the beech ' limit (58"). It thrives in cloudy mountain areas. The ' (otherwise) bare slopes of Mont Blanc near St. Gervais ' are clad with calluna to a considerable height. The ' erica formations are not averse to the mzisture of ' mountain forests. . . . A decided maritime climate, or ' a substitute in the form of increased rainfall in mountain ' regions is only one of the needs of the true ericas. Other ' erica forms find a substitute in the marshes (e.g. ' Andromeda polifolia), and a few grow in eastern areas, ' such as Ledum and Andromeda calyculata. In view of ' this general relationship of erica to moisture of the air or ' of the soil it is strange that these very forms, calluna and bell-heather (E.tetralix), should be found both in the ' dry sands of N.W. Germany and the sodden peat of 'moorland tracts, and that in spite of the enormous ' contrast in the means by which moisture is supplied ' in these regions they share a uniform physiognomy. ~~t this apparent non-dependence upon ground. ' moisture may be due to the fact that even on dry hilly ' tracts the heather deposits a firm bed of humus on the ' loose sand, which is capable of retaining the atmo- ' spheric deposits of moisture occurring in maritime areas 'for a certain length of time. In a large part of the ' Baltic plain the calluna is the only representative of the ' ericas. Bell-heather. occurs for the first time at the ' legume limit, and then becomes more and more frequent ' as the North Sea coast is approached. The number of ' erica-types increases in France, reaching a maximum in ' the heaths of Gascony. . . .' In Lettish melns is ' black,' Welsh melyn ' yellow,' Ligurian (in Ladin) mellen, fern. melna ' yellow,' Greek melas (from melns) ' black,' Sanskrit malina ' dirty,' and Lithuanian (longgrade) mdlynas is ' blue.' The Greek type melnjom is ' viola,' melnjB is a bird, Albanian ' blackbird,' ' black goat,' while Albanian mellci, melle" (melnos, melnis) means ' weal.' The value of this word is to indicate the probable existence of another dye-plant besides modhgros. Records of other dye-plants are too obscure to deserve more than a mention. Gothic has a word wizdila, cf. Eng. weld ' dyer's-weed,' a word which has been connected with Latin vitrum ' woad ' (for phonology cf. ardtrum: Slavonic radlo). musos, mustos, muskos ' mossy substance ' The first of these types occurs in Germanic and Slavonic in the sense of ' moss,' in Lithuanian in the sense of ' mould,' and in Celtic in the sense of ' must,' in compounds ' moss,' Armenian -murr (from musus, cf. dzunr 'knee ') in ma-murr ' moss,' c'ri-murr ' sea-weed ' (lit. ' water-moss '). Sanskrit muska,musta is a sedge (Cyperus rotundus), Latin muscus is ' moss,' mustus ' mouldy,' cognate with Eng. must. wik9sis,os' a glutinous berry,' ' mistletoe ' This word is common to Slavonic, Latin, Greek, Albanian (diminutive) and Celtic, though in the last group it is implied only in French gui ' misletoe,' Welsh gwi-ail ' branches,' Old Slavonic wig: ' green branches.' Viscwm album is a plant which occurs only in Europe and the temperate regions of Asia. The mucus of the berry is used as bird-lime. The branch was regarded with special reverence by Germans, Celts and Romans. rt is that no certaienvi dence has been handed down of a berry-bearing shrub. Even a definite word for ' berry ' does not occur in IE, t'hough there is a agng, meaning berries ' in Latin, ' black currants ' in Lithuanian, while in the latter language berries are called by a word (bghwg) which in primitive IE meant ' eggs.' The names which follow are of limited documentation, occurring for the most part in Ianguages of the ~ ~ dbasin.i N~~~~ are o~f ~ IE origin, and will therefore only be mentioned briefly. bhak'os,B ' a bean,' Greek ' lentil,' Albanian ' bean ' (Germanic type baxun6 '1). bhabhos,B ' broad bean,' Latin and Slavonic. mBkos, mBk6 ' poppy,' Greek, Slavonic, borrowed ~ ~ No. 641 MAN [July-August, 1943 in Germanic and Armenian (cf. Arm. megon Plant-names survived only if they were important ' poppy ' and p'egon ' beech,' both from a Greek to the IE mode of life ; otherwise they were dialect). ignored. That grass was harvested as fodder is wikis, wikis, wikjfi ' kind of climbing pulse,' indicated by a word k'oinom,& ' hay ' (root ' to La.tin, Baltic and Slavonic ; in other languages lie '), found in Greek, Baltic, and Slavonic. a loan-word. Moreover, the fact that the ' Indo-Europeans ' lakhano- ' cabbage, greens,' Greek and Albanian. reared cattle (gwbws), sheep (owis), the pig linom, linom ' flax,' in most European languages, (siis), the goat (aig7is,os) and kept dogs (k'unes) ; native probably only in Latin and Greek. that they made carts (wog'hoi) of wood (derwos), kanaphis or kannabis ' hemp,' Greek, Albanian, complete with wheels (rothoi), rims (quequoloi), Germanic and Slavonic. an axle (ak'sis), thole-pin (tulis,os in Lith., Greek k'ik'er- ' chick pea,' Latin, Armenian and and Germanic), and yoke (jugom) for the two Albanian (' lentil '1. bullocks which drew it along the rutted way erogwos ' pea,' Greek, Latin, changed by folk- (riigii, Czech rgha, etc.) ; that they ploughed (arb) etymology in Germanic. the land, sowed (s6j6) their seed (sGm6,-en-) and pisos ' pea,' Greek and Latin. reaped (kerpb) their harvests-all these facts maliig'hwti ' mallow,' Latin, Greek, Albanian and imply that they lived in a temperate country Armenian. where there were ample grasslands, arable soil, Besides these there are a few names of plants a plentiful supply of timber, and hard stone for common to two IE languages only : thus Ger- making high-class tools. manic and Slavonic share a word for ' reed, rush ' That the ' Indo-Europeans ' lived a highly (Czech rokos, rakos), a word for ' carrot ' (mrkwii) organized life, no one will deny. The age to which and a word for ' sneezewort ' (kemeros,ii) ; Lith- they must be assigned is one in which tools of all uanian durpd is Eng. turf, and Eng. tare (Dutch kinds had reached a degree of excellence sufficient tarwe) seems to be cognate with Sanskrit dGrvcS to allow of large-scale ploughing and reaping, tree- ' millet ' (dorw8 : drwii). A large number of felling and the fashioning of wooden carts. Yet names are common to Latin, Albanian and Greek no certain word for any metal has survived, the (among them ' vine ' and ' olive ') but these may term ajos,esos ' bronze ' .being of limited docube from an extinct Mediterranean language. mentation (Latin, Germanic and Indo-Iranian), nor can any common word for a weapon (except Conclusion skeitos ' separator, protector, shield ') be traced. A peep into the mode of life of the ' Indo- Of tools and devices the following can be recon- Europeans' will afford us some secondary structed : ariitrom, ar-dhlom ' plow-thing, plow,' evidence as to where the cradle was situated. matejii ' hoe,' ak'm6,-en- ' stone. anvil,' sekiiris,ii We have seen that the ' Indo-Europeans ' had ' chopper,' ksuros, ksurjB ' scraper ' (Lith. ' shaveno comnlon words for tropical and subtropical grass,' Alb. ' gravel,' Skr. and Gk. ' knife, razor '), vegetation and fauna ; but names for exclusively g'ombhos ' nail,' ak'is ' spike,' ghebhglos ' prong, Western European animals and plants are also spit,' gwernowos ' handmill,' peilos,ii ' rasp, i.e. wanting, e.g. rabbit, holly, etc. That we should saw or file,' tere-dhlom ' bore-thing, borer,' not place too much reliance on this kind of sed-dhlom ' sit-thing, saddle,' sBrpos,8 ' reapingne" ga tive evidence is clear from the fact that the knife,' sjii-dhlom ' sew-thing, awl,' and perhaps larch,l a wide-spread European tree, has no dis- n2-dhlom ' thread-thing, needle.' coverable IE name, and that of the pine and fir The use of metals seems to have been disare difficult to determine. There seems to be no covered after the ' Indo-Europeans ' had become common term for either ' grass ' or ' stone,' regionalized, by which time phonetic differenthough the rearing of cattle for their milk tiation had already set in, so that as the use of the (melg'b ' to milk ') implies the existence of grass. new metal spread to other IE regions the word 1 Of the larch two varieties belong to Central Asia, would be taken from the place of origin of the two to the Himalayas, one to Siberia ~ n odn e to Europe. metal. Thus we call wolfram ' tungsten,' not The European variety in its wild state is almost exclusively confined to the mountains of Central Europe, *thung-stone (heavy stone), using the Swedish chiefly the Alps, the Carpathians, and the heights of form of the word unaltered. The world's lan- Bavaria, Rforavia and Silesia, and grotus at altitudes guages have borrowed ' nickel' and ' cobalt ' ranging from 900 m. to 2270 m. The existence of old churches built of larch shows that larch originally from German in recent times. That the IE names extended farther N. than at present. The tree does not of metals show irregularity is not surprising, in thrive in low countries. The Siberian larch, which is probably only a sub-variety of the European larch, forms view of their limited use in speech, presumably vast woods in N.E. Russia and N. Siberia. because they were known chiefly to the artisan r s14 ] July-August, 1943.1 MAN [Nos. 64, 65 class. Compare, moreover, English aluminium with American aluminum, a recent example of inconsistency in borrowed metal-terminology. Evidence of IE pottery is undiscoverable, yet curiously enough a word for handle (lms8 ' holder ') has survived. Of great interest is the IE type kauk'os,8 ' skull, bowl, cup.' In Celtic, Latin and Indic this word means ' bowl, cup,' in Lettish ' bowl ' and ' skull,' in Lithuanian ' ladle ' with variation ' skull,' and in Greek and Icelandic ' skull.' Schrader says primitive peoples used the skulls of their enemies to fashion bowls. If on the other hand it could be proved beyond doubt that the people within the ' cradle ' area used the skulls of their own people as bowls, important conclusions as to the ethnic composition of the ' Indo-European ' people might be reached. The home of the ' Indo-Europeans ' must have had a temperate climate, owing to the existence of names for the four seasons spring (wes6r, g.s. : wesntjos), summer (sgmer-), autumn (asj6,-en-) and winter (g'heiml). The universal occurrence of springtide ritual in Europe indicates a sudden onset of spring as in Central and Eastern Europe, where one week the landscape is completely devoid of any green vegetation (including grass), the following week everything is green ; the transformation taking place within a few days. The Germanic peoples identified the Springgoddess with the D a ~ m( ~ u s b r lA, usgr~w, hence Easter). Many IE folk tales testify to winter as being a subterranean demon (cf. Pluto)
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donnie
Senior Moderator
Nike Leka i Kelmendit
Posts: 3,389
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Post by donnie on Mar 23, 2008 6:38:23 GMT -5
An absence in Albanian for the word 'lynx'? We call them rrëqebull !?!?
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Post by albquietman on Mar 23, 2008 12:59:28 GMT -5
A little long but interesting article...
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Post by Teuta1975 on Mar 23, 2008 14:53:26 GMT -5
Donnie, for not being an Albanian, he has written a lot
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