Re: The cat domestication happened more than 100,000 years ago

I don't know how accurate is the below site, but based on it we have
(mainly) three roots for CAT:

*mV-
*pV(s)-
*cVt-


http://www.xmission.com/~emailbox/say_cat.htm
===============================================
Arabic : kitte
Armenian : gatz
Basque : catua
Chinese : miu or mau
Dutch : kat
English : cat
Egyptian : miw
Eskimo : Pussi
Estonian : kass
Filipino : cat
Finnish : kissa
French : chat
Gaelic : pishyakan
German : katti, katze or ket
Greek : catta or kata
Gypsy : muca
Hawaiian : popoki
Hindi : billi
Icelandic : kottur
Italian : gatto
Japanese : neko
Latin : cattus or felis
Norwegian : katt
Polish : kot or gatto
Portuguese : gato
Pusa : cat
Rumanian : pisica, m^at,a
Russian : koshka (female); kot (male)
Slovenian : maèka; muca
Spanish : gato
Swahili : paka
Swedish : katt
Ukrainian : kitska (female); kit (male)
Welsh : kath
Yiddish : chatul or gattus



--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alexandru_mg3" <alexandru_mg3@...>
wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > It is an interesting question why cats weren't common

enough

> in
> > > the ancient Indo-European world to have a general I.E. name.
> >
> > It seems to be older that the IE invasions.
> >
> > Trask: The History of Basque, p. 265
> > "
> > Sex-marking is not common in Basque, except by lexical means, as

in

> > gizon 'man' and emakume 'woman', behi 'cow' and zezen 'bull'. The
> > adjectives eme 'female' (a loan from Gascon) and or 'male' are
> > sometimes attached to animal names when the distinction is thought
> > necessary: katar 'tomcat', kateme 'female cat' {katu 'cat'), oilo
> > 'hen', oilar 'cock, rooster'.
> > "
> >
> > Besides katu Basque also has kathu and gatu; Trask assumes (as
> always)
> > a loan from Latin. For some reason Italian (gatto) and several
> Romance
> > dialects seems to have sporadically the same lenition which is
> typical
> > of Basque (but which katar/katu seeme to have escaped).
> > German Kater, Du. kater "tomcat"
> > German Katze, Du. kat "cat"
> > That suffix -er "male" is very rare in German and Dutch.
> > Perhaps = -er in Engl. gander?
> >
>
> 1. We have Slavic cotU too : Does somebody knows its etymology?
>
> 2. Romanian cotoi 'tomcat' is considered 'from Slavic + oi'
>
>
> Could we assume an 'European' root *kat- ?
>
> Marius
>