Re: bidet

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

>
> why is there Bq. borondate from Lat. (acc.) volunta:tem?
>
> > Because this word was borrowed from a non-Basque Pyrenaic language
> > which kept the labial stop, as in pullus > pullo (L, LN, Z), pollo (Z),
> > pollu (Z) 'donkey', also with variants where Latin -ll- is rendered
> > into a palatal stop /c/ : potto (Bazt), pottoko (Bazt) 'colt, young
> > horse', pottoka (L, LN) 'mare'.
> >
> > This submerged Pyrenaic language, whose remains can be found in the
> > Aragonese and Bearnese Romances, as well as in Basque itself, has been
> > studied by linguists such as Elcock and García de Diego.
>
> Obviously I have nothing against "submerged languages" (i.e. substrates), but is not some oddity in Basque. Its importance in ordinary speech suggests that it was adapted directly from Latin by bilingual speakers.
>

But the suffix -itate was also appended to non-Latin lexemes such as pegor (LN) 'sterile, poor' (cfr. leihor, legor 'dry') in pegorritate (LN) 'extreme misery'. As this is extremely rare within Basque (I know no other examples), I must conclude the source language must be Romance.

> I do not rule out the same source for <pago> 'beech tree', specifically the
> Gaulish accusative *ba:gon. The Lat. acc. <fa:gum> should have given Bq. *pagu, and Romance
> either *fago or (if it > came through Gascon) *(h)ago.
>

Basque pago, phago, fago, bago are different adaptations from Romance *fago, corresponding to Aragonese fabo, fau. And the Aragonese form fayo < Latin fa:geu- is the base of the Alavese toponym Payueta 'beech wood'.

> Aragonese forms with -k- not -g- appear to delineate territory that was
> still Basque-speaking when the local Romance intervocalic stops became
> voiced. The same goes for Bearnais -k- against -g-. When these chunks
> of territory became Romance-speaking, they borrowed the Basque term for
> 'wart', itself of Latin origin.
>
> > I disagree, as the word isn't attested at all in Basque outside
> > Roncalese. The source must be an extinct language, which García de
> > Diego (following Elcock) named "Pyrenaic". Other Basque words with
> > intervocalic voiceless stops might also have been borrowed from Pyrenaic.
>

For example, in addition to its native form fuen 'source; basin, font', Aragonese has also fuente, fuande from Pyrenaic. The corresponding Basque forms are ponte (G), ponde (G, HN) 'baptismal font' and the derivative *ponteko 'god-' in aita-ponteko (B, G), aita-punteko (G), aita-pundako (B) 'godfather', ama ponteko (G) 'godmother', semeponteko (G) 'godchild', whose semantics suggests it entered into Basque along Christianization.