Reconstruction talk:Proto-Indo-European/péḱu

I found Ossetic фос meaning cattle and am wondered whether it is a descendant... Well, f is similar to the Germanic initial consonant, but it is surprising that two other Indo-Iranian languages have preserved the p. So, might the Ossetic word be a cognate? Bogorm 20:27, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Could be...who knows. In Germanic shift of PIE */p/ to Proto-Germanic */f/ was a regular "sound change", a part of wholesale restructuring of obstruent system known as Grimm's law. If you don't know enough of Alanic/Ossetian historical phonology to justify otherwise unobvious cognate (I certianly don't ^_^), or don't have access to a Iranian etym. dictionary that supports genetic relationship of this Ossetian etymon, I highly suggest not adding any kind of speculative guesswork that might be original research. --Ivan Štambuk 20:36, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

But I shall expound my suppositions on the talk pages at least (when the kinship is not obvious), awaiting the person who would verify them. Bogorm 21:34, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, in the dictionary there is indeed an Iranian *fšu, but it is redirected to *paśu (which should give the answer, since it is virtually identical to the Sanskrit word). However, the volume containing the letter p is not expected soon, as I told you... Bogorm 19:34, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

*p > *f is regular in Ossetic, yes; it seems plausibly related at least. o looks unexpected though. --Tropylium (talk) 19:07, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

o comes from a near a nasal. The Digor dialect cognate of фос (fos) is фонс (fons), both from earlier *pans, which has no secure Iranian parallels and is therefore treated as a borrowing from Avar панз (panz, “cattle”) by Abaev 1958, I, 479. --Vahag (talk) 20:15, 5 November 2015 (UTC)