Basque *<bil> 'round'

[Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen]

On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, Eduard Selleslagh wrote:
[...]
>>> 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-.

> [Larry Trask objected, i.a.:]
>> 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.

> [Selleslagh countered:]

> 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.

[...]

Maybe the geographical position of the donor language can be narrowed
down, for a word of the same shape found its way into Northern Europe in
the specialized meaning of 'car' (cf. "wheels"). I'm thinking of course of
Dan.-Norw.-Swed. bil 'car', which must be very old given the assimilation
of the nominative marker in Icelandic bi:ll (from *bi:l-R pointing to
PGmc. *bi:l-az). Since Eng. car _is_ Celtic, it is nice now also to have a
Celtic-looking etymon for Nordic bil and a viable alternative to the
fanciful derivation from the suffix (!) part of automobile. Any good
Celtic etymon for German Auto?

Jens