--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Joao S. Lopes" <josimo70@...> wrote:
>
> How about Spanish golondrina? It seems to be a corrupted
dissimilation of latin hirundina. But could be this corruption
influenced by some non-Latin substratum or adstratum?
>
> Latin hirundo: (hirundin-) > hirundina > expected Spanish *herondina
> ? > golondrina
> Latin hirundo: (hirundin-) > hirundina > expected Portuguese
*herondinha >? > andorinha
> Latin hirundo: (hirundin-) > hirundine > expected Italian *herondine
> Italian rondine
>
Spanish took the accusative hirundinem and made it, quite regularly,
*erondre (like sanguinem, inguinem and amygdalam give Spanish sangre,
ingle and almendra), whence *orondre (forward-assimilation [by the
tonic on next syllable]), *olondre (dissimilation) and *golondre (to
distinguish it from the alondra -from Latin alauda, another bird- a
distinction made possible by an anti-hiatus glide g-: la_(g)olondre).
So we have *golondre which, suffixed, yields the 13th-century
golondrina (though, more than suffixation, what was probably at work
here was contamination with dialectal erondina, from the hirundi:na
you mention).
Italian róndine is transparent, from erondine (< hirundinem), as is
French aronde (< hirundo:). Galician anduriña/Portuguese andorinha are
simply erondina (< Low Latin hirundi:na) plus metathesis erond- >
endor- plus ananlogical end- > and-, by analogy with andar (swallows
being seasonal long-flyers). In Catalan hirundo: gives regularly
*erone > *orone (normal forward assimilation, here unsuspectedly
useful to distinguish it from another name and bird: airó, heron) >
oronella (dialectal; not the dictionary entry, but widely heard)
and oreneta (the standard term, with a different suffix and a further
forward assimilation).
So rondine, aronde, oreneta, golondrina and andorinha are really the
same word, and the Spanish g- just a phonetic glide (nothing to do,
thus, with singing or yelling "gal-" birds ---though real swallows do
yell a lot).
Ton Sales