Re: [tied] Agriculture in Basque and IE (+PIE)

From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
Message: 10934
Date: 2001-11-03

On Fri, 2 Nov 2001 17:19:27 -0800 (PST), george knysh
<gknysh@...> wrote:

>The cybalist archives are so extensive that I may have
>missed a post or posts devoted to this. If so I
>apologize for raising an issue already discussed and
>request a reference pointer from some kind soul on the
>list.=== I am curious as to what comparisons have been
>made (and conclusions drawn if any) as to the
>"language of agriculture" (or "agricultural terms
>package") in Basque and IE (esp. PIE). Is there a
>common lexicon or are the words quite different?

On the whole, quite different. Nevertheless, some words have been
clearly borrowed from various IE languages, and in a number of other
cases, one may speculate about possible links.

In Larry Trask's "The History of Basque" there is a very useful
section devoted to Basque vocabulary, from which I've selected a
couple of items in the categories ANIMALS, PLANTS and FOODS (but note
that reconstructed Basque forms with more than one star are mine, not
Larry's).

First a few animals that are not associated with domestication, but
that are fun to talk about anyway:

Wild animals:

BEAR: hartz. This word has long been suspected to be of IE origin.
The h- in Basque is of suprasegmental origin, and does not need to
represent anything historical, so any links with Hitt. <hartaggas>
/hartkas/ are baseless. My theory is that was borrowed from Pre- or
Proto-Celtic */ártos/, and that Basque lost the unstressed vowel here,
giving /arts/. [Remember: Basque <z> = laminal /s/, Basque <s> =
apical /s/, possibly from earlier *s^]

DEER: orein. This can be reconstructed as */olein/ or */oleni/ (or
/orein/ or */oreni/). The similarity with e.g. Slavic *olenI is
striking, although a more likely source is Celtic (e.g. Welsh <elain>
"doe" [a deer, a female deer] < *elëni:).

EAGLE: arrano. Needless to say, there is a similarity to PIE *Hor-n-
"bird, eagle".

FALCON: aztore. As discussed earlier today. Additional evidence for
Lat. astur < Vulg. Latin?

FISH: arrain. According to Lakarra, endorsed by Larry, this looks like
an ancient past participle *arrani (of the kind Larry's theory about
verbs in -n predicts). Cf. Cast. <pescado>, past ptc. of <pescar> "to
fish".

FOX: azeari. From the Latin family name Asinarius (< "donkey
driver"), also the origin of the last name of Spain's prime minister
Aznar.

WOLF: otso. Interesting word for people looking for Basque-(Iberian)-
Berber connections. Cf. Berber <us^s^ën> with Proto-Basque
**os^s^o(n).

Domestic animals:

DOG: (h)or, zakur. Of the two words, the first might be the older
one. It belongs to a very small group of Basque words whose final -r
is not in fact the roll /rr/, but the flap /r/. This flap can
historically be derived from *l [though not in word-final position, as
here] or from **d (the latter is my theory, most Vasconists stick to
*r), and [**d >] *r alternates with *n (e.g. <egun> "day", <egur-> in
compositis). It is thus not unthinkable, though hardly provable, that
<or> derives from **kon. <zakur>, the other word for "dog", has
normal final /rr/. In view of my theory that initial z- derives from
*d-, I would reconstruct the proto-form as **daggur, which looks
interestingly like OE <docga> (etymology unknown).

BEE: erle. Reconstructed as *ezle, it looks like an agentive noun in
-le (egin "to do" -> egi-le "doer"), but from which verb? My theory
is that it's from a verb *e-zt-i "to sweeten" (in fact <ezti> exists
as an adjective and noun and means "sweet; honey"). The structure of
the word is indeed as a verbal adjective (particple) with e- and -i,
but a verbal root must contain a vowel, which will have been lost
here. Personally, I like to reconstruct **e-sud-i.

BULL: zezen. Could be a reduplicated word (*se-sen), or maybe
**desen.

CHICKEN: oilo. Late word, from Romance (Cast.) pollo (> boilo), with
normal loss of b- before /o/.

COW: behi. The /h/ can here not be hiatus-breaker for lost *n (*beni
would have given ++mehi), so we must reconstruct *beï (or *beXi). No
relation to Latin <vacca> (as has been suggested), I'm sure.

CALF: xahal (< *sanal or *zanal). PBasque *n can be from **m (in my
opinion), so if one is interested in looking for ancient "Magdalenian"
connections to do with hunting or herding reindeer, there's a group of
words (usually connected with PIE *sem- "summer") that have potential:
OIce. simull, simi(r) "(einjähriger) Ochs", Norw. simla "Renntierkuh",
Swe. <somel> "Renntierkalb".

DONKEY: asto (< *arz-to). It has been suggested that this is derived
from <hartz> "bear".

GOAT: (she) ahuntz, (he) aker. The name of the she-goat goes back to
*anuntz, and in my opinion, to earlier **kamuns. It is then the same
word as Lat. <camox> (according to Pokorny from an Alpine dialectal
word *kamo:sso-). For the name of the billy-goat, see under BOAR.

GOOSE: antzare < Latin ANSER.

HORSE: zaldi, zamari. Zamari is from Latin SAGMARIUS "packhorse"
(itself, if I recall, from Celtic). Zaldi is very interesting. Pliny
gives an account of the Asturian ambling horses which in his opinion
are excellent, and are called THIELDONES. The IE (Germanic) word for
an ambler is *del(t)- (german <Zelter>, ON <tjaldari>), and the
Asturian word referred to by Pliny may reflect a transitory stage in
the development that led from Basque **d- to *z- [remember, that's
/s/] (one can imagine **d- > **D- > **T- > s-). Definitely, I'd say,
an ancient borrowing from IE. Perhaps IE *delter- -> **del-ti >
**daldi > zaldi (with the Basque animal-suffix -ti/-di for IE *-ter).

MARE: behor. I can only say, cf. behi "cow".

MULE: mando. Definitely from Celtic <mandus> "id.".

OX: idi. Little to say. My theory is that /d/ < *nd ~ *nt, so that
would give **inti, which (if from **kinti) I suppose could have been
borrowed from PIE *k^em-t- "hornless" (ON, OE <hind>, OHG <hinta>, cf.
Lith. <s^mu:lis> "ox").

PIG: urde, zerri. Both words are difficult to etymologize. <Zerri>
is perhaps borrowed from Cast. <cerdo> (cf. Bq. <ezkerr->
"left(-handed)" borrowed as Cast. <izquierdo>, with the same
relationship Bq. <rr> ~ Cast. <rd>, but of course borrowed the other
way around).

SOW: ahardi < *anardi.

BOAR: aketz. It is interesting to note that the boar and the he-goat
have similar names (<aketz>, <aker>), as they do in IE (*kapr-).
Initial *k- is of course lost in Pre-Basque, but phonetically we
cannot get any closer than **kagges/**kagger (**kaC-ges, **kaC-ger ?)
vs. *kapr-.

SHEEP: ardi. The suffix -di occurs regularly (zal-di, ahar-di), so
that would leave *ar- with only a very weak possibiity of linking that
to e.g. Latin arie:s "ram".

RAM: ahari < *anari.


Plants:

APPLE: sagar (**s^agar, or *s^akar).

BARLEY: garagar. Looks like a reduplicated form of <gari> "wheat".

BEAN: baba < Lat. FABA.

CABBAGE: azak (pl.)

FIG: biku < Lat. FICUS

FLAX: liho < Lat. LINUS (or rather Romance <lino>).

GRAIN: zitu < Lat. SECTU, garau < Lat. GRANU. Native Basque words are
ale (*alle), bihi (*biXi).

GRAPES: mahats. Again an interesting word. Can be reconstructed as
*banats (*banas^), and suggests a connection with Ancient Egyptian
<wns^(j)> "raisin", <wns^t> "a kind of wine".

NUT: hur. Probably from **kur.

MILLET: arto. The word now means "maize".

OATS: olo < *ollo.

ONION: tipula < Late Latin /c^ipula/

PEA: ilar. Probably *irar (= **idar). If from **pidar, with coll.
suffix -ar, **pid- (or **pit-) might well be connected with IE
*pi(:)t- "food" and the "pea"-word itself (Grk. pisos, Lat. pisum, et.
unk.).

PEAR: madari ~ udari. Perhaps earlier (also) a word for "fruit" in
general. Connected with uda "summer"?

PLUM: aran. Has been connected with Celtic (OIr. áirne), but given
that the Celtic word is derived from something *agrinja, that seems
unlikely.

RYE: zikirio, zekale < Lat. SECALE

WHEAT: gari. Probably from *gali.


Foods:

BREAD: ogi. If from **poki, possibly borrowed from IE *pekW ~ *pokW-
"bake".

BUTTER: (g)uri(n).

MILK: ezne. Interesting word, that I derive through **zne from **zene
~ **zane, from earlier **dene ~ **dane. The form zen- survives in
zen-bera "soft cheese" (bera = "soft").

SALT: gatz. Original meaing "sour", possibly a (late, i.e. after *k-
> 0-) borrowing from *kua:tso-, Slav. kvas-, Lat. ca:seus. See
CHEESE.

CHEESE: gaztae < *gaz-dane. This is a compound of <gatz> "salty;
sour" and **<dane> "milk".

WINE: ardo < *ardano. I have no idea about the ar-, but the final
element might be related to **dane ~ **dene "milk". From the root
dan- meaning "to drink" (e-dan < *e-dan-i "to drink").

LARD: gantz(u)

OIL: koipe. *goi- means "on top".

FAT: ziho < *sino, probably Lat. SAGINU.

MEAT: okela < Lat. BUCELLA "a bite/mouthful of something". The native
word is <haragi> (where the suffix -gi/-ki also means "meat" in
compounds: urdeki "pork")