Michael Weiss
Cornell University, Linguistics, Faculty Member
- Cornell University, Classics, Faculty Memberadd
- Phonology, Ancient Indo-European Languages, Sabellic languages, Historical Linguistics, Latin linguistics, Indo-Iranian Linguistics, and 39 moreAnatolian Languages, Indo-European Linguistics, Greek Linguistics, Celtic Linguistics, Old Church Slavonic, Linguistics, Morphology, Italic Languages, Roman Onomastics, Augury, Classical Linguistics and Literature, Tabulae Iguvinae, South Picene, Phonetics, Philology, Comparative Linguistics, Semitic languages, Language Variation and Change, Dialectology, Romance Linguistics, Old Irish Language and Literature, Hittite, Vedic Sanskrit, Greek Language, Etymology, Homer, Ancient Greek Language, Indo-European Studies, Diachronic Linguistics (Or Historical Linguistics), Proto Indo-European, Indo-european language reconstruction, Avestan (Languages And Linguistics), Phoenician & Punic Epigraphy, Cilicia, Latin Epigraphy, History of Latin Language, Venetia et Histria (X REGIO), Venetic, and Vulgar Latinedit
Tocharian B, an Indo-European language spoken in the first millennium C.E. in western China, is of great importance to numerous disciplines, from Indo-European historical linguistics to the study of Central Asia, the Silk Road, and... more
Tocharian B, an Indo-European language spoken in the first millennium C.E. in western China, is of great importance to numerous disciplines, from Indo-European historical linguistics to the study of Central Asia, the Silk Road, and Buddhism. This first-ever textbook in the language makes Tocharian B, hitherto familiar mostly to specialists, readily accessible to a broad audience. In twenty graduated lessons, the student is introduced to all the language's grammar, with translation exercises between English and Tocharian in both directions and numerous passages taken from original texts. The book assumes no familiarity with the scholarly disciplines above, but simultaneously contains much information useful to specialists by virtue of the author's broad knowledge and full familiarity with the most up-to-date literature. A full glossary, together with tables of declensions and conjugations, key to the exercises, and bibliography round out the volume.
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The second edition is now available for purchase. This edition is corrected, updated, and expanded with about 60 more pages.
Research Interests: Indo-european language reconstruction, Romance philology, Ancient Indo-European Languages, History of Latin Language, Indo-European Studies, and 8 moreLatin Language and Literature, Romance Linguistics, Indo-European Linguistics, Proto Indo-European, Latin linguistics, Indo-European, Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, and Romance Languages and Literatures
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In this volume, thirty internationally recognized scholars have come together to celebrate the work of the famous Indo-Europeanist Alan J. Nussbaum. The topics range widely from Nussbaum's favorite subject of Indo-European nominal... more
In this volume, thirty internationally recognized scholars have come together to celebrate the work of the famous Indo-Europeanist Alan J. Nussbaum. The topics range widely from Nussbaum's favorite subject of Indo-European nominal morphology, especially in the Classical languages, to the historical grammars of Tocharian, the stylistics of the Rigveda, Aristophanean philology, and much more. Nussbaum's work is honored with contributions by such renowned experts as Heiner Eichner, Jay Jasanoff, Sergio Neri, Hayden Pelliccia, Richard Thomas, and Michael Weiss. A complete bibliography of Nussbaum's oeuvre is included, and the volume closes with a full word-index.
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utline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Latin represents an altogether novel approach to its subject. Most innovative is the format: instead of technical prose acting as an obstacle to non-specialists, each of the forty-five... more
utline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Latin represents an altogether novel approach to its subject. Most innovative is the format: instead of technical prose acting as an obstacle to non-specialists, each of the forty-five chapters consists of an outline providing exactly the information essential to the student and simultaneously acting as a ready reference tool. But this is no bare-bones work. Supplementing the outline are numerous penetrating notes with a wealth of additional information and important new observations and ideas. After initial chapters on Indo-European comparative philology, the history of writing in Italy, and the pronunciation of Latin, the book treats the language’s entire historical phonology and morphology in detail, followed by a full and enlightening chapter on syntax—a topic that rarely receives the coverage it deserves. Thousands of textual citations from Roman authors of all periods firmly ground the data in their philological context. The broader linguistic milieu of ancient Italy is also covered, with a whole chapter devoted to Etruscan; and rounding out the book is a rich overview of the later evolution of Latin into the Romance languages. The result is the first truly comprehensive, accessible, and up-to-date history of Latin from its prehistoric beginnings down to its medieval and modern descendants. Clear, thorough, and exhaustively researched, this Outline will be essential reading for students and specialists in Classics and Indo-European studies for many years to come.
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The Iguvine Tables (Tabulae Iguvinae) are among the most invaluable documents of Italic linguistics and religion. Seven bronze tablets discovered in 1444 in the Umbrian town of Gubbio (ancient Iguvium), they record the rites and sacral... more
The Iguvine Tables (Tabulae Iguvinae) are among the most invaluable documents of Italic linguistics and religion. Seven bronze tablets discovered in 1444 in the Umbrian town of Gubbio (ancient Iguvium), they record the rites and sacral laws of a priestly brotherhood, the Fratres Atiedii, with a degree of detail unparalleled elsewhere in ancient Italy. Taking an interdisciplinary approach that combines philological and linguistic, as well as ritual analysis, Michael Weiss not only addresses the many interpretive cruces that have puzzled scholars for a century and a half, but also constructs a coherent theory of the entire ritual performance described on Tables III and IV. In addition, Weiss sheds light on many questions of Roman ritual practice and places the Iguvine Tables in their broader Italic and Indo-European contexts.
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Most modern scholars agree that Lat. uncia "ounce" should be derived from *oinikia and connected to the Italic numeral *oinos "one". In fact, as I show, there are insuperable phonological difficulties to this account. Instead we should... more
Most modern scholars agree that Lat. uncia "ounce" should be derived from *oinikia and connected to the Italic numeral *oinos "one". In fact, as I show, there are insuperable phonological difficulties to this account. Instead we should prefer an idea first put forth by Heron of Alexandria who derived uncia from Greek and connected it with Gk. ὄγκος "mass, volume". The creation of the common Italic system of measurement was a joint production of Italic and Greek speakers.
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Barley and wheat were the two core grains of the West Eurasian Neolithic transformation. In this paper, I examine the morphology and meaning of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European lexeme *ieuos and its variants. I hope to show that the... more
Barley and wheat were the two core grains of the West Eurasian Neolithic transformation. In this paper, I examine the morphology and meaning
of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European lexeme *ieuos and its variants. I hope to show that the meaning of this form was not specifically ‘barley’, as is often suggested, but a more general term ‘cereal’. I also examine the morphology of the reflexes of this family of forms particularly in Anatolian, Greek, and Tocharian
of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European lexeme *ieuos and its variants. I hope to show that the meaning of this form was not specifically ‘barley’, as is often suggested, but a more general term ‘cereal’. I also examine the morphology of the reflexes of this family of forms particularly in Anatolian, Greek, and Tocharian
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This paper discusses a number of etymological and interpretive issues in the series of painted Oscan texts from Pompeii known as the eítuns inscriptions, after the key word occurring or restored in all of them. I suggest new derivational... more
This paper discusses a number of etymological and interpretive issues in the series of painted Oscan texts from Pompeii known as the eítuns inscriptions, after the key word occurring or restored in all of them. I suggest new derivational and semantic accounts of eítuns, amvíanud, and *mefíro- and offer a few cautionary words about the connection between sarínu and the Italic word for 'salt'.
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These are proofs of the paper. Please contact me for a copy of the final version. In this paper I examine the evidence for a sound change *ow > *aw in Venetic. I identify three potential examples, the river name Plavis < *plowis, the... more
These are proofs of the paper. Please contact me for a copy of the final version.
In this paper I examine the evidence for a sound change *ow > *aw in Venetic. I identify three potential examples, the river name Plavis < *plowis, the Venetic personal name hostihavos and the river name Dravus. I also discuss the river name Savus but conclude it need not be explained by Venetic phonology. I also examine the evidence for apparent retained *ow and suggest that these are the result of a later change of *ewV to owV.
In this paper I examine the evidence for a sound change *ow > *aw in Venetic. I identify three potential examples, the river name Plavis < *plowis, the Venetic personal name hostihavos and the river name Dravus. I also discuss the river name Savus but conclude it need not be explained by Venetic phonology. I also examine the evidence for apparent retained *ow and suggest that these are the result of a later change of *ewV to owV.
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In this paper I discuss the nature and function of the Oscan iúvila inscriptions from Capua and some issues of interpretation and etymology raised by the new iúvila discussed by Poccetti 2016. I argue that the phrase suleis bias... more
In this paper I discuss the nature and function of the Oscan iúvila inscriptions from Capua and some issues of interpretation and etymology raised by the new iúvila discussed by Poccetti 2016. I argue that the phrase suleis bias 'conquests of the sun', i.e. 'winter solstice' can be compared etymologically and thematically with Vedic svàr jayati 'conquers the sun'.
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The second line of the VOL DVENOS inscription contains a negative protasis introduced by AST. The negative is NOI(N), the posited ancestor of CL nōn, and the subject of this clause is the feminine nominative singular pronoun SI (cf. OIr.... more
The second line of the VOL DVENOS inscription contains a negative protasis introduced by AST. The negative is NOI(N), the posited ancestor of CL nōn, and the subject of this clause is the feminine nominative singular pronoun SI (cf. OIr. sí, Goth. si). The clause ASTEDNOISIOPET should be translated “But if she doesn’t choose you.”
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There are a few typos in this proof. The plough is one of the key pieces of pre-modern agriculture technology. This paper addresses the following questions: (a) Assuming a bifurcating tree with a node Proto-Northwest-Indo-European... more
There are a few typos in this proof.
The plough is one of the key pieces of pre-modern agriculture technology. This paper addresses the following questions: (a) Assuming a bifurcating tree with a node Proto-Northwest-Indo-European (PNWIE) dominating Proto-Germanic (PGmc.) and Proto-Italo-Celtic (PIC), what can be reconstructed, if anything, for the plough lexicon at each node? (b) what innovations can be identified at each stage? (c) what are the sources of these innovations? (d) to what extent, if any, do non-Indo-European substratal languages play a role? The upshot of this analysis will be that the plough terminology is exclusively made up of Indo-European material. The three items of the plough lexicon below the head term *h2erh3trom that it may be possible to reconstruct for PNWIE are (1) *̯uogwhmnis- ‘share’ (Lat. uōmer, ON vangsni, OHG waganso; Gk. ὀφνίς, OPr. wagnis); (2) *gw(e)u̯ so- ‘curved plough pole’ based on the agreement of Lat. būris, būra (← Sabellic) and Gk. γύης, although this item may result from parallel independent specialization; (3) *seg̑hetleh2 ‘plough handle’ (Gk. ἐχέτλη, ModW. haeddel).
The plough is one of the key pieces of pre-modern agriculture technology. This paper addresses the following questions: (a) Assuming a bifurcating tree with a node Proto-Northwest-Indo-European (PNWIE) dominating Proto-Germanic (PGmc.) and Proto-Italo-Celtic (PIC), what can be reconstructed, if anything, for the plough lexicon at each node? (b) what innovations can be identified at each stage? (c) what are the sources of these innovations? (d) to what extent, if any, do non-Indo-European substratal languages play a role? The upshot of this analysis will be that the plough terminology is exclusively made up of Indo-European material. The three items of the plough lexicon below the head term *h2erh3trom that it may be possible to reconstruct for PNWIE are (1) *̯uogwhmnis- ‘share’ (Lat. uōmer, ON vangsni, OHG waganso; Gk. ὀφνίς, OPr. wagnis); (2) *gw(e)u̯ so- ‘curved plough pole’ based on the agreement of Lat. būris, būra (← Sabellic) and Gk. γύης, although this item may result from parallel independent specialization; (3) *seg̑hetleh2 ‘plough handle’ (Gk. ἐχέτλη, ModW. haeddel).
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This paper offers an account of the paradigm of the word for 'friend' in Avestan. I explain the oblique forms as a completely regular development on the assumption that Pinault's Law would have deleted the medial laryngeal before the... more
This paper offers an account of the paradigm of the word for 'friend' in Avestan. I explain the oblique forms as a completely regular development on the assumption that Pinault's Law would have deleted the medial laryngeal before the creation of a voiceless aspirate in Proto-Indo-Iranian.
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The first five pages of the proofs of recently published article which Brill does not permit me to post.
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In this paper Benjamin Fortson and I examine a two-word Oscan inscription from Pietrabbondante. We agree with Poccetti 2013 that kúnsíf deívúz should be compared with Latin dei consentes but we offer new morphological and etymological... more
In this paper Benjamin Fortson and I examine a two-word Oscan inscription from Pietrabbondante. We agree with Poccetti 2013 that kúnsíf deívúz should be compared with Latin dei consentes but we offer new morphological and etymological analyses of the two Oscan words. Our interpretation sheds light on the development of final *-nts in Sabellic, the morphological prehistory of the Latin verb censere, and on the history of the dei consentes.
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In this short paper I examine the lexical isoglosses connecting Tocharian, Italic and Celtic, in particular, in the field of legal and religious lexicon. I find that these are largely non-existent. This finding may shed light on the... more
In this short paper I examine the lexical isoglosses connecting Tocharian, Italic and Celtic, in particular, in the field of legal and religious lexicon. I find that these are largely non-existent. This finding may shed light on the question of supposed archaisms of the legal and religious lexicon preserved uniquely in Italic and/or Celtic in the West and Indo-Iranian in the East.
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In this paper I examine the original meaning of Latin ius and argue against a connection with Ved yóḥ and Aves. yaoš ± 'life force'. Instead ius together with Old Irish uisse 'just' should be compared with Ved. yu- 'join', an old and... more
In this paper I examine the original meaning of Latin ius and argue against a connection with Ved yóḥ and Aves. yaoš ± 'life force'. Instead ius together with Old Irish uisse 'just' should be compared with Ved. yu- 'join', an old and unrefuted etymology. I draw attention to certain constructions in Vedic which may be illuminating for the prehistory of the Latin word.
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This paper argues for the existence of a dissimilation of the first of two aspirated consonants in pre-Latin when the first was immediately followed by r. The examples and potential counterexamples are examined and special attention is... more
This paper argues for the existence of a dissimilation of the first of two aspirated consonants in pre-Latin when the first was immediately followed by r. The examples and potential counterexamples are examined and special attention is given to the case of trahere and its Germanic cognates. The Old Irish verb tráigid and related forms are also examined.
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An examination of the the tribal name *wenet(o)-, which is attributed to a number of different peoples of ancient Europe. I argue that in Venetic, Celtic (indirectly through the evidence of Latin) and Germanic the most archaic form can be... more
An examination of the the tribal name *wenet(o)-, which is attributed to a number of different peoples of ancient Europe. I argue that in Venetic, Celtic (indirectly through the evidence of Latin) and Germanic the most archaic form can be shown to have been an athematic -t-stem. This -t-stem can be identified with *vanat- which occurs as the first part of Iranian compounds.
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The shadowy Roman god Sēmō and the plural group Sēmōnēs have long been associated with sēmen ‘seed.’ But the evidence that Sēmō or the Sēmōnēs have anything to do with seeds is lacking. The Sēmōnēs first appear in the Carmen Arvale: here... more
The shadowy Roman god Sēmō and the plural group Sēmōnēs have long been associated with sēmen ‘seed.’ But the evidence that Sēmō or the Sēmōnēs have anything to do with seeds is lacking. The Sēmōnēs first appear in the Carmen Arvale: here they constitute Mars’s retinue.The Sabellic evidence also puts Semo firmly in the Martial sphere. The form Semo appears, in addition, as part of the Semo Sancus Dius Fidius complex. These divinities are connected with the sanctity (sancīre) of treaties (foedus, fidēs) and oaths. In “Dumézilian” terms Semo is a god of the first (priestly) and second (warrior) function, but not a god of the third (agricultural) function, precisely the opposite of what the standard etymology predicts. New evidence from Oscan allows us to reject conclusively the connection between sēmen and Sēmō. In an inscription from Pietrabbondante the god’s name is spelled seemuneí (dat. sg.) and this spelling with ee is not the expected one. If the Oscan form were a derivative of the root seen in sēmen, the spelling would have to have been †síímuneí. The spelling ee shows that the Oscan form, and its Latin cognate, must have a different origin. The only plausible source is *seγVmōn-. A form that matches reconstructed *seγVmōn- exactly is Gaulish Segomoni and Ogham Irish SEGAMANAS. The Gaulish god is identified with Mars. The Celtic and Italic forms continue a Proto-Italo-Celtic *seĝhomōn- ‘strong one,’ ‘strongman,’ which is a derivative of a noun *seĝhom ‘strength.’ The root *seĝh- (Gk. ἔχω etc.) had the original meaning ‘hold firmly’ and this developed to ‘be strong,’ ‘conquer’ in Indo-Iranian and Western Indo-European. The god *seĝhomōn- is the sole example of a divine name that perhaps can be considered a unique and innovative feature of the ancient Proto-Italo-Celtic speech community.
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Old Irish inherited the PIE root noun *doms ~ dm̥-'home', which is reflected chiefly in the fixed locution [Verb of motion] dia daim '(go) to (one's) home'. From the remnants of this ablauting, feminine root noun speakers created a... more
Old Irish inherited the PIE root noun *doms ~ dm̥-'home', which is reflected chiefly in the fixed locution [Verb of motion] dia daim '(go) to (one's) home'. From the remnants of this ablauting, feminine root noun speakers created a somewhat anomalous i-stem, doim, doma. In addition Old Irish probably inherited a thematic masculine *domos continued mainly in the collocation dom/dam liac 'house of stone, cathedral', though the possibility of a Latin loan cannot be entirely excluded. A further trace of the root noun *dom-~ *dm̥-is seen in déis 'clientele', which continues *dm̥-sth 2 i-'located in the house'. This proto-form, suggested by de Bernardo Stempel (NWÄI), has a close formal match in Lith. dimstis 'courtyard' and is reminiscent of Lat. domesticus 'of the household'. This Latin form is shown to be of prehistoric origin despite its relatively late date of attestation. The possibility is explored that domesticus may be a remodeled reflex of the same compound inherited by Old Irish and Lithuanian, although domesticus may also be an inner-Latin formation.
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The word for king in Inner-Indo-European *h3rḗĝs was originally a verbal abstract 'rule', reinterpreted as a personal noun specifically in a "formula of ruling" which finds direct reflexes in Vedic and Old Irish. The n-stem word for king... more
The word for king in Inner-Indo-European *h3rḗĝs was originally a verbal abstract 'rule', reinterpreted as a personal noun specifically in a "formula of ruling" which finds direct reflexes in Vedic and Old Irish. The n-stem word for king is an internal derivative of a delocutive neuter n-stem *h3rēĝ-én 'in the rule' (Ved. rājáni). The relationship between the masculine *h3rḗĝs and the feminine *h3rḗĝnih2 derived from the n-stem was the basis for the creation of the feminine suffix *-nih2 and thus wherever we have evidence for this morpheme we must suppose that the pair *h3rḗĝs : *h3rḗĝnih2 once existed
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Lat. caelum 'heaven' makes a masc. pl. caeli. This gender heteroclisis can be explained on the hypothesis that the unmarked non-singular of caelum was originally a neuter thematic dual ending in *-oih1. The original meaning of caelum was... more
Lat. caelum 'heaven' makes a masc. pl. caeli. This gender heteroclisis can be explained on the hypothesis that the unmarked non-singular of caelum was originally a neuter thematic dual ending in *-oih1. The original meaning of caelum was 'division, part' and the dual was perhaps used as an elliptical dual to refer to heaven and earth, i.e. the two elemental halves of the universe.
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On the etymology of τίω, τιμἠ and related forms
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An examination of the rendering of the name for Cilicia in Akkadian and other Semitic languages. Note: This version is the same as that uploaded last week but corrects the false impression that Zsolt Simon's paper on the Luvian... more
An examination of the rendering of the name for Cilicia in Akkadian and other Semitic languages.
Note: This version is the same as that uploaded last week but corrects the false impression that Zsolt Simon's paper on the Luvian laryngeals is still forthcoming. It is is not, but appeared in 2014. Simon deserves full credit as the first to propose the uvular interpretation.
Note: This version is the same as that uploaded last week but corrects the false impression that Zsolt Simon's paper on the Luvian laryngeals is still forthcoming. It is is not, but appeared in 2014. Simon deserves full credit as the first to propose the uvular interpretation.
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Lat. sopio is backformed from sopitus 'sleeping', a denominal derivative in *-to-.
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The etymology of the common Tocharian verb TB rittetär, TA ritwatär ‘be attached to’ is considered uncertain. This paper revives and expands on an old suggestion of Van Windekens (1944: 226) which connects the Tocharian forms with Lat.... more
The etymology of the common Tocharian verb TB rittetär, TA ritwatär ‘be attached to’ is considered uncertain. This paper revives and expands on an old suggestion of Van Windekens (1944: 226) which connects the Tocharian forms with Lat. rīte ‘duly, correctly’, rītus ‘manner, way’ and PIr. *raiθ- ‘join, mix, combine’.
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In those Slavic languages that retain both a case system and clitic pronominal forms two case-related phenomena partially overlap: (1) Masculine animate nouns and gendered pronouns display differential object marking with sensitivity to... more
In those Slavic languages that retain both a case system and clitic pronominal forms two case-related phenomena partially overlap: (1) Masculine animate nouns and gendered pronouns display differential object marking with sensitivity to the animacy
hierarchy. Some subset of these forms with the highest score on the animacy hierarchy show the original genitive form instead of the expected accusative in contexts that otherwise call for that case, the so-called genitive-accusative. (2) Personal pronouns
also show instances of the genitive for the accusative but with important differences. In languages with a clitic~stressed contrast for oblique pronominals the accusative forms generally are continued as clitics and the genitive forms as stressed. It is unlikely that the nominal and personal-pronominal gen.-acc. are unrelated. On the other hand, the case choice for nouns and gendered pronouns is sensitive to the animacy hierarchy,
but for the personal pronouns the choice between genitive and accusative is phono-semantic. Whatever semantic structure evokes the stressed forms leads to the production of the gen.-acc. I suggest that gen.-acc. began with o-stem masculine personal
names, the most prototypical expression of the semantic class [+human, +male, +free, +definite] and was extended to the interrogative pronoun (gen.-acc. kogo). The interrogative pronoun had just those properties that allowed the remapping of an animacy hierarchy into a tonicity distinction.
hierarchy. Some subset of these forms with the highest score on the animacy hierarchy show the original genitive form instead of the expected accusative in contexts that otherwise call for that case, the so-called genitive-accusative. (2) Personal pronouns
also show instances of the genitive for the accusative but with important differences. In languages with a clitic~stressed contrast for oblique pronominals the accusative forms generally are continued as clitics and the genitive forms as stressed. It is unlikely that the nominal and personal-pronominal gen.-acc. are unrelated. On the other hand, the case choice for nouns and gendered pronouns is sensitive to the animacy hierarchy,
but for the personal pronouns the choice between genitive and accusative is phono-semantic. Whatever semantic structure evokes the stressed forms leads to the production of the gen.-acc. I suggest that gen.-acc. began with o-stem masculine personal
names, the most prototypical expression of the semantic class [+human, +male, +free, +definite] and was extended to the interrogative pronoun (gen.-acc. kogo). The interrogative pronoun had just those properties that allowed the remapping of an animacy hierarchy into a tonicity distinction.
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Survey of the Comparative Method in Historical Linguistics
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The basic idea of this paper is that Pre-PIE had implosives (as already suggested by Haider 1985), plain voiced stops, and voiceless stops. This system then underwent a shift whereby the voiced stops became voiced aspirates and the... more
The basic idea of this paper is that Pre-PIE had implosives (as already suggested by Haider 1985), plain voiced stops, and voiceless stops. This system then underwent a shift whereby the voiced stops became voiced aspirates and the implosives became plain voiced stops.This is a pdf of a powerpoint I gave back in 2009. The Cornell link has disappeared so I thought I'd post it here. I no longer feel confident about many of the strong positions taken in this talk, but some people have found it interesting, so here it is.
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A Handout for a talk given at the University of Copenhagen's Conference Power, Gender and Mobility: Features of Indo-European Society in which I try to show that Émile Benveniste's Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes, though... more
A Handout for a talk given at the University of Copenhagen's Conference Power, Gender and Mobility: Features of Indo-European Society in which I try to show that Émile Benveniste's Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes, though still an irreplaceable work, is methodologically deeply flawed.
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This is is my translation of Susanne Zeilfelder's Übungsheft zur indogermanischen Lautlehre which was originally composed in German in 2012. My translation into English is intended to make this excellent tool available to a wider audience... more
This is is my translation of Susanne Zeilfelder's Übungsheft zur indogermanischen Lautlehre which was originally composed in German in 2012. My translation into English is intended to make this excellent tool available to a wider audience and is posted with the permission of the author.
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Making the leap from learning the grammars and histories of the IE languages to writing original research papers is the most difficult transition that a grad student makes in their education. I've put together a few tips that are based on... more
Making the leap from learning the grammars and histories of the IE languages to writing original research papers is the most difficult transition that a grad student makes in their education. I've put together a few tips that are based on experience, tips that I have often not followed myself, much to the detriment of my papers. It might help to keep these in mind when you are writing something or teaching others how to write.
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Handout for a proseminar for Medievalists and Classicists. I try to show why Historical Linguistics might be interesting or important for the general Classicist or Medievalist. Examples drawn from Classical and Medieval European... more
Handout for a proseminar for Medievalists and Classicists. I try to show why Historical Linguistics might be interesting or important for the general Classicist or Medievalist. Examples drawn from Classical and Medieval European languages. No original work.
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Review of Emmanuel Dupraz, Aufbau und Inhalt der umbrischen Gebetstexte. 2020
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Kratylos 2017, Vol. 62, 127-53
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A very brief review of Meiser's 2nd edition of Etruskische Texte
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A sketch of the origin and diffusion of the label RUKI for the well known change affect PIE *s after i, u, r, and k in Indo-Iranian and Slavic.
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I suggest a new etymology for Lat. lībra, Greek λίτρα. The proposal is that the original meaning is an ingot (aes rude) and the root is *leihx- 'pour'. *lihxdhreh2 was a result noun, 'a pour', and referred originally to the poured metal... more
I suggest a new etymology for Lat. lībra, Greek λίτρα. The proposal is that the original meaning is an ingot (aes rude) and the root is *leihx- 'pour'. *lihxdhreh2 was a result noun, 'a pour', and referred originally to the poured metal that formed the ingot.
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Not by me, but by my father, Nathan Weiss (1922-2013) when he was county historian for Sullivan County, NY back in the 1950s. I have no idea what the sources are, but in case someone is interested in the local history Sullivan County, I... more
Not by me, but by my father, Nathan Weiss (1922-2013) when he was county historian for Sullivan County, NY back in the 1950s. I have no idea what the sources are, but in case someone is interested in the local history Sullivan County, I thought I would post this sketch which I found in my files.