---In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, <oalexandre@...> wrote :>
> > On Galician and dialectal Portuguese anaco (Portuguese naco, Spanish
añico), Coromines proposed as base a Celtic cognate of Latin pannus,*(p)anno-, so Galician / Portuguese (a)naco < *anna:kku 'piece (ofcloth) > piece (of something)', Galician esnacar ( < *ex-anakka:re ) 'totear into pieces', Spanish añico < *anni:kku idem (heard only in theexpression 'hacer añicos' = 'to tear into pieces').
>> Unfortunately, a link to Latin pannus can be ruled out because of thelack of Celtic cognates, not to mention semantic difficulties. In fact,Coromines proposed a root *ann- of unknown origin.
>
He said that in his Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, but at the same time he proposed a Celtic origin in the larger Diccionario crítico y etimológico español e hispánico (DCECH), coauthored with J.A. Pascual. So this would be one of the cases were Coromines contradicts himself.
> However, I think *a- in Galician-Portuguese (a)naco, Spanish añicosis probably a fossilized prefix. The latter reminds me of Latin mi:ca'particle; bit, scrap, pinch' > Spanish miga 'crumble'. From anexpressive variant *micca we've also got Catalan mica 'pinch' and esmicar (< *ex-micca:re), esmicolar 'to break into pieces'.
>
The form *mikka is also found in Occitan and Aragonese, with m- corresponding to n-, -nn- in *annakku ~ *nakku, *annikku.
> I think the Latin word is a substrate loanword whose original meaning was 'grain' vel sim.
>
I've deduced that meaning from Basque bikor, pikor 'grain, seed; garlic's section; chunk; peeble; grape (of fruits); a little', seemingly denasalized forms corresponding to mikor (S, R) 'fine bran', presumably derived from the Latin word.
It looks like we've got an alternation mīca ~ *mikka like the one of bāca ~ bacca.