It's a long weekend for me in The 'Peg, thanks to the new stat holiday christened Louis Riel Day. Louis Riel was, to make a long story short, a rebellious Métis and the founding father of the Canadian province of Manitoba. Some people loved him, some people hated him, some might have even called him bombastic or full of himself. A friend of mine asked me what I'd be doing this day and I told him that I would of course speak a lot of French, get drunk and try to avoid getting hanged. (This only makes sense once you understand the history of our dear Louis Riel and after you've gulped a few pints under your belt already.)
In Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the verb meaning 'to be drunk' is reconstructed as *mad- based on Sanskrit mádati, Greek μαδάω (madáō) and Latin madeo and came to be conjugated in the third person singular as *mádeti 'he/she is drunk'. It's a fun root even without your beer goggles on, one of the few roots in PIE it seems to have a genuine instance of the low vowel *a that isn't the product of a neighbouring laryngeal *h₂ colouring a former *e to *a[1]. Or so it seems at first.
Personally, I've been a little suspicious of some of these true instances of PIE *a, and not because I believe that *a didn't exist in PIE either. It did. Natural vowel systems always contain a low 'a'-like vowel without exception. A vowel system without an element of vertical height is extraterrestrial. Frankly, if there were an exception out there at all, it's so rare as to be negligible anyways. All languages have a low vowel in some form, whether rounded or unrounded, whether pronounced as front /a/, central /ɐ/ or back /ɑ/. So to try to erase this vowel from PIE simply because it's oddly rare in roots, as some have tried to do in the past, is a terribly foolish thing to do. However, I'm starting to convince myself that this vowel may have a special prehistory that may still owe its existence to laryngeals lost in a stage before Common PIE. Several centuries before, at the end of the MIE period[2], to be exact.
This is my suspicion which I may not be able to prove conclusively, so take it or leave it. Before the event of Syncope in late MIE that deleted almost all unstressed vowels, the root *mad- was originally *maxéd̰a-. According to what I've worked out on my own, MIE velar fricative *x ordinarily survived as PIE *h₂ which I believe may have acquired a uvular articulation /χ/ during the Late IE period. However, after Syncope, I would expect that such a form should in an ideal world become *mxed̰- in early Late IE (eLIE). Of course, this is an oddly formed root judging by what I know about PIE phonotactics. I don't recall any nasal-plus-laryngeal cluster at the beginning of words such as **mh₂- reconstructed at all.
This is where the "disappearing laryngeal act" comes in to explain at least one source of the 'true' *a in PIE. Consider the possibility that an MIE form like *maxéd̰a- should instead be expected to reduce to eLIE *mäd̰-, not **mxed̰-, in order to avoid an awkward cluster and to in effect retain the memory of the lost Pre-IE laryngeal in the resultant colouring of the neighbouring stressed vowel. It's a nifty idea that I can't get out of my head. Here I write umlauted front *ä in early Late IE to distinguish it from instances of plain *a which derived from MIE *a. Just before PIE proper, I theorize that a chain shift happened (*ä > *a > *o) which I often just refer to as Vowel Shift. So after that, eLIE *mäd- becomes *mad- without much fuss.
But I hear the jeers of disapproval, "Why go through all this trouble, Glen? Why stuff a laryngeal in there? Are you 'mad' or 'drunk', pardon the hoaky pun?" No, believe me, I'm quite sober as I write this because I notice that by slipping in a laryngeal in some of these other roots in PIE with true *a, some alluring etymological possibilities start to open up. The association of *nas- 'nose' with *h₂enh₁- 'to breathe' is too tempting to pass up (perhaps MIE *xanʔ-ésa- 'nose' > eLIE *(x)näs- and MIE *xénʔa- 'to breathe' > eLIE *xenh- ?). Apparently I'm not the only one that's tempted in adding a laryngeal in this roots[3], by the way.
Then there's an intoxicating connection between *mad- and a Semitic root that I want to have fun with. We have to ponder for a moment where the Indo-Europeans got their inspiration to make alcohol. The idea that they acquired this skill during the Neolithic from people south of the North-West Pontic isn't too much of a stretch, is it? So when I find a triliteral root in Semitic languages meaning 'to rejoice' (Aramaic hd', Ugaritic ḫdw, Akkadian ḫdū), which in its substantivized form becomes Akkadian muḫaddū 'causing joy', I wonder a little if we have another instance of prehistorical crosscultural contact that's been blurred by internal Pre-IE changes like Syncope since the time of its borrowing.
All I know is that I do indeed feel rejoiceful with a frosty glass of beer in hand. Salud! Happy Louis Riel Day!
NOTES
[1] Fortson, Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction (2004), p.72 (see link).
[2] I define Mid IE (MIE) as the stage of PIE spoken between approximately 6000 and 5000 BCE (See "Mid Indo-European", Semitic and Neolithic numerals for further info.)
[3] See Schrijver, The Reflexes of the Indo-European Laryngeals in Latin (1991), p.98 (see link).
With respect to *mh₂-, Beekes cites *mh₂ḱrós 'long.' I can only find reflexes for Avestan and Greek in Pokorny (as *məḱ- > mas- and makrós, respectively). Not much to go on.
ReplyDeleteHmmm, that doesn't sound right to me since phonotactic restrictions would cause the nasal to syllabify before the laryngeal and then it would be pronounced **m̥h₂ḱros, no? If that were the case, instead of Greek makros we'd have something crazy like *ēkros. Anyways, it doesn't matter how we reconstruct your example because it's not a valid example of an onset cluster **mh₂- before another vowel. We need a fullgrade example.
ReplyDeleteIn light of accent-related zerograding of vowels like *kwón-m̥/*kun-ós, the event of Syncope that I'm talking about is a done deal (and has been proposed long before me). So given Syncope, you'd expect that something special must have happened to the developing clusters of the form R(a)H- that must have existed in Mid IE but apparently are gone in PIE. I think this pre-IE vowel colouring idea is looking better and better the more I think about it.
Oh, and to clarify about these missing "RH- clusters" I meant that R is one of *m, *n, *l or *r and H is one of *h1, *h2 or *h3, and that these clusters must precede a full vowel (*a, *e, *o). At any rate, they don't exist apparently.
ReplyDeleteGlen, I'm confused. Can you explain how the two vowels in "Early IE" interacted with one another?
ReplyDeleteI remember reading something where you said the two original vowels came to alternate -- that is, they had a complementary distribution. But if that were the case, then they'd effectively be *one* phoneme, not two. Of course, this would mean that, at some stage, IE was a language with only one phonemic vowel -- something that has never been seen.
- Rob
All languages have a low vowel in some form(...)
ReplyDeleteThere appears to be an Algonquin language called Arapaho with no /a/ whatsover, just /i e O u/... tho going by your "how not to reconstruct a proto-language" article I'm not sure if you count one-off weirdities here... (Or trust anything off Wikipedia, for that matter.)
Rob: "Can you explain how the two vowels in "Early IE" interacted with one another?"
ReplyDeleteCertainly. I think I know exactly what you're confused about with my theory.
I propose that we must reconstruct *at least* two vowels in Mid IE (the stage before Syncope). Since I love Occam's Razor, I only will reconstruct *e and *a because I have sufficient evidence for them but lack evidence for any others so far. In unaccented position though, Mid IE vowels appear to have merged together as schwa /ə/ because of a strong stress accent. I represent all unaccented vowels as *a to avoid complex transcription.
I presume that this merger took place sometime in Mid IE possibly before contact with Semitic. I assume that Old IE still retained the original qualities of the unaccented vowels.
Note that while I reconstruct two vowels, this doesn't mean that Mid IE actually had only two vowels. As I just hinted, it's always possible that, because of later changes to the vowel system, it may be difficult or even impossible to discover these extra vowels with internal reconstruction alone.
Rob: "I remember reading something where you said the two original vowels came to alternate -- that is, they had a complementary distribution."
Maybe this is from when I was trying to grapple with *o/*e ablaut (as in the paradigm of *pod-/*ped- 'foot') and so I suggested at the time that there is both an alternation of accented *á with unaccented *e as well as the alternation of accented *é with unaccented *a. However, one exception to Syncope which I call Paradigmatic Strengthening now seems to account for why *o/*e alternates in paradigms. When the root was unaccented due to the accent shifting to the suffix in late Mid IE, the vowel of the unaccented root was preserved in order to avoid obscuring the paradigm or the form of the root with zerograding, hence *pedós in the genitive, not **pdos. This is why I say that most (but not all) unaccented vowels disappear during Syncope.
Either way, my theories never suggested a one-vowel system at any point in time. There remain at least two vowels in accented position.
I was actually completely unaware of this root. The word you usually hear of 'being drunk' is *medhu-ske/o- (an obvious denominal verb) See Greek:
ReplyDeleteμεθὐσκω Until I discovered my inability to find the word in my Sanskrit dictionary I was sure Sanskrit had this word too as madhucchati मधुच्छति. But now I can't find it.
Sanskrit does have madhu- मधु 'mead' Though. What is strangely compelling of course, is that madhu- could go back to something like this: *madH-u- An u-stem derivation from *madH.
What's then very interesting is the Greek word μαδάω, the a can only be explained as a vocalised h2 as far as I know. *madh2-ie/o- (or is it just *-e/o-?).
Of course it seems ridiculous to not connect madhu- with μεθὐς and mead, in a way it works. Maybe more is going on than we really think. We might even considered this to be an indication of an e/a ablaut.
I'm curious what you think :D
Tropylium: "There appears to be an Algonquin language called Arapaho with no /a/ whatsover, just /i e O u/... tho going by your "how not to reconstruct a proto-language" article I'm not sure if you count one-off weirdities here... (Or trust anything off Wikipedia, for that matter.)"
ReplyDeleteWow, hehe, you almost had me there but... read it and weep.
Philip Baldi in Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology on page 110 tells us what's really going on with Arapaho and indeed, just as I thought, this language too has /a/.
A caveat to all linguaphiles: Look passed transcription and see the phonetic reality beyond. (Wow, that's very Zen, isn't it?)
Okay, so they remain separate phones when stressed. That seems more reasonable.
ReplyDeleteNow I have a question about this "Paradigmatic Strengthening" of yours. Why don't we see it in forms like *ph₂trós "father's"?
Also, what do you think was the root vowel for "foot" before Syncope and Paradigmatic Strengthening?
- Rob
Rob: "Now I have a question about this 'Paradigmatic Strengthening' of yours. Why don't we see it in forms like *ph₂trós 'father's'?"
ReplyDeleteThat would be because it's more recent. Ever since Syncope, full/zero ablaut remained productive. So if this word for "father" were coined, say, in the middle of the Late Period from the verb *peh₂- plus the agentive *-tér- and literally meaning 'protector, provider', then *ph₂tér- would be the result (with zerograde present in the word from the beginning).
Further analogy with other stems which were formed before Syncope would supply the motive for a zerograded root in *ph₂tr-ós instead of **ph₂ter-ós, by analogy with inherited patterns in the language.
Keep in mind that I think that the dating of *ph₂tér- is intertwined with the dating of all other kinship terms in *-h₂tér- by analogy with this word. So *dʰugh₂tér- with its internal -CCC- cluster can't date to the Mid IE period in that form either. This is why I would reconstruct MIE *déug̰a for 'daughter' instead.
you almost had me there but(...)
ReplyDeleteMeh, too bad. That would've been a fun exception. I suppose renaming it to /O/ just made more sense for someone then...
Interesting.
ReplyDeleteBut do we need any Pre-PIE reconstructions for this? Can't the Semitic /muχadːuː/ -- am I right in assuming the stress is on the 2nd syllable? -- have been misunderstood as /mχadu/, been borrowed as such directly into PIE (as opposed to Pre-PIE), and then (very quickly, I imagine) the phonotactically forbidden (and cross-linguistically rare!) /mχ/ cluster was simplified to /m/, yielding a nice PIE root with two consonants and one vowel in between?
Of course, that would still mean that one of the astonishingly few cases of PIE "true *a" was borrowed. ~:-|
Interesting idea about where *-/h2ter/ comes from!
ReplyDeleteSorry I still haven't sent you the EDAL preface or answered any of your replies to my comments. I had less time than expected last weekend, and I didn't find your e-mail address. (I thought you had commented on the Wikipedia article on the laryngeal theory, but, although he makes your arguments about the PIE *ḱ *k *kʷ triad, he's called "Alsihler" and doesn't even have a talk page.) I'll just give you mine (david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at); if you want the EDAL preface (pdf, 1.5 MB), and IMHO you should read it, drop me an e-mail.
(I see you've already approved my first comment. Not that it matters, but I deliberately wrote χ rather than x: the Semitic ḫ is most commonly uvular rather than velar, though I'm told it varies within Arabic, and the uvular voiceless fricative seems to be the marginally most parsimonious interpretation for the sound of PIE *h2. But in neither case are we dealing with a /χ/-/x/ contrast, of course, and /mx/ and /mχ/ are equally rare, so I'm at most nitpicking here.)
ReplyDeleteDavid: "Can't the Semitic /muχadːuː/ [...] have been misunderstood as /mχadu/, been borrowed as such directly into PIE [...] and then [...] the phonotactically forbidden [...] /mχ/ cluster was simplified to /m/, yielding a nice PIE root with two consonants and one vowel in between?"
ReplyDeleteBy the tone in your response, I think you can see how unlikely that is for yourself. As you admit, /mχ-/ is an exceptionally odd onset for any language, so your suggestion is dismissable on those grounds alone. Also, ablaut alternations in PIE show that at least some initial clusters are proven to be the result of Syncope (e.g. *h₁ed- 'to eat' / *h₁dont- 'tooth'). If some, then why not all? Occam's Razor tells me to adopt the position that all initial clusters are the result of Syncope until proven otherwise. This produces a consistent CV(C) structure in all syllables in MIE.
The Semitic word we're talking about would have to be of the form *mu-ḫáddiʔu based on the Akkadian reflex (although I need to confirm this Semitic reconstruction). Judging by the accentuation of its daughter languages and based on what loans I suspect in Mid IE, Proto-Semitic likely placed a light stress accent on the first syllable by default, or on the first available non-final 'heavy' syllable. A heavy syllable is either a closed syllable (CVC) or a syllable with a long vowel (CV:). In this particular case, the first closed syllable receives accent.
And don't worry about nitpicking here, David. It's good to be precise and clear about what we mean.
ReplyDeleteGlen: "That would be because it's more recent. Ever since Syncope, full/zero ablaut remained productive. So if this word for "father" were coined, say, in the middle of the Late Period from the verb *peh₂- plus the agentive *-tér- and literally meaning 'protector, provider', then *ph₂tér- would be the result (with zerograde present in the word from the beginning)."
ReplyDeleteI don't understand. The same processes should have caused Paradigmatic Strengthening in *all roots*, including the root in the word for "father". Obviously that is not what we see here.
Also, you claim that full/zero ablaut remained productive after Syncope all the way to the break-up of IE. However, I fail to see how this was the case. If anything, quantitative ablaut was an artifact of Syncope and thus was only productive during it.
Rob: "I don't understand. The same processes should have caused Paradigmatic Strengthening in *all roots*, including the root in the word for "father". Obviously that is not what we see here."
ReplyDeleteNo. I maintain that this root postdates Syncope by a few centuries and never existed before the height of the Late IE Period. To reiterate my view, none of the forms of PIE kinship terms extended with *-h₂ter-, date to Mid IE and are therefore under no obligation to conform to rules that precede their existence.
I suggest that the kinship terms found with *-h₂ter- in PIE were once something like MIE *áta-sa 'father', *áma-sa 'mother', *baráxʷa-sa 'brother' (> eLIE *brāu-s) and *déug̰a-sa 'daughter' (> eLIE *dēug̰-s). After 'mother' was formed by analogy with *ph₂tér- and the nursery word *má(ma) (hence *má-h₂ter-), 'brother' was altered in likeness of 'mother' (hence *brāu-s -> *brá-h₂ter-). The word for 'daughter' was likewise reformed by analogy with 'father', hence eLIE *dēug̰-s -> *dug̰-h₂tér- with zerograding as is the custom of that stage of mid Late IE in response to the accentuation on the final syllable. And of course, with 'phonation shift' of voiced stops in some post-PIE dialects (as I described earlier), we get the standard forms *ph₂tér-, máh₂ter-, *bʰráh₂ter- and *dʰugh₂tér-.
It may seem as though I'm being innovative or 'risqué here but in fact, I'm merely expanding on what others before me have already published. See Lehmann, Theoretical Bases of Indo-European Linguistics (1993), p.278
I'm just an ignorant git here, linguistically, but I was under the impression that the etymology of the *mad- words for "drunk" (which go right through to Welsh - meddw) was pretty well established as tied to the words for honey and mead (which latter word, in Welsh, is medd) I find it more likely the PIEs knew about fermenting honey than they picked up the idea of "causing joy" through alcoholic drink from the Akkadians, or whomsoever.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, isn't there a Semitic word for "strong drink" which in Hebrew is shekar and in Arabic, I believe, sakar or sukr (sorry, can't do the characters) that, if PIE had borrowed a word for booze, would be a much more likely candidate? (As it happens, of course, English DID later borrow shekar, via Greek and French, as it appears to be the root of "cider" - oh, and "shiker", from shekar, is Yiddish for "drunk".)
zythophile: "I'm just an ignorant git here, linguistically[...]"
ReplyDeleteHey, cheer up! We're all ignorant gits in something or another :) Let go of the bad self-talk.
zythophile: "[...] I was under the impression that the etymology of the *mad- words for "drunk" [...] was pretty well established as tied to the words for honey and mead [...]"
Both *médhu- and *mad- look similar but they have different 'd' sounds. In the first root, the sound *dh is traditionally described as 'voiced aspirated' but in the second root it's just plain *d. The two d's are two distinct sounds in PIE that we shouldn't switch around. They aren't related. Instead, *médhu- is thought to be derived from an adjective meaning 'sweet' and hence 'sweet liquor; mead'. As far as I'm aware, there is no clear etymology for *mad- and so I decided to propose this monstrosity of an idea for funzies :)
zythophile: "[...] isn't there a Semitic word for "strong drink" [...]"
Yes, you're looking for this ancient root: Proto-Semitic *šikar-.
By the tone in your response, I think you can see how unlikely that is for yourself. As you admit, /mχ-/ is an exceptionally odd onset for any language, so your suggestion is dismissable on those grounds alone.
ReplyDeleteSorry for not being clearer. By "then" I didn't even mean several generations. What if the simplification happened during the borrowing, rather than later? What if the borrowers heard [mxadu], found that impronounceable, and said [madu] instead (plus, presumably, recognized the -u as an ending)?
Thanks for confirming the position of the accent. I had simply assumed it based on the lengthened consonant, German stressing rules, and the Arabic stress of Muḥammad on the 2nd syllable... IIRC.
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I see that the chi vs x issue is a font problem, not your fault. Sorry. Will have to write X next time. (Very strange.)
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What is the diacritic in g̰? An underscore?
Where do you get "MIE *áta-sa 'father', *áma-sa 'mother'" from? External comparison?
Where do you get "MIE *áta-sa 'father', *áma-sa 'mother'" from? External comparison?
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing from Hittite anna- and atta-.
Though ama shouldn't give anna as as far as I know.
So I'd love to hear what Glen has to say on this
The Hittite word annas 'mother' is apparently an Anatolian innovation. As for where my MIE *áta-sa comes from, well, behold PIE *h₁átta- 'daddy'. The double *-tt- is curious though. For one thing, we expect two dental stops like *-tt- to be pronounced as [-tst-] (see Fortson, Indo-European Language and Culture (2004), p.63) as it is in *sédtos [sétstos] and *h₁ēdti [ʔé:tsti] (hence Hittite ezzi)... unless there is a difference somehow between the phonetic realization of *-tt- versus *-dt- perhaps?
ReplyDeleteOh, and of course, MIE *áma is a suggestion based on *máh₂ter- since if *-h₂ter- is a late innovation, naturally the basis for this late formation of 'mother', namely the nursery syllable *ma, logically predates it.
ReplyDeleteWhen I say I'm an ignorant git, it's not so much bad self-talk as a declaration that I know effectively zero about linguistics, and I'm therefore in no real position to cross swords with you about whether *dh and *d can be switched around.
ReplyDeleteI think your argument about a Semitic origin for the *mad "drunk" words is an interesting challenge to the orthodoxy, and one worth making, especially if you're kicking back with a beer after a long day, but I continue to have problems with its practicality.
For a start, deriving a word meaning "drunk" from a word in another language group meaning "causing joy" strikes me as even less likely than the argument that the word "ale" comes from the same root as hallucinate (and that's an argument that's been made in the past in all seriousness).
Second, to repeat what Phoenix said, μεθὐσκω, intoxication in Greek, seems pretty obviously derived from μεθὐς, wine in Greek (we won't go down the byway now of why the Greeks used the "mead" word for "wine"), which is certainly what the OED says (under amethyst, the "stone that stops you getting drunk) just like Welsh meddw, drunk, must surely be linked to medd, mead.
Third, and my non-linguistic background puts me on dangerous ground here, the idea of the non-switchability of *-dh and *-d seems to me to be undermined by the way that the "mead" word, presumably ending in *-dh in PIE, became "medd" in Welsh, where -dd is a voiced "th" sound, and "mead" in English, ending in a d.
Fourth, to back up the likelihood of *médhu- and *mad being linked, we have plenty of examples of words for drink and words for being drunk having come from the same root - I've just given one example, drink/drunk, and I gave another in my earlier post, Hebrew shekar and Yiddish shiker.
So, if you're going to wield the trusty razor of William of Ockham, it seems to me that deriving *mad from *médhu- takes far less of a leap than deriving it from Akkadian muḫaddū ...
"So, if you're going to wield the trusty razor of William of Ockham, it seems to me that deriving *mad from *médhu- takes far less of a leap than deriving it from Akkadian muḫaddū ..."
ReplyDeleteSince *d and *dh are proven to be "distinct phonemes", the connection between the two roots is thus shown to be false. So far, no one has shown so conclusively that the connection between *mad- and muḫaddū is false. So my application of the Razor is sound.
Also, the semantic path from "one is rejoiceful (from wine)" to "one is drunk" is small, particularly if the word is used often enough with words for alcohol. A euphemism for the happy-go-lucky inebriate can easily develop this way.
Now, Glen, you know very well that finding a like-sounding word in language B that has a vague semantic link to the target word in language A and claiming therefore that language A's word is derived from language B's word is just the sort of stuff you criticise people for when they do it in Etruscan.
ReplyDeleteYour thesis needs to answer many more questions. For example:
Is there evidence that "rejoiceful " was used in Semitic languages as a synonym/euphemism for drunk?
I don't know of any, and you haven't offered any.
Are there any examples of "rejoiceful" being used as a synonym for drunk in other languages?
None, that I am aware of.
Is there any evidence of other Semitic words connected with alcohol/drinking being adopted into PIE?
No
Is there any great logic in PIE adopting someone else's word for "drunk", if such it was, when they had the linguistic resourcs to invent their own word?
No.
So the idea that a word meaning "rejoiceful" in Semitic was taken over into PIE meaning "drunk" has to be called extremely unlikely on the grounds of both logic and evidence. There's too long a string of "not provens".
As I indicated, I'm not qualified to argue with you about whether the connection between *médhu and *mad is false because of the difference in the consonants. All I will say is that at least one source gives the PIE for drunk as *meydho, as in *ekwo-meydho, “horse-drunk”, the supposed origin of the ancient Indian ceremony called the asvamedh. In addition, the final consonant in the different IE "honey" and "mead" words derived from *médhu range from d through dh to th to t and even z – Old Irish mid,, Old Slavonic medu, Greek methu, Sanskrit madhu, German Met, Tocharian B mit, Breton mez. Indeed, if the derivation of the Irish name Mebh is, as many believe "she who intoxicates", we even get a "v" sound.
Given the lack of both evidence and logic for the Semitic derivation, therefore, given the hugely more compelling semantic link between "drunk" and "mead", given the examples that already exist of words for "drunk" derived for words for drink (and here's another – Greek Oinoun, from oinos), you'd have to hand me a statement signed by Calvert Watkins and 20 of his peers that *mad couldn't possibly be derived from *médhu before I gave up thinking it was highly likely they were connected.
Zythophile, I see that in your self-admitted ignorance you are far too eager to assume answers to your own questions. Your inability to understand that *mad- and *medhu- cannot be related by known PIE morphology is not my concern and it's also not my concern that you think some reference you fail to cite claims **meydho instead. Logic? You're evidently lacking in it right now. I recommend less inexperienced assertions and more active listening. If you continue with your idées fixes, you will be deleted from the commentbox.
ReplyDeleteWhen defending Logic (an honourable goal), facts must never be a casualty of war. Of your four questions, the last question is irrelevant. There needs no 'lack' in a language to motivate borrowing, as is evident by the fact that Japanese continues to use numerals originally borrowed from Middle Chinese (ichi, ni, san) side-by-side with its older, native set (hitotsu, futatsu, mittsu). In the remaining three questions, you assume answers some of which are incorrect.
"Is there evidence that 'rejoiceful' was used in Semitic languages as a synonym/euphemism for drunk? Are there any examples of 'rejoiceful' being used as a synonym for drunk in other languages?"
Obviously Sanskrit मद् mad- 'to rejoice, be glad; be drunk'. English 'drunk with joy' was not coined because joy is literally drinkable but because joy is naturally associated with inebriation in languages worldwide. Given that fact, it would be odd if this association didn't exist in Semitic cultures.
Is there any evidence of other Semitic words connected with alcohol/drinking being adopted into PIE? No
Oh dear. You're obviously ignorant of PIE *woino- and Semitic *waynu-, both meaning "wine". Please put your listening ears on and stop assuming things.
While you're desperate to call me illogical, it's in fact logical to support "open FACT-based inquiry" as is the explicit intent of this post. Science is based on such inquiry. It is rather "convictions in defiance of facts" as you demonstrate here that I object to. Don't be on the wrong side of the blade of Athena Veritas. She has no mercy to give you.
I was going to thrash you out for this **ekwo-meydho nonsense until I noticed that *ekwo-meydho- (with hyphen properly placed at the end) is indeed reconstructed by some like Puhvel, but not without controversy. It's however based on aśvamedha (not *asvamedh), a ritual assumed by some to be dated to Indo-European times. Nonetheless, in such a form, it can have nothing to do with *médhu because of the incongruence in phonetics. We can't wish the *dh and *-y- to get *mad- so it has nothing to do with this subject.
ReplyDeleteOh dear. You're obviously ignorant of PIE *woino- and Semitic *waynu-, both meaning "wine".
ReplyDeleteOh dear yourself. To quote the OED on "wine", "the nature of the connexion of the Indo-Eur. words with the Semitic (Arab., Ethiopic wain, Hebrew yayin, Assyrian înu) is disputed." Nobody that I can find suggests one comes from the other, in either direction. So, the answer to the question "Is there any evidence of other Semitic words connected with alcohol/drinking being adopted into PIE?" is still "no".
If you continue with your idées fixes, you will be deleted from the commentbox
I don't have idées fixes, I'm merely saying that your own first idée, raising justifiable arguments against a link between *mad- and *médhu-, then goes on to a second idée that contains what look to me to be too many unlikely steps to be convincing as an argument that *mad- comes from mu?addu&hibar. As you say yourself with regards to Etruscan, ad hoc comparisons with other languages should not be allowed.
In addition, as you point out, in Sanskrit, the word ??? means both joyful and drunk. Your original argument was that PIE had taken the Semitic word for "to be joyful" and made it the PIE word for "drunk": are you now suggesting PIE took a word from Semitic and carried on using it to mean "joyful" but used it to mean "drunk" as well?
As it happens, there is a sensible-sounding brewing link hinted at for *mad- meaning "drunk" in the lexicon you link to, under the definition of Sanskrit ???, which can also mean "to boil, bubble". Many brewing words, from ferment (OED, "root of ferv-re to boil") to yeast (OED "The underlying base jes- is found also in Skr. yás(y)ati to seethe, boil"), are also connected with boiling, probably because of the bubbling that takes place in fermenting liquid.
The Sanskrit lexicon you link to suggests that "???" may, through this "boiling, bubbling" meaning, be linked to the Latin "madere", "to boil, soak", which is the word Pliny used when talking about how the "western peoples" made beer: "Est et occidentis populis sua ebrietas fruge madida", "The people of the Western world have also their intoxicating drinks, made from corn soaked/boiled in water".
Certainly at least one source here lists for the IE root ma?d the meanings wet; glossy, fat, well-fed, intoxicating, and attests those meanings and variations on them in a range of languages from Avestan to Irish.
I can believe an argument that says *mad- was a word in PIE meaning soaked or sodden or boiled that moved in a series of small semantic steps to also give words for fat, and bubbling, and drunk (not necessarily via fermentation – "soaked -> drunk" would do). I can believe a semantic step in Sanskrit or one of its predecessors from "drunk" to "joyful".
I certainly find that a lot more believable than the idea of a much bigger step, that PIE borrowed a word from Semitic for "causing joy" and changed it to mean "intoxicating". In any case, if *mad- is from mu?addu&hibar, where do all those other meanings for *mad-, such as soaked, come from?
Okay, let's get hardcore logical now.
ReplyDeleteZythophile: "To quote the OED on 'wine', 'the nature of the connexion of the Indo-Eur. words with the Semitic [...] is disputed.' Nobody that I can find suggests one comes from the other, in either direction."
Objections: argumentum ad ignorantiam and argumentum ad populum. The PIE and Semitic reflexes of 'wine' are indeed "evidence" which is defined in the English language as "a thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment". The facts I supplied are helpful in forming a rational conclusion regardless of your biases.
When discussing theories, demanding absolutely conclusive evidence (as you're now implying) is unreasonable. Your skepticism is therefore dogmatic. You must show logical reasoning why *woino- and *waynu- cannot be related, especially within the context of *septm̥.
Since all things may be disputed, the mere fact that something is disputed by an anonymous group of people carries no weight. Creationists dispute evolution too. So?
"I'm merely saying that your own first idée, raising justifiable arguments against a link between *mad- and *médhu-,[...] that then goes on to a second idée that contains what look to me to be too many unlikely steps to be convincing as an argument that *mad- comes from mu?addu&hibar"
Objections: non sequitur & appeal to authority. In rational debate, burden of proof rests on you to prove a morphological connection between *mad- and *medhu- which so far remains invalid. Your unproven hypothesis however has nothing to do with mine and you're confusing the issue. Even worse, it's based on a subjective opinion, a kind of "appeal to authority" by propping oneself up as the authority. This is somewhat arrogant of you. Facts and likelihoods are the only things relevant, not your dictates.
"As you say yourself with regards to Etruscan, ad hoc comparisons with other languages should not be allowed."
Objections: argumentum ad ignorantiam, non sequitur & straw man. PIE *septm̥ is grammatically unanalysable in PIE and retains fossilization of Proto-Semitic morphology (i.e. the root *sab`-, the feminine *-t- and mimation) leading any rational person to the simplest conclusion that Semitic contacts in Pre-IE must have existed. My hypothesis is therefore not a priori wrong but is rather based on what is already established about prehistorical contacts. It's no longer a matter whether contacts in fact occured, only in what way did they occur.
Etruscan is not a protolanguage but rather an un-/mistranslated language that still requires understanding. Internal considerations (i.e. Etruscan grammar, archaeological context of inscriptions, etc.) take priority over external ones (i.e. hypothetical loanwords) when translating an unknown language. The translation of Etruscan cannot be compared to the reconstruction of PIE. Since you ignore the important context of my original statements on Etruscan your diversion is a straw man argument which seeks to mischaracterize an opponent's position.
"Your original argument was that PIE had taken the Semitic word for "to be joyful" and made it the PIE word for "drunk": are you now suggesting PIE took a word from Semitic and carried on using it to mean "joyful" but used it to mean "drunk" as well?"
Yes. I optimalized my argument with respect to Occam's Razor. Now, there is no longer the burden of proof to show that the Semitic triliteral *[ḫdy] was used for drunkenness, although I've already shown the simple crosslinguistic relationship between the semantics of inebriation and elation.
"The Sanskrit lexicon you link to suggests that "???" may, through this "boiling, bubbling" meaning, be linked to the Latin "madere", "to boil, soak",[...]"
The Sanskrit and Latin words are agreed to be cognate, yes.
"I certainly find that a lot more believable than the idea of a much bigger step, that PIE borrowed a word from Semitic for 'causing joy' and changed it to mean 'intoxicating'."
Understandable, but are the semantics really simpler your way or have you simply not pondered enough on my perspective to know how simple it is? The status quo is that *mad- means 'to be drunk' or 'to be wet'. We still need to get from 'wet' to 'boiled' in Latin, perhaps via 'steeped'. Afterall, 'boiling' is just 'steeping' with a fire underneath. But it's not exactly "simple" because there are still some steps required.
What you're not considering however is that there is in fact a valid semantic pathway from 'drunk' to 'steeped'. One can easily wax poetry and say that, for example, "I was drunk on chocolate" to convey "I was filled by chocolate." In English "drunk" has a secondary connotation of 'overcome by strong feeling or emotion' or rather 'steeped in emotion'. The problem is that there are several ways in which these various words can be interrelated and no one theory may be any "simpler" than the rest in regards to number of steps involved.
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One final note, I will now be changing my commentbox policies to combat trolls. I want to continue this engaging debate with you but sufficed to say in light of the recent trolling especially via Language Hat, your blank blogger profile is no longer acceptable. Accountability can only be enforced through established identity, so I encourage you to establish it very soon.
Apologies, I wrote "Semitic triliteral *[ḫdy]", and that should be *[ḫdʔ] instead (that is, according to Richardson, Hammurabi's Laws: Text, Translation and Glossary (2004), p.227).
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