Celery

From: Richard Wordingham
Message: 15445
Date: 2002-09-13

--- In cybalist@..., "m_iacomi" <m_iacomi@...> wrote:
> --- 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.

Latin 'selinum' and 'petroselinum' are certainly the intermediaries
for the Catholic / Protestant countries. The Italians have done a
good job of mangling 'selino'! Standard 'sedano', Lombard 'selleri'
(whence the French word). And 'prezzemolo' is an excellent job of
mangling! Are intermediate forms attested?

Given the manglings we've seen in Italian, I wonder if there's a
dialect form like 'zelino'?. In Venetian, perhaps?

> 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.

Greek > Italian, in particular Lombard 'selleri', > French > English

> > 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.
I suppose Latin /z/ for Dacian /ð/ is plausible.

We may need a detailed knowledge of the phonetics of the Greek
dentals when the Dacian and Thracian words were recorded, and who
wrote them down. The Greek system was not stable!
(Note [] for sound, // for phoneme, <> for written form.)

<s> Sigma: [s] (and this is stable!)
<z> Zeta: [dz] > [z] (I'd appreciate confirmation, as well as dates)
<th> Theta: [th] > [þ]
<t> Tau: [t] (Has [th] ever been allowed? Modern Cypriot is still
very unaspirated)
<d> Delta: [d] > [ð]
<ss> Double sigma: [ts] > [ss] (Have I got the start point right?
Only occurs between vowels.)

Plausible Dacian and Thracian sounds:

[s], [z], [dz], [dZ], [d], [g^], [ð], [ts], [tS], [Þ], [k^]

Thracian reportedly shows alternation between tau and theta in some
words. This sound is identified as /th/. Other words show an
alternation between delta and tau. This sound is identified as /t/.

People without [þ] but with [s] and [th] may hear it as [s], e.g.
Athenians hearing Spartans. Others can hear it as [th], e.g. Thais,
who make the same 3-way contrast /th/ ~ /t/ ~ /d/ as the Ancient
Greeks.

People without [ð] can hear it as [d] or [z], and it can merge with
either (e.g. Aramaic and, I would argue, Hebrew). It can also merge
with [v], but I don't think that is relevant here.

I think [dz] and [dZ] would be recorded as zeta. But is <di> a
possibility?

How would [z] be heard by people who had [s] and [dz], but not [z]?
On the basis of how word-initial [Z] is perceived in English in
unfamiliar words, I believe [dz].

How is [ts] perceived by people who have [s] and [dz], but not [ts]?
I suspect as [s], but on the shaky basis of Italian I can believe a
bilingual recording it as <z>.

I dread to think how many ways [tS], [k^] and [g^] might be recorded!

> IE *dhwer- > Thr. dero, dur 'a stockade' [*dh > d]
> IE *deiwo- > Thr. desa/disa 'deity, god' [*d > d] but also:

Where does the <s> come from? Duridanov compares it to Greek
théos 'god', from PIE *dHe:s- (or is it *dHeh1s-?), the source of
Latin fa:num 'temple'.

> IE *deiwo- > Dac. zi(-us, -os) 'god' [*d > z, probably through
> an intermediate *dz = *ð].

What do you mean by '*dz = *ð'?

I think this would come from IE *dyeu- (as in Greek Zeus, g.s. Dios,
and in Latin Iupiter, g.s. Iovis), Duridanov (according to
http://members.tripod.com/~Groznijat/thrac/thrac_5.html ) thinks so
to, but says the word is Thracian! Do we see this element in both
languages? We could conceivably have [dz] in Dacian and [ts] in
Thracian, both written <z>! Just to confuse matters, on-line Pokorny
gives a Thracian name as Diuzenus (Roman alphabet) or Dizéne:s (Greek
alphabet) - at least one must be wrong - which looks very like the
Greek name Diogenes, a compound of Zeus. However, if Thracian, it
should begin with 't', not 'd', unless it's a borrowing from Greek.

> 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
Make 'am' 'was'!
> >confident that
> > there were Greeks or Romans who associated the Dacian reflexes of
> > PIE *dH and *d with Greek or Latin /d/.

> As said, only /di/ Lat. > /dzi/ > /zi/ Rom. or /de/ > /*die/ >
> /dze/ > /ze/. Otherwise, /d/.
Romanian dinte 'tooth' < Latin (acc.) dentem? (See
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/15056 for a brief
discussion)
> The occasion for /dZ/ (> /Z/): if /d/ is followed by stressed
> /Io/, /Iu/.

Thank you. I wasn't sure if Romanian exhibited that change. It can
probably be classed as proto-Romance. The example I had in mind was
Latin 'diurnus' meaning 'daily', yielding Italian 'giorno'
meaning 'day'.

> >> English parsley celery
> >> Bulgarian magdanoz celina (voiced /Telina/) [...]
> >> Hungarian petrezselyem zeller
Italian prezzemolo sedano
> >> Serbo-Croatian perSun celer (voiced /Teler/)
> Albanian majdanoz selino
> Neo Greek maidano's sélino
> > German petersilie sellerie
> > French persil céleri
> > Romanian patrunjel tzelina
> > Russian petrushka sel'derei

> > 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.

Perhaps they've stopped reading!

Richard.