Linguistics discussion (split from new factions thread)

[Elmetiacos]

The thread is not dead, only stunned. Since it all started with some of us pointing out how hard it would be to reconstruct Dacian and/or Thracian, here are some interesting snippets.
1. The (Latinised) Getic personal name Zalmodegicus: look at the second element in the name. Surely it must be a cognate of Celtic *dexs- which appears in Lugudeccas on an Ogham stone "of the servant of Lugh" - that means Zalmodegicus is "servant of Zalmoxis".
2. Did Daco-Thracian turn Indo-European M into B? Bassaris is a Greek word for the fox skin worn by Dionysos which doesn't seem to have an etymology in Greek. Bassareus is also supposed to have been the Thracian version of the god. Bendis was the Thracian moon goddess. Both these make sense as PIE roots if we turn the Bs into Ms: *moiso- meaning the hide of an animal and *meh1ns- meaning the moon...

EDIT: bah - Duridanov's Thracian vocabulary (http://www.kroraina.com/thrac_lang/thrac_5.html) is full of words that kept the M as M...