Some wrong Spanish etymologies

Some Coromines' Spanish etymologies (the ones found in the DRAE are generally nastier) enjoy a greater credit than they actually deserve.

For example, if we look at cerrar 'to close, shut' in his Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, we can see he derives it from late Latin *serare < Latin sera 'bolt, lock', in spite that Spanish /c/ (in the Middle Ages a dental affricate [ts] and now an interdental fricative [θ]) can't come from Latin /s/. He denies elsewhere any relationship between this word and Catalan serrar, French serrer 'to tighten', although they fit both phonetically (as [ts] > [s] in these languages) and semantically (the meanings 'closed' and 'tight, dense' are related). The answer is all these words¹ are Pyrenaic (a Vasco-Caucasian substrate language) loanwords from the PNC root *=utɕE(rV) 'thick, fat'.

Another weird etymology is jara 'rockrose (Cistus)', a kind of bush common in the Iberian Peninsula which Coromines derives from Arabic ša^cra 'low bush', where [ʃ] /x/ regularly developed into [χ] /j/. Apparently, he ignores Basque zare 'basket' and (t)xara 'rockrose (wood)', a word of Pyrenaic origin for which Bengtson suggests an etymology from PNC *tʃ’ʃ’wɦeli (˜ tɕ’ɕ’,-ʕ-,-ɫ-) 'a k. of foliage tree'². The palatized form would have been borrowed into Spanish xara, then jara.

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¹ There's also Basque (Biscayan) zarri 'dense', zarra-tu 'dense; to close, shut'.
² Related to Paleo-Eurasian *tʃwalV 'willow', a root represented in Paleo-European *sal(i)k- 'willow' (Celtic *salik-, Latin salix, Germanic *salx-) and native IE *welik- 'willow' (Greek helíkē, English willow).

Strawberry fields forever

Starostin reconstructs a Paleo-Eurasian root *NEk’rV 'thorny bush' > Altaic *ńíkrV 'a k. of thorny tree', from which I derive Paleo-European *ag´ºr- (Gaulish agraniō- 'sloe, fruit of the blackthorn', English acorn¹, Latin agresta 'green grape', Greek ágrios 'wild'), with loss of the initial nasal. Its IE native counterpart would be *d^hreg´^h- 'sloetree, blackthorn'² (Celtic *dragenā 'sloe, fruit of the blackthorn'³, Albanian drédhë 'strawberry'). Greek hrá:ks, hró:ks 'grape' < *srāg-, is probably a Thracian loanword from the same root.

Paleo-Eurasian *bVrdzV 'thorn' is the origin of Kartvelian *bardzg-/*burdzg(a) 'thorn, thorny plant'. The sibilant *dz is reflexed as *g´ in IE *b^hrag´- 'strawberry' > Lithuanian brãškē 'garden strawberry', Latin frāgum 'strawberry'⁴ and as *g´^h in *wreH2g´^h- 'thorn' > Celtic *wragi- 'needle', Lithuanian rãžas 'dry stalk, stubble; pronk of fork', Greek hrákhos 'thorn-hedge', hrákhis 'spine, backbone'.

Altaic *núŕi (˜ -e) 'a k. of berry, grape'⁵ is related to Hittite muri- '(bunch) of grapes' and IE *moro- 'blackberry'.
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¹ Indo-Europeanists usually group this with Lithuanian uga 'berry', Old Church Slavic jagoda 'fruit', vin-jaga 'grape', but I prefer to group the Balto-Slavic forms with Latin ūva 'grape', thus reconstructing *H3g^wh-ā 'berry'.
² Found (with simplification of the initial cluster) in Basque lahar, nahar 'blackberry (Rubus fructicosus); buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica); caltrop (Tribulus terrestris)'.
³ Related to this is *d^hren- 'cornel cherry' (Old High German dirn-baum, Russian derën) ~ *tºrnu- 'thorn'.
⁴ Usually though to be derivated from *srāg-. French fraise, Spanish fresa 'strawberry' is probably an Italoid loanword from the same root (Italoid is a "satem" language with *b^h- > f- like Latin). Basque has araga 'strawberry' and arakatz 'gooseberry'.
⁵ Notice than the supposed Korean cognate *nùrúk 'yeast' presented in the database doesn't correspond to this root but to *ńjuŕge 'a k. of weed' < Paleo-Eurasian *nUŕV 'grain, corn'.

El roble y el haya

El IE regional del NW (no PIE) *perk^w- tiene aparentemente dos formas, una masculina 'roble' (latín quercus 'roble, encina') y otra femenina 'pino' (inglés fir 'abeto'). Se trata de un préstamo (loanword) vasco-caucásico a partir del PNC *χwɨrkkV 'árbol, roble', con *χw > *p.

El PIE *b^heH2g´o- 'haya' (latín fāgus 'haya', griego phēgos 'roble', ruso buz 'olmo') es también de origen vasco-caucásico a partir del PNC *mħoqqwe (˜ -ʕ-) 'roble'.

Efectivamente, tal y como propuso Starostin en un viejo artículo, el PIE contiene un buen número de préstamos vasco-caucásicos¹ de época neolítica. Las correspondencias fonéticas entre éstos y el PNC sugieren una única lengua de origen, que tendría características como:

1) PNC *w- > b- en posición inicial. 
2) PNC *l/*r caen en ciertos grupos consonánticos (clusters).
3) PNC *l  > r intervocálicamente y ante consonantes.
4) Una transformación del sistema vocálico del PNC que implica la delabialización de PNC *o.
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¹ Hay que aclarar que el proto norcaucásico (PNC) reconstruído por Starostin y Nikolayev es una entidad mucho más antigua que lo que aparentemente se podría pensar, y por tanto, más próxima a lo que sería el auténtico proto-vasco-caucásico, aunque Starostin nunca incluyó el euskera ni la hipótesis vasco-caucásica en sus investigaciones.

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.

Words for 'sea'

There's no universal word for 'sea' in IE languages. The most widespread (Celtic, Latin, Germanic, Balto-Slavic) one is *mori-, related to Altaic *mju:ri 'water'.

Another widespread root is *seH2l- 'salt, sea'¹ > Greek halê 'sea'², which I think ultimately comes from PNC *q’eɦlV (˜ -ɫ-) 'bitter'³, with an evolution PNC *q’- > pre-PIE *χ- > PIE *s- (by Fournet's Law). This Vasco-Caucasian root is reflected in Basque gatz 'salt', gazi 'salty' + PNC *ts’s’wenhV 'salt'⁴ > *gas-dane > gazta(i), gazna 'cheese', both Cantabrian loanwords.

Dolgopolsky proposes a Paleo-Eurasian root *dalqV 'wave' (ND 526) reflected in IE *d^helH- > Greek thálassa (Attic thálatta) 'sea'. In a IE substrate language (probably Italoid), this root gives Greek sálos 'turbulent movement of the sea, flushing of the waves', Latin salum 'open sea; sea waves'⁵.

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¹ Without any linguistic evidence, Arnaud Fournet relates this to Kartvelian *zoɣw-. See his document.
² A feminine word whose masculine counterpart is halós 'salt'.

³ The glottalized stop is retained (with secondary labialization) in Kartvelian *q’wel- 'cheese'.
⁴ Native outputs from this root are itsaso 'sea', itze 'sea' (an archaic form quoted by Trombetti) + urde 'pig' > izurde, gizaurde 'dolphin' (lit. 'sea-pig').
⁵ Which again Fournet unjustifiedly relates to IE *seH2l-.

Vasco-Caucasian loanwords in Proto-Uralic

There's a number of Proto-Uralic words with Vasco-Caucasian parallels:

*δ'yxmi 'birdcherry' ~ PNC *dʒɦumV 'bush, grass; a k. of fruit'
*joke / *juka 'river'  ~ PNC *jimχχwA 'river'
*lamte 'low, lowland' ~ PNC *lhemdɮɮwɨ 'earth'
*pe(n)tʃa 'pine, conifer' ~ PNC *pintsʼsʼwA 'resin, juice'

I think these loanwords reflect the contact between Vasco-Caucasian-speaking farmers and Proto-Uralic-speaking hunter-gatherers.

Celtic and IE substrates

There's toponomastic evidence of IE substrate languages spoken in parts of Europe before the historical attested languages. One of them is the Old European hydronymy language (Krahe's Alteuropäische). OEH looks like an archaic IE language (even more than Anatolian), with predominance of the vowel /a/ and lack of inflection. In this way, it would reflect the stage called IE I or "pre-flexional" by Rodríguez Adrados¹.

I adscribe to this substrate Celtic *nantu-/*nanto- 'stream, valley', from PIE *d^hen- 'to run, flow' (cfr. Latin fōns, fōntis 'spring, source'), with assimilation of the initial dental to the following nasal in the source language (that is, PIE *d^h- > *d- > *n-).

Another IE substrate found in SW Europe is Italoid (aka Sorotaptic), which according to linguists Joan Coromines and Francisco Villar was somewhere between Baltic and Italic in the IE dialectal cloud. 

In his last book, Prof. Koch of the University of Wales postulates Tartessian (found in inscriptions of SW Iberia dating back to the 7th century BC) as a Celtic language with "aberrant" features like uar- < *ufor- 'over, on', with /a/ instead of the expected /o/ (cfr. Old Irish for). This apparent contradiction could be explained if Tartessian had an Italoid substrate.

According to Villar, IE had a 4 vowel system /i, E, A, U/ until the reduction  of *H2e > a introduced a new central vowel in the system. In some languages (Celtic, Italic, and Greek), /a/ pushed /A/ back into /o/, while in Italoid (and also Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian) they merged into a single vowel.

There's an Italoid lead inscription (now lost) found in Amélie-les-Bains/Els Banys d'Arles (Roussillon) which has been studied by Coromines². It's a votive text dedicated to the nymph deities called KANTAS NISCAS. The first word derivates from PIE *k^wento- 'holy' and the second one is the Iberian counterpart of Basque neska 'girl' < *neś-ka³ < PNC *nusA (˜ -o-) 'daughter-in-law'.

Latin has loanwords from Italoid like vagus 'wanderer' < IE *weg´^h- 'to carry (in a vehicle)'.
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¹ See for example his Nuevos estudios de lingüística indoeuropea (1988).
² Els ploms sorotàptics d'Arles, in Entre dos llenguatges, vol. II, p. 143-146 (1976).
³ Iberian niś is found as an anthroponym formant in inscriptions and -ka is a diminutive suffix.

Celtic *dūno- 'fort'

Celtic *dūno- 'fort' is found as a toponym suffix in areas which were formerly Celtic-speaking as France and Great Britain, where it takes the form -ton. It was also borrowed into Germanic (English town, Dutch duin 'garden', German Zaun 'enclosure').

The origin of this word has been disputed, and some Indo-Europeanists have suggested a possible relationship with Latin fūnus 'burial' (from the unattested meaning of 'burial mound'), thus reconstructing a PIE root *d^huHno-¹. But IMHO this etymology fits better to Germanic *dūnō 'hill, dune' (English down, Dutch duine, borrowed into English dune). I regard this word as a Paleo-European root *d^haunV ~ *d^hūnV 'hill, mound' also reflected in Etruscan θaur(a) 'tomb', with n > r.

A connection with PNC *dompe 'edge, bank', which is the source of Greek táphos (native)  and túmbos (a Pelasgian loanword) 'tomb', is possible, although phonetical developments are not clear. 

From my own experience², I know the meaning 'enclosure' is related to 'thick, dense, packed', so I link the Celtic word to Semitic *duhn- 'fat'.
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¹ See for example Mallory & Adams (2006): The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World, p. 223.
² For example, Spanish cerrar 'to close', Catalan serrar, French serrer 'to tighten', Basque (Biscayan) zarri 'dense', zarra-tu 'dense; to close', ultimately from PNC *=utɕE(rV) 'thick, fat'.