alud

[Larry Trask]

On Mon, 15 Mar 1999, Rick Mc Callister wrote:

[LT]

> >Basque <luta> ~ <lurta> ~ <lurte> `landslide, mudslide' is real enough,
> >and is obviously a derivative of <lur> `earth'.  This has the regular
> >combining form <lu-> in old formations, so the variants in <lur-> are
> >probably recent re-formations.  It's not clear to me how the Basque word
> >would give rise to Romance <alud>.  As for Basque <elur> `snow', this is
> >hardly likely to be related to <lur>: there are major problems with the
> >phonology, with the morphology, and with the semantics.

> But if <alud> had a different origin, I could see how, in the Pyrenees,
> <alud> and <luta> ~ <lurta> ~ <lurte> could have influenced one another
> in the minds of bilingual speakers--but that's supposing a lot
> OR the possibility that <luta> ~ <lurta> ~ <lurte> could be a "folk
> etymology" of <alud> by Basque speakers --or is that too far out?

Interesting question.  I've done a little digging, and it turns out that
there is a substantial literature on these words, with varying views.
Here's a brief summary.

First, the Basque word is confined entirely to the four eastern dialects
Low Navarrese, Zuberoan, Salazarese and Roncalese; it is unrecorded
elsewhere.  All four of these dialects are spoken in or next to the
Pyrenees.

Second, the Basque word appears variously as <lurta>, <luta>, <lurte>,
with a variant <lita> also recorded without provenance, and two further
variants recorded only in Roncalese, <lirta> and <alurta>.  Roncalese is
the easternmost dialect, deepest into the Pyrenees, and it often
exhibits Romance words and forms unknown in other varieties of Basque,
as well as a number of idiosyncrasies of its own.  At this point, my
guess would be that the odd <alurta> represents a cross between the
Basque word and the Romance word, but see below.

Third, <lur> `earth' has the regular combining form <lu-> in old
formations, but <lur-> in newer ones.  The noun-forming suffix <-te> is
common in Basque, and semantically appropriate in this formation.  But
<-ta> is another matter: save only in Roncalese, where <-te> itself has
the variant <-ta>, no such noun-forming suffix as <-ta> is known in
Basque.

Fourth, the following Romance forms are reported from the area in the
sense of `landslide':

Castilian <alud>
Bielsa <lit> (sorry; don't know what this is)
Bearnais <glout>, <aglout> (I presume <gl> is a palatal lateral)
Bearnais <lu"rt>, <lurt>, <luro>, <lur>
Aragonese <lurte>
Gascon <lurt>, <lit(s) terre`ra>

Now, how to interpret this?

The Romanist Gerhard Rohlfs sees the Romance forms, or at least some of
them, as borrowed from Basque, and he sees the Basque word as a
derivative of <lur> `earth'.

The Romanist Joan Coromines sees the word as being of "pre-Roman"
origin, with the Basque word and the Castilian word (at least)
independently continuing the pre-Roman source.  He proposes a
prehistoric word *<lu:te>, contaminated in some cases by Basque <lur>
and/or by Basque <elur> `snow'.  But he also believes that not all the
Romance forms can be traced to a single etymon, and he therefore
concludes that we must be looking at at least two distinct original
formations.

The Vasconist and Romanist Gerhard Baehr likewise believes that the data
represent two distinct prehistoric words, with one continued as Basque
<lur> (and as some Romance forms), and the other continued as Basque
<elur> (and other Romance forms).

The Vasconists Agud and Tovar, in contrast, prefer to see only a single
pre-Roman source as accounting for all the Basque and Romance words;
they propose *<lu:te> ~ *<lu:ta> ~ *<lur(to)>.

Well, you pays your money...

As a postscript, the Romanist Hubschmid suspects that the place name
<Lou'tia> mentioned by Pliny, and the place names <Alutiae> and
<Talutium>, mentioned in Roman sources, may contain the word or words
under discussion.  And Corominas wants to include also the place name
<Llarts> in Andorra.  (Andorra is Catalan-speaking today, but was
probably Basque-speaking once.)

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk