From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 17058
Date: 2002-12-08
----- Original Message -----
From: <alexmoeller@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 11:17 AM
Subject: [tied] for you Piotr
> It seens very curious to me these two words. Costa & ripa.
> Do you have any ideea about?
Lat. costa could already have the meaning 'flank, side, wall', and its reflexes mean 'border, coast' practically everywhere in Romance (cf. also Fr. côté < costa:tum in addition to côte < costam, both from the same root). The meaning 'rib' often develops such metaphorical extensions (cf. Skt. pars'u-, pa:rs'va-).
English rib (OE ribb) and German Rippe are related (< PGmc. *rebja-, apparently cognate to Slavic *rebro, presupposing the common protoform *rebH-). However, they are _not_ related to Latin ri:pa 'river bank, shore' (which gave Vulgar Latin *ri:pa:riam > ribera, riviera, rivière, etc. --> Eng. river).
Another paradox that is worth noting here is that Eng. river is related to Fr. rive and rivière, but _not_ related to Lat. ri:vus (which has an etymology different from that of <ri:pa> and is possibly a distant relative of Eng. run and Ger. rinnen).
Since Rom. râu (and Sp./Port. rio) derive from <ri:vus>, it follows that they are related NEITHER to <river> NOR to <rib>.
Piotr