morsha

From: fournet.arnaud
Message: 49787
Date: 2007-09-03

There are quite a couple of things to say about this word meaning "walrus".
 
Sabme : morsha "walrus"
Suomi-finnish : mursu
 
Eskimo-Alutiq has :
Walrus : aswuq
Coast Salish, neighbor to Alutiq has :
Seal : ?asxw (loanword)
 
REf :
Kuipers, SAlish etymological dictionary
Fortescue and Alias, Comparative Eskimo Dictionary
 
According to this, it is tempting to cut the word in two parts :
Morpheme 1 : mor-
Morpheme 2 : -sha/-su
 
Morpheme 2 could mean "sea mammal".
from a kind of "Artic" (=Eskimo) wander-wort.
 
Next point is :
LAtin orca and Greek oruga "kind of (killer-)whale"
If we retro-evolved these two words, assuming they are Paleo-European,
the expected form should be : *Ho(n)t?uk?-a "sea mammal, kind of whale".
If we DARE compare this with Alutiq and Salish,
we can make one more step toward assuming *?ot?uk?
 
Compare :
Arabic mi-t?ab : flint knife
English s-tab
Alutiq : tsav- knife.
 
So the result of this is :
Morpheme 2 looks like an Eskimoid word : *Hsu-q
meaning Sea-mammal, kind of seal, walrus.
 
Morpheme 1 is impossible in Eskimo and SAlish.
The most simple seems to refer to a PIE base : *moH1-r = Big
Cf. Celtic *mo:r "big"
A walrus "mor-Hsu-k" being a big seal.
 
This word could be a compound made with
a PIE (CEltic ?) word and a loanword from Proto-Eskimo.