Re: Ligurian

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@...> wrote:

>
> > As everybody knows, none of us is the Voice of Truth. Our task is
> > to apply a methodology.
> > The methodology I apply is: I chose an area where the presence of a
> > given language is assured (in this case, by inscriptions), I apply
> > independently verified sound-laws and see what comes out.
> > Distinguishing Celtic from non-Celtic is a procedure that can be
> > started only *after* that one has completed both the application of
> > the Celtic analysis and the application of every non-Celtic analysis.
>
> How silly. If a few place-names suggest that Celtic analysis is inadequate (and they do), there is no point in mechanically constructing a huge corpus of "regelrecht" Celtic etymologies, like a Neogrammarian in the wrong century.
>

I'm afraid the clock of mainstream IE studies still lags on things such as Grimm's Law, "voiced aspirated" stops and so on.

> Nevertheless I think the second half of your etymology can be salvaged. I have never believed the

 folk-explanation that the coastal town <Lu:na> was named after its alleged crescent-shaped harbor. I would rather posit a Ligurian term *louna: cognate with Breton <louan> 'copse'. This would have yielded an appellative *lu:na 'copse' vel sim. in the local Latin, continuing into the medieval vernacular.

>

Matasovic^ compares the Breton word to Cymru llyfan and Old Irish loman(a:) 'rope, leash, thong, bridle', hence reconstructing a Celtic protform *lomana: 'rope, thong', for which he doesn't find any IE cognates. However, your proposed meaning would fit Greek lókhme: 'thick, copse' instead.

> *Prima Luna would then simply mean 'Prime Copse' (for cutting wood), 'Beautiful Copse' or the like (cf. Old French <prin>, <prime> 'first-rate, beautiful, delicate' from Lat. <pri:mus>).
>

I'm afraid you're conflating two *homonymous* words: on the one hand prin, prim(e) 'first' < Latin pri:mus, and on the other prime 'thin, slim, delicate', with correspondences in Catalan prim/a 'thin, slim' and Basque printzel (B) 'bright thing', (B, G, HN) 'delicate woman', p(h)intz (*L) 'fresh, delicate (said of corporal beauty)'. Semantically, this would correspond to Latin imprimere 'to engrave, to chisel, to sculpt', with a development similar to the one of French fine 'very slim; delicate' with regard to Latin perfina:re 'to break'.  However, in both cases an inherited etymology can be ruled for phonetical reasons, so they must be medieval *neologisms*.