Re: Basque mendi 'mountain'

At 6:16:33 PM on Thursday, March 29, 2012, Tavi wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
> <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>> Fairly late Latin, at that. In the earliest stratum of
>> loans, before the sixth century, Goidelic *kW was
>> regularly substituted for Latin /p/, as in planta >
>> *kWlanda > cland (and panna, pascha, purpura, Patricius >
>> cann, caisc, corcur, Cothriche, etc.).

> I'm afraid Latin isn't the only source of p- > Goidelic
> *kW-. For example, Middle Irish céite 'hill, eminence,
> open space, assembly' < Goidelic *kWantjo- 'hill', which
> corresponds to the substrate root *pant- I mentioned
> before.

It's from PCelt. *kwantyo- 'flat hill', with normal
developments in Goidelic and Brittonic. A substrate root in
*p- is most unlikely.

> Also interesting is Old Irish imm-cella 'surrounds', from
> Goidelic *kWal-na 'to go around', a doublet of Celtic
> *Fal-na 'to approach, to drive' (Old Irish ad-ella).

No, *kWelh1- and *pelh2- are clearly different.

Brian