Basque 'sei'

[Larry Trask]

On Mon, 27 Sep 1999, Max Wheeler wrote:

> Hold on a bit, we need to look at relative dating here. For how long
> has [sej] or similar been one of the allomorphs of 'six' in Gascon?
> The vocalization of /-s/ in some environments is common to all of
> Occitan (though not everywhere exactly the same environments, nor
> similar proportions everywhere). But it is relatively recent, i.e.
> post-Medieval, as far as one can tell.

> At what date is <sei> 'six' first attested in Basque, I wonder?

The first attestation dates from 1415, which is 130 years before the
first published Basque text, and very early indeed by the standards of
Basque documentation.  We may reasonably surmise that the word is
considerably older than that, but the Basque numeral-names are not in
general recorded before the 15th or 16th century.  The only numeral-name
recorded before the 15th century is <hiru> `three', in the 14th century
(precise date uncertain).  The second one to be recorded is in fact
<sei> `six'. This is recorded earlier than any of the remaining
numeral-names, including those for `one' and `two'.

> In Gascon [sej], as mentioned above, is a conditioned variant,
> before a small minority of the words before which 'six' can occur.
> If a low cardinal number is to be borrowed, isn't it far more likely
> to be the citation form, than a minor conditioned variant?

I agree entirely.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk