Piotr Gasiorowski <piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:
> Talking of vipers, the Albanian word for one is <nëpërkë>, so
> we are dealing either with a loan or a real substrate item with
> Albanian connections. Does anyone know anything about this word?
As far as the Romanian word is concerned, O. Densusianu thinks
of it as a loan word (from Albanian; to be noted that he considers
all non Latin common Rom.-Alb. words to be loan words from Alb.).
Philippide considers the word "surely autochtonous", with atested
correspondencies in Thracian or other Balkan and IE languages
(he is equally mentioning some loan words from the common Rom.-Alb.
vocabulary).
The word appears to be real substrate also for Rosetti (ILR),
Russu, Poghirc, Brancus and A. Vraciu ("of ancient IE origin");
for H. Mihaescu is "probably substrate".
Curiously enough, Reichenkron missed this one. :-)
Regards,
Marius Iacomi