--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> There is of course no early rice in Europe, but maybe someone once
> tried to introduce it and left no trace? Cf. *pajay, *pag`ey, *paj&i,
*págey, various reconstructions for "rice > plant", Proto-Austronesian,
> cf. English (rice) paddy < Malay pa:di:, loaned(?) as pre-PIE *padam,
> PIE *pedom?
> (see http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/pd.html)
> It would be interesting to find ancient rice on the river Padanus
> (where there's plenty of it now).
The Latin name for the river Po you refer to was Padus, not 'Padanus'...
Moreover, rice started being cultivated in the Po plains (N.B. till
today, only in some northern districts of Piedmont and Lombardy) only
in the 14th-15th centuries AD.
As to the etymology of the hydronym Padus, here is an up-to-date
summary:
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/asciatopo/liguria.html
<< Bodincus fl., Padus fl.
Place: river Po, regions Piemonte, Lombardia, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto,
Italy
Name: Bodincus fl. (Plin.) Padus fl. (Ptol., Plin., Paul. Diac.)
Etymology: Pliny says that Bodincus is the old Ligurian name,
meaning `bottomless', while Padus is another name for the same river.
Actually the linguistic analysis let us suppose that Padus is the name
in the Liguro-Sicanian stratum, while Bodincus in a Celtic or
Alteuropaeisch language. Both derive from the IE root *bhedh- `to
pierce, dig' [cf. Gaulish bedo `canal, dig']. In the Liguro-Sicanian
language ([the probably already Gallicized] Ligurian), the
dissimilation gave *bhed- and thus the consonant shift *ped-, with
ablaut *pad-. Vice versa, the other stratum, possibly typical of the
lower part of the river, preserved the original stops as *bod-, with a
different O-grade. Finally, *-inkos seems to be a typical Celtic
suffix. >>
At
http://www.cittavivaostuni.it/filologia/fiumi.htm the eminent
Italian philologist Giovanni Semerano derives the Latin hydronym Padus
from an Akkadian source (patu `river, canal'). Even the Greek term
potamos `river' would derive, according to him, from a compound of
Akkadian patu- with amum/habbu/abbu `swamp, marsh'. However, such long-
range etymologies don't look very reliable.
Be that as it may, a rice-based Austronesian etymology for the Latin
hydronym Padus seems quite impossible to me!
Regards,
Francesco Brighenti