Re: New Brithenig words, part Deux.

At 6:05 pm -0500 26/5/01, Eric Christopherson wrote:
>On Thu, May 24, 2001 at 05:31:48PM +1200, andrew wrote:
>> Am 05/22 12:21  Padraic Brown yscrifef:
>> > snail, cogle < cochleaé
>>
>> This one proved to be quite a battle.  It seems that cochlea dropped out
>> of Vulgar Latin and in France and Iberia was replaced by *caracol
>> borrowed from Arabic *karkara.  It even effects [escargot].  I looked at
>> Brythonic but can find no immediate etymology for [malwen].  For now I
>> would suggest *caragol.
>
>OTOH, *<cochleare> (not sure what the CL form, if any, would be)
coclear (gen. coclea:ris)

gave
><cuchara> < <cuchar> in Spanish, meaning "spoon."
It meant 'spoon' in Classical Latin also, and survives not merely in
Spanish but in almost all the western Romancelangs:
French _cuiller_, Catalan _cullera_, Portuguese _ colhér_ <-- *ko'Lare  <--
*kok'ljare.

Italian _cucchiaio_ is from the CL _coclearium_ which could also mean "a
spoon", tho more often meant "enclosure for snails"


>I think the original
>meaning was probably "spoon for eating snails."
It's usually explained as originating from the shape of the spoon
resembling a snail's shell.  But _coclear_ was also a liquid measure,
roughly about 25 ml IIRC.  I wonder if the measurement didn't come first
and took its name from the use of empty snail shells to hold the measure
(May as well use the shells for something after you've eaten then
contents!) - then the spoon took its name from that.

But _coclea_ itself (which BTW didn't have an {h} in pure Roman spelling)
doesn't seem to have survived - all the Romance langs having different
names for the mollusc.  But the animal seems to attract varied dialect
names in English, e.g. dodman, hodmandod.  Such names are of unknown
origin.  Why should not Brythonig similarly have a name of unknown origin.

Arabic *karkara may account for the Spanish/Portuguese name, but what is
the origin of French _escargot_ & Italian _chiocciola_?

Ray.

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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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