RE : [tied] Re: North of the Somme

> > > Considering the semantic narrowness, it is tempting to include
> > > German Fichte "fir" etc; and then on to Sw. bek "pitch" etc
> > etc.
> >
> > Sorry, that's
> > ON bik,
> > Sw. beck (with Svea-mål gemination),
> > No. bek,
> > Da. beg
> > ODa. bik, pik,
> > OS pik,
> > OHG peh,
> > German Pech
> > Eng. pitch
> > etc.
> >
> > supposed a loan from
> > Lat pix, picis "pitch"
> >
> And, while I'm at it:
>
> UEW
> 'pis^ka 'Baumharz' FU "resin"
> Finn. pihka (Gen. pihkan, pihan) 'Baumharz, Harz';
> est. pihk (Gen. piha) 'klebrige Flüssigkeit (im Euter einer
> trächtigen Kuh, als Harz od. Gummi aus einem Baume fließend)'
> (ostseefinn. > lapp. K Nol. pihk 'Harz') |
>
> ostj. (676) Trj. piG&L 'Flicken an einem Boote, gew. einem
> Einbaum', V piGli- 'mit Harz verstopfen (Spalten in einem Boot),
> mit erhitztem Harz dichten'.
>
> Ostj. i ist ein denom. Verbalsuffix.
> In ostj. piG&L 'Flicken...' kann ein Bedeutungswandel
> 'Harz' -> 'Harz zum Dichten des Einbaumes' -> 'Dichtung, Flicken'
> stattgefunden haben.'
>
> More likely resin never had any other uses so came to mean "caulking" and the word was later transferred to pitch as replacement.
>
>
> Proto Baltic Finnic /s^/ > /h/; most likely if the word was borrowed, it never had /s^/ in the first place.

No, Germanic "pitch" is loaned to BFinnic as *piki. Plain *k is never reshaped as *hk; the cluster can only originate from older *Sk.

(Also, *S > *h postdates Proto-Germanic contacts)

> pec^ä ~ penc^ä 'Kiefer, Föhre; Pinus sylvestris' FP
> Finn. petäjä (dial. petäjäs) 'Föhre, Kiefer';
> est.
> pedajas (Gen. pedaja),
> pedakas (Gen. pedaka),
> pädajas (Gen. pädaja),
> pädakas (Gen. pädaka)
> 'sehr harzige, harte, nicht hochgewachsene Kiefer; Pinus sylvestris'|
> lapp. N bæcce -æ:3- 'Pinus silvestris',
> l. piehtse:, pä:htse: 'Kiefer, Föhre',
> K (1525) T piecce, Kld. pie1cc, Not. piehe
> 'Kiefer, Fichtenrinde (zur Speise)' |
> '
> mord. E pic^e, M pic^ä 'Kiefer; Pinus sylvestris' |
>
> tscher. (E. Itk.: FUF 31: 177)
> KB p&nc^& 'Kiefer', U pün´c´ö 'Kiefer, Föhre' |
>
> wotj. S puz^im, puz^im, K puz^&^m
> 'Fichte, Tanne, Kiefer; Pinus sylvestris',
> (Wichm.) G puz^î.m 'Fichte, Kiefer, Föhre' |
>
> syrj. S poz^em, P poz^u.m, poz^i.m, PO po.z^øm 'Kiefer'.
>
> Finn. jä, est. jas, kas, wotj. und syrj. m sind Ableitungssuffixe.
> Das Finn., Lapp. und Mord. weisen auf *c^, das Tscher. auf *nc^ und
> die perm. Wörter auf *c^ oder *nc^ hin.

Mari changes rather regularly *nc^ > *c^ (*ponc^a "tail" > *paac^, *künc^i "nail" > *kööc^, *panc^a- "to open" > *paac^a-) so this is dubbly unexpected. To attempt a Uralic-internal explanation, the *nc^ here could be by contamination with the next root. Or hypercorrection with influence from the voiced Permic medial (nasal + stop > voiced stop in Permic, which the Mari may have generalized to voiced affricates).

> p8¨næ Fichte' FU

(what's this *8¨ BTW? Am I seeing this right - eight + umlaut?)

John Vertical