c-AFRASIAN-3_bearer.htm

PROTO-LANGUAGE PHONEMES

in IE and Afrasian

(Egyptian and Arabic)
(Nostratic Hypothesis)

While the known E equivalents do not specifically include 'carrying something on the back' (in fact, the commonest determinative is 'man holding basket on head' [B], a rare determinative shown above ('man with another man on shoulders' [C]) suggests that the Egyptian word would have been appropriate for A ¿abara, ‘to convey anyone across a river'; and the determinative shown in [A], probably is a variant of a depiction of a 'post of balance' for weighing quantities of goods (cf. A ?ista¿bara (¿-b-r), ‘weigh (coins)'.

In view of the fact that the regular IE reflex of initial PL P[?] is w, a strong case can be made for supposing that an initial laryngal-pharyngal caused an regularly expected **wer- to appear as *bher-, i.e. is the result of **H₂eber, which appears in IE as *1. bher-, 'carry, bring, lift up, raise up'.

Nonethless, it is the simpler root P[?]O-RA(-¿E) which is probably seen in E f3(j); which corresponds to A ¿abara, 'to convey anyone across a river'(a IV form causative: '**cause to be borne'), the root of which is b-r; and again in IE **wer(i)- (cf. Gr aeíro:, 'lift up'), listed under *1. wer-, 'hang up'.

To the proposal made by Jerzy Kurlylowicz in 1935 (Etudes Indoeuropéennes I, Krakow, 53f.) that *b + H, *d + H, and *g + H would become Indo-Iranian bh, dh,, and gh, we can now cautiously suggest that

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