non-IE/Germanic/m

[Larry Trask]

On Sun, 21 Feb 1999, Rick Mc Callister wrote:

> Moos, mousse "foam" [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]
> moraine, Moräne "moraine",
> Mur[e] "pile of rocks [Bavarian]
> [?< Vasconic;
> see Basque murru "hill"] [tv97]

The form <murru> can hardly be ancient in Basque.  There exists a
sizeable number of severely localized Basque words of the form <murru>,
with very diverse meanings, but `hill' is not one of them.  The most
widespread sense (throughout the French Basque Country) is `wall'.
The closest to `hill' in sense is `pile, heap', reported nowhere but in
the Baztan valley.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk