The oddities of Basque

[WeepingElf]

Do they have IE etymologies? Do they have cognates in Welsh, Breton or Irish? AFAIK, not!

Quoted form Matasović's Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic (EDPC):

*gdonyo- 'human, person' [Noun]
GOID: OIr. duine [io m]; doíni [p]
W: MW dyn [m and f]
BRET: OBret. don, den, MBret.den
CO: OCo. den gl. homo
GAUL: -xtonio (Vercelli)
COGN: Lat. homo, Go. guma
PIE: *d^hģ^hom-yo- 'human, earthling' (IEW:414)
SEE: *gdon- 'earth'
ETYM: The Gaulish form -xtonio (in the compound form teuoxtonio) should be read -gdonio (the alphabet of Vercelli does not distinguish between voiced and voiceless stop, cf. Delamarre 176). OIr. Nom. pl. doíni is from a suppletive stem (attested also as Nom. sg. doín, doén in poetry).

*anderā 'young woman' [Noun]
GOID: MIr. ander [ā f] (DIL ainder)
W: MW anneir [f] 'heifer' (GPC anner, annair)
BRET: MBret. anner 'heifer'
CO: OCo. annoer gl. uitula
GAUL: ? anderon [Ge p.] (Larzac)
ETYM: MIr. ander may have been an o-stem originally (DIL). The change of meaning attested in Brittonic ('young woman' > 'heifer') is based on a common metaphor in cattle-breeding societies. It has been suggested that there is a connection of this Celtic etymon with Basque andere 'lady, woman', but this might only be a chance ressemblance. The meaning of Gaulish anderon is not certain (it might rather be related to Lat. inferus, so this word might not belong here at all.

I see. I had missed that. *gdonyo- of course has an impeccable IE etymology, but what about anderā?

This is the first time I see the claim that Basque borrowed these words from Gaulish!

Not Basque but Aquitanian/Paleo-Basque. It isn't my fault Vascologists have been unable to identify those and other Celtic loanwords.

I am sorry for my imprecise expression. I meant Paleo-Basque, of course.

Also, Gaulish would be a superstratum in relation to Basque, not a substratum. I am pretty certain that Gaulish belongs to a younger stratum than Basque.

See here.

So you assume that Celtic was there before Paleo-Basque? Hmm. I remember you claiming that (1) (Paleo-)Basque originated in the steppe and (2) IE languages were spread across Europe much earlier than assumed by mainstream scholars, thus reversing the conventionally assumed order, but I don't know if you are still thinking that way now. But of course, Paleo-Basque could also have borrowed from Gaulish even if Gaulish came later, after all, Proto-Basque borrowed heavily from Latin which was even later!

This reminds me of Vennemann's claim that Basque initial /h/ matches everything in other languages, e.g. Basque handi vs. Late Latin grandis.

I'm sure you didn't know the Aquitanian inscriptions also contain Iberian anthroponyms, although they're minoritary.

I have to admit that I don't know the relevant corpora. You apparently know them quite well.

[bradrn]

Also, I feel as if "Basque from the steppe" was an attempt to save or strengthen Vasco-Caucasian, the notion that Basque was related to NWC and NEC. But just why? Basque has one thing in common with those two families (of which we don't even know whether they are related to each other or not; they actually have very little in common with each other), and that is ergativity - a far too narrow base to build a relationship hypothesis on. Ergative languages are common enough around the world; it is the same kind of canard as with the Semitic substratum in Insular Celtic because both are VSO.

And the funny thing is, Basque is closest to Kartvelian in alignment than it is to anything in ‘Vasco-Caucasian’. Indeed, neither Basque nor Georgian are ergative at all. (Linguists tend to get hopelessly excited whenever they see a non-accusative alignment, and call it ‘ergative’ irrespective of what it actually is.)

Yes, WALS classifies Basque as "active-stative", apparently on the ground that some intransitive verbs govern the ergative case.

Correct. The definition of active-stativity is that the arguments of some intransitive verbs take A marking, but others take O marking. And indeed this is what we see in Basque, especially Western Basque (Aldai 2008, ed. Donohue & Wichman):

Peru

Peter.ABS

erori

fallen

da.

is

Peter has fallen.

Peru-k

Peter-ERG

dantzatu

danced

du.

has

Peter has danced.

Of course, you could still argue that Basque is ‘mostly ergative’, but there are good reasons to say that even a small amount of split intransitivity is enough to disqualify a language from ergativity. In particular, there is a strong tendency for morphologically ergative languages to have syntactic ergativity as well — and most of the exceptions to this tendency (Georgian, Tibetan etc.) can also mark some intransitive arguments with the ergative. For this reason I consider Basque non-ergative.

And in my personal and very humble opinion, Early PIE may also have been active-stative.

I’ve heard this a couple of times; I’d be interested to know the reasoning behind it.

[WeepingElf]

And in my personal and very humble opinion, Early PIE may also have been active-stative.

I’ve heard this a couple of times; I’d be interested to know the reasoning behind it.

It is quite speculative, and I am not at all sure about it, but:

Early PIE apparently had two sets of verbal personal endings, the *-m set and the *-h₂ set (after the 1sg. endings), of which the former appears to have active semantics, and the latter stative semantics. This is quite typical of active-stative languages. Also, the animate nominative *-s may have been an agent case and the accusative *-m (perhaps originally an "animacy-neutralizing" derivative morpheme used whenever an animate noun occurred in a syntagm that didn't require animacy) a patient case. Inanimate nouns apparently had a zero-marked patient case and lacked an agent case. I seem to remember reading somewhere (but I don't remember where) that some of the older IE languages avoided neuter transitive subjects by means of passivization, and Hittite had an outright ergative case in -anza for such purposes, but the latter appears to have been an innovation. All this can IMHO be easily derived from a former active-stative language, though I have to admit that this is not the only way.

[Talskubilos]

I see. I had missed that. *gdonyo- of course has an impeccable IE etymology, but what about anderā?

My guess is it might be a bizarre development from *h₂nēr- 'young man/male' (cfr. Greek ándros), but I don't really know. Pokorny wrote an article about it, but unfortunately I haven't got access to it:
Pokorny, Julius, “Some Celtic etymologies: 1. OIr. án ‘fiery, glowing’; 2. The river-name Argita; 3. The proper name Ánroth; 4. Celtic *anderos, *anderā; 5. OIr. derc ‘berry’; 6. Welsh dewaint; 7. MIr. oíbell, Welsh ufel; 8. The river-name Ουιδουα; 9. Welsh caer; 10. Modern Irish seamróg (f.) ‘shamrock’”, Journal of Celtic Studies 1 (1949–1950): 129–135.

So you assume that Celtic was there before Paleo-Basque?

Definitively yes. In fact, the Western part of the historical basque Country had plenty of Celtic (or least IE) toponymy before the Roman conquest. There're also some items of the Basque folkore of patent Celtic origin.

But of course, Paleo-Basque could also have borrowed from Gaulish even if Gaulish came later,

I don't think so. But notice the area covered by the Paleo-Basque toponymic suffixes in Rohlfs' map doesn't match the one where Basque has been historically spoken, except around the Western Pyrenees.

I have to admit that I don't know the relevant corpora. You apparently know them quite well.

The reference is Gorrotxategi's (Gorrochategui in Spanish ortography) work Estudio sobre la onomástica indígena de Aquitania (1984).

[WeepingElf]

I see. I had missed that. *gdonyo- of course has an impeccable IE etymology, but what about anderā?

My guess is it might be a bizarre development from *h₂nēr- 'young man/male' (cfr. Greek ándros), but I don't really know.

Would be quite bizarre indeed, since AFAIK *h₂ner- conveys a strong sense of masculinity, at least in Northern IE. Its Celtic reflex is *ner- 'hero'. The last straw would be the assumption that it just meant something like 'young' in Early PIE, and a derivative meaning 'young woman' existed in some Southern IE language which was borrowed into Celtic, but that's a very adventurous speculation!

So you assume that Celtic was there before Paleo-Basque?

Definitively yes. In fact, the Western part of the historical basque Country had plenty of Celtic (or least IE) toponymy before the Roman conquest. There're also some items of the Basque folkore of patent Celtic origin.

But of course, Paleo-Basque could also have borrowed from Gaulish even if Gaulish came later,

I don't think so. But notice the area covered by the Paleo-Basque toponymic suffixes in Rohlfs' map doesn't match the one where Basque has been historically spoken, except around the Western Pyrenees.

I know that the Celtic/Iberian onomastic boundary cuts through the western part of Basque Country, and that the Paleo-Basque names are found in a different area than modern Basque Country. Hence, I think that Paleo-Basque was spoken not in present-day Basque Country but in Gascony, whose name of course means 'Basque Country'. Maybe also south of the Pyrenees, but extending farther east than now. It would have spread (south)westward later.

This still doesn't mean that (Paleo-)Basque is from a later wave of immigration into Western Europe than Celtic, though. And if Proto-Basque could borrow heavily from Latin (which definitely came later), why couldn't Paleo-Basque borrow from Celtic even if the latter came later?

[Richard W]

If Basque expanded over Gaulish by subjugating Gauls, then Basque would be the superstrate in the resulting interaction, regardless of which got to Gaul first.

[Nortaneous]

I see. I had missed that. *gdonyo- of course has an impeccable IE etymology, but what about anderā?

My guess is it might be a bizarre development from *h₂nēr- 'young man/male' (cfr. Greek ándros), but I don't really know.

Would be quite bizarre indeed, since AFAIK *h₂ner- conveys a strong sense of masculinity, at least in Northern IE. Its Celtic reflex is *ner- 'hero'. The last straw would be the assumption that it just meant something like 'young' in Early PIE, and a derivative meaning 'young woman' existed in some Southern IE language which was borrowed into Celtic, but that's a very adventurous speculation!

"person" > "man" is well enough attested that the reverse doesn't seem implausible (and depending on who you ask may even be attested in colloquial English)

[Travis B.]

My guess is it might be a bizarre development from *h₂nēr- 'young man/male' (cfr. Greek ándros), but I don't really know.

Would be quite bizarre indeed, since AFAIK *h₂ner- conveys a strong sense of masculinity, at least in Northern IE. Its Celtic reflex is *ner- 'hero'. The last straw would be the assumption that it just meant something like 'young' in Early PIE, and a derivative meaning 'young woman' existed in some Southern IE language which was borrowed into Celtic, but that's a very adventurous speculation!

"person" > "man" is well enough attested that the reverse doesn't seem implausible (and depending on who you ask may even be attested in colloquial English)

I.e. guy indicates maleness, but vocative guys (e.g. you guys, hey guys) has become bleached of its genderedness (to the point that women will use it to speak to groups consisting solely of women).

[Nortaneous]

I.e. guy indicates maleness, but vocative guys (e.g. you guys, hey guys) has become bleached of its genderedness (to the point that women will use it to speak to groups consisting solely of women).

In some regions. Given the etymology of guy, of course, there's no guarantee that *h2ner was even originally a common noun.

[vlad]

My guess is it might be a bizarre development from *h₂nēr- 'young man/male' (cfr. Greek ándros), but I don't really know.

Would be quite bizarre indeed, since AFAIK *h₂ner- conveys a strong sense of masculinity, at least in Northern IE. Its Celtic reflex is *ner- 'hero'. The last straw would be the assumption that it just meant something like 'young' in Early PIE, and a derivative meaning 'young woman' existed in some Southern IE language which was borrowed into Celtic, but that's a very adventurous speculation!

"person" > "man" is well enough attested that the reverse doesn't seem implausible (and depending on who you ask may even be attested in colloquial English)

I was asking about this earlier:

The semantic shift of "person → man" happened in Germanic (man) and Romance (homo).

The semantic shift of "man → person" happened in Classical Nahuatl (tlacatl).

The semantic shift of "person → woman" happened in Mixtec (ña'a).

Is there any language where the word for "person" formerly meant "woman"?

[Moose-tache]

I feel as if "Basque from the steppe" was an attempt to save or strengthen Vasco-Caucasian, the notion that Basque was related to NWC and NEC. But just why?

IIUC, the Basque also have a high genetic affinity with the Yamna and other steppe people, even higher than the descendants of Corded Ware, and certainly much higher than the Mediterranean populations that retain a lot of pre-invasion DNA. This bolsters the idea that the pre-Basque were a sort of "bow-wave," preceding the PIE invasion of central Europe. However, I agree that simply using an ergative alignment does nothing to connect Basque to other language families, especially since ergativity can develop or disappear within a language family.

[WeepingElf]

I feel as if "Basque from the steppe" was an attempt to save or strengthen Vasco-Caucasian, the notion that Basque was related to NWC and NEC. But just why?

IIUC, the Basque also have a high genetic affinity with the Yamna and other steppe people, even higher than the descendants of Corded Ware, and certainly much higher than the Mediterranean populations that retain a lot of pre-invasion DNA. This bolsters the idea that the pre-Basque were a sort of "bow-wave," preceding the PIE invasion of central Europe. However, I agree that simply using an ergative alignment does nothing to connect Basque to other language families, especially since ergativity can develop or disappear within a language family.

I am aware of the fact that the Basque males are overwhelmingly R1b, but Y-DNA haplogroups are of course not the be-all, end-all of genetics, even if there was some hype about them in the second half of the 2010s (and I have to admit that I was myself carried away by that hype for some time!). Autosomal DNA often tells a different story, especially if exogamous partilocal groups are involved who exchange brides but not bridegrooms (the Yamnaya and Corded Ware people, for instance, have markedly different Y-DNA profiles but very similar autosomal DNA - which is exactly what one would expect in such a situation); also, the Y-DNA profile can be skewed by founder effects.

But it cannot safely be ruled out that only the Corded Ware people spoke PIE and that the southern Yamnaya (whom I suspect to have spoken "Southern IE") spoke an unrelated language ancestral to Basque. However, as I have said before, this leaves the question when Anatolian separated from the rest of IE and how it ended up in Anatolia unanswered.

And before the Y-DNA haplogroup hype, when people looked at mtDNA and "classical markers", everybody said that the Basques were genetically quite different from the other people of Western Europe (that was before the ancient DNA revolution, of course, when only DNA of contemporary people could be studied). What is going on here?

And finally, there is the very true saying that genes don't speak languages, so we may be barking up trees in entirely the wrong forest here

[Talskubilos]

And finally, there is the very true saying that genes don't speak languages, so we may be barking up trees in entirely the wrong forest here

That's precisely why I don't like to build linguistic theories on genetic data.

[WeepingElf]

And finally, there is the very true saying that genes don't speak languages, so we may be barking up trees in entirely the wrong forest here

That's precisely why I don't like to build linguistic theories on genetic data.

Fine. There were times - not so far away - when I tried, but I ran into various difficulties, not the least being that the geneticists often do not agree on how to interpret their data. There is probably not much more to conclude than that the Neolithicization of Europe was demic (i.e., farming was spread by migrating farmers, rather than by foragers picking up farming from their already farming neighbours), and that there was another massive immigration wave, apparently connected with the introduction of the domestic horse, out of the Pontic Steppe shortly after 3000 BC, and that both of these migration waves would have introduced new languages. But which ones? There the guesswork starts, and archaeology probably says more than genetics, even though "pots aren't people" and don't speak languages (unless they bear decipherable inscriptions, of course).

[Moose-tache]

I feel as if "Basque from the steppe" was an attempt to save or strengthen Vasco-Caucasian, the notion that Basque was related to NWC and NEC. But just why?

IIUC, the Basque also have a high genetic affinity with the Yamna and other steppe people, even higher than the descendants of Corded Ware, and certainly much higher than the Mediterranean populations that retain a lot of pre-invasion DNA. This bolsters the idea that the pre-Basque were a sort of "bow-wave," preceding the PIE invasion of central Europe. However, I agree that simply using an ergative alignment does nothing to connect Basque to other language families, especially since ergativity can develop or disappear within a language family.

-snip-

I think you misunderstood me. I was not implying that the genetic makeup of the Basque implies that their ancestors spoke an IE language, but that they were geographically in the same area. This was in response to the statement that Vasco-Caucasian is impossible because of the intervening thousands of miles. I have no dog in the "Basque is para-IE" race.

[WeepingElf]

I think you misunderstood me. I was not implying that the genetic makeup of the Basque implies that their ancestors spoke an IE language, but that they were geographically in the same area. This was in response to the statement that Vasco-Caucasian is impossible because of the intervening thousands of miles. I have no dog in the "Basque is para-IE" race.

Certainly, genetic similarity and even geographical proximity don't imply linguistic relatedness. I never intended to suggest you thinking that way. Indeed, a steppe origin of Basque is neither impossible nor does it imply relationship - Basque clearly is not a "Para-IE" language. After all, not far south of Yamnaya lies the Caucasus, which is of course full of languages showing no signs of being related either to IE or to Basque. Well, genes don't speak languages. The troubles I ran into when I tried to deduce maps of prehistoric linguistic landscapes from distributions of genetic markers taught me a lesson

[Talskubilos]

Another interesting topic are the so-called "combinatory variants", found as first member of compounds but also phonologically different from the original word (which nevertheless can be found in compounds), usually in the last consonant. For example, both begi 'eye' and behi 'cow'* have the combinatory variant bet- in compounds such as e.g. betagin 'molar tooth' (already mentioned) and betzain 'cow shepherd'. IMHO, this would indicate Paleo-Basque didn't allow velar stops at word final.

On the other hand, ur 'water' (with tap rhotic /ɾ/) has the combinatory variant u(h)-, but at the same time we've got a fossilized *ib-** in ibai 'river' and ibar 'river valley', thus indicating a similar forbidding of labial stops in Paleo-Basque.

By contrast, second members of compounds are often obscure. For example, both alor 'cultivated field' (ale 'seed') and sator 'mole' (sat-, combinatory variant of sagu 'mouse') have got a second member *or with no obvious correspondence, except possibly lur 'earth' IMHO.

*With correspondence in Aragonese meco 'calf' and similar words in other Pyrenaic romances.
**With correspondence in Aragonese ibón 'mountain lake' and similar forms in Gascon.

[Zju]

On the other hand, ur 'water' (with tap rhotic /ɾ/) has the combinatory variant u(h)-, but at the same time we've got a fossilized *ib-** in ibai 'river' and ibar 'river valley', thus indicating a similar forbidding of labial stops in Paleo-Basque.

All zero shared shared segments between ur and *ib- pointed you to this purported connection, or?

Coincidentally, I posit that egg and roe are old variants of one another, because they mean kinda the same thing.

[Linguoboy]

On the other hand, ur 'water' (with tap rhotic /ɾ/) has the combinatory variant u(h)-, but at the same time we've got a fossilized *ib-** in ibai 'river' and ibar 'river valley', thus indicating a similar forbidding of labial stops in Paleo-Basque.

All zero shared shared segments between ur and *ib- pointed you to this purported connection, or?

Multiple unrelated roots with the meaning "water" is just not something you find in natural languages; it's too important a concept.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

But they can develop, cf. PIE *wódr and *h₂ékʷeh₂, the latter of which may or may not, if I'm remembering right, have meant "river" originally. I'm pretty sure words meaning "body of water" or "container of water" can evolve to mean "water", at least.