--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Joao S. Lopes" <josimo70@...> wrote:
>
> welh2- "wound, tear" is a good candidate for explaining vultur.
Root *pet- would imply a clustering *wol-pter (cf. accipiter), but...
why not *vulter? There seems to not exist IE parallels for vulture-
name. Greek has gyps and gryps (gryphos), beside torgos (cf. stork?)
and aigypios. Gypaetus barbatus (lammergeier) and Gyps fulvus (Great
Vulture) were widespread in Eurasia, but I dont know any common IE
name for them.
[DGK]
Latin <vultur> is probably borrowed from Etruscan *velthur, identical
to the praenomen Velthur. According to Livy, when the Samnites
seized Volturnum from the Etruscans, they renamed it Capua. This can
be understood as calquing Etr. *Velthurna 'Hawktown' into Oscan. The
river of Capua is still the Volturno.
Explanations of <accipiter> as 'fast flier' or 'acceptor' are neither
formally nor semantically convincing. I prefer haplology from
*accipitipiter 'headlong faller', the first element being *acceps,
genitive *accipitis 'with head forward, headlong'. That is the
remarkable thing about these birds, how rapidly they can plummet to
the earth head-first.
DGK