Spanish substrate/A

[Larry Trask]

On Thu, 11 Mar 1999, Rick Mc Callister wrote:

> A while back I had threatened Larry, Miguel & Theo with this list
> Like the list for Germanic, these are only possibilities
> well, some are more possible than others
> some arrive via other languages, e.g. Latin
> Some will make Larry see red :>

Oh, I never see red. ;-)

> BUT I'm sure he will again be kind enough to send me corrections
> Some will be obvious errors to everyone but me :>
> Please excuse my typos

Just a few comments on the Basque items.

> Possible non-IE etymologies in Ibero-Romance /pre-1600

> abarca "sandal" s. X < pre-rom. [c]
> rel. con vasco abarka; raíz de alpargata [sandal] [c]
> pre-Romance, Basque origin [abi, wje]

Basque <abarka> denotes a kind of rustic sandal, traditionally a soft
leather moccasin held on by a cord passed through holes in the sandal
and wrapped around the calf.  The word is very probably native, but
cannot be monomorphemic, with that plosive in the third syllable.
The favorite guess sees it as a formation involving <abar> `branch(es)'
and a noun-forming suffix <-ka>.  This is semantically awkward, and
seems to require that ancestral abarkas were made of foliage -- not very
comfortable, I would have thought.

Words of somewhat similar form and sense are found in Ibero-Romance and
in Iberian Arabic.  There has long been a debate as to just how all
these words are related.  Spanish <alpargata> appears to show the Arabic
article, but the Arabic word itself might be borrowed either from
Romance or from Basque.

> agavanzo "wild rose' [PL]
> c. 1100 gabânso < pre-rom; [c]
> rel. con vasco gaparra, kaparra "zarza, chaparro" & gavarra, [c]
> aragonés garrabera, [c]
> gascón gabarro & gabardero [c]
> rel. to alcaparra [caper]? [rmcc]

The Basque word is actually <kapar> ~ <gapar>, with the form in /k-/
predominating, though <gaparra>, at least, is also recorded.  There is
yet another form, <sapar>, which has a very sparsely recorded variant
<zapar>.  There are also some other somewhat similar forms with vaguely
similar meanings, but these are thought to represent one or more
distinct words.

The word has been much discussed.  Lots of people would like to see it
as native Basque, but there are problems.  First, fluctuation in the
voicing of an initial plosive is usually a reliable guide to borrowed
status.  Unfortunately, there is one exception, and it's relevant here:
in Basque, a word-initial voiced plosive sporadically assimilates in
voicing to a voiceless plosive in the second syllable -- so <kapar>
might derive from <gapar> by just such voicing assimilation.

But then <gapar> itself is very odd: there are very few native and
monomorphemic Basque lexical items of the form CVC- in which both
consonants are plosives, and, in those that exist, both plosives are
normally voiced.  There are just three apparent exceptions in the
clearly native vocabulary: <bete> `full', <beti> `always' and <guti>,
originally `small' but today `few, little'.  The third has a simple
explanation: it's probably bimorphemic.  The other two are puzzles which
we've debated for years.

Accordingly, an original Basque *<gapar> is suspect on phonological
grounds.  And that still leaves the problem of <sapar> ~ <zapar>, for
which the only available explanation is somewhat tortuous.

> alud "mudslide" 1880 pre-rom; [c]
> rel. con vasco luta, lurte "desmoronamiento de tierras", [c]
> v. lur "tierra", elur "nieve" [c]

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.

> arándano "blueberry" 1726, s. XI "adelf" [sic] < ¿?, [c]
> compara con vasco arán "endrino" [c]
> pre-rom. raíz de arán [c]

Basque <aran> `plum' resembles various words in both Romance and Celtic,
but no direction of borrowing seems to be phonologically plausible.
According to the standard etymological dictionaries, the Romance words
require *<agranio>, while the Celtic ones require *<agrinja> -- neither
of which looks like an obvious relative of Basque <aran>.

> ardite "small coin" 1400 "moneda de poco valor" [c]
> gascón ardit < ¿? [c]
> rel. to Basque [wje]

Basque <ardit> is indisputably borrowed from a medieval Romance word, in
a perfectly regular way.  There is no evidence that the Basques used
coins before they encountered these in use among the Iberians and the
Romans, and every single Basque word pertaining to money is either
borrowed from Latin or Romance or calqued upon these languages.

> artesa "type of box" 1330 "cajón cuadrilongo de madera que es más angosto
> hacia el fondo" pre-rom.; [c]
> v. vasco artesi "grieta, agujero" [c]

Basque <artesi> has various senses, most of them denoting various kinds
of cracks or fissures on human or animal bodies.  The word is suspected
of being a derivative of the common word <arte> `interval, gap', but, if
so, the second element is obscure.  The Basque word does not denote any
kind of container.

> arto "cambronera" < Basque arte "scrub oak." [rl]

Actually, `holm oak', `holly oak', `evergreen oak'.

> ascua "live coal" 1251 "brasa viva" < ¿?, [c]
> v. vasco ausko-a < huats "ceniza" < pre-rom [c]
> Pre-Roman [wje]

Basque <ausko> means `bellows', and it is very likely derived from
<hauts> (thus) `dust, powder, ash'.  I don't have Corominas handy, but
this etymology looks a trifle hopeful.

> avión "airplane" c. 1330 "vencejo" < ¿gavión c. 1250? < ¿? [c]
> rel to Latin apis? [rmcc]

No Basque here, but I'm certainly startled to see a word for `airplane'
figuring in a discussion of supposedly pre-Roman words.

> azcona "dart" 1200-50 Iberia, occ. & vasco < ¿?, [c]
> v. vasco azkon, antes aucona s. XII [c]

The word is puzzling and much discussed.  The fact that the word is
reported as <aucona> in the 12th century (by Picaud, a French pilgrim)
is even more baffling.  Picaud's other transcriptions are mostly pretty
accurate.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk