Q: Romance etymon?

[Larry Trask]

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This is an etymological query, directed mainly at Romanists.

There is a Basque word of the form <lanabes(a)>, with recorded
variants <lanabas(a)>, <lanibesa>, and <lanbesa>.  The word is
a collective noun, meaning 'tools', 'toolset', 'toolkit'.  There
is disagreement among textual sources as to whether that final
/a/ is part of the stem or not.

The word is recorded from 1627 -- rather early, by Basque standards --
and it is chiefly found in the French Basque Country, though it is
also attested south of the Pyrenees.

Its etymology is unknown.  Most investigators have tried to see it
as a derivative of the common Basque noun <lan> 'work', but this
is phonologically and morphologically difficult, and anyway the
supposed second element would be unidentifiable.  The standard
suggestion is Basque <beso> 'arm', but this phonologically
very poor and semantically unpersuasive.

In fact, the word just doesn't *look* like a native Basque word,
and I suspect a borrowing from Romance -- quite possibly from
Occitan, the most usual source of Romance loans into northern Basque.
But I can't find a source.

Does anybody know of a Romance item which might provide a source?
It is possible that the Romance article has been incorporated into
the Basque word, and so we might be looking at something along
the lines of *<la naves> or *<l'anabas>, rather than *<lanabes>.
(A Romance /v/ would be borrowed as Basque /b/.)

Any suggestions gratefully received.  Best I've been able to come up
with so far is Castilian <la navaja> 'the knife', which is
phonologically only fair and semantically rather disappointing.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk