Summer and apple: history of a Nostratic Wanderwort

In Greek mythology, Hēméra was the primeval goddness of the day. From this word and Armenian awr 'day', Indo-Europeanists such as Mallory-Adams¹ reconstruct an IE protoform *h₂ēm-ər- '(heat of the) day', which I link to Semitic *ħamm- 'to be hot; warm'², with the voiceless pharyngeal fricative ħ corresponding to "laryngeal" h₂. 

It doesn't take a long stretch of the imagination to devise a derived variant *HVmV-lV/HVmV-lV which gave (with metathesis) Nakh-Daghestanian *mhalV/mhanV- 'warm' and IE *mah₂lo- 'apple', with a straightforward semantic drift from 'warm (season)' to 'fruit'. Several IE languages of North Europe (Celtic, Germanic, Balto-Slavic) reflect a protoform *abVl- 'apple' (< *amHVl-?) which is regarded as a Paleo-European substrate loanword by some specialists.⁴

A variant *ʕu-malV/*ʕu-manV would be the origin of Uralic *omena/omVrV 'apple' as well as  Basque udare, udari, madari 'pear'³ (with denasalization and further delabialization), umao (B), umo 'ripe, seasoned'.  This makes sense because the apple tree is originary of Kurdistan, precisely in the area where Nostratic was presumably spoken.

On the other hand, we've got yet another IE variant *sam-/*səm-ro- 'summer'⁴ and Hittite sam(a)lu- 'apple (tree)'.⁶⁵

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

² Also cognate are Hurrian am- 'to burn' and (possibly through an Etruscan intermediate) Latin amāre 'to love', amor 'love'.

³ 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, 591-652.

⁴ The ablaut form *sem- usually quoted in dictionaries isn't attested anywhere.

⁵ Explained by ortodox IE-ists such as Kloekhorst as the result of a "s-mobile".

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

Latin persōna 'theatre mask' is a loanword from Etruscan *φersu-na > φersu 'masked character (in games)'. This can be analized as a derivative from an unattested form *φers 'husk', an agricultural term with correspondences in Hittite paršdu 'leaf, foliage'¹, 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'².

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-'³. Thus the reconstructed meaning of the theonym would be 'sheaf-beater', i.e. 'threshing maiden'⁴. 

However, like most Indo-Iranian lexicon related to agriculture, *parš appears to be a substrate loanword from the language spoken by BMAC people⁵. 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 > ro⁶. Although Holzer's theory has been discredited as a whole⁷ 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.

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¹ Wrongly translated by some authors as 'sprout, sprig'. See A. Kloekhorst (2008): Etymological Dictionary of Hittite, pp. 645-646. 

² A. Kassian (2009): Anatolian lexical isolates and their external Nostratic cognates, in Orientalia et Classica, §48.

³ M. De Vaan (2008): Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the Other Italic Languages, pp. 481-482.

⁴ R. Wachter (2006): Persephone, the Threshing Maiden, in Die Sprache, vol. 47, no. 2 (2007-2008), pp.163-181.

⁵ M. Witzel (2003): Linguistic Evidence for Cultural Exchange in Prehistoric Western Central Asia, in Sino-Platonic Papers 129, p. 33.

⁶ 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.

⁷ R. Matasović (2013): Substratum words in Balto-Slavic, in Filologija 60, pp. 75-102.

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'. 
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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-.

Latin aqua 'water' (updated)

Latin aqua 'water' < *akw-ā (f.) is an interesting word with correspondences in Germanic *áxwō 'river' (Gothic ahwa, Old High German aha) as well as Celtiberian akua,  whose meaning is probably 'river' (cfr. tar akuai 'across the river' in Botorrita III¹). Contrarily to what many scholars think, its original meaning isn't 'water' but 'river'² and belongs to the Old European Hydronymy (OEH), a corpus first studied by Hans Krahe and more recently by Francisco Villar and which represents an older form of IE than the historically attested languages³.  

Apparently, *akʷā would be a derivated noun from the adjective *aku- 'quick, fast', found in Latin acupedius 'swift of foot' and accipiter 'hawk', the latter with cognates in Greek ōkýpteros, literally meaning 'swift flyer' (ōkýs 'swift', pterón 'wing'), and Sanskrit āśu-pátvan- 'flying swiftly'⁴. These correspondences suggest Paleo-European *aku- would correspond to late IE *ōḱu- 'quick' > Latin ōcior.

On the other hand, the geminate stop in accipiter would be the result of a sound shift -kʷ- > -kk- which I call Kretschmer's Law and of which are examples in Italoid (e.g. the Lusitanian theonym Iccona) and Celtic (e.g. *sukko- 'pig'). There're also traces of it in Vulgar Latin 'water', as reflected in the Appendix Probi (aqua non acqua).

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¹ P. de Bernardo Stempel (2007): Water in the Botorrita Bronzes and Other Inscriptions, in Palaeohispanica 7, pp. 55-69.
² Despite so, it has been compared it to other 'water' words, both within the IE family and oustide, even up to the point of building upon it a "global etymology" (Ruhlen).

³ More specifically, its agglutinative morphology would correspond to the "IE I (pre-flexional)" stage proposed by Francisco Rodríguez Adrados. Of course, Vennemann's proposal of OEH being related to Basque must be rejected.

⁴ M. de Vaan (2008): Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the Other Italic Languages, p. 21.

Gaulish *santikā 'ladle; milking vessel' (updated)

Gascon sanja, sansha, santja, sòntja, shansha, sancha, Aragonese sancha and dialectal Catalan sanxa (Cerdanya) designate a milking vessel carved in wood, often made by hollowing out a tree trunk¹. On the other hand, dialectal Basque xantxa (L, Z), xaiñtxa (Z) designates a milking vessel with a long metal handle (kopetxa), and in the latter also 'ladle' (golhare), a meaning which in my opinion would be the original one².

Although the Gaulish origin of this word seems undeniable, a Celtic etymology is more dubious. For example, Matasović proposes a Celtic femenine *sϕanjā corresponding to the masculine *sϕenjo- > Old Irish sine 'teat'³, in turn derived from IE *spen-, which is phonetically unacceptable, among other things because Celtic *sϕ- gives s- in Goidelic but f- in Britonic and probably also in Gaulish. For the same reason, Hubschmid's protoform *sand-ikā from IE *spn̥dh- 'bucket'⁴ can't be accepted, although Celtic *sϕondā would be the origin of Romansh s(u)onna 'bucket', probably a Lepontic loanword.

Following Coromines⁵, I'd propose a Gaulish protoform *santi-kā as a Baltoid loanword corresponding to Baltic *samti-/semti- > Lithuanian sámtis 'spoon, ladle', sémti 'to pump, to scoop (a liquid)', from an IE root *semH- 'to pump, to scoop (a liquid)' also found in Latin sentīna 'bilge; sewer, drainage' and cognate to Altaic *ʃŏ́mo 'to dive; to summerge; to scoop (a liquid)' (EDAL 2193) > Turkic *tʃo:(m)- 'to diver; to swim; to scoop (a liquid); to immerse, to dip' (Turkish čömče 'spoon'⁶). On the other hand, Etruscan śanti (Tabula Capuana) probably designated some kind of vessel.

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¹ G. Rohlfs (1970): Le Gascon. Etudes de phylologie pyrénéenne, § 59. It's likely the same kind of vessel called kaiku in Basque.

² The oldest European metal ladlers are from the Hallstatt culture of the Early Iron Age.

³ R. Matasović (2009): Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic, p. 333.

⁴ J. Hubschmid (1951): Alpenwörter. Ursprungs und vorromanischen Romanischen, p. 61.

⁵ DECLC, p. 667-668.

⁶ J. Hubschmid (1955): Schläuche und Fasser, p. 107, quotes čamča, čumča with a diminutive suffix -ča.