LL-L 'Etymology' 2006.07.23 (02) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 23 July 2006 * Volume 02
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Etymology 

Further on "apple" ...

Perhaps we need to return to the geographical origin of the apple plant, which is
Central Asia and it's _Malus sieversii_, the rose relative growing on both sides
of the Tianshan Mountains in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and
Eastern Turkestan (Xinjiang).  In the early 19th century they were reported to
grow at the foot of the Altai Mountains.

The general Turkic name for "apple" is _alma_, contained in the name Almaty
(Alma-Ata) of the former capital of Kazakhstan.  In Turkic, this tends to be
analyzed as _al-ma_, from the verb _al-_ 'take' and the deverbal noun suffix
_-ma_ ~ _-mä_; thus something like "that is to be taken."  However, I feel there
is some likelihood of this being a case of folk etymology and the name predating
Turkic presence in the region.  On the other hand, Turkic presence there does go
back a long, long way, and it is becoming clear that the early Turkic homeland
was not necessarily confined to parts of today's Mongolia and neighboring parts
of Southern Siberia only because the earliest Turkic inscriptions have been found
there.

Might _alma_ be related to "apple"?  Note that metathesis occurs as frequently in
Altaic as it does in Indo-European and that therefore earlier forms like *_amla_
are a possibility as is metathesizing *_alma_ to _*amla_.  It is not impossible
either that the /m/ in Turkic is the result of sonorance assimilation (*_al-ba_ >
_alma_) or that metathesis and dissimilation occurred in Indo-European (*_alma_ >
*_amla_ > *_abla_).  (As for methathesis, cf. Slavonic *Laba versus Germanic
*Alba > Elbe; cf. Latin _Albis_.)  And then there are possibly related Latin
_malus_ and earliest Greek μάλον _mālon_ (> μήλον _mē´lon_) 'apple' which could
indicate the extent of metatheses.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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