`Sancho'

[Larry Trask]

On Tue, 9 Mar 1999, Rick Mc Callister wrote:

[on Basque <haizkora> `ax' and <saindu> `sacred'

> And in the case of saindu, much the same would have happened in that
> sanctu /sanktu/ > *santyu which in Spanish from the Basque region
> became the common name Sancho [it became common name Santo,
> noun/adjective santo everywhere else]

> and in Basque *santyu > *sayntu > saindu /sayndu/ [or is it
> /san~du/?] My reconstruction is probably missing something but the
> same metathesis of /y/ is there, right?

Debatable.  The form <Sancho> is Spanish.  The medieval Basque form of
the name is <Antso>, which must derive from *<Santso> by dissimilatory
loss of the first sibilant.  And I don't see why this form would develop
from a palatalized coronal (/ts/ notates an apical affricate).

There is no need to appeal to a Romance palatal to account for the
Basque /ai/.  For example, the word for `fast, quick, soon' was mostly
<laster> in the 16th century but is mostly <laister> today.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk