Following Meyer-Lübke (REW 1700), the French linguist Xavier Delamarre1 proposes Gaulish *karmon- as the source of Rhaeto-Romance (Surselvan) karmún 'weasel', although personally I think the source language would be Italoid.
This is a regional IE word *k´ormon-
'weasel, ermine' found in
OHG harmo,
Lithuanian šarmuõ
'wildcat, ermine', šermuõ
'weasel, ermine' as well as Basque armindderi
(Aezk), armonddegi
(HN), ergoniri
(HN), ergoneri
(HN), ergenore
(HN), erbindori
(*L), erminori
(HN), erbiñore
(G), erbiñude
(G), erbiñure (G,
L) 'weasel' (a compound whose second member is unknown2), with loss
of the initial stop due to Martinet’s Law.
Probably related is Mongolian *keremü 'squirrel', borrowed into
Tungus keremun (MT
123)3. There’re also Turkic *Küŕen, Mongolian
*kürene
'ferret, weasel' (EDAL
1105) and Tungusic *gurma-
/ *gurna- 'hare; squirrel; ermine' (EDAL 572), wrongly linked to
different words in other Altaic languages4.
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1 X. Delamarre (2008): Dictionnaire de la
langue gauloise, p. 105.
2 The forms erbi-unide
(Bazt), erbionide
(HN) are the product of a folk etymology from erbi 'hare' and unide
'wetnurse'.
3 G. Doerfler (1985): Mongolo-Tungusica.
4 In fact, the latter is absurdly
paired to Turkic and Korean words meaning 'antelope; deer'.
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