`zebra'

[Steve Gustafson]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

>All this brings us back to Europe, and I think the fact, brought to our
>attention again by May Wheeler, but mentioned before, that actually we have
>forms like (en)zebro, (en)zebra, ezebra, azebra, cebrario, ezebrario for the
>"wild ass" in Old Spanish and Old Portuguese. This is usually taken as going
>back to Latin /equifer/. Someone (I forgot who) objectioned that this
>etymology requires an intermediary state *ecifer- and found no motivation for
>the -qu- > -c- development.

Some of these look like they might be more plausibly derived from, or
at least contaminated by, Latin -asinu(m)-, the ass.

I am not that familiar with Ibero-Romance philology to know exactly
what the circumstances are that changed proto-Romance -inV to -brV,
but the examples of

homine(m) > hombre
femina(m) > hembre

might go further in explaining how

-asinu(m)- ?> -ezebra-.

In this case the problematic compound *equifera would no longer be
needful.

---
With wind we blowen; with wind we lassun;
With weopinge we comen; with weopinge we passun.
With steringe we beginnen; with steringe we enden;
With drede we dwellen; with drede we wenden.
                                  ---- Anon, Lambeth Ms. no. 306

[ moderator snip ]