Re: Not "catching the wind " , or, what ARE we discussing?

--- dgkilday57 <dgkilday57@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister
> <gabaroo6958@...>
> wrote:
> >
> > --- dgkilday57 <dgkilday57@...> wrote:
> > >
> > > [...]
> > >
> > > The cat itself might come from Africa, but
> looking
> > > for the word there
> > > is a dead end. None of the three Coptic words
> for
> > > 'cat', including
> > > the one used in the Coptic version of the
> Epistle of
> > > Jeremiah,
> > > resembles <catta> at all. My best guess is that
> > > Latin <catta> in
> > > both its senses, 'certain Pannonian bird (the
> > > wagtail?)'
> > > and 'domestic cat', is borrowed from Messapic
> (or
> > > related Illyro-
> > > Japygian) *katta, a hypocoristic form of a
> compound
> > > whose first
> > > element *katt- is cognate with Lat. <quassus>
> > > 'shaken', and whose
> > > second (unidentifiable) element means 'tail' or
> > > 'rear end', the
> > > compound meaning 'having a shaken tail' or
> 'shaking
> > > its tail', much
> > > like Greek <ailouros> 'waving-tailed'. It is
> near
> > > my bedtime, so
> > > details of this hypothesis will follow later.
> > >
> > There is supposed a Nubian form qadis (vel sim)
> but it
> > makes you wonder why no similar forms in Coptic or
> > Berber
> > Your explanation seems as good as any.
> > Who knows, perhaps Messapia was where cats first
> > arrived in Italy from Egypt
>
> I ran across the "Nubian" word cited in an old
> paper, and I don't
> know what I did with the reference, but it seemed to
> me like a mere
> chance resemblance. The author didn't say whether
> this "Nubian" word
> was dialectal Amharic, or from some non-AA language,
> or what.

Nubian is a Nilo-Saharan language from Sudan, very
likely the same language as that spoken by the ancient
Nubians, just south of Egypt.

> It
> seems highly unlikely that Europeans would go beyond
> Alexandria for
> cats, and highly unlikely that they would adopt a
> word for 'cat' from
> distant Nubia, rather than whatever Alexandrians
> called them, if
> indeed they needed to adopt a new word at all.

Given the lack of a similar Egyptian word, I agree

>
> More by Friday, hopefully ... the detailed
> justification of *katta as
> a Messapic or related hypocorism requires pulling
> together a fair
> number of references, and opens at least two other
> cans of worms.
>
> DGK
>
>
>

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