From: dgkilday57
Message: 64198
Date: 2009-06-15
>That's not so bad, I suppose. I can't simply dismiss it.
> On 2009-06-13 18:57, dgkilday57 wrote:
>
> > No doubt <rienes> has been influenced by <lie:n>, but Anttila's *nehr-
> > doesn't wash, since Festus gives <nefrendes> and <nebrundines> as
> > dialectal forms; obviously P-Italic (and probably Faliscan) had *nefr-,
> > Latin *nebr- in the inherited 'kidney' word. All the forms cited by
> > Festus have different extensions, so we're most likely dealing with
> > medical tabu-substitution, as a result of occasional anecdotes of people
> > coming down with nephritis after someone mentioned 'kidney'.
>
> I actually misquoted Anttila the first time round (I was probably
> writing from memory). What he actually suggests is *negWHr- > *regWHn- >
> *re:n. The Latin treatment of inherited *-gWHn- is a bit uncertain for
> lack of sure examples.
> > Latin-speakers evidently ran out of variants and substituted a differentAll right. I stand corrected.
> > word, much as English later discarded <nere>.
>
> It did not. <kidney> comes from ME kide-ne:re ~ kide-neire. The first
> element is usually explained as OE *cyd(d)e 'belly'. Apparently the
> variant pl. <kideneiren> was misanalysed as <kidenei-r-en> (doubly
> characterised, like <ei-r-en> 'eggs' or <child-r-en>.
> > As a first guess I wouldI couldn't get a protoform from my first guess, so let's try a second guess. If Latin <po:ne> 'behind' (adv. and prep. with acc.) and Umbrian <postne> 'behind' (adv.) are understood as the neut. sg. of an /i/-stem adj. *postnis 'situated behind', connected with Lat. <po:no:>, <pos(i)tum> 'set down' < *po-s(i)no:, *po-s(i)tom 'place after', perhaps there was a parallel *re-s(i)no:, *re-s(i)tom 'place back' and an adj. *restnis 'situated in back'. Then, as the inherited word for 'kidneys', *nebro:neis or whatever, fell into disfavor, perhaps it was replaced by the euphemism *restneies '(those organs) situated in back', with regular development into <re:ne:s>. Pliny does use the /i/-stem gen. pl. <re:nium>. The C-stem form <re:num>, like <rie:n> (Plautus ap. Fest.), may have been influenced by <lie:n>.
> > suggest *re:nis meant 'bent object' vel sim. from *(w)re:(C?)-,
> > *(w)re(CC?)- with formation parallel to <pa:nis> from *past-nis, the
> > root being *wer- 'to turn', but I need to come up with a plausible
> > protoform. At any rate a loanword from an obscure language in order to
> > deal with medical tabu seems to me VERY unlikely.
>
> I agree with that.