--- In Nostratica@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:

> Some more comments:
>
> >> uutru......spring.................iturri........source of water
> >>
> >> pani.......snow...................panin.........water
> >Are there any parallels for this semantic shift?
>
> Panina is a highly localized dialectal word, undoubtedly from

Romance.

> The Basque word for water is ur (**ud).

This last word might be related to Nostratic *wod (or is it *wed?),
e.g. PIE *wed (English water, Greek hudo:r 'water') and some
Dravidian cognates which I got from
http://www.datanumeric.com/dravidian/page082.html , viz ud- = to
become wet, be soaked (743-Konda); ud- = to become wet (Pengo); ud- =
to get wet (Manda); ud = to become wet, damp (Kuwi); odde = moisture,
wetness, dampness, wet (1047-Kannada); vedde = moist, wet (Tulu).
(The numbers refer to entries in 'A Dravidian Etymological
Dictionary' by T. Burrow and M. B. Emeneau; Clarendon Press, Oxford -
Second Edition - 1984.) Alas, the web document doesn't give any
Tamil forms!

For one view of the relationship of Basque and Nostratic, see
http://glen_gordon.tripod.com/LANGUAGE/origin.html . The family
containing the Basque language(s) is called 'Vasconic'.

Richard.