andera 'woman' Celtic ?

[Larry Trask]

On Sun, 28 Mar 1999, roslyn frank wrote:

[Miguel C V]

> >There are more possible examples.  Classics are Bq. hartz "bear"
> >~ Celtic *artos,

> This is a particularly interesting example.

It has been debated for generations whether Basque <hartz> `bear' might
be borrowed from Celtic *<artos> or from a related IE form (this `bear'
word is certainly IE).

The Celtic source is phonologically awkward, though: we would have
expected *<artos> to be borrowed as *<(h)artotz>, not as the observed
<hartz> -- assuming, of course, that it was the nominative that was
borrowed, but the accusative would be even less suitable.

One or two people have suggested an IE source other than Celtic, but no
IE language with an even vaguely suitable form of the word is known to
have been in contact with Basque.

Just to complicate matters, it is very unusual for a Basque lexical item
to end in a consonant cluster.  Save only for <beltz> `black', which we
have good reason to suppose is a syncopated form of earlier *<beletz>,
all seemingly native words which end in a cluster end in <-rtz>, like
<hartz> `bear' and <bortz> `five'.  There are some grounds for supposing
that these clusters too are secondary and result from some kind of vowel
loss, but the evidence is not sufficient to support this view securely.


Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk