Plosive-liquid clusters in euskara borrowed from IE?

[Larry Trask]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

On Fri, 27 Aug 1999, Jon Patrick wrote:

[JP earlier]

>>> But I am saying that words we have today that are not identified as
>>> having any alternative history could be fairly considered for
>>> informing about early euskara.

[LT]

>> Here I can't agree.  I have the gravest reservations about including
>> words not recorded before 1871, or before 1935; about including words
>> found nowhere but in Larramendi's dictionary or in Hiribarren's
>> dictionary; about including words recorded only in one small area; about
>> including words reported only by the Dutch linguist van Eys or only by
>> the Spanish polymath Hervas y Panduro; about including all sorts of
>> things which, in my view, are deeply suspect for one reason or another.

[JP]

> I think you position is extremely conservative. My response is as above.

OK.  Let's consider two fairly extreme cases.  Basque <buru> `head' is
abundantly attested in all varieties at all periods; it is first
attested in 1042 (exceptionally early by Basque standards); it forms
numerous compounds and derivatives; it appears in many surnames and
place names, some of them attested in the Middle Ages; and it does not
appear to be shared with any other known language.

But Basque <margo> `color' is first attested only in about 1800; it is
recorded *only* in a book written by the Spanish writer Hervas y
Panduro, who himself knew no Basque; it is attested nowhere else at all
before the 1890s, when the Basque nationalists discovered it in Hervas's
book and started using it, since when it has become established in the
language; it occurs in no Basque text written before the 1890s and in no
dictionary before 1905; it forms no derivative recorded until well into
the 20th century.  So, even though the word is commonplace today, our
sole authority for its historical reality is Hervas

Now, I take the following view.  Basque <buru> is a maximally strong
candidate for native and ancient status, and must be included in any
list of the type I propose.  But <margo> is quite otherwise: its native
and ancient status is dubious in the extreme, and it must be excluded
from my list.

Of course, the evidence does not *prove* that <margo> is not native and
ancient.  It merely makes the word a feeble candidate for such status.

Does anybody see anything unreasonable about this?

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk