# PIE *dekm in Proto-Uralic



## dihydrogen monoxide

Finnish, Proto-Uralic deksan comes from PIE *dek'mt. I would like to know how did PIE *dek'mt evolved to deksan. 
So the main point is why ks and an?


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## Frank06

Hi,



dihydrogen monoxide said:


> Finnish, Proto-Uralic deksan comes from PIE *dek'mt. I would like to know how did PIE *dek'mt evolved to deksan. So the main point is why ks and an?


I searched a few things, but before posting my reply, could you please explain how you arrive at the form *dek'mt (I'm especially wondering about the final -t).

Thanks.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## dihydrogen monoxide

We were taught dek'mt and  I went searching for dek'mt and found among other links this site http://74.125.39.104/search?q=cache:QHMeAb0cRT0J:indoeuro.bizland.com/archive/article12.html+dek%27mt+PIE&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4, wikipedia article mentions *dek'm(t), and Beekes mentions the form *dek'mt, but Slovene Etymological dictionary reconstructed the form *dek'm. So I guess both you and I are correct considering these words.
I wrote previously that this was a typo, but then I remembered that it wasn't a typo, and that I remembered that we were learned that way and you made me check it out again. In fact, at first when you reminded, I really taught I made a typo, and then searched a bit further.


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## sokol

I've looked it up in online Köbler, Indogermanisches Wörterbuch (some other interesting links you find in the sticky thread of this forum) where it says *dekm (which is what is usually given, and which is the most general root) but *dekmt also is given.
I was puzzled by that one too as I only had known the root of *dekm (which is a rather common one, with meaning a numeral -_ ten)._

Anyway, what puzzles me even more: is it *really *an acknowledged fact that an Uralic root *deksan were related to (or descendant from) *dekm?

I know next to nothing about Uralic roots, and before I could say anything about this question for me it would first be necessary if this is to be considered a fact at all, or still disputed.
So probably you can offer some sources?

It is certainly posible to construct a possible way from *dekm to *deksan (only the /s/ would require some real explanation; m > n could simply have happened because in quite some languages who have two or three nasal those might, at the end of the word, get neutralised to one nasal, and that oftentimes is /n/), but if this were only hypothetical it would be pure guesswork and of no real value (except as a folk etymology ).


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## Lugubert

dihydrogen monoxide said:


> Finnish, Proto-Uralic deksan comes from PIE *dek'mt. I would like to know how did PIE *dek'mt evolved to deksan.
> So the main point is why ks and an?


Where do you find a Finnish word (of any meaning) that looks like _deksan_? Ten in Finnish is _kymmenen_.


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## Frank06

Hi,


Lugubert said:


> Where do you find a Finnish word (of any meaning) that looks like _deksan_? Ten in Finnish is _kymmenen_.


Yes, but apparently, they do use kahdeksan (8) and yhdeksän (9) for, which many people interpret as resp. "2 less than 10" and "1 less than 10".

So far, I found only a few short comments in favour of a PIE or very early IE loan and a few which do not really favour the idea.



sokol said:


> I've looked it up in online Köbler, Indogermanisches Wörterbuch (some other interesting links you find in the sticky thread of this forum) where it says *dekm (which is what is usually given, and which is the most general root) but *dekmt also is given.
> I was puzzled by that one too as I only had known the root of *dekm (which is a rather common one, with meaning a numeral -_ ten)._


Thanks for the clarification, or rather, for cleaning up the confusion I started !

Groetjes,

Frank


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## dihydrogen monoxide

Could it be that they cite *dek'mt because of Slavic deset? Because Slavic has t at the end. I have no proof of this, just questioning. Do these sources that favour PIE loan say anything about why there is such a form in Proto-Uralic and what do the sources say that are against the theory?


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## Lugubert

Frank06 said:


> Yes, but apparently, they do use kahdeksan (8) and yhdeksän (9) for, which many people interpret as resp. "2 less than 10" and "1 less than 10".


Doesn't look too improbable so far, considering that 2 = kaksi and 1 = yksi.


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## sokol

dihydrogen monoxide said:


> Do these sources that favour PIE loan say anything about why there is such a form in Proto-Uralic and what do the sources say that are against the theory?


Please, H(2)O, could you just give _any _sources favouring a PIE origin of the Proto-Uralic word, _any _authors who claim that this would be so, so that we can at least discuss?

So far I do not know of _any _theory claiming that PIE *dekm (or *dekmt) would have anything to do with Proto-Uralic *deksan.
The phonetic similarity is there, yes, but that alone is no proof for anything. To build a theory one needs much more than phonetic similarity.  Myself I am certainly not convinced at all by the 'evidence' given in this thread so far; we do know much about the PIE root of *dekm, it is documented in numerous languages, but about Proto-Uralic *deksan I at least (so far) know nothing.


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## dihydrogen monoxide

I know phonetic similarity isn't enough. But as far as I can tell, Frank06, has some sources and the quote I gave was meant to him. I've read this somewhere long time ago, but don't know the source anymore, it just stuck in my mind.

Thus *deksan* appearing in Finnish kahdeksan "8", *...* "10" is regarded as a loan 
from *Indo-European* by Collinder  Gk. *...*






*Studies in the Origins of the Celts and of Early Celtic Civilisation - Page 234*

by Heinrich Wagner - Celts - 1971
*...* E. Mann's article ' The *Indo-European* consonants in Albanian ', Language 
xxviii (1952), pp. *...* Finnish -*deksan*, apparently borrowed from Satem-I. Eur. *...*
Snippet view - About this book - Add to my library - More editions

*Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics: Translated from Einfuhrung in Die ... - Page 148*

by Oswald John Louis Szemerényi - Language Arts & Disciplines - 1996 - 352 pages
*...* still in Europe seems proved by the fact that Finnish kah-*deksan* 'eight', *...* 
of 'ten' (*deksan*) which is the reflex of a Proto-Aryan *det's'an (with e *...*




These are sources from Google Books, these are the citations, but if you click on them, you won't find them. In fact, they all say it is a loan, but they don't go beyond that. 
Write down in search field deksan PIE or deksan indoeuropean. I know you asked for sources, so here they are.
But I did read it once, I don't know somewhere on the internet or in a book, I don't know.



By the way, I think one source answers our question partly.

http://dnghu.org/indoeuropean.html
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0002&L=indo-european&D=1&P=23571&F=P (this one doubts the source)

In fact, there's not much to go on according to these sources, but at least they claim a borrowing.


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## sokol

Szemerényi is an important author on PIE but I am not aware that he published anything on Proto-Uralic.
Whatever, yes, it says so there that according to him *deksan were a PIE loan (without any argumentation going into more detail). Nevertheless I consider Szemerényi an expert in PIE, but not at all necessarily an expert in Proto-Uralic. 

The websites you've quoted just show that (it seams, according to them) Baudouin de Courtenay had been in favour for *deksan being a PIE loan while from that other one Miguel Carrasquer Vidal posts his doubts about that.
Sure, many other books seem to mention the same theory.

But I would still think it would be better to say that *deksan going back to *dekm rather should be considered a _theory_, and not a fact.
A theory that has at least now some shape now that you've provided some information.  It seems that quite some linguists think that this is likely but without being able to offer any real proof; therefore, still a theory only.

(As already said phonetic explanations for the sound shift of *dekm to *deksan really would not be the problem - the thing is that a _route _for this to happen needs to be proven, a likely route at that. And I haven't found any; Szemerényi only states the theory, and some other of the sources I tried to access via Google books didn't show the full text.)


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## dihydrogen monoxide

I know I tried to warn you it wouldn't show full text. That's it with Google books. A book old 30-50 years and say it's copyright.


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## modus.irrealis

dihydrogen monoxide said:


> Could it be that they cite *dek'mt because of Slavic deset? Because Slavic has t at the end. I have no proof of this, just questioning.


Beekes in his _Comparative Indo-European Linguistics_ also reconstructs it as *dek'mt. It seems that only the Slavic and Baltic languages preserved the final *t in the word for 10, but you can also see it in the words for 20, 30, and so on, where *dek'mt formed a compound, e.g. the -ty ending in Greek (-kon*t*a) and Latin (-gin*t*a). My guess is that in older works, since reconstruction was mostly based on Sanskrit and then Greek and these two don't show a final t in their words for 10 (although Greek would have lost it in any case), it wasn't in the reconstructed form.

For the Szemerényi source you found, there he's talking about the development of k' to s' in Sanskrit, which he sees as going along the lines k' > ky > ty > t's' and then says that Proto-Indo-Iranian must have reached the t's' stage while still in Europe because he sees Finnish -deksan as coming from *det's'an -- which at least gives an explanation for where the -s- in -deksan come from if it is from PIE.


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## sokol

I've now done some more reading in Szemerényi; but it doesn't go any further as where we already were - that he says that "proof for Aryan /t's'/ reaching Europe were Finnish /kah-deksan & yh-deksän/".
_[So yes, Szemerényi presupposes that the Uralic root indeed were Aryan in origin. I choose to remain sceptic till I've seen more convincing evidence. ;-)]_

The point is that you cannot give Finnish words as evidence for a certain Aryan stage reaching Europe except if beforehand it had indeed been prooven that those Finnish words were of Aryan origin.
This would be arguing in a circle: one is proof for the other one - that would not be a scientific approach.
Which Szemerényi of course knows, therefore he quotes literature to proof his point (without going into any detail in this book); so to follow his reasoning it would be necessary to read this literature.

(I even own the German edition of that one - and by the way it took me ages to find the quote, unfortunately Szemerényi is a pure maze, without index and literature given in-between rather than at the end ... But that wasn't very enlightening either, both editions differ only slightly.)

The key anyway might be *Szemerényi*), Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher 49, 1978, 129f:* this he gives as a quote to proof his point about Aryan *det's'an being loaned into Ural-Altaic (Finnish kah-deksan & yh-deksän).
However I couldn't access this one online. Probably someone with knowledge of German could find it in a library (I will give it a try if I'll find the time for it).

*) So Szemerényi after all might have done _some _research in Uralic languages it seems.


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## astlanda

yhdeksä*n* < *ükt (the stem for 1) -e (buffer vowel) -ksa (suffix) -n (genitive)
kahdeksa*n* < *kakt (the stem for 2) -e (buffer vowel) -ksa (suffix) -n (genitive)


There was no word starting with -d in Proto-Finnic.

The word for 7 is also used in genitive instead of nominative.
seitsemä*n* < *seitsemä + *n*
E.G.
seitsemä*n* (< nominative) kasinoa  ~ kaksi kasinoa
seitsemä*n* (< genitive) kasino*n*  ~ kahde*n* kasino*n*



Udmurt "das" for 10 may be a better candidate.


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## sokol

astlanda said:


> There was no word starting with -d in Proto-Finnic.


Thank you, astlanda, you have given some good arguments for _kahdeksan _and _yhdeksän _being not Uralic but (probably) Indoeuropean.

So if indeed kahdeksan were *deksan minus 2 and yhdeksän *deksan minus 1 then at least a meaning of 10 for *deksan seems likely.
I am almost convinced. 

(Udmurt 10 = "das" which you've given also could be an argument; but in this case also a Russian loan would be possible, especially as there is no "k" element.)


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## astlanda

sokol said:


> So if indeed kahdeksan were *deksan minus 2 and yhdeksän *deksan minus 1 then at least a meaning of 10 for *deksan seems likely.
> I am almost convinced.



Hi!

Don't be so easily convinced, please.
I can't give many examples here, because I don't want to harm this thread.
But my point was, that even though those words are obviously derived from the stems *ükt and *kakt, there is no morpheme *deksa included, but the stem will overgo some typical regular changes in Finnish.

E.G.
the word for 2
[partitive] kahtta < * [after a historic shift *kt -> ht] < * kakt (stem) + ta (partitive)
[genitive] kahden < * [according to the consonant gradation *ten -> den] < * [after a historic shift *kt -> ht] < * kakt (stem) + e (buffer vowel) + n (genitive)

So it's not kah+deksan, but kahd+e+ksa+n


See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonant_gradation
for consonant gradation.


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## sokol

astlanda said:


> Don't be so easily convinced, please.


I said _almost_. 
So basically your point is that if *deksan were Proto-Uralic it should rather be *teksan and /t/ would change according to consonant gradation, right?

This would raise again some doubts as to wether *deksan really could be Indoeuropean.
(I would anyway like to access Szemerényi's article in Uralische Jahrbücher which I've quoted above.)


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## astlanda

astlanda said:


> ... there is no morpheme *deksan included.
> 
> So it's not kah+deksan, but kahd+e+ksa+n .



This thread is not about Proto-Uralic, but I don't believe it was ever a language, which we can reconstruct.

My point is, that a native speaker, who has deeply studied Finnic languages, will not interprete these words the way they were interpreted above.

*kakt + teksan > would probably give a result like "katteksan" not "kahdeksan".
~ *kant + ta + tak > kattaa




sokol said:


> /t/ would change according to consonant gradation, right?



-d < *-t is the last consonant of the stem *kakt, not the first konsonant of *teksa.


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## dihydrogen monoxide

I've found another site which is a Lexicon of Indo-European loanwords in Finnish. I don't wish to say that you are both wrong, since I've got a good explanation from you two. But I would suggest looking at this site and see what you think. I still think it's PIE but I've started to have some doubts now. In fact this is what this site says. Scroll down to the word ten
http://koti.welho.com/jschalin/lexiconie.htm
However, I still think that astlanda's explanation is more believable. But convince me, maybe this site is wrong.


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## astlanda

dihydrogen monoxide said:


> But convince me, maybe this site is wrong.



The list is OK, though most of these words are traditionally listed among Baltic loanwords. They occur in eastern subgroups as well: Permic, Mordvin etc.


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## sokol

astlanda said:


> So it's not kah+deksan, but kahd+e+ksa+n





astlanda said:


> *kakt + teksan > would probably give a result like "katteksan" not "kahdeksan".



Thanks for the clarification, now the fog is lifting.
It seems, astlanda, that you _might _have proven Szemerényi to be wrong (about "deksan" in Uralic being PIE, that is). Of course we still would have to take a look at the original article - to check how Szemerényi argued there.


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## astlanda

sokol said:


> It seems, astlanda, that you _might _have proven Szemerényi to be wrong (about "deksan" in Uralic being PIE, that is). Of course we still would have to take a look at the original article - to check how Szemerényi argued there.



Language is such an easy thing to clarify only on the paper.
In reality there is possibility, that in ancient time a weird pidgin was used for trade, which was a mix of several languages.
So some PIE merchant may have invented a mixed word of Uralic kakt + PIE deksa and when the "Uralic" people (which I don't believe ever existed as a single tribe) got used to this word by continuous trade derived their own form of this putting together kakt + ksa (translative suffix).
But it's a really weird idea.

E.G. the regular counterpart for Finnish "yhdeksän" is "üheksä" in North-East Estonian (Alutaguse), which may refer both to the number 9 (with no suffix) and number 1 with terminative suffix (~ Finnish: yhdeksi) in traditional epic songs. In everyday speech the number 1 with terminative suffix would be "ühessi".

Szemerényi has not much space left for aguing here.



sokol said:


> Quote:Originally Posted by astlanda
> *kakt + teksan > would probably give a result like "katteksan" not "kahdeksan".



I was wrong. There is such a case. 
NB! *kt + *t always demands a buffer -e to join them.
E.G:
tahdon(I want) *läkt + *täk (infinitive) > tahdon läht*e*ä
=  I want to go.

ei(negative) *läkt + *ttä + *k > ei lähd*e*tä
= (negative present indefinite voice) anybody won't go / we won't go

So it should be:
*kakt + teksan > kaht*e*deksan
Which is nonsense.

In case the *deksan was not a suffix but a word the result must have been the following:
*kakt +e(to avoid morfotactically impossible one syllable words ending with consonants)+ teksan > ka*ksi*teksan

~ *kakt + toista > ka*ksi*toista

I hope, that a Turkish scholar will soon proof, that  yh*deks*än (the Finnish word for *9* ) is derived from *ükt + _*dok**uz*  (the Turkish word for *9*)_  or  *ükt + _*doksan*  (the Turkish word for *90*)_


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## sokol

Finally I have found the relevant quote of Szemerényi; it took some time because there's a typo in the reference in his "Einführung in die Sprachwissenschaft" (p. 157): it is not Ural-Altaic Yearbook 49/1978 but 49/1977 (p. 129f): *Oswald Szemerényi* (UAY 49/1977: pp. 128-135): *Review of: Joki,* Aulis J.: Uralier und die Indogermanen. Die älteren Berührungen zwischen den uralischen und indogermanischen Sprachen. Mémoirs de la Societé Finno-Ougrienne 151. Helsinki 1973, XXVIII + 420 pp.
The relavant pages 129f concerning "deksan" are Szemerényi's (they are a critique of Joki); however I feel that he should have mentioned in his "Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft" that some people, like for example Joki, seem not to share his views of IE etymology of "deksan". But whatever; about this article now:

This is _not _about *initial "d"* (the problem mentioned by astlanda) which is not mentioned by Szemerényi at all; there also seems to be a very serious *problem with "ks":* had the loan (if it is one) taken the usual course of development it should be "ts".
Szemerényi himself states that undoubtedly IE *dekm [I will leave out traditional IE diacritics] should have developed to FinnoUgric *detyan (with ty = a voiceless palatal plosive like in Hungarian 'kutya' = IPA [c]) > *detsan.
The fact that it is "deksan" he tries to explain with dissimilation (possible, but sounds far-fetched) or due to acoustic similarity (sounds even fetched further*)).
*) I know this is not correct English. Please be so kind and allow for the occasional game on words.
And on top of it all he suggests that as long there isn't a better explanation for "deksan" we should stick to this one (a traditional one already proposed by a certain 'Europaeus' in 1853; this seems to be a name of a scholar - latinised, obviously - but I can't attribute it to a real person; as Latin was still very important in Hungary in the 19th century it would be very much possible that this was a Hungarian scholar).

Please note: it may still be that through some strange coincidences Finnish "-deksan" would go back to IE *dekm.
The point however is that Szemerényi hasn't offered real proof - what he _does _offer is only his authority, and this doesn't convince me one bit.

And further Szemerény _under no circumstances_ should substantiate his claim in his "Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft" (p. 157) with reference to this article - that is, with referring to a doubtful explanation. This is not the way science works.
Especially as he argues that *dekm > *deksan should be proof that a certain stage of development of IE (that of /t's'/ = IPA [cs]) did reach Europe; because a doubtful etymology (= that one of IE *dekm > FU *deksan) certainly shouldn't be offered as proof for another theory.
(And further it isn't even clear if Indoeuropeans did travel from somewhere in Asia to Europe nor is it clear that Aryan really was the oldest stage of IE.)


Therefore I conclude: we do not know if IE *dekm and Finnic -deksan, deksän are related. It is not impossible, but there are good arguments against it.

This does not mean that Szemerényi (and other IE linguists claiming the same) was wrong but only that he did jump to conclusions and that he should have been more careful in his statements.


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## astlanda

I can't add much, but http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Europaeus *David Emmanuel Daniel Europaeus (Äyräpää) was a Finnish linguist, folklorist and archaeologist.
*


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## sokol

Thank you, astlanda! So at least one mystery solved. 

Unfortunately we still only have reached the stage where we know that we do *not *know. 
(But that's the case many times with IE roots.)


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## dinji

sokol said:


> .....This is _not _about *initial "d"* (the problem mentioned by astlanda) which is not mentioned by Szemerényi at all; there also seems to be a very serious *problem with "ks":* had the loan (if it is one) taken the usual course of development it should be "ts".
> Szemerényi himself states that undoubtedly IE *dekm [I will leave out traditional IE diacritics] should have developed to FinnoUgric *detyan (with ty = a voiceless palatal plosive like in Hungarian 'kutya' = IPA [c]) > *detsan.
> The fact that it is "deksan" he tries to explain with dissimilation (possible, but sounds far-fetched) or due to acoustic similarity (sounds even fetched further*)).
> *) I know this is not correct English. Please be so kind and allow for the occasional game on words.


The problem with the -ks- was finally solved in 1999 jointly by Jorma Koivulehto and Asko Parpola. The solution was published in Finnish in the book "Pohjan poluilla. Suomalaiset juuret nykytutkimuksen mukaan." Edited by Paul Fogelberg. Bidrag till kännedom av Finlands natur och folk 153. Helsinki 1999. ISBN 951-653-294-2. 
Parpola presents the solution on page 198-199 and Koivulehto on page 225. 
The solution is based on the fact that judging from Nuristani Proto-Indo-Iranian *t's' was depalatalised to Pre-Iranian *ts before becoming a fricative. The Pre-Iranian *ts could not have been substituted by Finno-Permian *c' > ts which was a palatal consonant. Therefore it was substituted by ks, which seems to have been the acoustically closest possible cluster. At that time no cluster **ts existed in Finno-Permian. Two parallell cases are quoted paksu <= Proto-Iranian *badzu- and maksa <= Proto-Iranian *mandza- 

The solution is republished without this long argumentation in English on page 255 in "Koivulehto, Jorma (2001). "The earliest contacts between Indo-European and Uralic speakers in the light of lexical loans", in C.Carpelan, A.Parpola P.Koskikallio (ed.): _The earliest contacts between Uralic and Indo-European: Linguistic and Archeological Considerations_. Helsinki: Mémoires de la societé Finno-Ougrienne 242, pp. 235–263. ISBN 952-5150-59-3. 

The other "problems" mentioned in this thread were never considered problems, really.

See also on Wikipedia under the discussion section for article on Indo-Uralic languages,heading "On kuningas etc."


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## sokol

Thanks, dinji (and welcome to EHL forum ) - although I couldn't read the original I think I can follow the line of argumentation:
- Proto-Iranian *t's' became depalatalised Pre-Iranian *ts
- Finno-Permian only had the palatal plosive *c' and replaced *ts by *ks because it was the most similar consonant cluster existing in Finno-Permian

But the most important part of this line of argumentation, in my view, is that there exist two parallel cases where the same happened: it would be like clutching at straws to sustain an argument by a single word only (deksan), to have two others (paksu, maksa) definitely gives the theory credibility.


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## dinji

sokol said:


> Thanks, dinji (and welcome to EHL forum ) - although I couldn't read the original I think I can follow the line of argumentation:
> - Proto-Iranian *t's' became depalatalised Pre-Iranian *ts
> - Finno-Permian only had the palatal plosive *c' and replaced *ts by *ks because it was the most similar consonant cluster existing in Finno-Permian
> 
> But the most important part of this line of argumentation, in my view, is that there exist two parallel cases where the same happened: it would be like clutching at straws to sustain an argument by a single word only (deksan), to have two others (paksu, maksa) definitely gives the theory credibility.


Evidently, it would have been *teksa- not **deksa-
The -d- is a development of late Proto-Finnic, before that stage there was no **-d-.
So we would have to assume *kaktV-teksa- contracting into *kakteksa- before *-kt- evolves into late North Proto-Finnic -hd-. 
Such a development is not unlikely, especially not in a numeral, which undergo exceptional ware and tare.


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