The Indo-European horses (updated)

The Indo-European word *h₁eḱw-o- 'horse' (Latin equus, Greek híppos)¹ has been used by defenders of the so-called Kurgan theory as part of the evidence supporting the speakers of PIE (i.e. the proto-language of the IE family)² were the people who first domesticated the animal in the Pontic-Caspian steppes around 4,000-3,500 BC³.

However, this appears to be a Wanderwort whose earliest form can be traced to North Caucasian (Nakh-Daghestanian) *ɦɨ[n]tʃwi (^~ -e) 'horse' (NCED 211) and which also spread to Sumerian anše 'donkey' and Hurrian eššǝ 'horse'. As pointed out by Uralic *ki(n)tʃe/*ky(n)tʃe 'nail, fingernail, claw', my bet is this word would have first been originally to some Pleistocene ungulates.

As pigs, sheep and goats -which together with cattle made up the Near East Neolithic package- were first domesticated around 9,000-8,000 BC in the Taurus-Zagros mountains area, it's possible for Afrasian *ʕi(n)ʒ- 'sheep, goat' (Semitic, Cushitic) and *χu(n)ʒ(-ir-) 'pig' (Semitic, Chadic)'⁴ to be also related.

 
Incidentally, this is the time and space framework where the linguist Allan Bomhard placed his Proto-Nostratic⁵, which his collegue Kerns regarded as being part of the Dene-Caucasian phylum: I believe that Nostratic languages did not exist except as a part of Dene-Caucasian until the waning of the Würm glaciation, some 15,000 years ago⁶. However, in my view this wouldn't be the common ancestor (Mother Tongue) of a plethora of language families such as Indo-European, Afrasian or Kartvelian, but rather the source of several Neolithic Wanderwörter. 

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¹ Luwian *aššu-/*azzu- 'horse' and Georgian aču/ačua 'interjection for calling horses' are loanwords from Indo-Iranian.

² See J.P. Mallory (1989): In Search of the Indo-Europeans. Language, Archaeology and Myth, p. 143-185.

³ The domesticated horse (Equus ferus caballus) is a different subspecies than the wild horse of the Eurasian steppes (Equus ferus ferus), also called tarpan (a Turkic word). There is also another subspecies native to the Eurasian steppes, the so-called Przewalski's horse (Equus ferus Przewalski's), which has never been domesticated.

⁴ Whose specialization could have involved phonosymbolism in the initial fricativec

⁵ A. Bomhard (2008): Reconstructing Proto-Nostratic. Comparative Phonology, Morphology, and Vocabulary, vol. I, p. 235-241. 
⁶ A. Bomhard & J.C. Kerns (1994): The Nostratic Macrofamily: A Study in Distant Linguistic Relationship, p. 153.

Latin costa 'rib; side, flank' (updated)

 

Latin costa 'rib; side, flank' has been traditionally linked by Indo-Europeanists to Old Church Slavonic kostĭ 'bone'¹, although more recently De Vaan considers this etymology to be dubious, among other reasons because of semantic mismatch². 

In fact, the Slavic word is undoubtedly related to IE *h₂osth₁- 'bone', although its initial velar stop can't be accounted for in the mainstream model³. The amateur linguist Glen Gordon proposes an early borrowing from a femenine variant of Semitic *kˀa(w)ʃ- 'bow'⁴ (cfr. Phoenician qšt⁵), with a semantic drift 'bow' > 'rib' > 'bone'.

In most Romance languages except Romanian, the anatomical meaning of costa was transferred to diminutive forms (e.g. Spanish costilla, French côtelette), while the main word specialized into geographical meanings: '(hill) slope' (e.g. Spanish cuesta) and 'shore' (Catalan and Italian costa), which spread as a Wanderwort: Spanish costa, English coast, Dutch and Swedish kust, German Küste, Danish kyst, etc. There are in addition Middle High German Gestade 'bank' and Old Irish ces 'flank, rump steak', césán 'flanks', which can't be readly derived from costa although they're semantically and phonetically close. 

This makes me wonder if all these words could be Semitic borrowings akin to or from Phoenician qsˁt 'edge, limit' (f.)⁶ < Semitic *kˀītʃˀ 'end, to finish' < Afrasian *kˀajatʃˀ- (HSED 1562), with Latin and German having got the femenine variant and Goidelic the masculine one.

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¹ A. Ernout & A. Meillet (1959): Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine, p. 146.

² M. De Vaan (2008): Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, p.140. 

³ Gamkrelidze-Ivanov regard these as different reflexes of a former *qʰ. See Gamkrelidze & V.V. Ivanov (1995): Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans, pp. 111-113.

⁴ G. Gordon (2008): Possible Proto-Semitic Loanwords in Pre-IE. 

⁵ Mª J. Estanyol (2008): Diccionari abreujat fenici-català, p 113.

⁶ Mª J. Estanyol, op. cit., p 112.

Paleo-European *abVl- 'apple' (updated)

Several IE languages of North Europe (Celtic, Germanic, Balto-Slavic) reflect a lexeme *abVl- 'apple' which is regarded as a Paleo-European substrate loanword by some specialists¹. In my opinion, a likely cognate would be Hittite sam(a)lu- 'apple (tree)', with denasalization of m and loss of the initial sibilant², which in this and other words such as sākuwa- 'eye' < IE *H₃ekʷ- 'to see' and sankuwāi- 'nail; a unit of linear measure' < IE *H₃n(o)gh- 'nail' would reflect a labialized voiced pharyngeal fricative *ʕʷ (IE *H₃) .

Therefore, I'd reconstruct a Nostratic³ Wanderwort *ʕu-malV also reflected in Basque udare, udari, madari 'pear'⁴ (with denasalization and further delabialization), and which I'd link to Nakh-Daghestanian *mhalV- ~ *mhanV- 'warm', with a straightforward semantic drift from 'warm (season)' to 'fruit'. This makes sense because the apple tree is originary of Kurdistan, precisely in the area where Nostratic was presumably spoken.
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¹ For example, Theo Vennemann links it to Afrasian *ʔa-bul- 'male genitals', which (in his own words) is "semantically unsatisfactory although phonetically perfect". See T. Vennemann (1998): Andromeda and the Apples of the Hesperides, in Europa Vasconica, Europa Semitica, p. 591-652.
² Explained by ortodox IE-ists such as Kloekhorst as the result of a "s-mobile".

³ My own concept of "Nostratic" isn't the one of a very large macro-family including IE, Uralic, Altaic, Kartvelian, etc. but a language spoken in the Taurus-Zagros mountains, where several species of plants and animals were domesticated in the Neolithic.
⁴ A variant *ʕu-manV would be the origin of Basque umao (B), umo 'ripe, seasoned' and Uralic *omena ~ *omVrV 'apple'.

Greek parthénos 'virgin, unmarried girl' (updated)

Goddess Britomartis

Greek parthénos 'virgin, unmarried girl' is an interesting word with no clear Indo-European etymology, although the German Indo-Europeanist Gert Klingenschmitt¹ has proposed a derivation from *pr̥-sténos '(having) protunding breasts', a compound of *pr̥- 'before' and *sténos 'breast' (Avestan fštāna-) < IE *psten(o)- parallel to Avestan ərəduua-fšnī- 'having firm breasts'.

Despite being accepted by some specialists², to me this proposal is phonetical and semantically implausible, so I regard this word as a kinship term with parallels in Old Prussian mārtin, mārtan 'bride', Lithuanian martì ‘bride, daughter-in-law’, Latvian mā̀rša 'brother's wife', Crimean Gothic marzus ‘wedding’, apparently a Wanderwort found in Eteocretan *marti-/*marpi- 'virgin/maiden' (cfr. the Goddess Britomartis 'Sweet Virgin/Maiden'), Etruscan marθ 'bride' (in papac marθc svlisva 'the wills of the grandfather and the bride')³, and ultimately related to East Caucasian (Nakh-Daghestanian) *bHaddɮi (~ -ǝ-) 'young (of animals)'⁴. 

In my opinion, this is the likely source of Sanskrit pr̥̥thuka- 'calf, young of an animal', Armenian ort^c 'young of cattle or deer' and Greek pórtis 'calf, young heifer', pórtaks 'calf'⁵, linked by Thomas Burrow⁶ to parthénos. The semantic shift from 'heifer' to 'virgin, unmarried girl' would be explained in the context of a pastoralist society like those of Kurgan people. 

Also related within IE would be Germanic *farzá-, *farzḗn, *fársō(n) 'bull, ox' and Slavic *porsъ 'bull'. In turn, the Caucasian word has cognates in Proto-Altaic *bāla 'child, young' and PIE *pelH- 'foal' (Greek pôlos 'foal', Armenian ul 'kid, young of deer or gazelle', Albanian pelë 'mare')⁷.

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¹ G. Klingenschmitt (1974): 'Grieschisch παρθένος', in Antiquititae Indogermanicae. Gedenkschrift für Hermann Güntert, pp. 273-278. 
² R.S.P. Beekes (2010): Etymological Dictionary of Greek, p. 1153. See also X. Delamarre (2008): Gauloises Ardasina, Titiluxsa, Uxesina, grec parthénos, avestique ərəduuafšnī-. Une dénomination indo-européenne de la jeune femme: 'celle qui ha les seins hauts'.
³ A. Morandi (1987): La tomba degli Scudi di Tarquinia [Contributo epigrafico per l'esegesi dei soggetti], in Mélanges d'École française de Rome. Antiquité, p. 104.
⁴ Diakonoff-Starostin link to this Hurrian pōra-(m)mi, Urartian porā 'slave'. See I. Diakonoff & S. Starostin (1986): Hurro-Urartian as an Eastern Caucasian Language, §2.
⁵ Also related are Old Church Slavonic za-prъtъkъ 'wind egg', Czech s-pratek 'premature calf' (Pokorný).
⁶ T. Burrow (1955): The Sanskrit Language, p. 71. 
⁷ J. Mallory & D. Adams (2006): The Oxford Introduction to PIE and the PIE world, p. 192.

Semitic *gVbVl- 'mountain; boundary, border'

Etymological dictionaries of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) such as Mallory-Adams¹ reconstruct two words for 'head', namely *ɣeβōl- (Tocharian, Greek, Germanic²) and *kapōl-o- (Old English hafola, Sanskrit kapá:la-), which show an alternation between voiced (traditional voiced aspirated) and voiceless stops³.

I consider these words to be loanwords from Semitic *gVbVl- 'mountain; boundary, border' (e.g. Arabic ʒabal 'mountain'), with a straightforward semantic shift. The Semitic word is in turn derived from Afrasian *gVbVl- 'bank, side' (Militarev), also reflected in Egyptian and Western Chadic and possibly related to *gab- 'side, bank; beach' (HSED 856).

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¹ J.P. Mallory & Q.D. Adams (2006): The Oxford Introduction to PIE and the PIE world, p. 174.

² Although the Germanic meaning is 'gable'.

³ Although pairs like this (e.g. *gab- ~ *kap- 'to take') are by no way uncommon, they aren't explained in the framework of mainstream IE studies.

Basque sagu 'mouse'

Basque sagu, sat- 'mouse' is a word found in compounds such as satandera (B, G), satandre (S, R) 'weasel' (and(e)re 'lady'), satitsu (G, HN) 'shrew' (itsu 'blind'), sat(h)or 'mole' (second member unknown) and saguzar (B, G) 'bat' (zahar 'old'), and which has cognates in Afrasian: Akkadian šikkû 'mongoose', Amharic ǝkokko (aškokko, ǝškokko) 'rock hyrax', Ge'ez sˁǝkˁ^wǝnkˁ^wǝn, sˁǝkˁ^wǝskˁ^wǝn 'field mouse; a kind of lizard'¹, Central Chadic *Sakw- 'squirrel; dog'², Omotic *sakw/*sikw 'chameleon; bat'. Also related are Kartvelian *tsiqˀw- 'squirrel, mouse' (Georgian ciqˀwi 'squirrel'), Dravidian *tśikk- 'mouse'.

Also related are Etruscan seχ 'daughter'³ and Old Turkish čekün 'young of marmot', Tungus čekše 'tarbagan (Marmota sibirica)'. Caucasian *tʃˀæku/*tʃækˀu 'young (of animals), boy' would also belong here.

Although Bengtson links the Basque word to Caucasian *tsa:rggwɨ:(~ -ǝ:,-a:) 'weasel, marten' (see here), from which Starostin thinks the Kartvelian word was borrowed, in my opinion this is a genuine Eurasiatic root which in some languages (Kartvelian⁴, Dravidian, Altaic⁵) conflated with a phonetically similar word 'small'⁶, probably for tabooistic reasons. 

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¹ Quoted by Dolgoposky (ND 310a). See also W. Leslau (2010): Concise Dictionary of Ge'ez, p. 226.

² Where S is an unspecified sibilant.
³ Also spelled as sec, śec, śeχ. 

⁴ Kartvelian *tśˀukˀ- (Georgian cˀukˀ-an-a 'very small', Megrel čˀukˀ- 'mouse').

⁵ Altaic *tʃhjà:khe(~ -u) 'small'.

⁶ For which Dolgopolsky (ND 334) reconstructs a separated root, which he considers to be phonosymbolic.