Re: Lexeme-lumping in REW 878, baf(f)a

From: Rick McCallister
Message: 59156
Date: 2008-06-09

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

>
> W. Meyer-Lübke appears to have lumped four
> phonetically and lexically
> distinct items into his Romance lemma #878,
> <baf(f)a>, which he
> regards as a Schallwort. I propose the following
> tentative
> subdivision:
>
> 1. *bafa 'piffle, humbug' vel sim., whence
> Provençal
> <bafa> 'scoffing, mocking, derision', Abruzzese
> <abbafá> 'to deride,
> ridicule', etc.; also probably French <bafouer> 'to
> scoff at'. This
> may well be a genuine Schallwort.

Related to bouffe?
>
> 2. *banfus, *ba:fus 'dank, sultry, oppressive',
> whence Lucchese
> <banfa> 'oppression, anguish, anxiety', Milanese
> <banfá> 'to pant,
> gasp', etc. (listed by M.-L. under his #932, <banf>,
> another
> Schallwort); Romagnole <bafa> 'sultriness',
> Portuguese <bafo> 'steam,
> breath', Neapolitan <abbafá> 'to breathe with
> difficulty', etc. This
> can be understood as a Latin borrowing from P-Italic
> *banfo-,
> regularly from PIE *gwn.dho-, with the normal grade
> *gwendh- seen in
> Greek <bénthos> 'sea-bottom; great depth'. These
> neuters in -es-/-os
> typically indicate the concrete result of an action,
> so the original
> meaning of *gwendh- was perhaps 'to flood, overwhelm
> with water',
> with semantic devaluation of *gwn.dho- from
> 'flooded, overwhelmed'
> to 'soaked, moistened, damp' in Italic. (A similar
> devaluation
> appears in Avestan <napta> 'damp, humid, moist'; the
> original strong
> sense of *nep- is found in Umbrian <nepitu>
> 'overwhelm with water!'
> vel sim. and *Neptu:nos, originally the Italic god
> of flooding rivers
> (Latin <Neptu:nus>, Umbrian *Nehtuns borrowed into
> Etruscan as
> <Nethuns>), from the /u/-stem *neptus 'flood'.)
> With *banfus,
> preservation of -nf- only in NW Italian dialects
> probably reflects a
> local feature of spoken Late Latin.

This seems like it is somehow related to Spanish vapor
"steam", vaho "steam, frosty breath when it's cold",
bofe "(animal) lung", bofear "pant, wheeze"

> 3. <bafer> 'grossus, ferinus, agrestis' (glosses),
> whence French
> <bâfre> 'greedy eating', Piemontese <bafra> 'full
> belly', etc. This
> is likely another P-Italic loanword to Latin. The
> PIE root is
> possibly *gweH2dh-, *gwa:dh- 'to sink, submerge',
> whence Greek
> <bathús> 'deep, thick, abundant', Sanskrit
> <ga:dháh.> 'deep, stout,
> strong', <ga:háh.> 'depth, interior', <gáhana->,
> <gáhvara-> 'deep,
> thick'; 'depth, chasm, thicket'. Of the senses
> glossed for
> <bafer>, 'grossus' is easily enough 'thick', while
> 'ferinus'
> and 'agrestis' perhaps represent 'pertaining to the
> deep woods',
> hence 'savage, wild'. Lithuanian <gùdras> 'sly,
> clever, cunning', if
> derived from *gwadh-rós, could be a direct cognate
> of <bafer>, in
> which case the Baltic sense presumably arose
> metaphorically, 'deep in
> craftiness, resourcefully deep', or the like.
> Etymologizing <bafer>
> is so difficult that Ernout-Meillet in the DELL do
> not even attempt
> it; "dialectal et d'origine obscure" is all they
> have to say.
>
> 4. *baffus 'large, round, thick', whence Old
> Lombardic <baffo>,
> <baffa> 'side of bacon', Sicilian <baffa> 'pumpkin;
> clump of grass;
> type of flask', etc.; probably Middle French <baffe>
> 'fish-trap'
> (from its shape) and French <baffouer> 'to lace up,
> cord up' (from
> the act of lacing up a fish-trap). This could have
> been extracted
> from a hypocoristic noun *baffa 'large round object,
> large gourd' vel
> sim. formed regularly from some derivative of
> <bafer> above. In fact
> M.-L. has Sicilian/Calabrian <buffa> 'toad' listed
> under his #1373
> (1), <buff>, yet another Schallwort, when it
> probably belongs under
> #1374, <bu:fo:>, as the hypocoristic of a diminutive
> or other
> derivative, 'dear little toad' or the like.
>
There is a Southern Italian word bafa, baffa
"mustache" --I've heard it from Italian Americans so I
don't know which or if it's Sicilian or Neapolitan.
Some claim that Va fangù, generally seen as va fa(re)
in culo "go take it up the ass" is really "baffa in
cu(lo) "(your) mustache on (my) ass".