Basque *<bil> 'round'

[Eduard Selleslagh]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry Trask" <larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2000 5:04 PM

> Ed Selleslagh writes:
> [on my puzzlement over a suggested PIE source]

>> What I meant was this (I'm sorry for having been so elliptic), and you may
>> agree or not: *kwekwlo (or *kwekulo) looks to me like a reduplicated form,
>> probably inspired by the reconstruction from Grk. kyklos. Indeed, it is the
>> logical thing to assume if you try to reconstruct from Germanic (Eng. wheel,
>> or Du. wiel < hwi:l- < *kwelo), and we know the Old Greek tendency to
>> reduplication and insertion of quasi-dummy syllables for basically
>> 'prosodic' reasons, like in the sigmatic aorist etc. So, it is not
>> unreasonable to assume (no hard evidence!!) that *kwelo gave rise to a
>> Basque re-interpretation *bel-, via some intermediate (most likely IE) stage
>> *(h)wel-.

> "Not unreasonable"?

> Well, first the vocalism is wrong.  Basque does indeed have another ancient
> stem of the form *<bel>, but this means 'dark', not 'round'.

[Ed]

I'm aware of that. Maybe it's the reason why the vowel changed, to mark the
difference (A form of dissimilation)

> Also, what has happened to the final vowel of the PIE form?  I don't think
> *<kwel> was a PIE word-form, and Basque does not normally lose final vowels
> in borrowed words.

[Ed]

That could be a problem, but not necessarily insurmountable. After all, my
guess was that it would be a very ancient loan word, from an unidentified IE
language.

> Finally, for what it's worth (probably not much), medieval Spanish <gw->
> was borrowed into Basque as <g->, not as <b->.  Note Basque <gorde> 'keep'
> from Castilian <guardar> or a related Romance form.

[Ed]

In medieval times, and from Spanish: yes. In modern times 'bapo' was derived
from 'guapo', probably because the g is hardly pronounced (e.g. in the Spanish
re-interpretation of indigenous toponyms in Latin America, gu- /gw/ almost
always stands for /w/; sometimes hu- /w/ is used instead).

In PB times we hardly know, and a lot depends on the intermediate language's
phonetic adaptation of the PIE word.  Had it *kw > gw, or w, or hw....?

> [on the Basque temporal suffix <-te>]

>> It is also part of (compound) 'extent' suffixes like -ate, -arte, ...You're
>> right if you consider -te in isolation.

> Sorry, but I don't recognize <-ate>.  What is this, and where does it occur?

[Ed]

E.g. sagar-ate. See P. Mujika, e.g.

> As for <arte>, this is not a suffix, but a noun meaning 'interval', 'space
> between'.  This often occurs as a final element in compounds, but it's still
> not a suffix.  Of course, it is possible that <arte> itself contains the
> suffix <-te>, but there appears to be no way of investigating this.

> [LT]

>>> Finally, an original *<bite> should *not* develop into <bide>.  There is no
>>> parallel for such a development.

>> Right, but not impossible for such an old term.

> Not impossible, perhaps, but not supported by any evidence, either.

> Anyway, if some ancient stage of Basque voiced intervocalic plosives, then
> we have a problem with all those seemingly ancient words like <ate> 'door',
> <lokatz> 'mud', <zati> 'piece', <zatar> 'rag', <ito> 'drown', <ukan> 'have',
> <uko> 'denial, refusal', <atal> 'segment', <aita> 'father', and many others.
> Why didn't they undergo voicing?

[Ed]

Probably because of complex etymological (derivation) reasons (cf. your
comments on erret-bide) to be considered case by case.

> [on my assertion that <ibai> 'river' is a derivative of <ibar> 'valley',
> perhaps originally 'water meadow']

>> Agud and Tovar in Dicc. Etim. Vasco don't think so and neither do their
>> numerous sources. They seem to find it rather problematic (the final r of
>> ibar is rr).

> No.  Agud and Tovar, as usual, express no opinions at all, but merely report
> the (numerous) proposals in the literature, which range from the sober
> through the speculative to the silly.  Nor do they describe the loss of the
> final rhotic as problematic.  Instead, they merely report Michelena's
> observation that loss of a final rhotic in a first element in word-formation
> was once regular.  This is true for both Basque rhotics, which in any case
> were probably not distinguished in final position in Pre-Basque.  Note, for
> example, that such words as <lur> 'earth', <adar> 'horn', <izter> 'thigh' and
> <belar> 'grass', all of which have a final trill today, exhibit the combining
> forms <lu->, <ada->, <izte-> and <bela->, respectively, in a number of
> compounds and derivatives.

> [on <Ebro> and <Iberia>]

>> Two remarks:

>> 1. There are clear indications that Iberian and Basque share some words,
>> suffixes and some external features, probably through contact or other
>> exchange mechanisms.

> Typological features, probably -- maybe areal features.

> Morphemes, possibly, but we hardly ever know the meaning of anything in
> Iberian.

> Contact, quite possibly, but contact is not a license for interpreting
> Iberian as Basque -- which it plainly is not.

[Ed]

Personally, I think it went a little further: interpenetration. But they are
probably not related in any normal sense (maybe they are, but very remotely:
their arrival in Spain is probably separated by a not so small number of
millennia: see e.g. H. Haarmann's article on Basque ethnogenesis in FLV). Both
are clearly suffixing agglutinating languages, but so is Quechua.

>> Quite a few Iberian toponyms could just as well be Basque (Oriola,

> Looks vaguely Basque, but what would the Basque etymology be?

[Ed]

I saw it also spelled, archaically, as Uriola. Now it's called Orihuela, with
Castilian diphtongation. Oriola is Valencian. It is near the ancient mouth of
the Rio Segura in the fan-delta that is now the Vega Baja. All Iberian
settlements are along that old beachfront (except Ilici near Elche/Elx, on an
island in tha ancient mouth of the Vinalopo, in the same delta), nowadays the
altitude line of 22 m above sea level (Spain is capsizing: the Med. coast
rises, the Atlantic coast sinks).

>> Aspe,

> Looks a bit like the known Basque toponym <Axpe>, depending on how that
> sibilant is interpreted.  But the Basque name is late and secondary in its
> form.  It derives from *<haitz> 'crag' + <-be> ~ <-pe> 'below', itself a
> reduced form of <behe-> -- and a very suitable name if you've seen the place.
> Is the Iberian place also located under a towering crag?

[Ed]

Not a towering one.

>> Ibi,

> Not very distinctive, and I've already argued that modern Basque <ibi> 'ford'
> is late and secondary, from original *<ur-bide>.

>> Tibi.....

> No.  No native Basque word or name begins with /t/, or even with /d/.

[Ed]

In many compounds the t- of a suffixed element can appear or not: -(t)egi,
-(t)alde, for instance.  Word-initial t- may have existed in Antiquity, but we
don't know about that. In Iberian it certainly does, and, remarkably,
apparently as a variant of the same word ibi/tibi, eban/teban, in a number of
cases. I wouldn't be surprised if word-initial t- had existed in Basque at an
early date.

>> and maybe Calpe).

> But that initial /k/ is also intolerable in Basque, assuming that we are
> really looking at a /k/, and not at a /g/.

[Ed]

In the written sources of Basque, yes. But there are not so few people who at
least accept the possibility that a number of word-initial h- are remnants of
an ancient k- (e.g. (h)arri < *karri).

 Note that the resort of Calpe on the Costal Blanca is under the towering
Peñon d'Ifach.

>> So looking for a Basque-like etymology is
>> not far-fetched, even though it hasn't been proven that this is admissible.

> The Iberian texts have been meticulously scrutinized for possible links with
> Basque.  The two major figures here, Tovar and Michelena, both concluded
> independently that a Basque-Iberian link could not be maintained, apart
> perhaps from a few areal features and a few loan words.

>> 2. The Romans (after the Greek) called what is roughly Georgia 'Iberia'.
>> This is probably derived from Kartvelian 'bari' meaning 'valley' (of the
>> Araxes one can guess).

> Maybe, but what has this to do with Basque?

[Ed]

To be read in context. It was about the old idea that Iberia in Spain and in
the Caucasus had something to do with each other; one reason (among many
others, like ergativity) for a belief in a Basque-Caucasian relationship that
was popular at some time.

> [on a possible IE source for Basque <(h)artz> 'bear']

>> Grk. arktos (and related IE) looks like a pretty good candidate to me.  Of
>> course, it is possible that it is a shared substrate.

> Eh?  The Greek word has an excellent PIE etymon.

[Ed]

That's true, but it cannot be excluded that the word belongs to an older (than
PIE) layer. The bear-symbolism seems to be older than our 'linguistic time
depth'.

> Anyway, Greek <arktos> should not have been borrowed as <(h)artz>.  Given
> what we know of early borrowings, we would have expected something like
> *<(h)artotz> -- just as we would have expected from Celtic *<artos>.

[Ed]

I didn't say it was necessarily borrowed from Greek : in fact, most IE lgs.
(including extinct ones we don't know about) that have (had) preserved the
root, and were anywhere near Basque at some time, would do. It was probably a
cult word.

> [on possible genetic links for Basque]

>> I am familiar with your viewpoint and I respect it. But there are those that
>> think this is an unfinished business that needs to be looked into.

> Well, be my guest.  But be aware that practically every language in the Old
> World has already been scrutinized for a possible link with Basque, and
> yet nothing of interest has ever turned up.  There can hardly be many stones
> left unturned.

[Ed]

I wouldn't say that. The main problem seems to be the great time depth.

>> If one never leaves the beaten track, it is hard to find anything really new
>> or unsuspected: a priori theories and speculation are OK as long as 1) one
>> is aware of it being speculation, 2) it is followed by verification, and the
>> results of that, be they negative or positive, are accepted.  It's the way
>> science works.

>> That's why I said myself that it was speculation, and hoped it would
>> stimulate others to think about the problems involved.

> Er -- what problems?  Why does the existence of native words in the
> genetically isolated language Basque constitute a problem?

[Ed]

The problems of determining which elements, even structures, that appear in
Basque (potentially ancient PIE roots, suffixes like -(z)-ko...), are more
general and how this relationship (if any) can be explained. I have no problem
with native roots. I just can't believe that Europes oldest language couldn't
have anything (apart from straight loans) in common with the other languages. I
don't believe in genesis in situ, either.

As I said, the biggest problem is the time depth, and hence, ancient languages
like Iberian (unfortunately extremely poorly understood) that have been in
contact for maybe millennia, could help in this respect.

Ed.