--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:
This is a hard one. We agree (with each other and everybody before
and around us, it appears) that Alb. gji and Lat. sinus *are* the
same word. Honestly, I am embarrassed to learn only now that sinus
is a u-stem. That should somehow be accounted for in the story of
its derivation. Certainly the Lat. derivatives such as
sinua:re 'fold', sinuo:sus 'curved', sinua:tio: 'act of curving,
folding' bear it out. The anatomical meaning is not restricted to
Romanian, but widespread in Romance, as I see from Meyer-Lübke's
dictionary. Nor, on the other hand, is 'Meerbusen, bay, inlet'
excluded for the Albanian word: the normal expression even appears
to be <gji deti> 'breast of the sea'. I fail to see that
the "territorial" meaning has not been present in Latin at all
times, but nor can I know that it is not just a relatively trivial
outgrowth from a meaning 'curve, bend, fold'. What if a word of the
approximate shape *sinu- was used in the approximate meaning 'curve'
and could be, slangily perhaps, applied also to the curves of the
female body: would it not be liable to appear in that meaning in
both languages spoken in the Latin-Albanian ambiente? Then the
meaning would be a calque from substandard Latin, accidentally
implemented by what is etymologically the same word. I am sure
Danish has many words in -mand that are partly borrowings, but since
the language had the word 'man' already, it was just used it its
local shape.
The u-stem formation is not particularly good news, but I have
had to face a challenge before. A stem sinu- looks very much like
minu- (cf. also the Lat. verb minuo: 'deminish'); the latter forms
Ved. miná:ti 'deminishes, degrades'. If *mi-né-H-ti, *mi-n-H-
énti 'make small(er)' forms an adjective *min(H)u- 'small(er), being
deminished', then *si-ne-H1-ti, *si-n-H1-énti 'cause to give way',
mid. 'give way' would be expected to form *sin(H1)u- 'giving way'.
We are still a few steps away from a complete understanding of the
genisis of u-stems. And I do not think we have any wellfounded ideas
of what fate IE u-stems should have in Albanian.
Jens
>
> [JER:]
> > I am not so sure gji is a loanword.
> [PG:]
> Jens, I'm not so sure of it either. >
> [..]
It's a u-stem in Latin , isnt't it?
> [..]
> The anatomical meaning seems to be the latest. Class. Lat. sinus
meant 'bosom' as the part of the garment that covers the breast,
especially the fold where you can hide things (hence also 'heart,
secret feelings'). It became an anatomical term (<sân>) in Romanian
(which shares so many other things with the Balkan Latin substrate
in Albanian), whereas e.g. It. seno retains the 'gulf' meaning (as
for the rest of Romance, note Fr. sein, Sp. seno 'breast' etc.).
What seems to have been lost everywhere is the meaning 'curve,
concavity'. As a result, Alb. gji looks like a word with typically
Romance semantics rather than something independent.
>
> To sum up, we have an Albano-Romance semantic conspiracy, absence
of *sinu- elsewhere in IE (unless I'm missing something), and the
fact that the Latin/Romance substrate in Albanian is very thick and
involves several chronological layers. For these reasons I believe
the case for an early loan from Balkan Latin is fairly strong, even
if it's hard to be certain.
[..]