>But if there is a Romanian word hoaspã 'husk, pod', I find it
>pretty obvious that it is from Latin hospes, -item 'host'. The
>semantic development would be much as in German Patrone
>'cartridge', ultimately some form of Latin patro:nus. The h-
>would be a learned restoration.
>
>Jens
"Pod" is the meaning number 2 in the Romanian-Romanian
dictionary. The definition number one is what's translated into
Ger. as "die Kleie", Engl. "bran" (and in Danish "klid," I sup-
pose).
OTOH, the entry for the definition no. 1 begins with the
information that <hoaspa> is a regional term. I am not able
to specify the region(s), but I assume (based on the...
vagueness of my own Sprachkompetenz as a native-speaker)
that it is rather wide-spread outside of Transylvania (perhaps
more frequent in Moldavia).
But I don't know which was 1st semantic occurrence (dia-
chronically seen), the meaning <bran> or the meaning <pod>
(husk, Hülse).
A weir thing or not: one word for "shroud" (winding-sheet!)
in Romanian is <giulgiu> ['dZul-dZu]. Rum. linguists suggest, via
the dictionary, its being connected with Hung. <gyolcs> [g^oltS]
"lint." These seem to be close to Ger. <Hülse>, phonetically
and semantically. But perhaps it's a mere (halloweenish :-)
coincidence.
George