From: tgpedersen
Message: 60183
Date: 2008-09-20
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Jonathan Morris <jonatas9@>Da. sprække "crack, be cleft", supposedly back-formed from ODa.
> wrote:
>
> > Meyer-Luebke seems to derive [It. briga] from Germanic break and
> > notes Gothic brikan, Lombard brehhan. It might be, but if it's a
> > Lombard borrowing into Italian, how do you explain the 'g', you'd
> > expect breccia -- indeed, you get breccia/brecha in Port.
> > So even if you opt for a Germanic explanation, the Middle Ages
> > looks too late to me.
>
> There is at least one dialectal Italian word derived (as a loan)
> from Gothic brikan which has preserved the -g-: sbregar 'to break,
> tear' (with prosthetic -s-). Thus, Gothic brikan > Italian briga
> (and Spanish brega) doesn't seem to pose any phonological problem.
>
> Also, you are right in inferring that, if borrowed from Lombard
> brehhan, the Italian word should have been breccia. Yet the German
> etymologies proposed for it thus far derive briga from Gothic
> brikan, not from Lombard brehhan. Actually Old Italian dialects
> have a noun breccia 'crushed stones, gravel' that is regarded by
> some etymologists as a loan from Lombard brehhan 'to break'.
> However, I don't know if a Lombard verb brehhan is actually
> attested; if it is, it would be the same as Old High German brehhan
> 'to break'.
>
> (Note: the Portuguese word you have cited, brecha, which is the
> same as Spanish brecha, Italian breccia, is a loan from French
> brèche 'breach, opening' (as in a city wall during a siege), a
> military term that appears to have become widespread in the 15th-
> 16th century in conjunction with the advent of heavy artillery in
> siege techniques. The French term is, once again, derived from our
> Germanic root via Old High German brecha 'breaking, fracture', but
> the Italian term breccia 'crushed stones, gravel' I have mentioned
> above does not belong in this group...)
>
> *********
>
> There is, however, another Germanic etymon I have found which could
> solve the apparent conflict of meanings between Italian briga,
> Castilian brega etc. 'fight, quarrel' one one side, and Italian
> brigare 'to deal, to frequent (someone), to meet in small groups,
> to intrigue (secret plans) to obtain something' and French briguer
> 'to intrigue to achieve some aim, to aspire to' on the other. As I
> pointed out several times, the semantics of these latter Italian
> and French forms is far removed from 'to fight'. Yet, there are Old
> Norse brek 'desire, deception, intrigue' and breka 'to demand (to
> obtain something one is not entitled to)', these too from Proto-
> Germanic *brikan- 'to break', which could fill the semantic gap I
> have pointed to:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/4k8ofa
> http://tinyurl.com/4oz2dk
> http://tinyurl.com/3md7v5 (search the word "briga")
>
> Any comments on this latter point?