--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "stlatos" <sean@...> wrote:
>
> citrum = fragrant wood of the citrus tree, citrus L; kédros =
cedar/juniper, kédron = juniper berry G;
>
According to Ernout-Meillet, Latin citrus designates two different kinds
of tree, 'thuja' (Greek kédros) and 'citron' (Greek kítron), and
citrum is 'thuja wood'. They also suggest citrus could be linked to
kédros through an Etruscan intermediate.
As mentioned on this list
(
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/51755), this looks
like a Wanderwort ultimately related to Semitic *k.utr- 'smoke, incense'
http://newstar.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=/data/sem\
ham/semet&text_number=3078&root=config
Starting from IE *kwep- 'smoke, odour' (> Latin vapor 'steam'), Georgiev
devised a similarly motivated Pre-Greek etymology for kupárissos
'cypress', although I find this unlikely, not only for phonetic reasons
(we should expect Greek ph here), but also for semantic ones, as this
would be a *substrate* loanword reflecting the autochthonous name of the
tree.
A possible long-range cognate would be Japonic *kàpài (-ia) 'a k.
of cypress or thuja' (> Old Japanese kap(j)e, Middle Japanese
kàfè), whose purported Altaic etymology (EDAL 793) we'd better
ignore. And in case you were interested, IE *kwep- would correspond to
Altaic *gju:be 'to smoke, to roast' (EDAL 537) > Japonic *káw@´r-
'to smell, to fumigate'.
Starostin also proposes NEC *GHabriSwE 'gooseberry' (NCED 2174) as a
cognate, although I'm not sure. In fact, NEC *-iSwE ~ Greek -isso- would
be a fossilized phytonym root corresponding to Semitic *?\i:s^.- 'tree'.
http://newstar.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=/data/sem\
ham/semet&text_number=+725&root=config