Basque <(h)anka>

roslyn frank roz-frank at uiowa.edu
Sat Mar 4 16:51:50 UTC 2000


At 01:42 PM 3/2/00 +0000, Larry Trask  wrote:

>>  Roz Frank writes:

>>  [on Basque <(h)anka> 'haunch', 'leg' (and other senses)]

>>>  There does seem to be a good case that could be made for <(h)anka> being
>>>  related to the French/Romance forms mentioned above and consequently a
>>>  recent borrowing.

>>  Overpowering, I'd say.

>>>  But what is one to make of the Basque word <zango>
>>>  (<zanga-> in composition) that means 'leg, foot, calf' and its
>>>  phonological
>>>  variant in <zanko, zankho> (<zanka-> in composition) with the same
>>>  meanings?

>>  The word is <zanko> or <zanka> in Zuberoan, <zango> in the rest of the
>>  French Basque Country, and usually <zanko> south of the Pyrenees, though
>>  <zango> in High Navarrese.  The widespread presence of <zanko> in the south
>>  is clear evidence of a late borrowing, since an inherited *<zanko> would
>>  have developed regularly to *<zango> in the early medieval period -- as
>>  indeed has happened in much of the north, in which this voicing process
>>  seems to have persisted longer than elsewhere.  The combining form
>>  <zanka->, of course, is perfectly regular in Basque.

>>  The word variously means 'paw', 'foot', 'leg', 'calf', according to region,
>>  with various transferred senses in places, such as 'track' (of a game
>>  animal) and 'jack' (in cards).

>>  The source of the word is clear.  It is the very widespread Romance word
>>  which appears in Castilian Spanish as <zanca> 'calf', 'leg (of a bird)',
>>  'shank', and, according to Corominas, also 'stilt'.  Castilian also has
>>  an altered form <zanco> 'stilt'.  The same word occurs in Portuguese,
>>  Mozarabic, Catalan, and perhaps elsewhere, with a range of senses
>>  including 'wooden shoe', 'kind of sandal', and 'stilt', at least.
>>  (I'm not sure if Italian <zampa> 'leg (of an animal)', 'paw', 'foot'
>>  represents the same word or not.  Anybody know?)

So, according to this version of events, what we have are two Basque words,
both borrowed but from totally different sources. The first would be
<(h)anka> that would be borrowed first from one of the adjoining Romance
dialects and then these Romance dialect(s), in turn, would have borrowed
their expression from an unattested Frankish etymon whose prior existence
is posited on reflexes of <haunch> (Eng.) in Germanic. In short, in the
case of <(h)anka> its source would be traced back to the Frankish term and
that story ends there.

>>  This word is derived by Corominas from a late Latin <zanca> 'kind of shoe'
>>  (no asterisk, according to Corominas).  And this he traces to Old Persian
>>  <zanga-> 'leg', the source of modern Persian <zang> 'leg'.  He proposes
>>  that the Persian word was carried west into Europe by cobblers, especially
>>  since (he says) shoes were an eastern invention which passed into Europe
>>  via Persia.

Then we have a different story that explains the source/etymon for the
Basque word <zanko/zanga-/zango/zanga->. That story argues that the Basque
word was borrowed from a Romance language or languages in the early Middle
Ages. And that the Romance terms, in turn, can be traced to a Wanderwort
brought in by cobblers who got it from Old Persian, i.e., from <zanga->.
That means that the ultimate origin of <zanko> (Basque) is an Old Persian
word <zanga-> meaning 'leg'. But the story (see option #1 discussed below)
does not posit any relationship between A and B, between the source for
<(h)anka> and that of <zanka>.

Stated dfferently, the scenario in question would posit that <(h)anka>
(Basque) deriverom <anca> (Spanish), related in turn to <hanche> (Fr.)
and naturally <haunch> (Eng.). But this scenario alleges that there is no
relationship whatsoever between these two terms and the expression <shank>
(Eng.): '1) the part of the human leg between the knee and ankle or the
corresponding part in other vertebrates; 2) the whole leg of a man; 3) a
cut of meat from the leg of a steer, calf, sheep, or lamb; 4) the long
narrow part of a nail or pin; 5) a stem, stalk, or similar part'. The
relationship between <shank> (Eng.) and <zanca> (Sp.) as well as <anca>
(Sp.) is noteworthy since the terms are used to refer to a similar part of
human and animal anatomy.

The AHD gives the following under <shank>: "*skeng- 'crooked. Germanic
*skanko- 'that which bends,' leg, in Old English <sc(e)anca>, shinbone,
shank. [Pok. (s)keng- 930]." Are there other reflexes in IE languages of
<shank>, i.e., outside of Germanic?  In short, we have an unattested
Germanic *skanko- that according to the AHD is unrelated to the other
Germanic etymon: haunch 1) the hip, buttock and upper thigh in man and
animals; 2) the loin and leg of an animal
 [From] Middle English ha(u)nche
from Old French <hanche> from Germanic <hanka> (unattested)."

Also, what evidence is there, when the item means 'leg' in Old English, for
defining the prototype meaning of the term as "crooked" and/or "that which
bends". Where are the concrete data supporting this
interpretation/reconstruction? Was it Pokorny or another inventive
philologist who decided/decreed that 'leg' originally meant 'crooked' or
'that which bends'? Is there other evidence that could be employed to
support this interpretation?

One also notes that unattested Germanic items are given precedence while
there seems to have been little discussion of the possibility that both the
Germanic unattested forms and the Basque and Romance attested forms could
have arisen from a common substrate/areal effect that was overlaid by the
influence of a Wanderwort dating back only to the Middle Ages (as
summarized in option #2 below).

Moreoever, previously on the IE-list there has been 1) discussion of
substrate elements in Germanic and 2) discussion of the number and sorts of
languages in which an item needs to be attested before it can be a
candidate for (P)IE status. From those discussions it would seem that at
best the reflexes of *hanka nor *skanko- might make these proposed etyma be
candidates for some areal effect, but not for PIE status. I state this
basing my interpretation on the fact that, to my knowledge, neither of
these two IE items has been related to the Old Persian etymon cited by
Corominas as the source for the or Romance and Basque items in <zanka>, et.
al.

Before we examine Corominas' theory about cobblers and Old Persian
(included in option #1 below), we need to consider the way that prototypic
meanings operate. The present scenario, according to Corominas, requires an
Old Persian word meaning 'leg' to pass into Romance and once there to
acquire the more specialized meanings of 'stilt' or 'long skinny leg-like
appendage', e.g., like the 'leg (of a bird)' or 'shank'. Euskera would have
borrowed the term early on and kept both meanings. Such a shift in the
prototypic meaning, i.e., from general to specific, would be a normal and
expected development.

However, it would be far more convincing if the same term showed up in
other IE languages of the same geographic zone, since one assumes that the
cobblers were a guild and the Wanderwort went along with them irrespective
of what the local language was. In other words, if we seek out a point
source for the Romance and Basque items, alleging that they all derive from
an Old Persian etymon, we need to explain why the same expressions don't
show up in many other IE languages. Or perhaps they do?

That is, they would 'show up' if one were to accept that <shank> (Eng.) and
the Old English reflex of it meaning 'leg' were cognate with the Old
Persian <zanga->. It seems tme that the case would be even stronger if
one were to argue that <haunch> (Eng.) along with the Romance and Basque
reflexes of it, form part of the same morpho-semantic field (MSF). In such
a reconstruction of linguistic events, the two Basque items <(h)anka> and
<zanko> would pertain to the same MSF although the former would be
perceived as a more recent borrowing from the Romance languages adjacent to
Basque. In this scenario the status of (or domain occupied by) <zanko>
(Basque) within the translingual MSF would be less clear.

If, for example, one accepts the story told by Corominas about the path
that brought an Old Persian Wanderwort into Romance languages, one must ask
why the cobblers didn't stop off in Germanic speaking lands first? Or, in
contrast to what Pokorny, et. al. have alleged with respect to this data,
could we consider another option: the possibility that we  talking about a
MSF that has several reflexes showing up: in modern English as  <shank> and
 <haunch>, in Romance as <zanca> and <anca> and in Basque as <zanko>
(<zanka-> in composition) and <anka>?

In summary, it seems to me that there are several approaches open to us if
we accept that proposing several options might correspond better to the
fuzzy nature of the data itself: These options might be phrased in the
following way:

1) to accept the rather complex stories that have been told to explain all
of these items, alleging a different origin for each (<haunch> comes from
an unattested Germanic etymon; <shank> from another unattested Germanic
etymon; and the Romance <zanca> from yet another, an Old Persian etymon
<zanga->);

2) to allege that the western European variants (<haunch> (Eng.), <shank>
(Eng.) and <zanca> (Sp.) are related to each other and can be explained by
complex substrate influences (perhaps including the role of a Wanderwort
that also meant 'stilt) that also gave rise to the Basque <zanka>;

3) to allege that the western European variants are related to each other
and that they all derive from a single Persian Wanderwort that was brought
into the west by cobblers. For the latter scenario to become more
convincing, one ought be able to identify reflexes of the Old Persian
lexeme in other western European languages. Again, I offer these three
options as possible ways of modeling the data.

Now it may well be that a particular type of shoe was brought in from
Persia, but shoes in general seem to date back beyond the Middle Ages. Now
would this scenario require the first cobblers moving into Europe to be
Persian? Or, for example, would this simulation of the data mean that at
some part there was contact between a guild of European-born cobblers and
those speaking Farsi? Certainly it would require cobblers to have adopted
an Old Persian word for 'leg' at some point. And as is well known, there
are other words for 'leg' in IE languages so if we are talking about
cobblers working in Europe with access to an IE language with a word for
'leg', they wouldn't have had any pressing need to acquire this word from
their Persian colleagues. On the other hand, one might imagine a scenario
in which the use of an 'exotic' term, could enhance the specialized
vocabulary of the cobblers' guild. Obviously, if one is talking about a
guild, then we must project a medieval backdrop to the Wanderwort's
activities. And if we chose this option (3), since the Romance languages
date back to the Middle Ages, the Wanderwort would have had to enter the
area after these linguistic systems were in place. Again, what I am trying
to do is draw out and make visible the underlying assumptions that strike
me as being implicit in options # 1 and # 3.

On the other hand, the connection between <zanca> and a 'wooden-shoe' in
Romance seems to be fairly peripheral to the term's prototypic meaning.
Rather one might argue that it was the use by shepherds of special stilts
that allowed them to travel rapidly and keep their feet dry that may have
played a role here in terms othe technological innovation that spread the
word about. Of course, it would be difficult to pin-point the location
where such an invention first came into being for I am aware that there are
a number of locations in southwestern France and northern Spain where
amazing feats are performed while the dancers/shepherds whirl about mounted
on their <zancas>.

On the other hand, again following the lines of argument laid down by
Corominas, the cobblers who preferred <zanga-> to whatever the word was for
'leg' in their native tongue, came to the west and introduced it into the
geographical region called Spain and Portugal today. There perhaps they
whittled away making tall stilt-like wooden-shoes for the local populations
and teaching them a special term for them. Thus, the expression was picked
up by the locals sometime in the Christian era as the incipient Romance
tongues were emerging.

On that note, we should mention that Meyer-Lübke (9598) offers a slightly
different version for he gives the meaning of <zanca> (pers.) as 'Schuh'
citing Ait. <zanca> 'Bein, Fufs, Schaft'; <zanche> 'Stelzein', Fühlhörner,
comask. <txanc> 'Holzschuhe', prov. Sanca 'Kothurn', sp. <zanca> 'Bein',
<zanco> 'Stelze', zancas 'Schuh mit Hotzsohle, pg. <sanco> 'Bein des Vogels
von der klaue bis zum ersten Gelenk,' et. al. This version fits better with
the prototypic meanings of <zanca> and allows for 'high wooden shoe' to
become conflated with 'very tall shoes' or 'stilts' and or 'skinny legs'.
However, again we should note that for Basque, one would have to propose a
further evolution, that the word entered Basque meaning 'a type of high
wooden shoe' and/or 'a type of stilts' and then took on the meaning of
'leg'. And once again we are confronted with the question of whether or not
there is a larger MSF operating here that would comprise <shank> and
<hanch> along with the items cited by Meyer-Lübke and the Old Persian
lexeme in its earlier (?) meaning of 'leg'.

In closing I would mention that Meyer-Lübke (9598) also lists "nordostit.
<tsanko>, engad. <tschanc> and <friaul. <tsanko> 'linkshändig, links'" in
the sense of 'clumsy, akward'; similar to the meaning of Spanish
<zancajoso>. Are these exceptions to be understood as extensions of the
meanings associated with the image schema of someone walking on tall wooden
shoes or stilts?  Or are we still talking also about 'skinny wobbly legs'
and/or 'shanks'?? In summary, are we to reconstruct three different
morpho-semantic fields or is there a possibility that the three fields form
part of a larger and more complex MSF. That option doesn't deny the role of
the Persian Wanderwort, but rather would incorporate it into a larger
explanatory paradigm for the etyma in question.

Finally, what is interesting about this Wanderwort is the fact that a
careful review of the history of foot-ware in Europe could allow us to
determine the port of entry of the word. From the little that I know of
that topic, the fashion of wearing 'high wooden shoes' would have moved
along a vertical axis from the upper classes to the lower classes, the
upper classes having greater access to exotic foreign goods and being more
attune to the winds of fashion. From there the shoes, along with the exotic
term for them, would have made their way down to the lower echelons of
society, and finally both would have entered the vocabulary of shepherds
whose costume of wearing stilts to go about their everyday tasks may well
have antedated the arrival of the Persian expression. A careful examination
of the use of stilts would be needed to determine whether this assertion is
true. Or if, conversely, the shepherds didn't utilize stilts until after
they came into contact with outsiders/upper class gentry wearing tall
wooden shoes, etc. This interpretation of the Persian lexeme would connect
it directly with a type of shoe that reached western Europe, perhaps
through the marketing efforts of merchants operating out of Italy or
Catalunya. Indeed, there mig be some connection between these 'tall
shoes' and those referred to as <chapines> that became the rage in the
courts of Aragon, Navarre and Catalunya. As I vaguely recall reading
somewhere, the shoes were originally relatively modest in height, but the
fashion trend was to build them higher and higher, until some of them had
wooden or cork soles elevated three to four feet off the ground, an
advantage for the ladies of high blood for that way their dresses didn't
drag in the mud when they emerged from their carriages, but a problem, too,
since many of the ladies had to crouch down in order to fit themselves
through the openings of doorways constructed to accomodate normal-sized
mortals. And walking itself was a major problem unless one were accompanied
by a servant who could keep one from tripping.

Have a good day,
Roz



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