> > 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?
Do you mean ChSl kotUka, Russ kotI?
> 2. Romanian cotoi 'tomcat' is considered 'from Slavic + oi'
What kind of suffix is Rom. -oi?
> Could we assume an 'European' root *kat- ?
What do you mean by 'European'? 'Old European'? Western PIE?
Obviously *katt- can't be 'native Germanic'. It might be a substrate
loan from NWBlock, in that case it was introduced along the coast.
Ship cats?
I assumed kater in German would be a loan from Low German, because of
the unaffricated -t-, but OHG kataro disturbed that. Vasconic still
seems to be a viable candidate.
Perhaps Da. dial. kætte, Sw. dial. kätta, no kjette "female cat" is
related somehow to Basque kat-eme?
BTW, note that -er suffix of Engl. gander recurs in Latin a:nser; here
Ernout-Meillet with a lame explanation of it:
"
a:nser, -eris (doublet a:nsar,-aris, blàmé par l'app.Probi) m.(fém.
Varron): oie. Sert aussi de cognomen. Dérivés: a:nserculus;
a:nsera:rius khe:noboskós; a:nseri:nus.
Ancien (Lucilius), usuel. - A basse époque est doublé par auca (cf.
auis) qui a seul survécu dans les langues romanes. M.L.826.
Mot rural comme le prouve l'absence d'h initial dont aucune trace
n'est attestée. Ancien thème ghans-, élargi à l'aide d'un suffixe -er-
ou -is-, pour éviter une flexion *(h)ans, *ansis sans analogue en
latin. C'est sans doute ce même suffixe qu'on a dans les formea de
gén. pl. bouerum, Iouerum signalées par Varron, L.L.8,74, et qui se
rattachent aussi à des nominatifs anomaux et dans passer, Cf. me:nsis,
et as, assis, asser.
Le nom indo-européen de l'"oie" est conservé par gr. khé:n, khe:nós
(dor. béot. kha:n, kha:nós; éol. gén. khánnos), v.h.a. gans, lit.
z^a,sìs (gén.plur. z^a,su~), v.sl. go,sI. Le m.irl. géis (de celt.
gansi-) désigne l'oie sauvage, puis le cygne. L'oie domestique a pris
dans les langues celtiques un nom nouveau (irl. géd, gall. gwydd). Les
formes dérivées skt. ham.sáh., ham.si: désignent certains oiseaux
aquatiques.
"
On goose
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/44600
"
goose
*?a-n STC pp. 99, 155, 191
*?a Chinese .. OC ?â (GSR #2p) 'domestic goose'
*?an Chinese .. OC ?an (GSR #186c) 'wild goose'; e WB ?ân
"
[GSR = Karlgren's Grammata Serica Recensa]
Obviously not an IE word.
On Lat. passer, cf
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/37414
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/37446
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/38305
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/39637
Obviously not a IE word either.
So neither is -er, -or.
Torsten