Re: Etymology of _insula_ (was Re: Thoughts on Word building)

On Fri, 9 Dec 2005 12:53:44 +0000, R A Brown <ray@...>
wrote:

>> Erm - I think he meant  that the words for "island" were related to
>> "swim" (instead of "nose"), not that "nose" was related to "swim"
>> (instead of "island"). :)
>
>Correct - or more exactly that I have seen it claimed that the Greek
>words for 'island' are derived the PIE root "swim". Support for this is
>said to be the frequent stories among the Greeks of floating (i.e.
>swimming) islands. But I am not convinced by this.
>
>I did not intend to suggest any connexion between noses & swimming.
No problem.  I'm also not convinced by any possible connections
between 'swim' and 'island'.  It seems more semantically plausible that
an 'island' is like a nose of land that sticks up out of the water.

>===================================
>
>Rob Haden wrote:
> > On Thu, 8 Dec 2005 16:16:15 +0000, R A Brown <ray@...>
> > wrote:
>[snip]
> >
> >>But the meaning is against it, I think. The meaning 'nose' had long been
> >>forgotten by the Greeks (whose word for 'nose' was _rhis_ (gen:
> >>_rhinos_)). I suspect it [nasus] is from a Italian dialect form.
> >
> >
> > It could be.  Or, the original Greek form was *na:ssos -- see below.
>
>{slaps head!} Of course - blush! i feel so ashamed at not noticing that.
>
>[snip]
> >
> > There's another slight problem, actually.  Intervocalic */s/ becomes /0/
> > (via */h/) before Greek.
>
>Of course it does. Yep, a Proto-Greek *na:sos would have give /na:os/
>(Doric), /nE:os/ (Ionic) and /neO:s/ (Attic).
Interestingly enough, that is the Greek word for 'temple'.  Could there be
a connection here?

> >So, either the original Greek word was *na:ssos,
> > or */s/ became */h/ before */x/ (= 'h2') was lost.
>
>I would think it was *na:ssos, which would also, of course, account for
>the Latin _na:sus_
The question is, where did the second /s/ come from?

[snip]

> > It looks rather tempting to try to link the Celtic words for 'nose' with
> > Greek _rhî:s_, _rhinós_ (if from something like *srign-), but it's
> > probably too good to be true.
>
>It does, doesn't it?   :)
>
>I am fairly certain that some have claimed this, but MacBain does not
>suggest this nor quote any authorities. The vowels would take some
>explaining, methinks.
>
>However, he does connect the Celtic *srogn- with Greek _rhenkein_/
>_rhenkhein_ "to snore", which I suppose is possible if we have
>metathesis of -ghn- ~ ngh-
Do the Greek variants have a dialectal distribution?  That is, are their
distributions mutually exclusive?

I agree that metathesis of *-ghn- to *-ngh- is more likely than vice-
versa.  Plus IE */g_h/ becomes Celtic */g/.  However, one problem is the
Greek vocalism -- _rhenk(h)ein_ vs. _rhis_, _rhinos_.  Also, if the
presumed */g_h/ was part of the root, we should see Greek _rhinks_,
_rhinkos_ -- to my knowledge, we do not see that.  We *do* see, though, a
Greek word _rhunkhos_ (neuter s-stem), meaning 'snout' or 'muzzle'.
Semantically, this is similar to 'nose' in the sense of "jutting/sticking
out".  Interestingly, this might be related to _rhenk(h)ein_ 'to snore' and
_-runkhs_ as in _pharunkhs_ 'pharynx'.  What do you think?

- Rob

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