--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:
>
> This prompts a question
> Spanish matar "to kill" is usually linked to Arabic
> mwt "to die, death"
> but there's also Italian mazzare "to kill" , which
> looks more like mactare --unless it's Southern
> "dialect" from Spanish (I only know the word from
> mafia movies)
> Any ideas?
>
Ernout-Meillet:
"
Macta:re, interprété comme magis aucta:re, est devenu dans la langue
commune synonyme de affίcere, do:na:re et s'est dit indifféremment en
bonne ou en mauvaise part: macta:re hono:re, triumpho:, comme macta:re
malo:-, infortu:nio:; cf. Enn. Sc. 373 qui illum di deaeque magno
mactassint malo. Ces expressions appartiennent à la 1. de l'époque
républicaine; à l'époque impériale, le verbe ne se rencontre plus
guère que dans la 1. poétique, avec le sens de "sacrifier, immoler";
et plus généralement "tuer, détruire".
"
Benveniste, Indo-European Language and Society, p 483
"
The oldest use mactare deum extis shows the name of the god in the
accusative and the name of the sacrifice in the instrumental. It is,
therefore, to make the god bigger, to exalt him, and at the same time
to increase his strength by the offering. Then, by a change of
construction analogous to that known from sacrare, the expression
mactare victimam was coined 'to offer a victim in sacrifice'. By a
further development we have mactare 'put to death, slaughter' which is
preserved in the Spanish matar 'to kill'.
"
Torsten