--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Bhrihskwobhloukstroy <bhrihstlobhrouzghdhroy@...> wrote:
>
> A Celtic origin would be phonetically implied by a comparison with
> Bavarian butz, butzel 'person or animal charatcterized by a short and
> thick form' < Germanic *butti-z, *buttila-z < PIE *bhud-n'i-s,
> *bhud-n'i-lo-s: PIE *bhud-n'i-s > Celtic *buddi-s >
> Proto-Ibero-Romance *bodde
>
With the accent after the cluster I would expect Celt. *butti-s by Stokes' Law. If the accent fell before the cluster I would expect *buddi-s by what I provisionally (perhaps inappropriately) call MacBain's Law. However, goats are not particularly short and thick.
Male goats establish dominance by butting heads (much like historical linguists). Pokorny explained Old Prov. _bust_ 'tree stump' on the basis of Gaul. *bu:stis (= Lat. _fu:stis_ 'club, cudgel') from PIE *bHu:d-sti-s, with the same root as OE _be:atan_ 'to beat', _by:tel_ 'hammer', etc. (Thus he answered the question raised by Meyer-Luebke under REW 1422.) This root appears to be *bHeuh2/4d-, with normal grade colored and shortened to *bHaud- in Western IE, zero-grade *bHu:d-.
Now in Goth. _athns_, Lat. _annus_ 'year' we have an active paroxytone deverbative *h2/4'et-no-s from a root *h2/4et- 'to go around, make a circuit' vel sim. A parallel deverbative from 'beat' would be PIE *bH'euh2/4d-no-s > WIE *bH'audno-s > Celt. *bauddo-s (if I am right about the soundlaws governing such clusters).
Gaulish, like Latin, formed first-declension masculine names from characteristics. Perhaps *Baudda 'Beater' became the typical name applied to the dominant male in a herd of horned animals. This would become French dial. _bode_ 'Rind' (which M.-L. tentatively explains "mit anderem Vokal" under REW 1182a _bod_ 'Schallwort zur Bezeichnung des Dicken'). But perhaps the original sense of Fr. dial. _bode_ was 'dominant horned male in a herd', and this passed into use by Sp. and Pg. goatherds. Eventually the sense was weakened to 'male horned animal' and specialized to cattle or goats.
DGK