Re: Scientist's etymology vs. scientific etymology

> > In the framework of this theory the direction of loan could
> > very well be the opposite; it just predicts that, that from
> > prehistoric times there are Vasconic loanwords in Latin. These
> > are, it must be said, only detectable as such in the fortunate
> > case in which they in spite of three thousand years of further
> > development of both languages can be explained from the present
> > Basque. Latin 'ca:seus' "cheese" is such a loanword.'
>
> [end of citation]
>
> No it is not, since intervocalic -s- was rhotacized in the 4th cent.
> BCE in Latin. Like <balteus>, <clipeus>, <puteus>, and several
> others, <ca:seus> probably comes from Sabine (or the "rustic"
> Sabino-Latin dialect) after the rhotacism. Since Sabine was a
> P-Italic language, an inherited reflex of *kwa:t(h)- (better
> *kweH2tH2-) should have begun with /p/.

I think you are confusing PIE *kw- with PIE *kW-. But Slavic kvasU-
points to *kWw- which really doesn't make much sense either. I think
we must give up the hope of a direct descent.

> Sabine itself probably borrowed the word from an IE language which
> reduced */kw/ to /k/.

Why not dump Sabine altogether then?


If the ancestor ultimately is PIE *kwat-, it's difficult to argue that
it had -s- at the time of the Latin rhotacization. It might have been
*kwat-jo- > *kwatso- > *katso- > *ka:syo- cf. caussa > causa without
rhotacization. Note also unusual metathesis -tz- <> -zt- in Basque.

If the interpretation of the first element of the recurring ekupetaris
as cognate with PIE *ekWo- is correct then Po-Venetic had *kW- > k-.


Torsten