PIE *g’enH1 and *gʷenH2 as cognates ("king" and "queen")

[This is a guest post by German Dziebel, commenting on "PIE *gene- *gwen-" (8/10/23).]

I will strike a dissenting note here. The two roots in question – *g’enH1 and *gʷenH2 are likely cognates. There seems to be a non-random distribution of palatalized and labialized velars in IE stems with nasals – palatovelars are favored in stems with m, while labiovelars are favored in stems with n. E.g., nGʷ roots: *nogʷno- 'naked', *nogʷt- 'night', *snoigʷho- 'snow', *h₂ongʷo- 'anoint', *h1ngwni- 'fire', *negʷhro- 'kidney', *gʷenh₂ 'wife', *kʷoino- 'price', *penkʷe- '5', *h₁lengʷʰ- 'light', *gʷʰen- 'slay, strike', *sengʷh- 'sing', *neigʷ- 'wash' 

vs.

mG'-roots: *H3moiǵhlo- (assimilated to njegull(ë) in Gheg Alb), *meǵh₂s 'great', *meh₂ǵ- 'smear, anoint', *ǵheyōm 'winter', *dheǵhōm 'earth', *ḱoimo- 'household, family', *mreǵh-, *mosgho- 'brain', *h₂melǵ- 'milk', *smeḱur 'chin, beard', *deḱm̥ '10', *h1ḱm̥tóm '100' *h₂émǵʰu- 'narrow' (Hitt hamenk- 'tie, bind').

Although there are seeming exceptions (e.g., PIE *gʷher- ‘hot’ yields -mo-derivatives in Gk  θερμός, Alb zjarm, Arm jerm, in all those branches the labiovelar is found in a palatalized state), those exceptions are limited in number and can be explained as later assimilations. This is likely what happened with PIE *g’enH1 and PIE *gʷenH2 where only *gʷenH2 is “legal”, while *g’enH1 is likely assimilated from either *g’emH1 or *gʷenH1. As a supporting proof for this inference one can cite Baltic *gmti ‘beget, give birth’ (Lith gimti, Latv dzimt, OPruss gemton) that must be going back to *gʷem- (no connection to PIE *gʷen- ‘come, step’ (Lat venio:, Gk baino:, etc., with assimilation creating stems such as Germ *kwemaną (comp. *faima 'foam' < PIE *spoineh₂), PToch *kum (comp. mekwa ' nails' < *nogʷho-) and InIr *ǰámati (comp. Skrt ūrmí, Avest varəmi 'wave' but Lith vilnis, Slav *vъlna 'wave')). PIE *gʷem- went through assimilation and generalized labiality across the stem in exactly the opposite way from PIE *g’enH1 that generalized palatality. As a sum total, it’s most likely that the PIE word for ‘beget, give birth’ was * gʷen(H1)- and hence it can hardly be separated from *gʷenH2 ‘woman, wife’. Germ *kʷēniz 'wife' was likely applied to ‘queen’, too, as in Old English, and was a cognate counterpart to *kuninga- ‘king’. It’s to be expected that the words for ‘king’ and ‘queen’ were derived from a single root as they do in so many IE languages – living and dead – from Hitt hassu ‘king’, hassusara ‘queen’ onward.