Bay

Isidore of Seville says that 'baia' "bay" was used before
(by 'veteres') in the sense of 'portum' "port" and that it is
derived from 'baiulare', "carrying freight", and he guesses that the
word(s) is(are) Hispanic. Every later commentator calls this
nonsense. Isidore also tells us it's 'baia, baias' like 'familia,
familias'

According to Löpelmann, 'baia' is Basque and loaned to English,
Dutch, French, Spanish and Portuguese. With the ba- it looks like
similar "waterfront words". What would be interesting is if its
inflection (the unique thing about 'familia' is the f. sg. gen. -as;
this must be the case Isidore meant) reflected something about the
underlying language (which then can't be Basque); genitive in -s? as
in English and the Scandinavian languages, (similarly caused by a
substrate?).

Torsten