Re: Portuguese buraco "hole"

>
> >
> > In Portuguese, buraco means "hole". Antenor Nascentes's
> > Etymological Dictionary states some possibilities about its
> > origin: from *furaco (cf. Portuguese furo, furar "pierce, to
> > pierce"), and a connexion to Germanic bore. Any comment?
> > Gothic? Celtic?
>
> Engl. furrow?
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@> wrote:
> >
> > buraco looks like a Celtic cognate to English bore, if so, then
> > furaco would likely be a Latin cognate BUT that's just my guess
> >
> Not likely, since
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/67914
> 'On admet souvent qu'il y a ici un dérivé de la préposition op-, ob-
> avec un suffixe *-āko-. Mais pareil suffixe n'est guère usuel en
> latin;...'
>
> which means that buraco and furaco are equally un-Latin. Are there
> any sets of systematic f-/b- alternations in Portuuese like this
> one, João?
>
> Torsten
>
>
> The -ako definitely looks Celtic on the face of it BUT the f- of
> furaco may well be from a Latin form that was reanalyzed. I've never
> seen f/b alternations in Ibero-Romance although b/m is common enough
>

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Joao S. Lopes" <josimo70@...> wrote:
>
> only waty to turn a Latin f- into a Portuguese b- would be a weird
> way *efura- > *evura > *vura- ~ *bura-, but it doesn't sounds
> likely.


You find p-/b- along with p-/f- alternation in NWB, according to Hans Kuhn, also in (the p-substrate of) Jysk
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/30336
The German cognate of 'furrow', 'Furche', cf Grimmm's Wörterbuch in
http://www.woerterbuchnetz.de/
matches it with Latin porca "ridge between two furrows after plowing", which again is connected to porcus "pig", in its role as "rooter, burrower (with its snout)", cf
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/root
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wroeten
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rostrum

According to legend, the Limfjord was dug by a burrowing giant pig
http://www.thistedmuseum.dk/Historisk%20%C3%85rbog/%C3%85rgang%201929/Schmidt,%20August%20F.%20%20%20Lidt%20om%20Limfjorden.pdf

Grimm mentions the Germanic cognates of Latin 'porcus', OHG 'farh', 'farach' and German Ferkel "pig", and, interstingly with a variant 'barch' (and, FWIW, Proto-Austronesian, spoken in the area where the domestic pig comes from, has *beRek) and assumes a lost strong verb,
Gothic faírhan pret. sg. farh pl. faúrhun,
OHG fërhan pret. sg. farh pl. furhun,
meaning approx. "to root, burrow"

Feilberg's pirke/firke
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/30336
means "prod with a pointed object". I know only 'pirke' with a low variant 'perke'.

Do Port. 'buraco' and 'furaco' have any animal connections?

A *-Vk suffix is characteristic for (late) NWB, according to Kuhn, and *-k- for the ar-/ur- language (eg. the name of the ex-island Urk in the Zuiderzee), but they could of course be one and the same. A suffix -k- is characteristc of a group of verbs that stand apart in the Scandinavian languages (Da. dyrke, Sw. dyrka "cultivate", Sw. torka "dry", cf. torr adj. "dry").



Torsten