--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> Wakrolayo:?... There's no uacco: in Latin and uaco: means
> something else...
I, too, don't like Hofmann's etymology *wak-ro-layo: > *wakello: >
vacillo: (cited in my earlier post), so I have made another try.
A. Ernout ("Vaccillo ou talipedo?", _Revue de philologie, de
littérature et d'histoire anciennes_, ser. 3:1 =53, 1927, p. 208)
thinks that the Latin verb vacillo: `to sway to and fro, waver,
totter, vacillate' and its variant form vaccillo:, which appears to
have existed side by side with it, can be connected to a family of
adjectives designating deformities of human legs: va:rus, vatius,
vata:x, and vascus.
Pokorny suggests the following Latin adjectives, all referring to
certain malformations of human legs, may be extensions of the PIE
root *wa:- `apart':
1) va:rus `bent (apart), stretched, or grown inwards; hence, of
persons with legs bent inwards, knock-kneed' (this adjective may be
cognate with valgus `having the calves of the legs bent outwards,
bow-legged' if the latter term is not from a guttural extension of
PIE *wel- `to turn, bend') > va:ricus `with feet spread apart'
And, from the dental extension *wa:-t-:
2) vata:x `having crooked feet'
3) vatius `bent outwards' (hence, of person with legs bent outwards)
> vatia `a bow-legged man'
4) vascus (badly attested, and perhaps from *vat-scos) `across,
transversal, slant'
According to Ernout, vacillo:/vaccillo: (uacillo:/uacillo:) can be
derived from an unattested Latin adjective *uaccus on the analogy of
offa :: ofella, mamma :: mamilla, pu:s(s)us :: pusillus, saccus ::
sacellus etc. The suffix -co in the posited adjective *uaccus is
characteristic of deformities: compare the adjectives mancus,
broc(c)us, raucus, caecus, as well as the denominative verb pecco:.
*uaccus could have derived either from *wa:-t(o)-ko-s (cf. Pokorny's
root extension *wa:t-, above) or from *wa-:ko-s (cf. Pokorny's root
*wa:-, above) through expressive gemination of the consonant which
is "caractéristique de mots de ce type, qui appartiennent à la
langue familière".
Lastly, Ernout thinks that an equally unattested denominative verb
*uacco: may have bridged the gap between *uaccus and uaccillo:. This
is because the formation of uaccillo: reminds him of those of
sorbillo: from sorbeo:, of su:gillo: from su:go:, of murmurillo:
from murmuro:.
I have also found mention of an interpretation by F. Sommer
according to which the gemination of the consonant in uac[c]illo:
could be motivated by a folk etymology connecting this verb with the
term vacca (uacca); thus, uaccillo: = `to waddle like a cow'!
Kind regards,
Francesco