Re: Ligurian

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:

>
> > Yesterday I overlooked Valtellinese <verca> 'heather' which also requires Illyrian vocalism, *wraika:, thus
> > coming from pre-Ligurian substrate. To you, no doubt, an additional stratum is an unnecessary
> > complication. To me, it is a necessary one.
> 
> Does this relate to Spanish verja "hedge (DRAE gives "enredado")", French verge (I don't know what the
> original meaning in French is)
>
> > The printed DRAE (18th ed., 1956) derives Sp. <verja> from Fr. <verge> 'border, edge', etc., in turn from
> > Lat. <virga> 'rod, shoot, twig', also 'stripe on the edge of a garment'. It is not clear to me how this second
> > sense developed from the first. Perhaps there were two etymologically distinct words.
>

French verge is actually 'stick, cane' (baguette) and secondarily also 'penis'. However, a semantic shift from 'stick' to 'stripe, line' is still possible, as in Spanish raya from Latin radius 'stick'. So both Spanish verja 'hedge' and English verge 'edge, rim' must be Old French loanwords.

> > I cannot say whether the 'heather' word above ties in at all. I[n] any case, overall, the original word seems
> > to denote the

edge of vegetation, either a hedge or edge of the heath or protruding branches.

>

There's a homonymous Old French verge 'unity of land measure', still alive on Canadian French. Delamarre quotes a Gaulish collective form *uercaria 'cultivated land' as the source of dialectal French verchère, Provençal verquièra 'cultivated land near the dwelling place; dowry, heritage', attested in written records (8th century) as auercaria < *are-uercaria.

For the etymology of the Gaulish word, Delamarre (following Veyndres) proposes a link to Welsh cywarch, Breton koarc'h 'hemp' < Celtic *ko-werk(k)o- and German Werg 'tow' < Germanic *wirka-/*wrika-. And from the Valtellinese evidence we can also posit a Ligurian form *werka 'heather'. This would be a root *werk'-o- with a velar glottalic stop which would yield a geminate in P-Celtic (no Kilday's Law here, I'm afraid).

> Latin virga also gave rise to another type of shoot --Spanish verga
>

Spanish verga also means 'penis'. I could also mention Etruscan viscri 'penis' (continued in Tuscan bischero 'dumb', synonym to Italian cazzo), a loanword from Italic *visga: (> Latin virga).