Basque *<bil> 'round'

[Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen]

On Thu, 10 Feb 2000, Steven A. Gustafson wrote:

 [On my connection of the Basque/Celtic word with

>> 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).

> My understanding has ever been, that -bil- was short for -automobil-,
> which may be an ancient Germanic root, but it would seem to present
> certain phonological problems.  My guess would be that the Icelandic has
> been assimilated to fit into a pre-existing declension.

Spoilsport, phonological problems are there to be overcome. And just
because a Copenhagen newspaper gave first prize to the suggestion _bil_ in
1902 doesn't mean that the word is necessarily artificial; the prizewinner
may well have been the last surviving speaker of the kind of Celtic that
influenced Basque (which is apparently the most interesting IE language of
them all, and one that has been sadly lacking in the training I have
received).

And on Thu, 10 Feb 2000, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <mcv at wxs.nl> wrote:
[in reply to my plea:]

>> Any good Celtic etymon for German Auto?

> Well, it is well known that German au < *u:, and Celtic *p > 0,
> so that looks very much like a form derived from an unattested
> Celtic *pu:to- "stinking" (the contraption was apparently named
> by the La T`ene Celts after its typical exhaust products).

Now, that's more like it! And it makes excellent semantic sense. Perhaps
someone knows how it ties in with current knowledge on the state of
environment pollution in La Tene times? In that case perhaps he'd better
keep it to himself, so that we do not strain the moderator's patience any
further. Sorry, Rich, I couldn't help myself.

Jens