29 September 2015

Basque gorri 'red'

According to the Vascologist Joseba Lakarra, Basque gorri 'red' derives from a lexeme *gorr- 'raw meat'. However, the isolationist paradigm of academic Vascology precludes further investigation of cognates in other language families. 

Considering the voiced initial stop in Basque was originally voiceless and also the trill rhotic isn't the product of gemination, the most likely candidates would be Altaic *kʰjú:ru ‘red, reddish; brown, dark’ (EDAL 1090) and IE *kreuH₂- ‘blood, gore’ (Greek kréas 'meat', Lithuanian kraûjas 'blood'), thus pointing to a lexeme *kʰruH-1 ~ *kʰuHr- which would date back to the Upper Palaeolithic and underwent a semantic shift from 'raw meat; blood' to 'red' in Altaic and Basque.

One interesting derivative of gorri is gorringo2, which refers either to a kind of mushroom (Amanita caesaria) or the egg's yolk.
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1 IE *e is the ablaut vowel and doesn't play any role in the actual etymology.
2 With the variants gorrinko in the Easternmost dialects (Roncalese, Zuberoan) and korrinko in the extinct Alavese.

19 September 2015

Galician-Portuguese silva 'bramble' (updated)

Blackberries

Contrarily to what some linguists think, Galician-Portuguese silva, silveira (collective) 'bramble (Rubus)' is unrelated to the homonymous Latin silva 'forest' (which regularly gives Romance selva), but it's cognate to Leonese silba 'service berry', silbar, silbal (collective) 'service tree (Sorbus domestica)'2.

Service berries

This is a substrate loanword *silba1 with parallels (through lambdacism) in Romance serba 'service berry'3 (Catalan serva, Occitan sèrba, Spanish serba, jerba, sierba id., serbal, sierbal, Catalan servera, server (collective) 'service tree'4), Lithuanian serbentà 'currant (Ribes)' and dialectal Russian serbalína, serberína 'rose hip', sor(o)balína 'bramble'5, Latin sorbus 'service tree' (Spanish sorbo), sorbum 'service berry', from which derive Leonese (Liébana) suerbaFrench sorbe id., sorbier, Galician sorbeira, solveira (collective), Leonese  (Liébana) suerbal  'service tree'.

Although these forms show the typical IE ablaut e ~ o6, we also can find variants with /u/ vocalism: Leonese (Liébana) surba 'service berry', surbu (collective) 'service tree' and regional Spanish (Álava, Bureba, High Rioja) zurba, zurbia 'service berry', zurbal, zurbial, surbial (collective) 'service tree'. 

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1 The shift -lb- > -lv- is regular in Portuguese.
2 J. Oria de Rueda et al. (2006): Botánica forestal del género Sorbus en España, in Investigación Agraria. Sistema y recursos forestales, vol. 15, nº 1,  p. 166-186.  
3 The proposed connection (Pedersen) with Celtic *swerwo- 'bitter' (Old Irish serb, Middle Welsh chwerw) can be ruled out. 
4 The forms serbo, jerbo, selbo, jelbo are the product of a contamination with sorbo.
M. Vasmer (1955): Russisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, p. 697.
In fact, some Indo-Europeanists reconstruct a protoform *serbh- ~ *sorbh-.