Talk:ალაო

Armenian origin

If the basic meaning is "malt prepared for grinding" (compare ალაო პური (alao ṗuri, “sprouted bread”)) then in my opinion this can be an Old Armenian borrowing from the family of աղ-ամ (ał-am, “to grind”), together with ალა (ala), ალატა (alaṭa). Compare from that root Middle Armenian աղ-ուն (aġ-un), աղ-օն (aġ-ōn), Karabakh dialect ա՛ղումնը (áġumnə), all meaning "grist, grain prepared for grinding"; these forms can come from Old Armenian *աղաւն (*aławn). But this is all uncertain, so we should not put it into mainspace. Vahag (talk) 17:53, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

This looks interesting, at the very least we could move Mirianischvili's comparison to etymology rather than referencing him cryptically კვარია (talk) 18:17, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

And Proto-Germanic *alu, we don’t know if the root isn’t related. The meaning “beer” is probably projected back to PIE only for simplicity, since there historical and chemical evidence probably suggests something quite different, compare the rather late development of alcoholic drinks in the Orient, such as hinted at Proto-Slavic *molto and قَهْوَة (qahwa), جِعَة (jiʕa). It may have been some lightly fermented ground barley; in the European Middle Ages one drank small beer or malt liquor, the Mediterraneans of Antiquity only knew beer as something foreign, Arabia knew it little enough that it could be forbidden, and let’s not start about what the Turks drank – why assume Indo-European had the slightest name for an alcoholic beverage that we know now? When the apples fermented they may have just thrown them away instead of making cider (which is a word from a vague Semitic word for anything alcoholic from the word for drunkenness, we reconstruct *šikar- (“alcoholic beverage”) which is as specific as it can get). Fay Freak (talk) 19:24, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, you are suggesting that Proto-Indo-European *h₂elut- (“malt drink (?)”) is a derivative of *h₂elh₁- (“to grind”). I don't know enough PIE morphology to judge. Vahag (talk) 15:38, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Basically I am suggesting it, or I suspect it was formed in Pre-Germanic but not Proto-Indo European as it is only attested in Germanic, Baltic-Slavic and Finnic and plausibly Latin, so another morphology of a Western Indo-European subbranch would apply, corresponding to Proto-Slavic *molto (“malt”) and its Germanic cognate/etymon/descendant also being likely from a root ”to grind”, fitting also Georgian ალაო (alao) apparently being from an Indo-European languages root “to grind”, with additional observations about frequent borrowings and meaning transferrals in this area, to say that your idea of relating this Georgian ალაო (alao, “malt”) to աղ-ամ (ał-am, “to grind”) is not dumb and well-paralleled. Fay Freak (talk) 07:12, 24 June 2022 (UTC)