Richard Wordingham wrote:
>
> What does Latin *_tit(t)ia_ explain? If the "i" is short, that
> would give Italian *_teza_ (whereas the standard language has
> colloquial _tetta_, consistent with Latin *_tit(t)a_) and Romanian
> *_teazã_, while long "i" would yield Italian *_tizza_ and Romanian
> *_tzitã_. Still no "â"!
It explains nothing. The word is reconstructed for explaining the Rom.
"TâTã". Unfortunately in DEX there is no marque for shorth or length of
the Latin vowel, thus I canot tell you about what the people thought
about as they tried to reconstruct the Latin word.( lat. > *titia)
>
> Basque "titia" does not appear to be a loan from Latin "*tit[t]ia"
> either - see, for example, Miguel's account at
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Nostratic-L/message/44>.
>
> Can we rule out a German origin for Estonian "tis"? The vowel seems
> a bit high for a lallwort, though there is Hebrew _?imm-_ 'mother'
> (singular _?e:m_, plural _immo:t_, not showing predictable
> fricativisation).
>
> Richard.
In my Germ. Etym. Dict. the German word "Zize" is given with following
cognates:
Armenian "tit" (Mutterbrust)
Greek " titthe" (Brustwarze, Muterbrust)
It seems the Alb. and Rom. words are unknown and the Italian word is too
unknown. I mean, there is no reference about them; maybe they are
considered as being loans from Germanic.
In the Germanic languages the cognates are ( I guess ) well known:
Dutch "tit", Old. Eng. "titt", Schwed. Mdl. " tiss, titt".
In Rom. Lang the word is used for everything wich presents an "appendix"
á la "tit of the cow". This appendix, this prolongation is described as
"TâTã" too. Can it be the word has something with the fact the organ (
by humans something later) has the prolongued form?
I don't know which is the protoslavic form for "heart" but in Serbian I
remember the word is "cârce" where "c"= "T"
Alex