Talk:xnd
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@Vorziblix Hey, could you make this Egyptian entry? It means "wheat" I think; Witzel suggests it is related to Sanskrit गोधूम (godhūma). —Aryaman (मुझसे बात करो) 00:18, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
- @Aryamanarora: There’s a verb ḫnd (“to tread”), another ḫnd (“to bend, plait, entwine”), and a noun ḫnd (“lower leg”), but none of those seem too promising. (Standard Egyptological transliteration doesn’t use x, but in the Manuel de Codage it’s used instead of ḫ. I’m not sure if this is what Witzel meant, but checking other possibilities, a cursory search shows no words hnd, ḥnd, ẖnd, or šnd.) Egyptian has a lot of words for wheat or grain: zwt, ꜥꜣdjnꜣ, jt, ꜥnḫt, wꜣḏ, wꜣḥyt, npr, npn, rḏrḏ, zpw, sšr, dḥdḥ, ḏꜣbwt, jhy, ꜥbt, mjmj, pḫꜣ, bꜣt, tbtb, ..., but I haven’t found one to match to xnd.
- Does Witzel provide any more information? Anything could be helpful (Semitic cognates, info on his transliteration scheme, reconstructed meaning of the Proto-Semitic, references to the scholarly literature, etc.). — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 02:20, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
- @Vorziblix: In his paper I can find Proto-Semitic *ḥnṭ, *ḥanṭ. There are no other Semitic cognates given, but he says it is related to Hittite [script needed] (kant) as well. No transliteration scheme is given unfortunately, probably because it's the only Egyptian word in the whole paper. —Aryaman (मुझसे बात करो) 11:14, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
- @Aryamanarora: Hmm, I’ve done some more digging and found some cognates, e.g. חיטה. As far as I can tell all the claims of an Egyptian xnd can be traced back to the Kurzgefasstes etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindischen, I 348 et seq. and III 698, but unfortunately I don’t have access to that work. Diakonoff 1998, The Earliest Semitic Society Linguistic Data, cites the word as ḫnd, so that might at least settle the transliteration question. Unfortunately he doesn’t say what his source is. Either this word is extremely obscure (obscure enough that it hasn’t been published in any dictionary from the past 90 years!) or it’s some sort of ghost word perpetuated by people copying from the Kurzgefasstes etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindischen. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 12:22, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
- @Vorziblix: Hmm, that seems likely since I cannot find Indological stuff that substantiates Witzel's claims. It seems Semitic borrowing is unlikely (but not impossible) then. Thanks for all the great information! —Aryaman (मुझसे बात करो) 12:27, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
- Sure thing! — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 02:57, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
- @Vorziblix: Hmm, that seems likely since I cannot find Indological stuff that substantiates Witzel's claims. It seems Semitic borrowing is unlikely (but not impossible) then. Thanks for all the great information! —Aryaman (मुझसे बात करो) 12:27, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
- @Aryamanarora: Hmm, I’ve done some more digging and found some cognates, e.g. חיטה. As far as I can tell all the claims of an Egyptian xnd can be traced back to the Kurzgefasstes etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindischen, I 348 et seq. and III 698, but unfortunately I don’t have access to that work. Diakonoff 1998, The Earliest Semitic Society Linguistic Data, cites the word as ḫnd, so that might at least settle the transliteration question. Unfortunately he doesn’t say what his source is. Either this word is extremely obscure (obscure enough that it hasn’t been published in any dictionary from the past 90 years!) or it’s some sort of ghost word perpetuated by people copying from the Kurzgefasstes etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindischen. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 12:22, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
- @Vorziblix: In his paper I can find Proto-Semitic *ḥnṭ, *ḥanṭ. There are no other Semitic cognates given, but he says it is related to Hittite [script needed] (kant) as well. No transliteration scheme is given unfortunately, probably because it's the only Egyptian word in the whole paper. —Aryaman (मुझसे बात करो) 11:14, 3 October 2017 (UTC)