Gaulish buððutton 'spindle; penis' (updated)

Gaulish buððutton 'spindle; penis'¹ is attested on the spindle whorl Gallo-Latin inscription Moni gnatha gabi buððutton imon 'Come, girl, take my penis'². The word must have designated the instrument itself and then applied to the male organ in a metaphoric way. Basque buztan 'tail; penis' is presumably a Celtic loanword, probably from Gaulish itself.

From this and other Insular Celtic words (Old Irish bot 'penis, tail', Middle Welsh both 'umbo, shield boss'), Matasović reconstructs a Celtic protoform *buzdo- 'tail'³, supposedly derived from IE *gwozdo- (Germanic *kwast(j)ō 'bunch of branches', Albanian gjeth 'leaf, foliage', Slavic *xvost 'tail'⁴), assuming the original meaning was 'to sprout'.

On the other hand, English button is a loanword from Old French boton (modern bouton) 'bud; button; pimple, spot', itself from Late Latin *buttōne-, usualy regarded as a Germanic borrowing, but IMHO actually from Gaulish, which would be also the source of Germanic *buddōn 'bud'.

________________________________________________________________ 

¹ X. Delamarre (2008): Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise, p. 92-93. 
² W. Meid (1994): Gaulish Inscriptions, translates the Gaulish word as 'kiss', cfr. bussu- 'lip'. 

³ R. Matasović (2009): Etymological dictionary of Proto-Celtic, p. 85-86.
⁴ Conflated by Vassmer to *gvozdis 'nail'.

Basque etxe 'house' (updated)

Basque etxe /etʃe/ 'house' is a native word without Romance cognates. The most conservative variant, attested in old texts, is etse /etśe/, with etxe, itxe (G, HN) resulting from palatalization and etze /etse/ (B) from the merging of sibilants /tś/, /ts/ into /ts/ in Western dialects. There's also the combinatory form etxa-, well attested in toponymy (even outside today's Basque-speaking areas), as in Javierre¹ < Etxaberri 'new house'.

Rather interestingly, etxe means 'floor' in the Western compound burtetxe (B), gurtetxe (G, HN) 'floor of a cart', (L) 'framework of a cart', whose first member is burdi, gurdi 'cart, carriage'. 

This kind of semantic drift across long periods of time (e.g. several millenia) is very usual, so one must take it into account in long-range comparisons². This is why I'd link the Basque word to Caucasian *=asA ‘to sit, to stay’ and Uralic *aśe- ‘to put, to place, to lay; to put up a tent’³.

_______________________________________________________________ 

¹ From which derives the personal name Xavier/Javier.
² Unfortunately, paleolinguists (including Nostraticists) very often neglect to do so, as in the comparison with Caucasian *tsˀ[i:]ju 'house' proposed by Bengtson.

³ In fact, the amateur linguist Eduard Selleslagh-Suykens had a similar idea to mine, although he chose the wrong cognate.

The bear and the marten (updated)

The common IE word for 'bear', found in most branches (Hittite hartagga-, Celtic *arto-, Greek árktos, Armenian arǯ, Avestan arša-, Latin ursus, Sanskrit ŕkṣa-, etc) is usually reconstructed as  *h₂^ər^ətk´o-, where the "thorny cluster" tk´ (k´þ in older reconstructions) has various reflexes t, s, š, kt, kṣ.

However, I regard the Hittite segment -gga- as a suffix like the one found in Turkic qarsaq 'steppe fox' < Altaic *karsi 'marten'. This would leave us with a protoform *h₂^ər^əC-ko-, where C would represent a sibilant (possibly palato-alveolar) affricate like the one of NE Caucasian *χHVr[tɕ’]V 'marten; otter'¹ (a Nakh-Dargwa isogloss). Probably also Yeniseian *χa(ʔ)s (^~ k-) 'badger' belongs here.

Ignoring external data, some Indo-Europeanists have proposed a link between 'bear' and an IE verb 'to destroy'. Interestingly enough, this meaning is represented in NE Caucasian by *HarGG(w)V, which I'd link to Altaic *jàrgi (^~ -o) 'wild beast of prey' and possibly also to Arabic ʕurāʒ- 'hyena(s)', proposed by Nostraticists as cognates of IE 'bear'.

______________________________________________________

¹ Using his etymological instinct, Bengtson links this to Basque hartz 'bear', an IE loanword, most likely from Celtic.

The horse goes before the cart (updated)

Germanic *xursa-/*xrussa- 'horse' has been linked by some Indo-Europeanists to Latin currō 'to run'¹. This verb is derived from a Paleo-European lexeme *k^ər^əs- also reflected in Celtic *karro- and Latin currus 'cart'² < *k^ər^əs-o-. However, in chronological terms, the traditional view of deriving 'horse' from a verb 'to run' would be like putting the cart before the horse. That is, the meaning 'horse' has to be older than 'run' and not the other way around.  

In my opinion, the Paleo-European word would be related to East Caucasian *ʁHwo:r[tʃ^ʔ]o (˜ -tɕ^ʔ-,-ə) 'deer, game', probably dating from the Upper Paleolithic. Possibly  also Yeniseian *kuʔs 'horse' belongs here, as the names of domesticated animals are often Wanderwörter.

The Caucasian word is also the source of Kurganic IE *jorko-³ (Celtic *jorko- 'roe deer (Capreolus capreolus)', Greek zórks, dórkas 'gazelle'), with metathesis. 

I also suspect this is the origin of the autochthnous name of the Pyrenean chamois (Rupicapra pyrenaica)⁴: Aragonese chizard(o), ixarzo, Gascon isar(t), idart, Catalan isard < *i-tsardV, with regular merger of sibilants /ts/ and /s/ in Gascon and Catalan and a prefix *i-, probably a fossilized article. There's also the unprefixed western variant *tsarri > Gascon sarri, Aragonés sarrio, the latter borrowed into Basque⁵.

_______________________________________________________________________________

¹ G. Kroonen (2013): Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, pp. 260-261.

² Latin carrus is a Celtic (Gaulish) loanword.

³ Caucasian ʁ ~ Kurganic IE k and Caucasian tʃ ~ Kurganic IE j.

⁴ A species of mountain goat which lives in the Pyrenees, Cantabrian Mountains and the Apeninnes, considered to be a subspecies of the chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra) by some specialists.

⁵ The lack of a native Basque word for the animal can be explained from its absence from the Basque-speaking area.

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.

______________________________________________________________

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.

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) suerba, French 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'. 
________________________________________________________ 

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.
⁵ M. Vasmer (1955): Russisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, p. 697.

⁶ In fact, some Indo-Europeanists reconstruct a protoform *serbh- ~ *sorbh-.

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.
______________________________________
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'.

Basque (k)abia 'nest'

The Basque word for 'nest' appears with variants such as abia (B), habia (Z), kabia (G), kafia (G, HN), abira (S), abi (B), kabi (G, HN), api (G, HN), aapi (G). For this word, Mitxelena -the founder of modern Vascology- proposed more than 50 years ago an etymology from Latin cavea 'cage', which turns to be semantically inadequate.

 

By contrast, I propose a loanword from Celtic *āwjā 'brood; nest', a femenine form corresponding to the masculine *āwjo- 'egg' (Old Welsh ui, Middle Welsh wy, Middle Breton and Old Cornish uy)¹. Therefore, both k- and -r- in some of the Basque forms would be epentic.

On the other hand, the forms abe (B) 'honeycomb', kabe (*L) 'nest; beehive' are the result of a semantic contamination with derivatives of Romance *kofanu 'deep basket' (Latin cophinus) such as Biscayan abao, abau 'honeycomb' and Bearnese càben 'beehive'. The semantic drift can be explained because artificial beehives in the shape of a deep basket are used in some places.

_____________________________________________________________________
¹ R. Matasović (2008): Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic, p. 50.

Basque ol(h)a 'forge, foundry'

Basque ol(h)a 'forge, foundry; workshop' is a word conflated with its homonymous 'hut; dwelling' (geographically restricted to a few dialects), a confusion also extending to the widespread toponymic suffix -ola¹. However, upon a closer scrutiny they reveal themselves as two different words. Firstly, Roncalese õla 'hut' has a nasal vowel, a remnant of a former initial nasal consonant. And secondly, the respective derivated verbs are different, as on the one hand we've got ol(h)atu (LN, Z) 'to hit with violence', and on the other, olhatü (Z) 'to stay on huts; to go to the pastures (in transhumance)'.

I think the Basque word would be a loanword from Celtic *ordā (f.) 'hammer' (Middle Welsh orth, Breton orz)², possibly through retroflexion of the dental stop (as in Sweden and Norwegian), which ultimately evolved into a lateral. However, as no plausible IE etymology can be posited for the Celtic word, a non-IE origin is likely. A likely cognate would be Etruscan urθan 'to make, to manufacture', attested in the past form urθanice '(he) made'. 

This way, we're left with a Tyrrhenian verbal root *ur-d- which I'd link on the one hand to IE *wer-g´- 'to work'³ (zero Ablaut), where IE *-g´- ~ Tyrrhenian *-d-, and on the other to Urartian ur-/or- 'to make, to work'⁴, which Diakonoff-Starostin⁴ relate in turn to Nakh-Daghestanian *=ahwV(r) 'to do' (NCED 1826).

___________________________________________________________________

¹ Compare for example Loiola 'pottery', from lohi 'mud', and Gisasola 'broom bush', from (g)isats 'broom'.
² There's also a masculine form *ordo- (Old Irish ord, Gaulish Ordo-). See R. Matasović (2009): Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic, p. 300.
³ Incidentally, the amateur linguist Gianfranco Forni (who regards Etruscan as an IE language) derives urθan from an IE participle *H₃er-to- 'risen' < *H₃er- 'to rise' (Latin orior). However, to me this is not only semantically questionable but also phonetically inconsistent, as it wouldn't explain the voiced stop in Celtic, of whose connection with the Etruscan verb he's of course unaware.
⁴ N. Diakonoff & S. Starostin (1986): Hurro-Urartian as an East Caucasian Language, §163.

Basque etxe 'house' (updated)

Basque etxe /etʃe/ 'house' is a native word without Romance cognates. The most conservative variant, attested in old texts, is etse /etśe/, with etxe, itxe (G, HN) resulting from palatalization and etze /etse/ (B) from the merging of sibilants /tś, ts/ into /ts/ in Western dialects. There's also the combinatory form etxa-, well attested in toponymy (even outside today's Basque-speaking areas), as in Javierre¹ < Etxaberri 'new house'.

Rather interestingly, etxe means 'floor' in the Western compound burtetxe (B), gurtetxe (G, HN) 'floor of a cart', (L) 'framework of a cart', whose first member is burdi, gurdi 'cart, carriage'. 

This kind of semantic drift across long periods of time (e.g. several millenia) is very usual, so one must take it into account in long-range comparisons². This is why I'd link the Basque word to Caucasian *=asA ‘to sit, to stay’ and Uralic *aśe- ‘to put, to place, to lay; to put up a tent’³.

______________________________________________________ 

¹ From which derives the personal name Xavier/Javier.
² Unfortunately, paleolinguists (including Nostraticists) very often neglect to do so, as in the comparison with Caucasian *tsˀ[i:]ju 'house' proposed by Bengtson.

³ In fact, the amateur linguist Eduard Selleslagh-Suykens had a similar idea to mine, although he chose the wrong cognate.

Basque maite 'love, affection; dear, beloved' (updated)

Alhtough Basque maite 'love, affection; dear, beloved' has been since long suspected to be a Celtic loanword, the suggested etymon (Old Irish maith 'good' < Proto-Celtic *mati-¹) is in my opinion semantically inadequate².

On the other hand, we've got Galician neitegada 'expressive demonstration of affection or tenderness', presumably a Gallaecian substrate loanword from Proto-Celtic *neito-³ > Welsh nwyd 'passion, emotion', Old Irish nia 'warrior, champion', archaic gen. sing. Neth (Ogam NETTA-, -NETTAS)⁴. We've also got Iberian neitin 'dear', often found in the epistolary formula neitin iunstir 'Dear Sir'⁵. 

This way, the Basque word would be derived from an apophonic Celtic variant *noitā with secondary labialization of the initial nasal as in Roncalese moite 'love, tenderness'.

_____________________________________________________________

¹ R. Matasović (2009): Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic, pp. 259-260.

² Koldo Mitxelena (1977): Fonética histórica vasca, p. 526, adduces the formal parallelism between Old Irish an-as maith la cách 'what each one deems good' and modern Basque bat-bederak maite duena 'what each one loves' (formerly bat bederak onhesten duena, with onhesten 'to be loved', lit. 'to esteem good') as an example where maite was equivalent to on 'good'.
³ This is an IE lexeme *neiH- 'to shine' also found in Proto-Celtic *neibo- > Middle Welsh nwyf 'strong feeling, passion, desire', Old Irish níab 'vigour'. There's also an apophonic variant *noibo- reflected in Old Irish noíb- 'holy', Gaulish Noibio. See R. Matasović (2009): op. cit., p, 286. 

⁴ N. Zair (2012): The Reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European Laryngeals in Celtic, pp. 232-233. See also R. Matasović (2009), op. cit., p. 291.

⁵ Iberian iunstir has been linked by some authors to Basque jaun 'sir', likely a fossilized participle meaning 'exalted'. See R.L. Trask (2008): Etymological Dictionary of Basque (unfinished), p. 242. However, Miguel Beltrán Lloris (1974): "La palabra ibérica Iunstir, el plomo de Alcoy y algunos problemas de vasco-iberismo" en Homenaje a D. Pío Beltrán. Anejos de Archivo Español de Arqueología VII, pp. 21-72, proposed its meaning was 'desired'.

Gaulish *komboro- 'heap, accumulation' (updated)

Basque gonburu (B), bonburu (B) 'excess', usually derived from Latin cumulu- 'heap', is actually loanword from Gallo-Romance *komboro- 'heap, accumulation'¹ (REW 2075). This is the origin of Medieval Latin combrus 'abatis' (an obstacle formed by a row of tree branches pointing to the enemy) and Old French combre 'dam on a river'. Other derivatives, we we've also got French encombrer, Italian ingombrare 'to obstruct, to block' < *in-comb(o)rāre and Spanish escombrar 'to disembarrass' < *ex-comb(o)rāre. 

Although specialists usually give this word a Celtic etymology from Celtic *kom-bero-² >Old Irish commar, Welsh cymer, Breton kemper (hence the toponym Quimper) 'confluence (of rivers)', in my opinion this etymology is semantically unsatisfactory,  so I'd prefer a substrate loanword related to Baltic *kumb(u)r- 'soil elevation, hill' (Lithuanian kumbrī̃s, kum̃bris, Latvian kumburis) and Thracian skumbras (ancient toponyms Skóumbros, Skoũmbro)³. As the source language (either from the Baltic group or a close relative of it), had no differentiated /a, o/ vowels but only /a/, its /u/ was actually realized [ʊ] and therefore was interpreted by Celtic (Gaulish) speakers as being closer to their own /o/⁴.

Working independently of each other, the Catalan linguist Joan Coromines and the Spanish Indo-Europeanist Francisco Villar apparently conflated this Baltoid language with a different Italoid (i.e. akin to Italic) one, called Sorothaptic by Coromines from its purported association with the Urnfield culture, attested in several lead foil inscriptions (written in Latin alphabet) found at the beggining of the 20th century in the thermal station of Amélie-les-Bains/Els Banys d'Arles (Rosselló)⁵. These are votive texts addressed to some water deities (nymphs) referred to as kantas niskas, where kantas presumably derives from IE *k´wen-to- 'holy' and niskas could be related to Basque neska 'unmarried girl'.

________________________________________________________

¹ A meaning proposed by Coromines instead of Meyer-Lübke's original one. 
² X. Delamarre (2008): Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise, p. 122. 
³ I. Duridanov (1969): Die Thrakisch- und Dakisch-Baltischen Sprachbeziehungen, p. 93.
⁴ Villar has an idiosyncratic theory of the development of the 5 vowel system of some IE languages (e.g. Italic, Celtic, Greek) from an older 4 vowel system /i, ε, ɑ, ʊ/ found in e.g. Anatolian, Balto-Slavic, Germanic, as well as in Etruscan. See F. Villar (2000): Indoeuropeos y no indoeuropeos en la Hispania prerromana, pp. 369-378.
⁵ J. Coromines (1976): Els ploms sorotàptics d'Arles, in Entre dos llenguatges (II), pp. 142-216. Lusitanian, a language attested on several inscriptions written in the Latin alphabet, would also belong to this group.