Talk:πύργος

Pyrgos, an apparently Aegean / Anatolian word

 * 1st argument. pyrgos is first attested in Homer Iliad 7.206 and has a broad use in later poets and historians. The speculation that it was borrowed in the Balkans from Germans, through Macedonian mediation (both of them unattested in archaeology and historiography before the Archaic period in Greece) is dismissed by Beekes along with the Pelasgian proposal. Before the insert of the Homeric report, the wording of the entry was giving the impression that pyrgos was a Hellenistic or Roman era borrowing to Greek.


 * 2nd argument. The abundance of Perg-onyms in the Aegean and Anatolia but also the Anatolian words (which are conventionally listed along with the PIE bherg'h)   Hittite: parku, Lycian. prije; pruwa. [ http://books.google.com/books?um=1&q=Hittite+parku-+and+Luwian+Parka-+originate+from+PIE+*b^rg^(i) ;+note,+however,++that+in+Luwian+as+a+rule+voiced+velars+are+lost+when+occurring+before+front&btnG=Search+Books Linguistica Tyrrhenica II]. Count also Etruscan (a proposed Aegean language) toponym  Pyrgi.


 * 3rd argument. pergamon and pergama in Ancient Greek poetry, it is not just a toponym but a generic label for citadels.


 * 4th argument. If pyrgos was an Indoeuropean word from bherg'h, it would be phyrgos and not pyrgos.


 * 5th argument.Epigraphy: Pyrg-onyms like Πυργίων Pyrgion, Πύργων,Πυργίας and Πυργοτέλης (Pyrgoteles)   (male names) 121 matches: 25 in Attica, 63 in the Aegean Islands, 27 in Asia Minor. Search for πυργ- 538 matches. 102 in Attica, 103 in the Aegean Islands, 143 in Asia Minor.


 * 6th and final argument. There is a speculation that PIE German burg is a borrowing to many other languages (including Iranian,Slavic and Semitic!). In that case burg would be equivalent to the real Egyptian borrowing pyramid . Egyptians and Near East peoples were the first who constructed high buildings. The Egyptian mr, which was altered as pyramid in Greek (apparently through Anatolian mediation), seems to be the semantic and linguistic root for Hittite parku Lycian prije; pruwa the cities Pergamon, Perga and Greek pyrgos.Catalographer 10:32, 17 September 2009 (UTC)


 * As for the second argument: Linking to a Google search is terrible form. Link to a search result instead.
 * Also, Pyrgi itself is not Etruscan, or at least not clearly. It might be, in origin, some Etruscan name (*purk-?), but the name is evidently mediated through Greek, judging by its form Πύργοι, which plainly looks like the plural of πύργος 'tower' (and also exists as a placename in Greece). Even if an Etruscan *purk- existed, it could equally likely be a Greek borrowing – Etruscan is full of names and words borrowed from Greek, so this place-name does not really prove anything. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:15, 4 April 2019 (UTC)