Re: Latin acipe:nser "sturgeon"

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@...> wrote:

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> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Joao S. Lopes" <josimo70@> wrote:
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> > Any comment about the etymology of Latin name of the sturgeon, acipe:nser ?
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> > this -pe:nser seems to be < *pentSter- <*pend-ter? Or an ending like anser, passer?
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> Modern Venetian <ko'peze> requires a Romance protoform *accu'pe:se, so the correct Latin form is <accupensis> with original accent on the antepenult. This accent shows that the word cannot have been formed as a Latin compound, despite the ingenuity of some publishing etymologists.
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> I cannot pretend to know this with certainty, but I suspect that this word comes from an Illyrian compound meaning 'water-ox' or the like. In this view the first element is cognate with Latin <aqua>, undergoing regular *-kW- > *-kkW- > *-kk- in Illyrian. The second element may be compared to Albanian <pende">, <pe"nde"> 'Paar Ochsen' usw. < *penta: 'Gespann' (Pokorny, IEW 988). The word would have been borrowed from Illyrian into Venetic, thence into Latin, retaining its original accent until the present day in its local form.
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> DGK

Then what does the accent in G akkipe:síos show? I'd say nothing, just as in Venetian. Shifts in accent from L > VL, etc., are well known and usually occur after the conditioning env. is changed (here n>0, unstressed e: > e).


The start of the word shows the same variation seen in accipiter and acupedius, so an origin in 'water' or borrowing seems to gain no weight from it. All the same, even if you acknowledge the 3 are related, it doesn't completely rule out the possibility of borrowing if there was analogy among the three afterwards (as swift an. in the 3 divisions of the world).


If you have some ev. that it was related to, say:

káçyapa- = turtle/tortoise S; kasyapa- Av;


in a sim. way to:

çaphara-s S; s^ãpalas Lh; kuprî:nos G;

carpa L;
clupea = ~small fish in rivers L;


I'd listen to that w interest.