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. 

_________________________________________________________________

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.

Etruscan φersu 'masked character (in games)' (updated)

Etruscan φersu 'masked character (in games)'¹ can be analized as a derivative from an unattested form *φers 'husk', an agricultural term with correspondences in Hittite paršdu 'leaf, foliage'², linked in turn by Alexei Kassian to Kartvelian *purtś 'husk, foliage' (Georgian purcel ’leaf, foliage', Megrel purča 'chaff, husk', Laz purča 'sweet corn ear', purčumale 'a k. of weed'), *prtś-wn- 'to husk, to scale'³.

Presumably related to this etymology is the Greek theonym Perséphonē (Etruscan Φersipnei, Latin Proserpina), attested on several Attic vases from the 5th century BC as Persóphatta, P(h)erséphatta, Pherréphatta. Rudolf Wachter analyzes it as a compound whose second member would be derived from Indo-European *-gʷhn-t-jā < *gʷhen- 'to beat, to kill', and the first one related to Sanskrit parṣá- 'sheaf, bundle', Young Avestan parša- 'ear (of corn)', to which Michael Weiss -in a personal communication to Wachter- also adds Latin porrum and Greek práson 'leek', from a supposed Indo-European lexeme *pr̥s-o-'⁴. Thus the reconstructed meaning of the theonym would be 'sheaf-beater', i.e. 'threshing maiden'⁵. 

However, like most Indo-Iranian lexicon related to agriculture, *parš appears to be a substrate loanword from the language spoken by BMAC people⁶. On the other hand, for Slavic *proso- 'millet', Georg Holzer posited a loanword from a substrate language he called Temematic (Temematisch in German) after its proposed sound correspondences with PIE and where *r̥ > ro⁷. Although Holzer's theory has been discredited as a whole⁸, it could still explain the etymology of the Slavic word from IE *bhar(e)s 'a k. of cereal (millet, barley, spelt)' (Latin far, farris), a remnant of the languages spoken by the Neolithic farmers who colonized Europe from the Near East.

________________________________________________________

¹ Latin persōna 'theatre mask' is a loanword from Etruscan *φersu-na.

² Wrongly translated by some authors as 'sprout, sprig'. See A. Kloekhorst (2008): Etymological Dictionary of Hittite, pp. 645-646. 

³ A. Kassian (2009): Anatolian lexical isolates and their external Nostratic cognates, in Orientalia et Classica, §48.

⁴ M. De Vaan (2008): Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the Other Italic Languages, pp. 481-482.

⁵ R. Wachter (2006): Persephone, the Threshing Maiden, in Die Sprache, vol. 47, no. 2 (2007-2008), pp.163-181.

⁶ M. Witzel (2003): Linguistic Evidence for Cultural Exchange in Prehistoric Western Central Asia, in Sino-Platonic Papers 129, p. 33.

⁷ G. Holzer (1989): Entlehnungen aus einer bisher unbekannten indogermanischen Sprach in Urslavischen und Urbaltischen, §2. See also F. Kortland (2003): An Indo-European substratum in Slavic?, in Languages in Prehistoric Europe, pp. 183-184.

⁸ R. Matasović (2013): Substratum words in Balto-Slavic, in Filologija 60, pp. 75-102.

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'.

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.

____________________________________________ 

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.

Latin voltur 'vulture' (updated)

Latin voltur, vultur 'vulture' is linked by scholars such as Mallory-Adams to Greek blosyrós 'terrible, fearsome' and blosyrōpis 'grim-looking' (seemingly from Aeolic in account of *w- > b-), thus reconstructing an IE protoform *gʷl̥tur-¹.

However, the Latin word is most likely a loanword from Etruscan velθur 'hawk, falcon', attested in the gentilic Velθur-na, which is likely associated to the city of Capua (cfr. capys 'hawk, falcon'). On the other hand, if the ancient toponyms Vulturnum (Castel Volturno) and Vulturnus (Volturno)² are actually related to vultur, then we could add too Etruscan velθ 'underground, netherworld', velθu-na 'human', velθ-ra 'infernal tunnel' (Moretti) to this etymology, pointing to a Tyrrhenian protoform *wVrd- 'underground'.

This would be also the origin of Greek Ōrth(r)os, the name of an infernal dog, although from a different substrate language.

_______________________________________________________________

¹ J.P. Mallory & D.Q. Adams (2006): The Oxford Introduction to PIE and the PIE World, p.145.

² Hence (ventus) Vulturnus 'SE wind' > Spanish bochorno 'foehn, sirocco'.

Celtic *marko- 'horse' (updated)

According to Gamkrelidze-Ivanov¹, Celtic *marko- 'horse' (Old Irish marc, Middle Welsh march, Gaulish márkan [acc.])² and Germanic *márxa-/*margá- 'horse, mare' (Old Icelandic marr 'horse', merr 'mare', Old High German marah- 'horse', meriha 'mare') is an Asian Wanderwort related to horseback riding in the Eurasian steppes before the first millenium BC.

The closest forms would be Sinitic *mrāʔ and Tibeto-Burman *mrāŋ 'horse', with Schwebeablaut. These words³ look as different formations from a lexeme found in Altaic *mórV 'horse' (Mongolian *mori, Tungusic *murin, Korean *màr). One of these derivations, with a nasal suffix (*mori-n), found in Mongol and Tungusic, would be the origin of the Tibeto-Burman word as well as North Caucasian *far-nē 'horse, mare'. The other would be a diminutive *mor-qa reflected in the Sinitic and Celto-Germanic words.

 

However, Sanskrit mṛga 'deer, antelope' would point to a possible origin of this Wanderwort in the domestication of wild horses by the Botai culture of northern Kazakhstan (3,500-3,000 BCE). 

________________________________________________________________________

¹ T. Gamkrelidze & V. Ivanov (1995): Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans, p. 472-473.

² R. Matasović (2009): Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic, p. 257.

³ For which Sergei Starostin reconstructs a Sino-Tibetan protoform *mrāH / *mrāŋ.