Re: Portuguese, Spanish bode "buck"

At 5:27:48 PM on Friday, March 22, 2013, Tavi wrote:

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

>> 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.

> Actually, dialectal French bode 'ox' is semantically
> contradictory to your proposal, because oxen are
> *castrated* bulls.

Not necessarily. From the OED, entry updated March 2005:

A large cloven-hoofed, often horned ruminant mammal, Bos
taurus (family Bovidae), derived from the extinct Eurasian
aurochs and long domesticated for its milk, meat, and
hide; a cow, a bull; (in pl.) cattle. Freq. spec.: a
castrated adult male of this animal, esp. as used as a
draught animal; a bullock.

The more general sense is clear in Old English glosses like

Oues et boues uniuersa insuper et pecora campi: scep and
oxan all ec ðon & netenu feldes

and

Exemplo bouis: mið bisseno oxes

and such collocations as <Þrittig oxna & twentig cuna>.
Note also OHG ûr-ohso 'urus-ox', i.e., 'aurochs', and the
same variation is found in NGmc.

Reflexes of the same PIE root include Av. uxšan- 'bull',
Skt. ukṣán- 'bull', and MIr. oss 'stag, cow', probably
originally probably 'a bovine animal of any kind' according
to the DIL. The original sense seems to have been simply
'male bovine animal'.

Obviously none of this applies directly to <bode>, but it
shows the folly of relying on a stable distinction between
'bull' and 'castrated bull'.

> It also would also correspond to Basque idi 'ox' < *piti <
> *putV.

> There's no evidence of this word being Celtic, and I
> wonder why do you waste your time trying to make up an IE
> etymology for a non-IE word.

The Oracle has spoken: French dialect <bode> is non-IE!
Methinks the hillock hath labored and brought forth a
mouseling.

Brian