From: tgpedersen
Message: 59449
Date: 2008-07-03
>...> wrote:
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...>
> Subject: Re: [tied] Portuguese sapo "toad", akin to Slavic z^aba ?
>
>
> --- In cybalist@... s.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@
> >He does, in 'Sardische Studien', pp 117-118. Unfortunately he thinks
> > ----- Original Message ----
> > From: Joao S. Lopes <josimo70@ .>
> >
> >
> > > The Portuguese word for toad is "sapo" whose origin is unknown,
> > > usually seen as Pre-Roman. There was attempts to relate it to
> > > Greek se:ps, to Basque and another possibilities.
> >
> > > I think sapo is very similar to Slavic z^aba. The word could be
> > > IE, but from where? Ligurian? Lusitanian?
> >
> > > PIE *gWe:bH- - Germanic quabbe Dutch kwabbe Latin bu:fo:n-
> > > (<*gWo:bH?) Salvic z^aba Albanian zhab� (< *Slavic?)
> >
> >
> > It is related to Basque apo, aho (if I remember correctly). I
> > asked Larry Trask and he said it was a toss up whether or not it
> > was original to Basque or whether Ibero-Romance and Basque both
> > got it from a third language. There should be something in the
> > old IE or Nostratic archives on it, or in his History of Basque
> >
> Trask, The History of Basque, pp. 419-420
> (in a long discussion of what Basque words might possibly have been
> loaned into the Romance and other languages)
> 'Cast sapo 'toad' : Bq apo
> Castilian shares this word only with Portuguese. The Basque word
> appears variously as zapo, apo or sapo, of which zapo seems to be
> the earliest form. Basque sapo is recent, and almost certainly due
> to Castilian influence. The form apo may also result from a
> mishearing of Castilian los sapos as los apos. It has frequently
> been thought that Castilian sapo is a loan from Basque zapo. This
> is not impossible, but a complication is the well-attested use of
> zapo in Basque as a generic term for 'creepy-crawly', with various
> other specializations besides 'toad', such as 'firefly'. Corominas
> and Pascual show little interest in a Basque origin for the
> Castilian word, and provide instead an extraordinarily wide-ranging
> discussion of possibly related European words ranging as far as
> ancient Greek sips 'poisonous snake, lizard'.'
>
> You might possibly like this quote better:
> Or�l & Stol'bova, Hamito-Semitic Etymological Dictionary
>
> '581 *c^.amb- "lizard, frog"
> Semitic *s^.abb-:
> Hebrew s.a:b "turtle",
> Arab d.abb-, Harsusi d.o:b, Mehri d.o:b, Shheri d.ob "lizard".
> *-b(b)- continues a prenasalized HS cluster *-mb-.
> WCh *c^.umb- "frog": Hausa c.umbo:.
> Secondary *-u- before a labial.
> Rift *c^amb- "frog": Alagwa c^embe�u, Burunge c^ambe�u.'
>
> Now why didn't Trask look at that?
>
> Torsten
>
> Does Hubschmidt have anything on sapo? He seemed to have combed
> through Berber pretty well.