Re: Basque onddo

From: Tavi
Message: 70340
Date: 2012-10-30

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "stlatos" <sean@...> wrote:
>
> > > This is very unlikely. Spanish pollo gives Basque oilo just as Romance
> > > fongo gives onddo (with expressive palatalization).
> >
> > I rejected that etymology before, and believers in "expressive palatalization" need to explain why a mushroom would produce such a demand for expressivity in speakers that only palatalization could satisfy it. Are we talking about a MAGIC mushroom?
> >
> In Western Romance, the phoneme N changed into NY > nY > ñ . Since N was not a phoneme before k/g (but only classified as C+nasal, automatically acquiring the place of the following stop), it didn't change. However, in Bq, nasals weren't automatically given the place of the following stop. Therefore, Ng > nYg > nYgY > etc.
>
I don't quite follow you, but as I said before, palatalization/dentalization of velars is rather common, and also occurs at word initial. I think fongo > onddo /onJo/ is a particular case of ng > *nJ > nd, but there's also the opposite evolution ngJ > ndJ as in (t)xindil > (t)xingil 'lentil; pea'.

> The existence of clusters like mX is seen in:
>
> * XasYEmXálXi >
> Acenari = (name), azebari / azegari / azeri / azari Biz = fox Bq;
>
Hmmm. Old Basque Acenari (modern Aznar) comes from Latin Asena:rius, but Vascologists such as Mitxelna conflated it with the *asegWali 'fox', a "Mediterranean" Wanderwort found in several languages.