[gothic-l] Question about Catualda

[Alburysteve at AOL.COM]

Hi Frank:

> Actually, OHG <marah/mahre>, German <maere>, and Old Irish <marc> seem
>  likely to have been a word of German Origin borrowed into the Celtic
>  language, largely because of the /k/ (or "c") ending (the "h" in the OHG
>  forms).  D.H. Green writes in _Language and History in the Early Germanic
>  World_ (p. 148) "Although cognates are unknown elsewhere in IE, the
>  formation of animal names with a -g suffix suggests transmission through a
>  language which underwent the sound-shift of /g/ to /k/, which again is
safer
>  to identify as Germanic..."

This root is as widespread in Celtic (OIrish marc, MWelsh  march, and Gaulish
marco) which, from a cultural-(pre)historical perspective, makes a loan from
Germanic seem awkward.  Also, the Germanic forms show a terminal -h, not -k.
Of the IE sister languages, only Celtic and Germanic seem to retain it.  Buck
(A dictionary of selected synonyms in the principal indo-european languages
1949) mentions that the Germanic reflex stems from feminine derivation
(*markiha) connoting a wild rather than domestic animal.

Rgds,

Steve O'Brien
Albury, Ontario

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