Re: Etymology of the Italian surname 'Brighenti'

From: tgpedersen
Message: 60183
Date: 2008-09-20

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Jonathan Morris <jonatas9@>
> 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?

Da. sprække "crack, be cleft", supposedly back-formed from ODa.
'spra(c)k', the preterite of 'springe' (also) "burst" intr., inflected
in ON something like this:

inf. springa,
pres. 3sg springr, 3pl springa
pret. 3sg sprakk, 3pl sprungu
ppp sprunginn

but there's also a causative sprengja > Da. sprænge "burst" tr.

Note the geminate/prenasal alternation. One wonders (I wonder) whether
this kind of alternation is the origin of the alternation of the
Germanic loans from Schrijver's language of geminates.

If that language (probably Venetic) had -g- in that verb, that might
be the source of Italian 'sbregar' (in which case the prosthetic s-
isn't Italian).

This is how I imagined the -en- > -in- rule of Germanic happened.
Once it inflected:

*sprenga *sprengm.
*sprengis *sprengiþ
*sprengiþ *sprengn.þ

with umlaut
*sprenga *sprengm.
*springis *springiþ
*springiþ *sprengn.þ

generalized
*springa *springm.
*springis *springiþ
*springiþ *springn.þ

vel sim., Brian!


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