Re: Basque mendi 'mountain'

At 6:36:15 AM on Tuesday, March 27, 2012, Tavi wrote:

> This is an old substrate root *pant-/*pent- also found in
> toponymy as *pend-/*penn- (e.g. Pennines, Apennines),

The British Pennines only got their name around 1747, from
Charles Julius Bertram, the compiler of the forgery _De Situ
Britanniae_ attributed to Richard of Cirencester. The Alpes
Pennines in Switzerland, on the other hand, really do derive
from Celtic *penno- 'a mountain summit; a head; a hill; an
end', PCelt. *kWendo- 'head' (cf. OIr <cenn> 'head').

> as well as in Celtic *bendo- 'peak, top'

PCelt. *benno- 'peak, top', actually, from PIE *bend-.
Clearly unrelated to the 'head' word.

> and Germanic *pint-/*pinn- 'point'.

This, however, assuming that you're thinking of the <pintel>
family, does seem go with with *benno-, though not with
*penno-.

Brian