Tartessian Aiburis (updated)

Tartessian aibᵘuris /Aiburis/ appears at the beginning of a funerary inscription (J.3.1) and is frequently interpreted as an anthroponym whose second element -ris would correspond to Celtic *-rīxs 'king' > -rix, which in fact is the most frequent element in Gaulish anthroponymy¹. However, the first element aibu- (likely reflected in Iberian aibe), doesn't have a clear Celtic etymology, although it appears in the Gallaecian theonym Aebosocelensis² and possibly also the toponym Aipora (modern Évora)³.

Prósper proposes a link to Greek aipús 'steep, craggy', aípos 'hill, crag', whose etymology is disputed⁴. If the labial stop comes from a labiovelar, we could compare it to the Italic toponyms Aequāna, Aequum Faliscum and Aequimelium (a village on the hillside of the Capitoline), the latter being a calque of the Gallaecian form. Although homonymous to Latin aequus 'equal; fair, even' < *aikʷo-, we can hardly expect Aequimelium to mean 'confraternity hill' or the like.

On the other hand, we've got Gallic (Gaulish) *aikʷo-randā 'boundary' as the source of the toponyms Aigurande, Eguérande, Eygurande, Iguerande, Ingrande(s), Yvrande(s), La Guirande, Eurande, etc⁵. The first element *ekwo- has been alternatively linked to Latin aqua 'water' (absent from Celtic) or aequus, but in my humble opinion it would make more sense to be a foreign loanword related to the Italic toponyms. 

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¹ X. Delamarre (2008): Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise, 2nd edition, pp. 259-260.
² B.Mª. Prósper (2000): Lenguas y religiones prerromanas del occidente de la Península Ibérica, p. 112.

³ J.T. Koch (2013): Celtic in the South-west at the Dawn of History, 2nd edition, p. 141.
⁴ P. Chantraine (1968): Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque, p. 37-38.

⁵ X. Delamarre, op. cit., pp. 163-164.

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'.

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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'.

Is really Tartessian a Celtic language? (newly updated)

When Koch's first book appeared in 2009 (the second edition came in 2013), launching his theory Tartessian was a Celtic language, I was enthusiastic. However, by the time he published his second book (2011) I had reached to the conclusion his interpretations were contrived as well as inconsistent.

A major difficulty regarding the Tartessian corpus is the semisyllabic SW script (where vowels are redundantly noted) hasn't yet been fully deciphered and thus the exact value of some signs is still unknown or problematic. For example, Koch assigns the sign H (Phoenician het, Greek epsilon) to the Proto-Celtic voicess bilabial fricative [ɸ] (almost universally lost in historical Celtic languages) coming from IE *p, as in e.g. Hatªaneatᵉe. However, the correspondence between Tartessian Haitᵘura¹ and Iberian baiduŕa², the later seemingly related to baides 'witness', in turn derived from IE *weid- 'to see; to know (as a fact)' (cfr. Celtiberian ueizos), points to the the value /w/ (Greek digamma).

If this is correct and the word is native to Tartessian, it would indicate it's an IE language although certainly a non-Celtic one. A good possibility would be the Paleo-European (after Krahe's Alteuropäische) substrate identified by the Spanish Indo-Europeanist Francisco Villar in the ancient Iberian toponymy, where we find the lexeme *akʷā 'river'³ (see here) used as a suffix (e.g. Turaqua).

Regardless of the actual filiation of Tartessian, it's clear it had contacts with other languages spoken in Western Iberia, namely Gallaecian (Celtic) and Lusitanian (non-Celtic). For example, the segment lokºobºo /lugu-bo/ closely mimicks Gallaecian LVGUBO /Lugubo/, LVCOVBV(S) /Lucoubo/, a dative plural theonym presumably referring to the gods Lug.

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¹ Translated by Koch as 'Lady of Baeturia'. See J.T. Koch (2011): The South-Western (SW) Inscriptions and the Tartessos of Archaeology of History, in Tarteso, El emporio del metal.

² The signs for rothics /r/ and /ŕ/ are reversed in the SW (Tartessian) and Southern Iberian scripts with regard to the Levantine one, upon which the usual transcriptions are based.
³ Not 'water' (cfr. Latin aqua) as commonly thought.

Basque zaldi 'horse' (updated)

Basque zaldi 'horse' has correspondences in the Iberian antroponym formant saldu and Berber a-serdun 'mule'. Although some authors have proposed a link to thieldones 'a breed of Asturian ambling horses' (Pliny) < IE *del- 'to shake' (cfr. English tilt), in my opinion this is semantically unsatisfactory.

I'd propose a link to IE *g^wold- 'foal, young of an ass' > Germanic *kult-a- 'colt' (English colt), Sanskrit gardabhá- 'ass'¹, with assibilation of the initial velar. This is a Wanderwort found in Caucasian *gwælV (~ -ɫ-) 'horse' (a Nakh-Tsezian isogloss) and which also designates the onager (Equus hemionus): Farsi gur 'Persian onager (Equus hemionus onager)', Hindi khur 'Indian wild ass (Equus hemionus khur)'.

The ultimate origin is Altaic: Turkic *Kulum 'foal', Mongolian *kulan 'Mongolian wild ass (Equus hemionus hemionus)'², linked by the EDAL to Tungusic *ku(l)ma- 'maral/wapiti (Cervus canadensis)' and Japonic *kuáma 'foal, colt', thus reconstructing a protoform *kúlme 'a k. of ungulate'.
 

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¹ Tocharian B kercapo 'ass, donkey' is likely an early Indo-Arian loanword. See D.A. Adams (1999): A Dictionary of Tocharian B, p. 195-196. 
² Borrowed by Turkic, where it designates the Turkmenian kulan (Equus hemionus kulan).

Basque otso 'wolf' (updated)

Basque otso 'wolf' apparently derives from Aquitanian OSSON, OXSON¹, where XS probably reflects an apico-alveolar affricate like the one found in modern Basque. There're also the Iberian onomastic element ośon and the "Tartessian" toponym Osson-oba 'River of wolves', whose second member is probably an Italoid toponymic element (e.g. On-oba) cognate to Lithuanian upė².

My colleague Miguel Carrasquer links this word to Berber *wVʃʃVn 'jackal', in turn linked to Egyptian wnʃ 'wolf' by Militarev. I regard this and other substrate loanwords as remnants of a Paleo-Berber language once spoken in the Iberian Peninsula. This would possibly be reflected in the distribution of Y-chromosome haplogroup E-M81, native to NW Africa but found also in some areas of the Iberian Peninsula (especially on the west), with a strong peak among Pasiegos of Cantabria, an ethnical group of trashumant shepherds³.

Distribution of Y-chromosome haplogroup E-M81

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¹ J. Gorrotxategi (1984): Estudio sobre la onomástica indígena de Aquitania, p. 250-251.

² F. Villar (2000): Indoeuropeos y no indoeuropeos en la Hispania prerromana.
³ Attempts to explain this as a result of the Muslim conquest (8th century AD) can be dismissed.

Spanish urraca 'magpie'

The Catalan linguist Joan Coromines¹ derives Spanish urraca 'magpie (Pica pica)' from the female personal name Urraca², popular during the High Middle Ages in the Christian kingdoms of Northern Spain (Asturias/León, Castile, Navarre, Aragon). However, this hypothesis not only doesn't give us any insight about the etymology, but it also won't explain the initial consonant found in the dialectal variants burraca, furraca, hurraca /xuráka/, zurraca /θuráka/.

I'd link the Spanish word to Basque urra (B) 'expression to call hens and pidgeons; birds in general, especially hens and pidgeons' < *burra 'hen', with *bu > u³ like in Iberian. By contrast, Paleo-Basque, lacking of such a stop in its sound inventory, adopted it as /p/⁴, hence purra (G, HN, S, R, Z), furra (B, G, HN) 'expression to call hens', with the expressive variants tturra /cura/ (L, LN, Z), turra (L, LN). There's also Galician churra /tʃúra/ 'hen; expression to call hens'.

A diminutive form *burra-ka would be then the source of the forms burraca, urraca. In Spanish, the initial labial became a voiceless bilabial fricative *φ, variously reflected as /f/, /x/ or /θ/⁵. As in the case of most names of birds, the utlimate origin of this word would be onomatopoeic.

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¹ J. Coromines (1973, 2008): Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, p. 564.

² There's also the Galician variant Orraca.

³ Possibly through an intermediate stage *wu.
⁴ Cfr. Asturian utre 'vulture' ~ Gascon botre, butre > Basque putre (G), futre (HN).
⁵ Spanish *φ became aspirated as /h/ (except before /l, r, w/) at an early date, although the aspiration was later lost in most dialects. This is why the genuine form must have been hurraca.

Celtiberian boustom 'cowshed, byre'

Celtiberian boustom 'cowshed, byre', attested in the Botorrita I text, is a compound from Celtic *bow- 'cow' < IE *gʷōw- and *-sto- 'standing' < IE *sth₂-o-¹, formally identical to Old Irish búas 'riches, wealth (in kine)'². In Iberian toponymy, this word has descendants in busto, bustar 'meadow': Busto, Bustelo/Bustillo, Busdongo, Bustarviejo, etc³.

I think possible for Iberian buiśtin-, boiśtin-, attested in La Serreta texts, to be a Celtiberian loanword with reduction of unstressed vowels o/u > i.

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¹ C. Jordán Cólera (2004): Celtibérico, p. 64.

² R. Matasović (2009): Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic, p. 71.

³ J.J. Moralejo (2007): Callaica nomina. Estudios de onomástica galega, p. 42.

Iberian anthroponyms

Even before complete decipherment of the Iberian scripts was achieved by Gómez Moreno in 1922, the structure of the Iberian anthroponyms had been known since the finding of the Ascoli's Bronze Plate near Rome in 1908. This is a list of Iberian soldiers which formed the Turma Salluitana (an auxiliary horse troop which fought to the side of Pompeius Strabo in the Allies' War) and to whom Roman citizenship was granted. The names appear in the form of praenomen (first name) and cognomen (last name): X son of Y.

Although this inscription allowed epigraphists to identify personal names in Iberian texts as soon as they could been read, it's far from being an equivalent of the Rossetta stone¹. Most Iberian anthroponyms are compounds of two members, either two nouns or a noun and an adjective. This structure is similar to the one of Celtic or Germanic anthroponymy, whose speakers were also warfare aristocracies of the Iron Age².

Examples of Iberian anthroponyms:

Baise-bilos, Bilos-baiser 'Solitary Eagle'
Balke-bilos 'Eagle's Eye'
Bando-nius 'Chief's Horse'³
Biu-nius 'Chief's Mare'
Iskeŕ-adin, Adin-iskeŕ 'Old Hand'
Nios-iskeŕ, Iske-nius 'Chief's Hand'
Sakaŕ-iskeŕ 'Big Hand'
Sosin-adin 'Old Bull'
Sosin-bilos 'Bull-Eagle'⁴
Sosin-biuŕ 'Bull-Mare'

The apparent similarity of Iberian anthroponym elements with Basque words has fueled countless amateurs to support the discredited Vasco-Iberist theory, which in its most extreme form equates Iberian with an ancestral form of Basque, so the modern language can be confidently used to translate Iberian  texts⁵. This approach is absolutely unscientific and rejected by serious specialists. The hard truth is that Basque alone is of little help to understand Iberian.

However, with the aid of external comparison and a patient research we have been able to open a breach on what it was an impenetrable wall for many. The first Iberian word whose etymology can be surely stablished is adin 'mature, old' (PNC *=VdʑV 'to grow'⁶ + participle suffix *-nV).

Iberian glossary

adin 'mature, old' ~ Basque adin 'age; judgement'

baiser 'solitary' (Aquitanian baese-)⁷ 

balke 'eye' < PNC *ʡwilʡi 'eye'
bando 'horse'⁸ ~ Basque mando 'mule'⁹

biki 'cow' ~  Basque behi 'cow'¹⁰ 

bilos 'eagle, bird of prey' ~ Latin mīluus 'kite'

bi-o-s 'heart' ~ Basque bi-ho-tz 'heart'¹¹

bi-uŕ 'mare' ~ Basque be-hor 'mare'¹² 

is-keŕ 'hand'¹³ ~ Spanish garra 'claw'

niś 'girl'¹⁴ ~ Basque nes-ka 'girl' (Aquitanian nes-ka-to).

nios, nius 'chief'¹⁵                                                               

śani 'boy' ~ Basque sehi, sein 'boy, servant'¹⁶

sakaŕ 'big' ~ Basque zahar 'old' (formerly 'big')¹⁷

saldu 'horse' ~ Basque zaldi 'horse'¹8

sosin 'bull (Aquitanian soson) ~ Basque zezen 'bull'

tautin 'noble' ~  Aquitanian hauten 'noble', Basque hauta 'election, elite'¹⁹

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¹ Unfortunately, bilingual texts are very scanty and often incomplete due to breaking of the material support (ussualy stone).
² This is a quite different picture from the one commonly found in schoolbooks, which present Iberians as peaceful traders.
³ Found in the Latinized form Mandonius.
⁴ Found in the Latinized form Sosimilos.
⁵ Good examples of Vasco-Iberist crackpots in Spanish literature are Juan Luis Román del Cerro and Jorge Alonso García.
⁶ The native Basque output of this root is hazi 'to grow; seed'.
⁷  A compund from *wa- 'this' < PNC *ʔu (˜ *hu) 'demonstrative pronoun (that)' and  *-idʑV 'self, oneself'.
⁸ Iberian ortography doesn't differentiate between /b/ and /m/.
⁹ Borrowed from Celtic *mandu 'young animal; horse', an Altaic Wanderwort.
¹⁰A West Europe substrate item *bekko < PNC *bHe:mtɬɬɨ (˜ -u,-i) 'deer, mountain goat'. 
¹¹ PNC *jerk’wi 'heart'. 
¹²PNC *q’ɦweɫV:/*q’weɫɦV: 'large female domestic animal (cow, mare)'.
¹³ The first element is from *tsHə 'one'.
¹⁴ PNC *nusA (˜ -o-) 'daughter-in-law'.
¹⁵ PNC *nɨwts(w)A: 'prince, ruler; bride-groom'.
¹⁶ PNC *ts’ænʔV 'new'.
¹⁷ PNC *tʃ’ǝqwV 'big'.
¹⁸ PIE *g^(w)Ald- 'foal, young of an ass', with assibilation (palatalization) of the initial velar. 
¹⁹ Celtic *toutā 'people'.