Albanian etymologies

From: tigeradolf
Message: 71174
Date: 2013-04-08

Hello everyone, I was looking at the reference page for Albanian in wiktionary and I saw that a lot of etymologies have been added. Quite a lot of them point at PIE roots in a really forced way. For example take "zemër" (heart in anatomy) some think this is a substrate word, some derive it from PA *wik'apno (with evident problems) but in wiktionary there is PIE *g'emen (to marry). I find the form to be phonologically correct but it is an extremely forced etymology. In fact this is not even an etymology, it is a possibility. This happens with a large variety of words. I wanted to take a look at some words with you and analyse alternative possibility for their origin. I'd like to start with the word "ul" (to sit), the etymology should be ul <- *ull <- *uel (revolve) or ul <- *waldh (to be strong). To me the word could have a cognate further away, precisely it would be Hungarian "ül" (to sit)with unknown etymology. This would not be the only similar word between Albanian and Ugric-Finnic language, other words include:

"besë" (faith, believe, to rely on somebody) <- *bhidzia | "bìz" (to rely on somebody)

"vras" (to hurt, to kill) | "ver" (to strike, to beat)

"lyp" (to beg, alms) <- *lupa | "lop" (to steal, to shoplift)

"manz" (foal, horse) | "mèn" (stallion)

"sy" (eye) <- *swi | "*silma" (eye)

There are also some correspondence with basque:

"zagar" (hound) | "txakur" (dog) <- zakur , also Sardinian "giagaru" (hound)

"djersë" (sweat) | "izerdi" (sweat)

"shegë" (pomegranate) | "sagar" <- "*śagar" (fruit, apple)

"arrë" (nut) (also Ancient Greek "arua") | "hur" (nut)

"zi" (black) | "zozo" (blackbird)

"derr" (pig) (thought to be cognate with Ancient Greek khoiros) | "zerri" (pig)

I am not claiming that those words are cognate but if so, some acrobatic etymologies would fail. Let's discuss