Re: Latin acipe:nser "sturgeon"

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "stlatos" <stlatos@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Joao S. Lopes" <josimo70@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Any comment about the etymology of Latin name of the sturgeon, acipe:nser ?
> > >
> > > this -pe:nser seems to be < *pentSter- <*pend-ter? Or an ending like anser, passer?
> >
> > Modern Venetian <ko'peze> requires a Romance protoform *accu'pe:se, so the correct Latin form is <accupensis> with original accent on the antepenult. This accent shows that the word cannot have been formed as a Latin compound, despite the ingenuity of some publishing etymologists.

First, a correction. Venetian and surrounding dialects have <ku'ba> from Latin <cu:pa>, so the Romance protoform of <ko'peze> requires another geminate, *accu'ppe:se. This additional difficulty was already noted by Schuchardt in his comments on the 'sturgeon'-words (ZRPh 31:650-5, 1907). Schuchardt cites <aquippense> from glosses as a Latin example with -pp-; obviously the onset has been folk-etymologized with <aqua>. Probably the -c- and -p- from the more usual Latin forms have been folk-etymologized with <acus> and <pensus>. To the Romans, after all, this was an exotic fish with an exotic name. That is why it is of vital importance to investigate Romance forms from the area where this fish was part of the culture.

> > I cannot pretend to know this with certainty, but I suspect that this word comes from an Illyrian compound meaning 'water-ox' or the like. In this view the first element is cognate with Latin <aqua>, undergoing regular *-kW- > *-kkW- > *-kk- in Illyrian. The second element may be compared to Albanian <pende">, <pe"nde"> 'Paar Ochsen' usw. < *penta: 'Gespann' (Pokorny, IEW 988). The word would have been borrowed from Illyrian into Venetic, thence into Latin, retaining its original accent until the present day in its local form.

If I cannot explain the required *-pp- through VL or Romance (as with Ital. <appio> 'parsley'), I will have to abandon this explanation and start over. Of course, I'm not the first etymologist to get his butt kicked wrestling the great sturgeon, and I won't be the last.

***R Remember that "Northern Italian" (i.e. Gallo-Italian) does not distinguish between single and double consonants --they're all single. I don't know how far back this goes, but we have Italian colleagues on the list.

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> Then what does the accent in G akkipe:síos show? I'd say nothing, just as in Venetian. Shifts in accent from L > VL, etc., are well known and usually occur after the conditioning env. is changed (here n>0, unstressed e: > e).

Oh, what VINTAGE Whalen. First, your Greek accent is wrong, and indeed it shows nothing, since it was given by Greek glossarists with recessive accent. As usual, you provide no evidence that your hand-waving about "well known" phenomena is even applicable here.

> The start of the word shows the same variation seen in accipiter and acupedius, so an origin in 'water' or borrowing seems to gain no weight from it. All the same, even if you acknowledge the 3 are related, it doesn't completely rule out the possibility of borrowing if there was analogy among the three afterwards (as swift an. in the 3 divisions of the world).

I regard <accipiter> as resulting from haplology of *accipitipitros 'falling headlong', which is what these birds do at great speed when attacking prey. Nothing to do with 'swift' or 'take' originally.

> If you have some ev. that it was related to, say:
>
> káçyapa- = turtle/tortoise S; kasyapa- Av;
>
>
> in a sim. way to:
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> çaphara-s S; s^ãpalas Lh; kuprî:nos G;
>
> carpa L;
> clupea = ~small fish in rivers L;
>
>
> I'd listen to that w interest.

No such evidence. You will have to make up your own.

DGK