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To: CobaltBlue; Charles Henrickson
Galgal is obviously cognate with keklos. Seems to me, anyway. But it could be a borrowed word. In other words, something that Semitic languages borrowed from Indo-European or vice-versa.

If one accepts the Nostratic superfamily hypothesis (linking Proto-Indo-European to other families such as Semitic), then the galgal connection to keklos makes perfect sense. Of course, once a group had the wheel, I guess contact with neighboring language families would occur much more easily, so even if it's more than coincidence, it would be hard to be certain whether it's a borrowing or cognate. Nevertheless, that both words have similar meaning and both have velar stops, liquids, and apparent reduplication makes me agree with the cognate hypothesis you both made.

This result from a Google search reinforces the hypothesis; the following collection of roots includes "krikos" and "galgal."
http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/kr.html

14 posted on 03/19/2004 12:16:41 AM PST by Tex_GOP_Cruz (Remember Estrada!)
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To: Tex_GOP_Cruz
Continuing with the guesses, I would guess that spinning wheels predate wagon wheels.
15 posted on 03/19/2004 1:40:47 AM PST by CobaltBlue
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To: Tex_GOP_Cruz
I should say why I think spinning wheels predate wagon wheels. If you spin thread, you need a way to keep it neat. Rolling it around a stick would do it.
16 posted on 03/19/2004 1:42:44 AM PST by CobaltBlue
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