Re: Romance Pequeno, Pequeño, Petit, Piccolo

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, g <st_george@...> wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 5, 2004, at 17:53, m_iacomi wrote:
>
>> REW 6494: <*pikk-> "klein"
>> Rum. <pic> "Tropfen", megl. <picã> "ein wenig", kalabr. <pikka>
>> "wenig"; rum. <piciu> [nowdays spelling: <pici>] "kleines Kind"
>> [...],
>
> Any relation of Rum. <a pitzigá, pitzigare>, Rum. <pitzigoi>
> "the bird >Parus major<", Rum. <pitzigãiat> "having a high-trebled
> voice;" Ital. <pizzicare> to this group?

Actually, REW 6494 listed also other Romanian words (<piTigoiu>,
<piTiguS>, <pica>, <picura>) but since they weren't really useful
for the Subject line, I skipped them.
Ital. "pizzicare" < "pizzare" < "pizzo" `peak` is reflecting an
expressive series p..ts mentioned by Cortelazo & Mercato as "base
fono-simbolica *pitts-"; Devoto writes it as "serie onomatopeica
p...zz che si associa a `punta`".
For my part, I think there is a natural association between series
with meaning `small` and `(sharp) peak`. so reciprocal influence of
derived words (by crossings or folk etimology) is very likely.

> (As well as the already mentioned Hung. <pici> ['pi-tzi] "tiny,
> small, little" and its reflex <picurka> ['pi-tzur-ko] with the
> same meaning.)

At this point, it is interesting to mention that DEX gives Rom.
"pici" `(little) boy`< Turkish "piç" `bastard` while similar words
are to be found in various Italian dialects & Sardinian (e.g. "pcit"
or "pciot" from Piemontese, "piccinu" in Tarento, etc.). Since the
word "piç" doesn't seem to be present in other Turkic languages, I
would rather think that Turkish and Hungarian words are loans from
Romance (with or without intermediate language).

>> [...] La forma con n- rappresenterà un assimilazione nel nesso
>> sintattico da "una mik(k)a" > "una nikka" (anche il port. ha
>> <nica> `bagatela, insignificancia`.
>
> Wow! (Is there any miccuzzu/-a and/or niccuzzu/-a?

In Sicilian, "nicuzzu/a" is the canonical diminutive of "nicu/a".

Regards,
Marius Iacomi