Re: Ligurian

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Bhrihskwobhloukstroy <bhrihstlobhrouzghdhroy@...> wrote:
>
> 2012/5/4, dgkilday57 <dgkilday57@...>:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Bhrihskwobhloukstroy
> > <bhrihstlobhrouzghdhroy@> wrote:
> >>>
> >> [top-posting corrected]
> >> >>
> >> >>> But nevertheless: bairt 'girl' : Gothic barn 'child' (I was about
> >> >>> to write 'kind'!...), once attested (+ bairte), we're linguists, not
> >> >>> lawyers ("testis unus testis nullus"), so why doubtful? The Auraicept
> >> >>> na n-éces are after all a trustworthy source. Whence otherwise
> >> >>> Continental Celtic *Bartia:kon > Barzâgh / Barzago (Lecch / Lecco
> >> >>> [Lombardy])?
>
> >> >> [DGK:]
> >> >> Whence otherwise? From Ligurian, of course, with a secondary ending
> >> >> from
> >> >> Gaulish superstrate. To wit, PIE *bHr.ti'- 'act of bearing' (Skt.
> >> >> <bhr.ti's.>, Av. <-b@...@tis^>, Lat. <fors> 'luck, chance', OE <ge-byrd>
> >> >> 'birth', etc.) regularly yields Lig. *bartis 'inflow, inlet, site of
> >> >> importation' vel sim., cognate with Celt. *britis 'carrying, judgment'
> >> >> (OIr
> >> >> <brith>, etc.). Retained as a local term by the Gaulish invaders,
> >> >> *bartis
> >> >> becomes the base of *Bartia:kon 'town near the inlet' vel sim. Much
> >> >> better
> >> >> than trying to explain it as pure Celtic.
> >> >>
> >> >> DGK
> >
> > [Bh.:]
> >> And of course Your theory predicts that the Gaulish invaders have
> >> been so careful to retain from Ligurian just those terms whose /ar/
> >> was from PIE syllabic */r/ before stop (while all other place-names
> >> [200] are plainly Celtic) and to let them arrive to Ireland just in
> >> time for a registration in the Auraicept na n-�ces...
>
> > [DGK:]
> > No, my theory explains *bartis as a toponomastic loanword from Ligurian to
> > Celtic, with no phonological criteria applied by the borrowers. Its
> > retention is, pardon the root, fortuitous. Kilday finally gets some good
> > luck!
> >
>
> Bhrihskwobhloukstroy:
> So, where do Yo suggest Ir. bairt comes from? To my limited
> knowledge, there's no place-name whose stem is simple *Barti-s

What is the stem of Bart (Piem., prov. Novara)? Both d'Arbois (Les prem. inh. de l'Europe, 1894, 2:92) and Bottiglioni (Elem. prel. della top. corsa, 1929, 62) considered it connected with Bartasca (Cors., near Calvi), providing evidence for a Ligurian stratum in Corsica.

Further down on p. 62, Bottiglioni has the germ of a plausible theory of the name Populonia. Servius thought it had been founded by Corsicans, but in historical times it was ruled by Etruscans, under the name Pupluna (well attested from coins). B. noted the similarity to Boplo (Sent. Minuc.). Now, if *boplo: was a Ligurian appellative meaning 'defensible hill' vel sim., it might have been applied to the hill of Populonia, with *boplo: becoming *puplu "in bocca etrusca", and getting the Etr. suffix -na as the name of the settlement which Etruscans took over. This makes more sense to me than other explanations I have seen of Populonia.

DGK