Re: "Fish" in Slavic

> Engl. "fish" is related to Latin piscis, Middle Irish iasc "fish".

There

> exists a Slavic word that resembles the Gmc-Italo-Celtic term. For

example,

> "piskorz" in Polish means "loach, thunderfish, Misgurnus or Cobitis"

(see

> http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piskorzowate for a photo if

interested).

> However, as many etymologists believe, the term is not related to

the

> English name for fish. Instead, it is a derivate from "pisk"

= "squeak,

> squeal, peep" (Misgurnus is believed to peep when pull out of water).

I believe the AmHeritage analyses the *pisk- word as *(a)p-isk- from
*ap- "water" and the *-isk- suffix, which is Gmc-Italo-Celtic-Slavic
itself, thus making the word a good candidate for a substrate of that
area. On the vanishing /a/ which I added myself, cf the similar
alternation of Schrijver's substrate language of bird names.


Torsten