Knives and ploughs

According to the traditional view, English knife, from Germanic *knība-z 'knife' (with no native IE etymology), is a Wanderwort which spread from Old Norse into Old English and other Germanic languages, as well as Old French quenif, quanif 'pocket knife', (and in diminutive form) Occitan ganivet, Aragonese cañivete and Basque kanibet, ganibet, kanabita, gaiñibeta, ganabeta, kanit, gaminta 'penknife'.

However, the German linguist Theo Vennemann¹ (see my earlier post) reversed the propagation direction, considering Basque kanibet to be the original form, as a compound of kana 'cane' (a loanword from Latin canna) and bedoi 'pruning shears'², a dialectal word of limited extension. But (unknowingly to him) the latter is a loanword from Gaulish uidubion 'hoe' (glossed as Latin vidubium), a compound from uidu- 'wood' and -bion < Celtic *bi-na- 'to hit, strike' < IE *b^hejH-.  This root is reflected in Germanic as *bī́ɵla-, *bīdla- 'knife, sword, ploughsare' > English bill.

My own proposal is that Latin novācula 'razor, knife' (Portughese navalha, Spanish navaja, Catalan navalla, Aragonese novalla) < *kne-wa-tlā, traditionally derived from IE *ksew- 'to rub, to whet'³, is actually a reflex of IE *kneH2- 'to scratch, to scrape'. This etymology can also explain Basque nabas- 'plough' (in compounds)³ < *knā-wa-z and Germanic *knība-z < *knē-wa-z as borrowings from some IE language (possibly Italoid) where IE *w gave b. 

The semantic shift from 'knife' to 'plough' can also be observed in the descendants of Latin culter 'knife' > Occitan coltre, French coutre, Italian coltro 'ploughshare', Basque golde 'plough', the original meaning being transferred to the diminutive cultellum > Galician coitelo, Spanish cuchillo, Catalan coltell 'knife' (the latter form being displaced by ganivet).

Another interesting Basque word is saratu 'to hoe', a loanword from IE *sºrp- 'sickle; to cut' (Latin sar(r)iō 'to hoe (vine)' < *sarpiō.)
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¹ Zur Etymologie der Sippe von engl. knife, franz. canif, bask. kanibet*, in Europa Vasconica, Europa Semitica (2003), pp. 427-452.

² Also Bearnese bedui. See García de Diego, Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico (1985), pp. 1063-1064.
³ Considered by many Indo-Europeanists to be an extension of IE *k´es- 'to cut'.
⁴  There is also the Bearnese hapax naves '(large) knife'.

Crackpots in action

In historical linguistics, the term crackpot is applied to people (no matter whether academic or amateur) who defend absurd theories (and also to the theories themselves).  Crackpots should be differentiated from pseudo-linguists, people with none or little knowledge of linguistics who engage themselves in the subject with catastrophic results (e.g. Edo Nyland or Polat Kaya).

I'm going to list the crackpots I've got acquainted with in my own career¹. The first one is the French Arnaud Fournet, who has posited an "Proto-Exo-African" [sic] super-family to replace Nostratic. Not only he considers Basque and Etruscan to be remnants of a Paleo-European substrate², but he also claims Yenisseian is an IE language, and has "discovered" several imaginary IE substrate languages in present-day France. Recently, he has written with the Nostraticist Allan Bomhard a paper on the supposed relationship between IE and Hurrian.

The Canadian Glen Gordon is known for his Indo-Aegean hypothesis relating IE and Etruscan³. Being a sui generis Nostraticist, he's a Bomhard's fan but a harsh critic of Starostin⁴. He also likes to "nip in the bud" his rivals' theories.

The German Theo Vennemann is an academic scholar who believes OEH isn't related to IE but to Basque, constituting a "Vasconic" substrate. He also posits an "Atlantidic" substrate akin to Semitic in the Atlantic fringe⁵.

The Italian Mario Alinei is the champion of the so-called Paleolithic Continuity Theory (PCT) of IE origins, which states that IE languages were already spoken in their respective historical homelands since the Mesolithic. The Valencian Jesús Sanchis is one of his supporters.

Last but not least is Michel Morvan, an unortodox French Vascologist who posited a genetical relationship between Basque and Eurasiatic in his doctoral thesis Les origines linguistiques du Basque (1996).

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¹ I should notice that some of them have criticized my own work, even to the point of making personal attacks and censoring me in their own blogs/lists.

² In his own words, Basque and Etruscan "never moved an inch".

³ In the same line than the Spanish Indo-Europeanist Rodríguez Adrados, but a more sophisticated approach.

⁴ Even mentioning the name Starostin makes him angry.
⁵ According to Wikipedia, he now has replaced this theory with a Punic superstrate in Germanic.