At 6:19:34 PM on Tuesday, December 11, 2012, Rick
McCallister wrote:
> To my intuition, English sprinkle, Spanish pringar (to
> stain in little dots, moisten with water before ironing,
> etc.), English freckle and Gaelic breic (sp?) "spotted,
> freckled", seem to be related.
<Freckle> is from ME <freknes> 'freckles', probably of
Scand. origin (ON <freknóttr> 'freckled'). Watkins assigns
both this and <sprinkle> to PIE *(s)preg- 'to jerk,
scatter'.
Although the /b/ is unexpected, Matasović derives OIr.
<brecc> from PIE *prk'- 'speckled' via PCelt. *brikko-
'speckled', with IE cognates Skt. pŕśni- 'mottled, speckled'
and Gk. perknós. Watkins, on the other hand, assigns it to
*(s)preg-, thereby making it kin to <freckle> and to
<sprinkle>.
Brian