Re: Celtic *Flanda: 'heath, uncultivated land'

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

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" tgpedersen@ wrote:
> >
> > At any rate, a similar correspondence seems to be
> > attested in PGmc. *landa-, cf. Goth., ON land, OE land, lond, OS land,
> > OHG, MHG, MLG lant, OFris. lond, land, MDu. lant "land" (beside
> > *lendjo: in Swedish Dial. linda "fallow land", *lund- in ON lundr
> > "grove"), as against Russian ljadá "overgrown field" (cf. also
> > OPruss. lindan "valley"). The a-vocalism is also found in Celtic, cf. OIr.
> > land "open place", Welsh llann "piece of land". In spite of a possible
> > reconstruction PIE *londh-yo- (Pokorny 1959: 675), this geographical
> > term only has a limited geographical distribution and is suspect of
> > being a substratum word (cf. also Polomé 1990: 335). It appears to
> >  be attested in Basque landa "field", Catalan llanda "plain" (cf.
> > Scardigli apud Lehmann 1986, s.v. land).
>
> I agree this is a Celtic Wanderwort which spread to Germanic and Slavic,
> although IMHO the Baltic word doesn't belong here:
> Celtic *nantu- 'valley, brook'
> Uralic *lamti 'low land'
> NEC *tts^HwemV 'liquid' (where s^ represents a voiceless lateral
> fricative)
>
> On the other hand, the Catalan form is actually landa 'heath', surely a
> borrowing from French lande id., in turn a direct descendant of Gaulish
> *landa:. There's also the Basque collective form landar (Biscayan)
> 'uncultivated land', which along Gaulish suggests the original meaning
> was 'heath, uncultivated land'.
>

There're also Cornish lan and Breton lann 'heath, steppe'.

> I'd compare the Celtic word with Gascon brana, branda 'heath', leading
> to reconstructing a voiceless labial fricative /F/ (quoted as /f/ by
> some authors) in the protoform *Flanda:.
>

This word would be *quasi-homonymous* to Celtic *landa: 'field' mentioned above.