Re: Words for Wild Sheep: multo, musimon, moufflon

From: Tavi
Message: 70622
Date: 2012-12-23

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Joao S. Lopes" wrote:
>
> What's the etymology for French mouton "sheep" (Celtic multon-),
>
Actually, this is 'castrated ram', not 'sheep'. This is a Gallo-Latin word *multo-/*molto- also found in Catalan moltó and Friulan molton. The Celtic protoform reconstructed by Matasovic' is *molto- 'ram, wether', with no IE etymology.

> mufflon "mountain sheep",
>
Actually, the word is spelled mouflon, and it's surely a loanword from Italian muflone. The animal is indigenous to Corsica and Sardinia, where is named as muvra, mufra, mugra (f.), muvrone, murvone, murvoni, mu(g)rone (m.) < Late Latin mufro:ne- (Polemius Silvius). Possibly the rendering of -fr- as -fl- in Italian is due to hypercorrection.