Reconstruction talk:Proto-Semitic/barbar-

@Fay Freak: Can you check this reconstruction? Middle/New Persian also has babr "tiger".--Calak (talk) 14:31, 12 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Calak. I have already asked this Victar to make it more coherent. But now I see that it looks like the Akkadian is loaned from Sumerian ur-bar-ra; don’t know how Theudariks (talk • contribs) has unironically created this. Therewith it is easy to derive the Arabic and Aramaic from Iranian (the tiger is from east Asia, right). Asking @Profes.I. to confirm and add the Sumerian to the Akkadian 𒌨𒁇𒊏, then we nuke this entry.

I invite you to mow down جیب (see ES 12/2017) so we are done with this issue too. Fay Freak (talk) 14:51, 12 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Consider Talk:վագր too (@Vahagn Petrosyan: for his information).--Calak (talk) 15:53, 12 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

I updated the व्याघ्र (vyāghra) entry, which sillily connected the MP word to it. --Victar (talk) 22:34, 12 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

{{R:xme:Asatrian:2011|page=62}} has some information, but I can't read it. --Vahag (talk) 13:50, 13 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, that's just the same nonsense that babr is from vyāghra, which is pretty impossible, and totally unnecessary. --Victar (talk) 14:09, 13 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Vahag: I can't downloat it. Can you upload its information?--Calak (talk) 14:27, 13 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Bedrosian's site is usually unavailable. Check your e-mail. --Vahag (talk) 14:36, 13 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Vahag: Thank you. I read it. He derives babr from Indic languages and notes Iranian Palang "leopard" is an Indic loanword too.--Calak (talk) 14:55, 13 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Yep, that's what I remarked above, which is nonsense. Compare Middle Persian šgl. --Victar (talk) 19:24, 13 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Hübschmann explains Persian ببر (babr) by assimilation of g to w in Middle Persian *wagr (> վագր (vagr)), borrowed from Sanskrit vyāghra. Perhaps this is why the outcome is different from Middle Persian šgl. --Vahag (talk) 20:05, 13 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Vahagn Petrosyan: Or, instead of making up some strange, otherwise unattested assimilation rule, we could just say it was borrowed from a Semitic language, i.e. Arabic بَبْر (babr) or Classical Syriac ܒܶܒܪܳܐ (bebrā). I'm not saying that the Armenian word might not have been borrowed via some Iranian language, but claiming MP babr is from vyāghra seems quite unsound to me. --Victar (talk) 20:19, 13 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Victar: as far as this unknown Iranian intermediate is concerned, I found the Middle Iranian reconstruction *v(i)yāgr- in Gippert 1993, which may explain Armenian վագր (vagr) and Old Georgian ვიგრი (vigri). --Vahag (talk) 20:26, 13 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Vahagn Petrosyan: I'm fine with that. --Victar (talk) 20:31, 13 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Vahag: I found Khotanese (vyāgra, “tiger”) in Iranian languages.--Calak (talk) 21:08, 13 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

The Eastern Iranian word for tiger is *mawyah, whence Khotanese 𑀫𑀼𑀬𑀺 (muyi) and Sogdian 𐼺𐼷𐼴 (myw). --Victar (talk) 21:25, 13 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

You are right, but vyāgrā is attested too (Volume 2 of This most excellent shine of gold, king of kings of sutras: the Khotanese Suvarṇabhāsottamasūtra, Prods O. Skjærvø, Page 344).--Calak (talk) 21:58, 13 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Calak: That Buddhist text is using vyāgra in the sense of the title of a "noble person", and not the animal. Translated, it's something along the lines of "When the wondering mind of Bodhisattva is embraced(?) it is not long until he is called vyāghra." --Victar (talk) 22:39, 13 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Whatever you do with the Iranian, the Semitic or even Afro-Asiatic origin is unbelievable. It stems from ignorance, because Орёл and Столбова only knew Chadic: Accordingly we find all kinds of Chadic words in Starling – they just added some similar words in Semitic without understanding anything. The connection to Egyptian bꜣ rests on one sound only. If you haven’t seen how Diakonoff and Kogan have slammed their dictionary, you could get a taste on where faux Semitic etymologies come from.

Or do you want to explain Arabic بَبْر (babr, “tiger”) as a variant of وَبْر (wabr, “klipdachs”) xD?

I see now that Profes.I. thinks too that the Akkadian is from Sumerian and has fixed ببر more or less. Nothing left for the Proto-Semitic. Fay Freak (talk) 23:30, 13 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Fay Freak: You'll have to forgive my ignorance, but what's wrong with the Proto-Semitic word being a borrowing from Sumerian? --Victar (talk) 23:52, 13 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Victar: It isn’t necessary ignorant in result to posit such a Proto-Semitic – the way Orel and Stolbova have posited it is (I mean it just causally: They were ignorant of Semitic and were right randomly). Even if there is a Proto-Semitic of this, I would not be sure that the correct reconstruction is *barbar.

I don’t know anything about Sumerian borrowings into Proto-Semitic. If this is possible depends on where Sumerian was spread and where Proto-Semitic was spread, maybe @Profes.I. can enlighten us if Sumerian borrowings into Proto-Semitic are a thing discussed or discussable. (But if it is borrowed into Akkadian as is stated now, it cannot be borrowed into Proto-Semitic at the same time, as this presupposes a split of Proto-Semitic). Fay Freak (talk) 00:03, 14 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Just to note, {{R:ira:ESIJa}} claims that MP babr derives from PII *bʰábʰruš, and though not impossible, it seems rather semantically difficult as tigers are not anything like beavers, nor are they brown. --Victar (talk) 00:09, 14 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Victar: So, are we deciding to delete this shot-in-the-dark Proto-Semitic page now? We will be well served just pointing to the cognate words in individual languages, id est Arabic, Syriac, Akkadian and Persian pointing to each other. This Proto-Semitic is just a rerouting that, to say it mildly, does not add to the credibility of Wiktionary. Better to admit lacking certitude and treat the issue as unresolvable than to pretend overconfidently. Fay Freak (talk) 19:56, 17 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Fay Freak: I don't see why it should be deleted yet. Apparently there are quite a few borrowings from Sumerian into Proto-Semitic. Why not this as well? --Victar (talk) 20:13, 17 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Victar: Where are those Proto-Semitic borrowings from Sumerian? I haven’t come to know of any, might there have been some or not. But the question is why, not why not, and also why this form, that is the point. As it looks right now the Sumerian has lent this word to Akkadian then perhaps to Western Semitic languages (which is thousand years after Proto-Semitic, the distance from Proto-Slavic to Russian) or perhaps Akkadian to Iranian then Semitic from Iranian. Sumerian loaning into Proto-Semitic is just a third, unheard scenario, and we do not know at all how it is to be reconstructed then. I’d like to abstain from “solving” this as far as evidence stands.

You understand this? Simply lack of evidence. Fay Freak (talk) 20:34, 17 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

--Victar (talk) 02:59, 19 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Victar Therewith you invalidate the Proto-Semitic. It says “there was in Mesopotamia a Sumero-Semitic bilingualism from the mid-third millenium B.C. on”, specifically Sumerian with East Semitic, a subgroup two thousand years posterior to Proto-Semitic.  “Semitic” means there “Semitic languages”, not “Proto-Semitic”.

It can’t be stated as Proto-Semitic the same way you claim xatūn cannot be Proto-Turkic. Fay Freak (talk) 16:30, 19 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Please don't confound two separate matters. Do we distinguish Proto-East Semitic entries from larger Proto-Semitic entries? I have no means myself to check to see if the word also existed in Eblaite. Perhaps you can. Regardless, if you want to say that the Arabic and Syriac forms were borrowed from Akkadian, that's fine with me. --Victar (talk) 02:12, 20 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Victar “East Semitic” is an areal category, it is not known as a genetical group (unlike it apparently is in Iranian). Any subgrouping of the Semitic languages in a genetic sense is very controversial (and I have read many arguments), and no, we don’t do reconstructions from Akkadian or Akkadian and Eblaite only – and I have done a third of the Proto-Semitic pages here. It would not help to know an Eblaite form. In any case the reconstruction is too speculative. I don’t know who has borrowed from whom, because the records have gaps here, I only remark that we are on more safe grounds to dispense with the Proto-Semitic entry. I want to state on the pages of the attested forms cognates only. Or in other words: Do you give thumbs up to speedy this? I thought we could just agree so that we can move on. Because otherwise on Wiktionary we barely have anyone that could say anything on Proto-Semitic. Theudariks, who compiled the reconstruction page casually from the claims in the previously existing Wiktionary pages, should never have created this page. Fay Freak (talk) 10:11, 20 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Fay Freak: The Akkadian, with very little doubt, is borrowed from Sumerian. If you're OK with the Arabic and Syrian entries saying "perhaps borrowed from Akkadian, borrowed from Sumerian", for now, I'm fine moving this discussion elsewhere and deleting the entry itself. --Victar (talk) 17:41, 28 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, I don’t know whither to move, it is gonna stay here and Imma put {{d}} onto the recto page – so we are instantly at the next doubtful etymology xD. Fay Freak (talk) 17:49, 28 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Fay Freak: We have also Arabic بَبَر (babar, “an animal like cat, فُرانِق?”), right? Maybe this is cognate with Akkadian.--Calak (talk) 13:11, 28 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

@Calak This is a case of obscurum per obscurius, فُرانِق is one of the obscure epithets for the lion, {{R:ar:Lane|page=2389}}. Also no, بَبَر is not in the dictionaries. Also I see now بَبْر (babr) in {{R:ar:Lane|page=147}} where we read that even the old Arabs thought it is a foreign word, and Lane esteems it to be the Persian بَبَر. Fay Freak (talk) 13:36, 28 August 2018 (UTC)Reply