From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 18115
Date: 2003-01-26
----- Original Message -----
From: "alex_lycos" <altamix@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 8:45 PM
Subject: [tied] green albanian
> Of course Miguel will argue that even the Albanian "verdha" is the same Latin word "viridis" but with a changed semantism as in Romance, in fact actually inverse with the one in Romanians:-)
Of course. Such shifts happen frequently with colour words -- not that 'yellow' and 'green' are really opposites; in some languages their names are derived from the same root.
Likewise, there can be no question that <gjelbër> continues Lat. galbinum (the phonological development is 100% regular). Its history (apart from the semantic switch) is more straightforward than that of Italian giallo which I think is a loan from Old French (<jalne>) rather than a direct _local_ reflex of <galbinum>.
Piotr