2017/10/12 by Rhona S. H. Fenwick · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Ancient history #Archaeology #Asian studies #Biology #Botany #Central asia #Epistemology #Etymology #History #Homonym (biology) #Language contact #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Linguistics #Linguistics and language evolution #Philosophy #Phonetics and Phonology Research #Terminology #Wonder
paper · doi:10.1163/1573384x-20170306
openalex publication_date 2017/10/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
The four living Kartvelian languages preserve a rich, largely inherited suite of terms for cultivated fruit trees. But many identifiable Indo-European loans are present even at the level of Kartvelian unity, which leads one to wonder to what extent intercultural exchanges may be responsible for this rich Kartvelian fruit-tree terminology. Here, I propose an etymological connection between Proto-Kartvelian names for the medlar and the domestic pear and suggest that both arise from a borrowing of Late PIE *( s ) h 2 éml - “apple, tree fruit”. I close by discussing this etymology’s implications for the chronology of IE-Kartvelian contact and for the phonetics of the PIE laryngeal * h 2 .