Crítica de 40 páginas del libro "Egipcios, bereberes, guanches y vascos" de Arnaiz y Alonso, realizada por el filólogo Luis María Mugica y publicada en :

Dear Luisma,

First of all, I made a couple of errors in yesterday's e-mail.

(1) I said that French bec "beak" was Germanic, when in fact it is probably Gaulish. Either way, it has nothing to do with moko.

(2) I mispelled Lekuine-Bonloc (by one letter). Bonloc is presumably a mediaeval mistranslation of Lekuine. -ine is a contraction of gune/une "place". It isn't on "good". When the name was created, leku probably meant "temple". "Place place" would be tautological, would it not?

Now back to Mr Mujika's text.

(1) Basque azeri "fox".

The attempt to link azeri with Asinarius is far-fetched, especially given the fact that the Latin word for "fox" is vulpes.

azeri is a compound comprising a fossilised noun classifier for carniverous animals, az-, with -zeri, a stem which does not exist independently in Basque but has cognates elsewhere in Dene-Caucasian.

az- is probably a reduced form of artz "bear" (Iberian *ars). It is also found in az-kon-ar "badger", az-or "dog" and az-tore "falcon" (note how the initial t- of Iberian *tori/toli "bird" is preserved behind a prefix).

I doubt any connection between azeri and Spanish zorro, given the obvious phonetic difficulties This latter word could possibly derive from azor, but I remain to be convinced.

(2) Basque zilar "silver".

Michlena was wrong to posit a Visigothic source for zilar. He was obviously unfamiliar with the Botorrita Bronze Plate, written in Hispano-Celtic, which uses the word silaber for "silver". This certainly looks as though it has the same source as the Germanic word, and could be the progenitor of zilar. What is missing is the Iberian word for "silver". It remains unidentified.

On a phonetic point, Bizkaian zidar indicates that in Iberian the intervocalic -l- would have been pronounced in a similar way to the Spanish -ll- and would probably have been written -ld- in the Iberian script.

(3) Basque aizkora "axe".

This is a three-part compound: aitz = a fossilised noun classifier for tools, + Basque gorro "axe-head", + a fossilised definite -a.

Basque gorro is cognate with Iberian *korro/gorri, which was used as a compound element in personal names. Spanish gorro "hat" represents a whimsical semantic extension of "axe-head". Compare also Sumerian gur "sickle".

We know that in Iberian aitz "stone" was *as, from toponyms like Asso and Astigi. So askor is the likely form which aizkora took.

If this is right, then we can reasonably expect that a Neolithic borrowing of this tool word by Berber would result in askor being the form now found in that language.

In this case, Dr Arnaiz-Villena's comparison is fully supported by the available evidence, I submit.

(4) Basque adi and adin.

Mr Mujika's claim that these words are Latin borrowings is disproved by the Iberian evidence.

adi "attentive", adin "age, judgement, power of reason, intelligence", adi-tu "to pay attention to, to listen, to hear".

A common element in Iberian personal names is *adin. This appears to mean "intellect". For example, Balkeadin "golden intellect, Besadin "arm intellect", Adi(n)mels "robust intellect", etc.

And for those, like Trask and Michelena, who insist that Iberian is not closely related to Basque (despite all the evidence to the contrary), note that Balciadin Balcibil "golden intellect/golden orb", one of the mercenaries listed on the Ascoli Bronze Plate, came from Lumbier, in the Basque Country!

And then there is the Liria Vase. Along the top of the frieze is a list of personal names, then slightly below on the right are the words ban gudur iradiar "we have depicted these wars".

Iberian *gudu "war" is identical to its Basque cognate. *ban "one, this", is usually pluralised as *banir (as it is on the Liria Vase). However, when the noun is marked with plural -r, *ban need not be pluralised.

*iradi-ar comprises the verb stem *iradi plus the -ar suffix, which is probably equivalent to Basque -ten.

*ira- may be equivalent to Basque era-/ira- and -arazi, and means "cause to".

So *iradi may mean "to bring to the attention, to depict".

As often happens in inscriptions, the auxilliary is left out.

(5) Basque iri and ili "town, village".

It defies belief that a serious scholar should seek to explain the presence of these elements in Iberian toponyms by arguing that they are non-Basque!

Of course they are Basque! And that is because Basque and Iberian are (almost) the same.

Not only are iri and ili both found in Iberian, so are uri and uli.

And, oh yes, a Roman inscription reveals that there was a place in Portugal called Ulianko - and this in a part of the peninsula where it is claimed that Iberian was never spoken!

(6) Basque ugaraio "frog".

While I agree that the initial u- is a reduced ur "water", I dispute that the -g- is part of this.

Take u-garo "heron". This is clearly a reduced *ur-garo, the stem being -gar-, as in gar-tza "heron".

In ugaraio, -garaio is probably a variant of the -gel in i-gel.

(7) Basque soro/solo "cultivated field".

This is unlikely to have anything to do with solum.

How do we know this? Because the element is found in Iberian toponyms, such as Solia, Kontosolia, Soricaria, Soria, etc.

There is actually a Basque word, zoru, which derives from solum. soro/solo does not.

(8) Basque gabarra "barge".

If gabarra really is karabos, how come the feminine final -a?

Are not Basque borrowings from Greek learned borrowings, which are unlikely to be metathesised?

Unless the borrowing process occurred through the entrepot at Ampurias, but then Mr Mujika seems to dismiss on a priori grounds any connection between Basque and Iberian (Corominas did not, please note).

(9) Zenborain, Navarra.

I dispute that the first element, zenbor-, is a reduction of Sempronius.

I say it is (z)enbor "tree trunk" (Iberian *tenbor, distantly related to English timber) + the toponymnic suffix -ain.

-ain is a Basque toponymic suffix usually associated with names of nucleated villages and mountains. In Aquitaine, the forms -en and -ein are more frequent, and in Ariege -tein is found.

-ain is clearly very ancient, though unlike -os, it continued in use during the Roman period, and is found in a number of Roman estate place-names (all of them in Navarra).

The crucial point about these Roman estate names is that the Roman personal name is generally preserved in its original form, even where that is inconsistent with Basque phonology. For instnace, Paternain, not Badernain, Amatriain, not Amatarriain, Astrain, not Aztarrain.

And another point is that a Roman estate place-name cannot be a mountain name. Zenborain is, however, a mountain name. Indeed, it probably refers to the shape of the mountain peak and was subsequently transferred to the village.

(10) Basque txara in place-names.

This may, in many cases, be a variant of zarra "cress", which was *tarra in Iberian (and distantly related to English tare), and is found in numerous toponyms, including Tarrako (Tarragona), Tarraga, Taranco, Taramundi, Tarasteix, Taranto, etc.

(11) Basque mendi "mountain".

If I read him right, Mr Mujika seems to be hinting that mendi is derived from mons, montis.

Wrong. mendi is found in ancient toponyms, such as Mendikouleia (*mendi-ko-ola) - one in the Middle Ebro, the other in Portugal - Mentesa, Lomondo, Taramundi, Bahamonde, Sismundi, etc.

(12) Basque bago "beech" and gardo/gardu "thistle".

While these words appear to be derived from Latin, they are in fact native.

The various Indo-European words for "beech" reflect an ancient loanword from Dene-Caucasian. Indo-European originated from a region where beech is not native, so there could not have been a proto- Indo-European word for "beech".

If bago were derived from fagus, then the word would be (h)ago, would it not?

Latin carduus is a probably a loanword from Oenotrian.

The antiquity of gardo is evidenced by the toponym, Carduae, near Bilbilis in the Jalon valley.

In English, the words law and time appear to be loanwords from French (and hence Latin). In fact, they are both Germanic and entirely unrelated to the Latin words.

I hope this will do for the moment.

With best wishes,

Angus J Huck

PS: On the lazy assumption that conjugation with auxilliaries is a relatively recent development, here are examples of both synthetic and periphrastic conjugation from Iberian alphabet texts (all taken from the Alcoy Lead Tablet):-

Synthetic:-

Binikebin salir kidei gaibigait "Binikebin apportions things of value to us, the people".

Naltinge bidudedin ildu(n) niraenai bekor sebagediren "Given the opportunity, the animal tamer's mare would throw me on a highway anywhere" ("animal tamer" is a metaphor for a deity).

Periphrastic:-

Belagasi kaur ispiniai asgan dis Tagisgarok "People of Tagiska, today you have completed your task at the very last minute".

Boist il igis did "I have seen many moons" (ie, "I have lived a very long time").

PPS: Mr Mujika's obfuscations about random comparisons (with Hungarian and Finnish) is a technique learned from Trask and designed to fool and intimidate those of modest intelligence. I have better things to do with my time than to address them. (Though, in fairness to Mujika, he has a point in relation to some of Arnaiz-Villena's weaker comparisons.)

I have deleted Mr Mujika's article to save space.