andera 'woman' Celtic ?

[Xavier Delamarre]

I confess that the celticity of _*andera_ 'woman' (found in French
dialects) is extremely uncertain.Moreover there is another Gaulish
_andero-_ in the inscription of Chamalière : _brixtia anderon_ "by the
magic of the  infernals" (anderon : genitive plur.), which is, for sure, IE
and Celtic, making an exact phonetic equation with Latin _inferus_ O.Ind.
_adhara-_ < IE _*ndhero-_ "d'en-bas, d'en-dessous, infernal".

But words like _izokin_ < _eso:ks_ "salmon", _mando_ < _mandu-_
(Mandu-essedum, Mandu-bracius) "mule", and most probably, with unexplained
loss of initial, _azkoin_ < _tasgo-_ "badger" (on which see the beautiful
article by Joshua Katz in a recent issue of HS), show the early contacts
between continental Celts and (proto-)Basques.

X. Delamarre
Ljubljana