Re: balsa

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...>
wrote:

>
> --- On Mon, 1/5/09, Arnaud Fournet <fournet.arnaud@...> wrote:
> >
> > And why is [balsa] not a LW of pond or pool, or a related

Germanic

> > word ?
> >
> > A.
>
> the word is pre-Germanic in Iberian Latin
>

The place-name <Balsa> "oppidum Lusitaniae ... paludibus vastis
cinctum" (Plin. 4:116) suggests that the word was borrowed from
Iberian into Lusitanian already. Another <Balsa> in Sardinia is on
swampy ground, so Bertoldi considers it a Sardo-Iberian isogloss
like *(i)baika, <bega>, <vega>, <veiga>, but Hubschmid does not
mention it.

DGK