Re: The chant of the dog's gravestone

On 14 Feb, John Cowan wrote:

>D Tse scripsit:
>
>[English]
>> "A doggy stole a sausage
>
>[Czech]
>> >Pes jaternic`ku sez`ral (The dog ate a little sausage)
>
>[snip]
>
>> >If more versions will be available,
>> >the reconstruction of the ancient myth behind this song
>> >will be more accurate.
>
>Well, since the word for "sausage" is not reconstructible for
>PIE, much less Nostratic, I think that knocks the inheritance
>theory on the head.  There remains borrowing as a far more
>likely hypothesis.
    Agreed.
    Not to mention the whole idea of writing a funerary message.
I had no idea that the PIE-people were literate. (Did writing
even exist in their time? For sure, Nostradic-times predate
writing!) We have no texts or inscriptions from PIE. That's
why it needs to be _reconstructed_ and not merely attested to!
    Burials from that period have been found (sorry, I can't lay my
hands on the reference) with all manner of artwork, but nothing
in the lang depeartment! I also seem to recall that they buried their
horses in a separate grave near their owner. Dogs, I haven't
heard of.
    And anyhow, funerary writing in ancient times was usually ordered by
royalty and carried out by scribes (or scribe-guided artisans).
I personally can't see that people making up a song in those days
would depart from this mind-set.
Neither royaly nor scribes seem to have been mentioned (so far)
in the song (at least in the posts I've seen).

    Question: Is writing even attested to in PIE on the basis of _internal_
evidence: ie reconstructed words for stylus, word, document, etc?

Dan Sulani

--------------------------------------------------------------------
likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.

Reply