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From: bruck@actcom.co.il (Uri Bruck)
Subject: Re: Latin ALBVS, Semitic LBN [was Re: albino
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Date: Thu, 22 Jun 1995 21:16:40 GMT
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Joerg Knappen (knappen@kph.Uni-Mainz.DE) wrote:

: The evidence for albus to come from ie *albh is even weaker, since it could
: perfectly be an early loan from greek alphos (early loans show ph > b, like
: lumba < lymphe:). Greek could have borrowed alphos from some other language,
: a candidate being phoenician. What is white or light grey in phoenician?
: Could it be borrowed as `alphos' to greek?

: --J"org Knappen.
That's a good point. Since phoenician originated in the same area as other
Semitic languages - it also used the same alphabet, 
with the same letter names,
which carried the same associations as they did in other Semitic languages,
like Hebrew - this certainly could be another route of migration for the word,
or for that matter, any other word. This would still imply a Semitic
origin, but not necessarily Latin from Hebrew.

Uri Bruck

