Re: Evidence for Nostratic? (was Re: Proto-Uralic?)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andreas Johansson" <andjo@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2003 2:24 PM
Subject: Re: Evidence for Nostratic? (was Re: Proto-Uralic?)


> Quoting Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>:
>
> > En réponse à John Cowan :
> >
> >
> > >It's not 100% clear that dent- originally meant "tooth".  Its formal
> > >English equivalent "tine" (< ME "tind", as in JRRT's "Tindrock") means
> > >"sharp projection", as on a fork, and has no connection with eating.
> >
> > For what is worth, in French such a thing is called "dent", meaning
> > definitely "tooth", which for me is no different from talking about the
> > "foot" of a mountain.
>
> Swedish forks have _tänder_, which word normally means "teeth".
I assume that's cognate with 'teeth', though.  Remember English, Low German,
Dutch and Frisian all lost proto-Germanic *n before Fricatives.  And I think
in Norwegian, Swedish and Danish there was a *þ>d shift.


>                                                   Andreas
>

Replies