Re: Basque mendi 'mountain'

At 4:54:14 PM on Friday, March 30, 2012, Tavi wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "bmscotttg"
> <bm.brian@...> wrote:

>> The Irish word means both 'hill' and 'open space'. It can
>> mean 'racecourse', 'assembly', 'meeting place in
>> general', 'square', 'market place'. If at some point the
>> emphasis in Insular Celtic came to be on the use as a
>> place of assembly rather then the elevation, a shift to
>> 'valley' would not be all that remarkable.

> I think 'open space' is secondary to 'valley',

Plainly unlikely, given the PIE etymology.

[...]

> Given that the substrate root *pant-/*pent- is found in
> Hispanic and Italian toponymy meaning either 'mountain' or
> 'ravine' (e.g. South Italian pentuma),

It isn't a given. There may be such a toponymic element;
I've not checked. It doesn't matter: at best you're giving
superficial resemblances precedence over etymological
argument without actually addressing the latter. This isn't
linguistics.

If there actually is such a toponymic element, one that can
be consistently identified, one should certainly consider
what, if any, relationship it might bear to the Celtic
words. Such an investigation, however, would have to be
carried out by competent linguists and toponymists, not by
an arrogant fringy.

> my guess is it was borrowed into P-Celtic *pant- and
> Q-Celtic (Goidelic) *kWant-. Of course, the time of
> borrowing must postdate Common Celtic, which it already
> had *bando-/*bendo- 'peak top'.

Like many others, I'm not convinced that P-Celtic and
Q-Celtic are genuine subfamilies.

>>> Incredible!

>> Rather less so than some of your stretches.

> You're exaggerating as usual.

Not even slightly.

>>>>> 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.

>>> Only in the traditional model. But macro-comparativists
>>> such as Bomhard link them.

>> I doubt very much that Bomhard links them at the PIE level.

> It depends on what you consider as PIE, [...]

The same thing that all but a few eccentrics do.

[snip more nonsense]

Brian