Re: Cremona (was: Ligurian Barga and */p/; was: Ligurian)

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

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Bhrihskwobhloukstroy <bhrihstlobhrouzghdhroy@> wrote:
> >
> > 2012/5/25, patrick cuadrado <dicoceltique@>:
> > > Cremona < *Kremo-ponah2;
> > > what means ? please
> > >
> > > Patrick
> > > mon blog/mes oeuvres ici
> > > Arthur Unbeau
> > > http://www.pikeo.com/ArthurUnbeau
> > >
> > > [HTML and excess quoting deleted. -BMS]
> > >
> > Bhrihskwobhloukstroy:
> >
> > *KremH-o-pon-ah2 'Garlic-river'; for the first member cf. 'The Onions'
> > town', de Bernardo Stempel 2000: 86. 93 (OIr. crem, crim)
> > otherwise *Krem-o-pon-ah2 'Stone river', cf. Marcato et al. 1990: 238
>
> Great, now Willie Nelson's "Whiskey River" is stuck in my head.
>
> > Carla Marcato, Giuliano Gasca Queirazza S.J., Giovan Battista
> > Pellegrini, Giulia Petracco Sicardi, Alda Rossebastiano (con il
> > contributo di Elena Papa) Dizionario di toponomastica. Storia e
> > significato dei nomi geografici italiani, Torino, Unione
> > Tipografico-Editrice Torinese [Realizzazione editoriale: Anna Ferrari
> > e Carlo Enrico Pietra (redazione), Silvana Lagable (revisione e
> > segreteria). Fotocomposizione e stampa: Tipografia Sociale Torinese -
> > S.p.A., Grugliasco (To[rino])], 1990 [XXVIII, 720 p.], ISBN
> > 88-02-04384-1.
> >
> > Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel, «Ptolemy's Celtic Italy and Ireland: a
> > Linguistic Analysis», in Ptolemy. Towards a linguistic atlas of the
> > earliest Celtic place-names of Europe. Papers from a workshop,
> > sponsored by the British Academy, in the Department of Welsh,
> > University of Wales, Aberystwyth, 11-12 April 1999 edited by David N.
> > PARSONS & Patrick SIMS-WILLIAMS (CMCS Publications · Department of
> > Welsh, University of Wales, Aberystwyth · Old College, King Street,
> > Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 2AX), Aberystwyth, © CMCS [Typeset by
> > David N. Parsons & Printed in Wales], 2000 [x, 188 p.], pp. 83-112.
>
> Ingenious. These folks are certainly earning their salaries. But why call a town a river when the river is called something else? And if this is how *-o:na is explained as Celtic, what is Sulmo:na doing on the Sulmo:? Did they first name the town *Sulm-o-pon-ah2 'Overflow River' vel sim., then forget what it meant, and extract the river-name from the town, like Cam from Cambridge?

Oops, I was sorely mistaken. There was no ancient "Sulmo:na on the Sulmo:", and I should have checked references before posting. There were two ancient towns called Sulmo:, of which one became Sulmone or Sulmona in modern dialects, a trivial development having nothing to do with the matter at hand, namely ancient towns in -o:na.

What does involve the etymology of Cremo:na is that 'wild garlic' is reconstructed as an /u/-stem *kremh{x}u-, that there is a town Crema about halfway between Cremona and Milan (medieval Crema, I do not have an ancient reference), and that the ancient Cremo:nis Jugum 'Yoke of Cremo' referred to the Graian Alps. I think we are dealing with pre-Celtic nouns corradical with Greek <krema'nnu:mi> 'I hang up, allow to hang down, etc.'. Glaciated montane areas contain "hanging valleys" through which tributary glaciers moved.

Instead of forcing fanciful Celtic etymologies on Derto:na, Cremo:na, Vero:na, and the like, I would simply recognize that the pre-Gaulish IE languages of Cisalpine Gaul, namely Ligurian, Rhaetic, and Venetic, retained inherited */o:/ rather than shifting it to */a:/.

DGK