Re: Ligurian

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

>
> > If this is a genuine Ligurian/NWB word, I'd link to the root *balt-
> > found in Tuscan (Lucchese) paltenna 'puddle' (an Etruscan loanword) as
> > well as Albanian baltë 'mud, swamp, clay soil' and Slavic
> > *bólto- 'swamp'.
>
> Those are from a different root. Etr. *palt(h)na, implied by Lucch. <paltenna>, is probably based on Lig. *balta: borrowed into Etr., but none of these would interchange /l/ with /r/ in this position.
>

Why not?

> What about <barranca>? I forget whether any conclusion was reached when this came up before.
>

Yes, I remember. However, the usual form is masculine: Spanish barranco, Catalan barranc 'ravine'. I had proposed a Vasco-Caucasian etymology from NEC *?\wa:rXV 'mountain pass; hollow, cavern' with the (presumably diminutive) suffix -anko, similar to the one found in Catalan avenc < *ab-enko, which I derive from a different root *d\hwo:dwo: 'tube, pipe' possibly also found in Basque hodi 'pipe, channel; ravine'.