Re: IJzelman- ?

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
wrote:

>
> Bearing in mind Venneman's attempt to relate Germanic *i:s-

"ice"

> with a proposed Basque stem iz- "water" (izurde "water-pig"
> ie. "dolphin" etc) and his finding that iz- stem in European place
> names all over the place (eg. Ismaning in Bavaria, Isala > IJsel

in

> Holland) I decide to look it up in Celtic languages.
> I found in Welsh:
> Isalmaenaidd "Dutch"
> Isalmaeneg "Dutch language"
> Isalmaenwr "Dutchman"
>
> Odd.

[etc.]

Not really: is- is 'low' as you correctly say, and the second part
is Yr Almaen 'Germany', Almaeneg 'German' of obvious etymology.
Dutch is a variant of Low German.

is-, OIr. ís 'down, sub-' (W. isnormal 'subnormal') is believed to
reflect IE *pe:d-su 'at the feet', which is also the basis of
Albanian për-posh 'down; under'. Theoretically, Celtic *i:ssV can
have older i: or e:, and the consonantism can be from *-st-,* -ts-,
or *-t(s)t-.

Jens