20 October 2025

The Labyrinth (updated)



Greek labýrinthos (Mycenean 
DA-PU-RI₂-TO-JO 'of the labyrinth') designated an elaborated place built by the artificer Daedalus for the king Minos of Crete and whose function was to hold the Minotaur, a legendary creature half man and half bull. Although the Cretan labyrinth had a square or rectangular shape, there is an older circular version found in several ancient cultures, mostly in petroglyphs

From the Greek word, I'd reconstruct Minoan
abur 'fence, wall', with an initial voiced lateral represented as /d/ in Linear B. Seemingly related words are Etruscan spur 'city', Egyptian ʃzp(a) 'fence', Central Chadic *ɮabˁ- 'fence, to fence', Low East Cushitic (Afar) sabsab- 
'wall' (reduplicative). 
________________________________
The Pre-Greek language spoken at Crete, attested in Linear A tablets and loanwords to Greek.

16 September 2025

Celtic *longā 'boat, vessel' (updated)

























Celtic *longā 'boat, vessel' is attested in Welsh llong 'ship', Old Breton locou 'vessels, vases', Old Irish long 'vessel, (little) vase, ship', to which corresponds the Gaulish toponymic element Longo-1. There's also Cisalpine Gaulish (Todi) lokan /longan/ 'cinerary urn', an accusative form where /ng/ is rendered as k.

Although some authors have suggested a loanword (with reanalysis) from Latin nauis longa 'warship' (lit. 'long ship'), specialists such as Matasović2 think this is a genuine Celtic word without IE etymology, which I consider it to be a cultural loanword from North East Caucasian *leqˀV 'a k. of vessel' (NCED 1511), where the ejective stop became prenasalizedAlso related would be Latin lanx 'dish, plate'3, apprently borrowed from Etruscan in account of its /avocalism.

This lexeme was also borrowed into IE *lonko-/ā 'valley' > Lithuanian lankà ‘valley, rivermeadow’, Old Church Slavonic ka ‘gulf, valley, meadow, marsh’, Tocharian B leke ‘valley’, and Late Latin *lanca ‘depression, bed of a river’4, with a straightforward semantic shift.
_______________________
1 X. Delamarre (2008): Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise, p. 206-207.
2 R. Matasović (2009): Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic, p. 244.
3 This meaning is reflected in Tsezian.
4 J.P. Mallory & D.Q. Adams (2006): The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World. 122.