I have argued that Latin pisicis, German fisk- do not go back to
*pisk-, because OIr. Iasc, gen. eisc `fish' and the Welsh river name
Wysg `Usk' cannot reflect e:sk- <*(p)eisk-; *-sk- between vowels
gave Cletic *-jks- [xs] > OIr. s(s)-, Welsh, -ch-. Therefore iasc,
éisc must be *(p)eiCsk-, probably *peik'sk-os, *peik'sk-N. The Latin
and Germanic would be *pik'sk-. I also suggested that Albanian
pishk peshk, instead of being a borrowing from Latin, might also
be a descendent of IE *peik'sk-.
I now correct this last point: pishk peshk can be only an
inheritance from IE. If it were a borrowing from Latin, as a 3rd
declension noun piscis (Italian pesce) would give a singular pishq
peshq (the latter less than likely in vocalism); cf.
qelq `bicchiere, gotë' < Lat. calice(m), gjyq < Lat. judice(m). A
singular pishk (Sofiko and elsewhere in Avanitika, Piana / Hora e
Arbëreshvet (PA), Vena di Maida (CZ), Falconara Albanese (CS) with
the vowel /i/ argues strongly for a non-front non-high vowel in the
final syllable peshk (S. Marzano (TA), Barile (PZ), Greci (AV),
Ogren (Përmet), Ukrain, Arbanasi pèshk, Tetovë pëshk) argues for a
k alternating with a q- plural (to provoke singular vowel lowering,
or a lower diphthong in the singular as suggested below). In any
event, Latin borrowing will not account for the complex evidence of
Arvanitika and Arbëresh, and other diaspora elements, especially
when we consider the singular and base forms phonologically,
attested in the dialects.
The reaction of the representative of the Slavic school, V. Orel
(AED 316-317; see also M. Kapovich and Gasiorowski in this forum)
is: (
) HAMP KZ LXXVII 256-257 (peshk as an indigenous form!). To my
view, all this have to do more with politics than with linguistics,
for, according to Slavic linguists, Albanian, being non-descendent
of Illyrian and coming later in this area, borrowed word for "fish"
from Latin, having not even one historical evidence, and, we may
see, having not even one argument that Alb. <peshk> could be a
borrowed word from Latin.
Konushevci