Re: Dacian Dielina

--- In cybalist@..., "Richard Wordingham" wrote:

>> In some European languages, words for celery and parsley are
>> related. For instance, Italian word for 'parsley' is prezzemolo,
>> coming from Greek petrosélinon (to be recognized in scientifical
>> name of the plant) which is a composite pétra + sélinon "stone
>> celery", while the word for 'celery' is sedano < selinum (Lat.)
>> combined with Greek sélinon. Another one is the Hungarian word.

Comment: Italian prezzemolo could also be traced back to Latin
petroselinum, not only to Greek petrosélinon as is given in my
"Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana" (author: Barbara
Colonna) I used.

> Parsley and celery are similar enough to have been put in the same
> genus (_Apius_), and I am persuaded that the English word 'celery'
> does derive from the Greek word. The Latin word 'apius' gave rise
> to the English word 'ache', and from 'small' + 'ache' English
> derived 'smallage', another name for celery.

The only question is if Greek sélinon > English celery directly
or by French intermediate. I would pick the latter derivation for
two reasons: French endings in "-i" are typical and French cuisine
largely tops its English counterpart at least by reputation, so
the name of a culinary plant would be most probably a loan from
French language.

>> The fact is Romanian word _is_ /Telina/ => irregular derivation.
>
> I take it 'English reader' = 'reader of English'?

Yes.

> Actually, it could be a sensible question. *If* 'Daco-Thracian'
> makes sense as a unitary substrate, the Dacian (Getic?) source was
> not Dacian as we know it, but one that had undergone a Grimm's
> shift like Thracian. However, returning to Dacian as we know it -
>
> I am assuming that a Dacian /d/ or /ð/ would be identified with
> Latin /d/, as least as its functional equivalent, by a Dacian-Latin
> bilingual. (I don't think we know for sure that IE *dH > *d; I
> think it is conceivable that IE *d > Dacian d, IE *dH > Dacian *ð.

IE *dhwer- > Thr. dero, dur 'a stockade' [*dh > d]
IE *deiwo- > Thr. desa/disa 'deity, god' [*d > d] but also:
IE *deiwo- > Dac. zi(-us, -os) 'god' [*d > z, probably through
an intermediate *dz = *ð].

I.I. Russu gives a rule like IE *d, *dh > Dacian d

> According to
> http://www.geocities.com/indoeurop/project/phonetics/ie5.html ,
> Albanian, which *may* be related to Dacian, has IE *d > Albanian
> ð, IE *dH > Albanian d - which startled me.) I am confident that
> there were Greeks or Romans who associated the Dacian reflexes of
> PIE *dH and *d with Greek or Latin /d/. Latin /d/ at the beginning
> of a word yields Romanian /d/, /z/ (formerly /dz/) or, possibly,
> but only very occasinally, /dZ/ or /Z/.

As said, only /di/ Lat. > /dzi/ > /zi/ Rom. or /de/ > /*die/ >
/dze/ > /ze/. Otherwise, /d/.
The occasion for /dZ/ (> /Z/): if /d/ is followed by stressed
/Io/, /Iu/.

>> I couldn't find Albanian word for 'parsley', I'll have to check
>> this evening my dictionary. But here are the others (plus Serbo-
>> Croatian):
>>
>> English parsley celery
>> Bulgarian magdanoz celina (voiced /Telina/) [...]
>> Hungarian petrezselyem zeller
>> Serbo-Croatian perSun celer (voiced /Teler/)
>> Albanian ... (t.b.c.) selino

Now I got it: majdanoz
Also:
Neo Greek maidano's sélino

>
> German petersilie sellerie
> French persil céleri
> Romanian patrunjel tzelina
> Russian petrushka sel'derei
>
>> As it looks from here, a Bulgarian intermediate would fit
>> probably better as guess. French céleri has not influenced
>> Balkan words for celery.
>
> The English, Hungarian, German, French and Russian words
> for 'parsley' all come from Greek petro:séli:non. Serbo-Croat
> and Romanian seem to have changed the ending, and Russian's re-
> interpreted the prefix as 'Peter'.

The Romanian looks like a loan from Hungarian /petreZelIem/
where the /el/ was probably interpreted by popular etimology
as similar to Romanian diminutival suffix -el. The evolution
/s/ > /Z/ is not usual in Romanian.

> For 'celery', the Bulgarian and Romanian are the same, but the
> question remains - why T- and not s-?

I think this should be a (South-)Slavic feature, maybe some of
our list colleagues would enlighten us.

> The Hungarian's from German,
> which in turn is from French, probably the older form in 'sc-'.
> But French 's' or 'sc' is /s/, whereas the German 's-' is /z/.
>
> Now, here's a wild thought:
>
> Perhaps German borrowed the word with <sc-> = /ts/ and that
> affected some Eastern European pronunciations.

They hadn't any serious contact with Southern Slavs. OTOH, the
Romanian word has a different ending which could not be traced
back in German.

> Can anyone comment on this hypothesis?

See above.

Regards,
Marius Iacomi