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'.

The lentil

The native Basque word for 'lentil (Lens culinaris)' can be reconstructed as *tink-il:(a), *sink-il:(a), most of whose variants are restricted to the dialect spoken in the Navarrese valley of Salazar¹: tindil, txindil, txingla, xingala. The form txintxil(a) spread also to the neighbouring Roncalese dialect, and further along in the Aragonese valley of Ansó we find tentilla, an interference with the genuine Romance form lentilla.

This word (also found in other Romance languages like Spanish lenteja, French lentille) is derived from Latin lenticula, a diminutive form of Latin lēns, lentis 'lentil', with cognates in Germanic (Old High German linsī, linsin), Slavic *lę̄tjā and Baltic (Lithuanian lę̃ši-s (-iō)).  This could be related to Semitic *ʕa-daʃ- 'lentil' with a shift d- > l- and a nasal infix.

 The Basque forms tilista, txilista, dilista (Westernmost dialects)² are a diminutive  form *ti-lis-ta with a fossilized Berber article (feminine plural) ti-³ agglutinated.

I think this is a substrate loanword whose ultimate origin is Afro-Asiatic *da/ingw- 'a k. of beans; corn', a root widely attested in several branches.

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¹ In other dialects this word can refer to different plants, mostly of the vetch (Vicia) family.
2 The Gipuzkoan form dilista was chosen for representing the word in the standardized language or Euskera Batua (lit. 'United Basque language').
³ Also found in Sardinian.

More about pigs (updated)

Basque urde 'pig' is a Neolithic Wanderwort also found in NEC *wHa:rttɬ’wǝ 'boar, pig' and IE *pork´-o- 'young pig, piglet' and whose ultimate origin is Austronesian *beRek 'domesticated pig'.

On the other hand, there's the isolated Roncalese form ti, apparently similar to Albanian thi < IE *suH- 'pig'¹.

Basque herauts 'male boar', herause, heusi, iñaus, iraus(i), irusi, i(h)ausi 'heat of sow' is a compound *ena-uśi whose second member is probably related to Kartvelian *eʃw- 'boar, pig' and possibly also to Berber *kus- 'pig'², ultimately deriving from a Vasco-Caucasian root 'ungulate' (see this post).

This word has been the object of a confusion as regarding the Aquitanian theonym HERAVSCORRITSEHE. Although the German linguist Hugo Schuchardt correctly proposed its first element to be related to Basque errauts, erhauts 'cinder, dust' (a compound from erre 'burnt' and hauts 'dust'), he changed his mind afterwards and linked it to herauts, being unaware of the variants which point to a nasal in Proto-Basque.

This mistake, resulting from a poor understanding of the ortographic conventions of the Aquitanian inscriptions (in Latin), which employed -R- to represent the thrill rhotic (Basque <rr>) instead of the flap one (Basque <r>), as well as laziness for reconstructing the protoform of the Basque word, has been copied down by Vascologists to this day².

This root is also found in Sardinian irrussu 'little boar, whose first member is related to IE *(w)eper-o- 'boar', an interesting Neolithic word linked to Arabic ʕifr-, ʕufr- 'pig, boar; piglet', ultimately deriving from an Eurasiatic root 'ungulate' also found in IE *kapr-o- 'male goat' and Arabic ɣafr-, ɣufr- 'young of deer or goat, goat kid'.

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¹ Which should be reconstructed as *suq- in account of Celtic *sukk-o-. 
² This is the source of Asturian gocho, Basque (Zuberoan) kutxu, Catalan cotx, Aragonese cochín, Spanish cochino, French cochon 'pig'. 
³ Gorrochategui: Estudio sobre la onomástica indígena de Aquitania (1984), pp. 330-331. 

Hair and wool

Basque bil(h)o 'hair, mane' is an interesting word. In compound with the verb utzi, itzi 'to leave' it gives biluz 'naked', biluzi 'to get naked' (with many variants: biloiz, bilaiz(i), bileiz(i), biluxi, buluzi, buluxi).

The etymology of this word has puzzled more than one Vascologist, specially given its similarity to Latin pilus '(a single) hair'. But a borrowing can be safely discarded due to phonetical reasons, because Latin -l- would have given -r- in Basque.

An alternative source from Latin villus 'tuft, lock of hair; hair' (probably an Italoid loanword parallel to Baltic *wil-na 'wool') was then proposed, but I find this unrealistic. My own view is that Basque bil(h)o and Latin pilus are one and the same Cantabrian word, ultimately related to PNC *p’VħVɫV 'feather; mane' (an etymology proposed by Bengtson).

Other 'hair' words found in IE languages come from this Vasco-Caucasian root. In particular, Greek púligges [pl.] 'hairs of the body' and Sanskrit pulakās [pl.] 'bristling hairs of the body' are similar to Nakh *pēla-k’ 'feather'.

The Tyrrhenian counterpart of bil(h)o is Basque ule 'hair', ile 'hair, wool', with several doublets in compounds. The meaning 'wool' suggested to some authors a possible borrowing from Gothic wulla < Proto-Germanic *wullō(n), but this rather makes me think PIE *w̥lH2neHa- 'wool' could be in fact a very old Vasco-Caucasian loanword: *p’VħVɫV > *bVlħV > *wVlħ-, with merging of b/w in PIE (where the voiced labial stop is very rare).

Two roots for 'earth'

According to Bengtson, Basque lur, lu- 'earth' is related to PNC *lhemdɮɮwɨ 'earth'¹.  This rooy is also found as a loanword in substratal IE *lendh- 'open land, waste' (Celtic, Germanic, Balto-Slavic) and Uralic *lamti (*lamtз) 'lowland, meadow'. I supose this term was introduced by Neolithic farmers of the Linear Ceramics (LBK) culture. From Gaulish *landā 'open land' come the toponym Landes and Basque landa 'field, lot'2.

There's also a widespread Paleo-Eurasian root *dVQV 'dirt, clay' whose Basque reflexes are lohi, lot- 'dirty, mud' and zohi, zot- 'clod of earth; brick', the first with the standard treatment of the initial dental stop and the second with assibilation. 

This root was borrowed into PIE *dhigh- 'wall, fortification' (Sanskrit sa-dih- 'mound, heap, wall', Avestan para-daēza 'enclosure'³, Greek teîkhos ~ toîkhos 'wall'), which in NW languages refers to clay-like substances (e.g. English dough). But the native PIE reflex is *dheghóm 'earth'.

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¹ Dialectally also 'uncultivated land, desert'. 

² There is also the old collective Biscayan form landar 'desert'.
³ Borrowed into Greek parédeisos, hence English paradise.

Sea meadows

Although considered by Vascologists to be a borrowing from Latin sŏlum¹, Basque sor(h)o 'cultivated field; meadow'² is actually an Iberian loanword related to PNC *dʒʒǝlV 'plain, plateau'³ whose native counterpart is the archaic Lapurdian zar(h)o 'meadow'. This means PNC *ddʒ corresponds to an apico-alveolar sibilant /ś/ (Basque <s>) in Iberian but a lamino-alveolar /s/ (Basque <z>) in Vasconic.

This root is related to Eurasiatic *TSolV 'steppe, valley, meadow', reflected in Slavic *selo 'arable field' but which in other IE languages underwent a shift meaning to 'sea, lake'⁴: Greek hélos 'wet meadow, marsh', Old Indian sáras- 'lake, pond, pool'.
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¹ Borrowed into Basque zoru 'ground, floor'.
² With the Biscayan variant solo (B) 'field (prepared for sowing)'.

³ Bengtson proposed a different etymology from PNC *tʃʃHæɫu 'earth, ground, sand', which semantically doesn't fit.

⁴ For people grown up inland, large water extensions look like meadows.