Re: floor

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@...> wrote:

>
> > > lapitz 'slate' < lapis 'stone',
> >
> > Possibly borrowed from Romance rather than Latin; cf. Spanish <lapiz> 'pencil'.
> > *****R Most definitely from Romance, in Old Spanish <lapiz> was pronounced /lapits/
> >

IMHO, this isn't neither from Latin nor Romance, but a substrate Vasco-Caucasian word (PNC *tK'ep'V 'stone plate or shed'), a root also found in metatesized form in Lepontic pala '(sepulcral) stone'. Possibly Spanish pizarra 'slate' is a morphological reanalysis of the form *lapits-arra, with a collective suffix.

> > > maizter 'master shepherd' < magister,
> >
> > Again, possibly borrowed from Romance; cf. Old French <maistre>.
> >
> > ***R But Basque was not in contact with Old French --try Old Gascon, Old Catalan, Old Aragonese
>

IMHO, this is a word of the autochtonous Romance later absorbed by Basque. That Basque is today the only language spoken in the Basque Country doesn't imply it was so 1,000 or 1,500 years ago. Ignoring extinct languages is a major fault of most historical linguists.

> > xahu 'clean' < sanu 'healthy'.
>

Basque xahu 'clean, pure' < *sanu is a genuine Vasco-Caucasian word from PNC *HadzzËm-  'to clean, clean'.

> > > A rare nominative is
> > > bortitz 'strong, violent' < fortis.'
> >
> > Possibly borrowed from <Fortis> used effectively as a cognomen.
>

This is precisely the origin of the Spanish surname Ortiz.

> I suspect that <malmutz> 'sly' was similarly borrowed from the cognomen <Balbus>, during the time when Late Latin /b/ was approximated by Old Basque /mb/, later reduced to /mm/ and then /m/.
>

Possibly, but this can hardly be a native Basque word, but rather a borrowing from an extinct variety. There're hints that Basque was firstly spoken in the Pyrenees and was brought comparative late (in the High Middle Ages) to the Western part of the Basque Country.

> Unlike some scholars, I do not regard this as a Whalenesque "optional soundlaw". I regard the Basque borrowings with /m/ from Latin /b/ as characterizing a particular temporal stratum.
>

IMHO, this is a diatopical (i.e. dialectal) rather than a diachronical (i.e. temporal) isogloss. See my above remark.

> I provided some details in discussion with Tavi, who refuses to look at the REW.
>

Please explain.