alexandru_mg3 wrote:
>
>
> You cannot do 'direct links' with current Romanian or Albanian words
> like r.>râ because the transformation is ancient it took place
> around 3000-1500 BCE.
>
that is the principal reason. the ancientness of the word and the "r."
should yeld an "râ" there, not an "ar".
That is, the word cannot be a Rum. reflex of a common word but it will
speak for two possibilities:
-the word is a _direct_ loan from Albanian , that is directly loan of
"bardhë"
-the word is derived from something else; the phonetic aspect is the
same as this of "varzã" generally accepted as derived from viridia >
*virdia > *verdzã>*vearzã>varzã, thus *bir(i)dia > barza. Of course I
don't try to link the word with the english "bird", just I show the
phonetic possibility. I don't know yet if the word is to be related to
*bher- since this bird is the one bird which in the popular belief it is
said "to bring children" to a family.
Maybe indeed related to "birth" but this is purely speculative.
Alex