ara/ndano

[Larry Trask]

On Fri, 19 Mar 1999, Rick Mc Callister wrote:

[somebody else]

> >5/ Basque _arhan_, _aran_ 'plum' is obviously from continental Celtic
> >*agran(io)-, exactly as _andere, azkoin, bezu, izokin, gereta, mando_ etc.
> >are from Gaul. _andera:, bessu, eso:ks, cle:ta:, mandu,_ .

> 	I'd like to hear Larry Trask's opinion on the other words.

I've already posted some comments on the Basque words.

> 	It's my understanding that <andere> "lady" may NOT be from Celtic
> in that in Aquitanian, there seems to be a corresponding masculine form
> --something like <andoss>, from something like *<and + hotz>. Is that
> correct?

As I pointed out earlier, it is possible that <andere> and *<andots>
contain a stem *<and->.  Bot <hotz> `cold' cannot be present in
*<andots>.

> 	If so, is and- from the same root as <handi->? Presumibly the other
> morphemes mean "male, man" & "female, woman."

Michelena once suggested <handi> `big, great' as the stem of the
Aquitanian personal name ANDOSSUS.  It is still possible that <handi>
might be the stem of both <andere> and *<andots>, though I myself am
troubled by the fact that <handi> is strictly an adjective in the
historical period.  It is, at best, somewhat unusual for a personal name
in Basque to be based on an adjective, but there are nonetheless a
handful of certain or possible examples, so I can't rule it out.

Gorrochategui sees his *<andots> as containing the attested suffix
<-(d)ots>, which does indeed appear to mean `male' in one formation.
He needs a female suffix *<-ere> for which there exists no independent
evidence.

> 	Now, if this is so, could Celtic andera: be the reason that
> <andere> survived and <andoss> [sp?] didn't?

Don't see how.  Celtic seems to have died out in Gaul within a few
centuries of the Roman conquest.  The historical Basque word for `lord',
<jaun> is first recorded in the 14th century -- plenty of time for the
Basques to replace a few words for strictly internal reasons.  But who
knows?

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk