🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct26.232812.18380@trl.oz.au> jbm@hal.trl.OZ.AU (Jacques Guy) writes:
><...> I found *ye trewe orygin of ye Hebrew tounge*. Austronesian.
>
>barGu:Tu "flea"

This is actually the Arabic version of the word, the Hebrew is
/parH<voi>o:S/, but I take it this doesn't jeopardise your analysis.

>is *evidently*  bar-kutu lit. "son (Aramaic "bar-")
>louse (Astronesian "kutu")". So, a flea is, in those primitive
>ancient people's minds, a "baby louse". Logical of sorts: a flea
>is smaller than a louse, and they didn't have microscopes to
>check how dissimilar they were.

In any case, this shift of meaning is not at all surprising,
especially when compared to the shift which the original flea/louse
root has undergone in the following names of animals, all of which can
easily be shown to have been derived from the same original root B-R-G:

   Turkish    "bal{\i}k" `fish'
   Russian    _belka_    `squirrel'
   Hungarian  "birka"    `sheep'
   Italian    "porco"    `pig'
   Gaelic     "balach"   `boy'

>Tahitian   "ana" meaning "hole"
>Japanese   "ana" meaning "hole"
>Latin      "anus" meaning you-know-what

The ana-logy with the Turkic word _ana_ `mother' at this point is
intriguing.  This kinship term bears an obvious connexion to another
hole, a representation of which is the Sumerian logogram `woman'.

-- 
 `If ye hiv ears oan yer heid - then use them tae lissen.' (The Glasgow Gospel)
Ivan A Derzhanski   (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk;  iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,  Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK