--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Francesco Brighenti" <frabrig@...>
wrote:
>
> Oh, I see. Therefore, according to Tavi Basque mintz-, p(h)intz-
'membrane (covering an egg or nut)' would be cognate with an
etymologically "somewhat dubious" (as per Starostin's own admission)
"PNC" root whose meaning would be 'hide, conceal, steal'? Do eggshells
and nutshells "conceal/hide" something, really? Would that be a
semantically plausible designation of an eggshell or nutshell?
>
IMHO a semantic shift from 'to conceal, to hide' > 'to protect' is
straightforward. This would also hold for objects 'shield' or 'hut,
tent' made of animal skin or tree bark, of which there're examples in
IE.
> By the way, in the _Diccionario de la Lengua Española_ of the Real
Academia Española the Spanish term binza 'membrane in an animal's
body; onion skin' is derived from brinza < brenca 'fiber, filament',
which is there regarded as a pre-Roman word borrowed from Celtic
*bri:nica: < *brinos 'fiber, filament'. I don't know if such an
etymology holds, but it's an alternative etymology anyway, which does
not imply any borrowing from Basque mintz- etc.
>
I'm afraid DRAE's etymologies are pretty nasty, to say the last.