From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
Message: 47236
Date: 2007-02-03
>BTW Does anyone have any intelligent answer re the origin of zorro?I don't have Corominas at hand, but the generally accepted
>I´ve seen references to a supposed Basque form zakur, tzakur but my
>understanding is that zorro somehow appeared in Western Spain
>c. 1200-1300. Please correct me since I´m relying on a faulty memory,
>On Sun, 12 Jul 1998 01:04:12 GMT, d...@midway.uchicago.edu (D. Edward[And, of course, also French <renard>]
>Gund v. Brighoff) wrote:
>>Maybe something about the fox' nature attracts affectionate nicknames.
>>After all, I think of Catalan 'guineu' and 'rabosa' and Castilian 'rabosa'
>>and 'zorro'. In Andalucia, they even use personal names like 'juanica',
>>'mariquita', etc.
>
>According to Coromines, Catalan <la guineu> is also derived from a
>personal name: Winidhild, the name of the wife of the first count of
>Barcelona, Guifre (Wilfred) I. Curiously, the fox is called <guilla>
>in parts of Catalonia that were part of the county of Cerdanya, where
>count Guifre I of Cerdanya was married to a countess Wisila.
>
>Parallel cases mentioned by Coromines are Basque <azeari> "fox", from
>the name Asinarius (Aznar) of some early Navarran and Aragonese
>rulers, and Sard <mariane> (camp.) and <loDDe> (logud.), from the
>names of local rulers on the island (Marian and Lollo).
>
>Another Basque (Bizk.) name of the fox is <luki>, from the personal
>name Lucius, and Coromines also mentions local nicknames like Bastien
>in French, Pedro or García in Spanish and Basque, Abu Hassan in
>Arabic.
>The names rabosa, raposa and zorra/zorro (Port. zorrar "to drag=======================
>along") are references to the fox's tail.
>
>==
>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal