--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Tavi" <oalexandre@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
> >
> > I never said that I thought these words were borrowed. I regard
> > Basque <txakur'> as inherited from West Mediterranean.
> >
> > > But its phonetic shape is mostly un-Basque. Also Basque has lots of
> > > loanwords from extinct languages.
> >
> > The phonetic shape agrees well with <lapur'> 'thief'.
> >
> But this is clearly an IE loanword (PIE *la(m)bh- 'to seize'), not a
> native one.
From which IE language? With what IE suffix? How did Basque get the strong vibrant /R/ out of it?
> > The only plausible cognates which I have seen are those cited by
> > Hubschmid, namely Corsican <ghia'garo> 'hunting dog' and Sardinian
> > <g^a'garu> 'id.'.
> >
> > > Don't forget Balkanic zagar and Greek zágaros, zágari 'a k.
> of
> > > bloodhound' (Trombetti). But IMHO these words aren't related to
> zakur
> > > but they reflect a Mediterranean Wanderwort found in PNC *tsEhwo:le
> (~
> > > -a) 'fox, jackal', Kartvelian *dz\aGl-, Dravidian *dZa:[v]il- 'dog'
> and
> > > ultimately from the Eurasiatic root *dZE:lGV ~ *dZE:GlV 'a small
> > > carnivore animal (fox, weasel)' (Dolgopolsky's ND 2776).
> >
> > I have seen the Greek words explained as involving the prefix <dia->,
> >
> Sources?
This suggestion was made by Giovanni Alessio in his review (Studi Etruschi 29:362-79, 1961, esp. 368-9) of Johannes Hubschmid's _Mediterrane Substrate_ (Romanica Helvetica v. 70, 1960, esp. p. 29). Since I do not agree entirely with the relevant citations, I will cite them verbatim and then provide my comments:
"Di non facile soluzione è il problema (p. 29) dell'affinità del basco <zakur'> 'Hund' col sardo <dz^áGuru> (<g^á->) 'Jagdhund', corso <ghiágaru> 'Hund', <jácaru> 'Schäferhund' e, infine, col georg. <dzaGli> 'Hund'. Infatti, bisogna fare i conti anche col turco <zagar> 'Spürhund, Leithund' e col gr. mod. <zagári(on)> 'Jagdhund; kúo:n kune:getikós, ikhne:láte:s' e anche 'ánthro:pos eutelé:s, tipoténios', che è ritenuto generalmente un prestito dal turco. Il greco ant. ci offre <zágra> f., <zágrion> n., 'termine offensivo' (Timostr. 4; II sec. a. Cr.), <Zagraîos>, epiteto di Dionysos, <Zagreús>, figlio di Zeus e di Persephone ucciso dai Titani, e fatto risuscitare da Dionysos, glossato 'megálo:s agreúo:n' (Etym. Gud. 227, 37), che potrebbe far pensare che <zagr-> risalga a <diagr-> (cfr. <ágra> 'caccia'). La forma basca e quelle sardo-corse non si conciliano foneticamente, perchè queste ultime richiedono un j-, che non si può spiegare neanche partendo dalla forma diminutiva basca <txakur'>. Dato che il basco z- può poggiare su s- ci chiediamo se invece <zakur'> non possa essere connesso col lat. tardo <segu:sius> 'cane da caccia, segusio' (grecizzato come <egoúsia>), che è un relitto del sostrato ligure, cfr., per l'alternanza a/e, sp. <carrasca>, bov. <carro> 'cerro': lat. <cerrus>, basco <ler> [sic], <leher> [sic] 'abete': lat. <larix> e simili."
"Andere Wörter erlauben uns, das Baskische mit vorindogermanischen Sprachschichten Sardiniens und Süditaliens zu verknüpfen. ... Bask. <zakur> 'Hund' erinnert an sard. <dz^áGuru> 'Jagdhund', kors. <ghiágaru> 'Hund', mit stimmhaftem Anlaut, wie in georg. <dzaGli> 'Hund'."
Aeolic Greek regularly had <za-> for Attic-Ionic <dia->, and Attic-Ionic itself used <za-> as an inseparable intensive prefix, which explains why <Zagreús> was glossed (rightly or wrongly) as 'one hunting greatly', and <zágrion> might be literally 'very wild thing'. Some of the ancient forms could also be based on an Aeolic verb *zágra:mi 'I follow game' parallel to Attic <diagreúo:>. I suspect that an appellative *zagreús (or the like, with a different suffix) was in fact used in the sense 'game-follower, tracking hound, Spürhund', passed around the medieval Balkan languages, and returned to Greek in the form <zagári(on)>. Alfredo Trombetti's connection of this word with <zakur'> should be rejected.
Hubschmid makes no mention of Corsican <jácaru> beside <ghiágaru>, here or in his earlier monograph _Sardische Studien_ (Rom. Helv. v. 41, 1953, p. 70). Probably <jácaru> was introduced to the island, along with the new type of sheepdog, from a mainland Italian dialect which had palatalized the *gj- but not voiced the *-k-.
No other examples have been given showing how *gjak- can yield dzaG- in Georgian, so this connection must be regarded as highly speculative. For that matter, no argument favoring direct substratal relation over borrowing has been presented for this word.
Alessio's rejection of the relation between the Basque and Sardo-Corsican words is groundless. Even if you (Tavi) dismiss the traditional connection between <zori> and <txori> as a vast bird-wing conspiracy among Vascologists, we have <txerri> (Guip., Bisc.), originally a hypocoristic 'piggy', from <zerri> 'swine, pig'. Thus <txakur'>, although primary, could easily be interpreted as a hypocoristic 'doggy', leading to <zakur'> 'dog' as a back-formation. The usual development of initial gj- is dz^-, which present-day Basque does not allow, but its devoiced form ts^- is written <tx->, so there is simply no phonetic objection to <txakur'> reflecting *gjak-.
Alessio's attempt to connect <zakur'> with <segu:sius> is equally groundless. C.C. Uhlenbeck found seven examples of Basque words showing dialectal alternation of s- with z-, but <zakur'> is not included. I agree that <segu:sius> is probably Ligurian in origin, since the s- was so weak that it was dropped in borrowing to Greek; J. Whatmough has another example of this. And again, while the a/e-alternation occurs in many words between Basque dialects, particularly before /r/, Alessio's efforts to equate Basque /a/ to Ligurian /e/ are faulty. The resemblance of <cerrus> to <carrasca> is most likely coincidental, and Bovese <carro> probably continues an unrelated Greek word for a different plant (found in Hesychius) which the Italiots applied as a presumed variant of <cerrus>. Usually Northern Basque /h/ between like vowels represents earlier /n/, and in any case <leher'> has much more than short /a/ between the lateral and the vibrant, so it should not be regarded as etymologically connected to <larix>, regardless of any similarity between the fir and the larch.
DGK