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From: hsbrand@cs.vu.nl (HS Brandsma)
Subject: Re: PERRO - etymology?
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Miguel Carrasquer Vidal (mcv@pi.net) wrote:
: mathwft@math.canterbury.ac.nz (Bill Taylor) wrote:

: >Can anyone please inform us as to the etymology of the Spanish word PERRO?

: >It doesn't seem to be connected in the slightest to other Germanic or Romance
: >doggy words - dog, hound, canine etc.

: >So where does it come from?    Arabic?      Other?

: Traditionally it has been thought that "perro" was derived from
: Iberian or some other pre-Roman indigenous tongue (because of the "rr"
: sound).  It's not Basque, where dog is "txakurr", the origin of
: Spanish "cachorro", puppy, nor is it Arabic ("kelb").  Against the
: Iberian theory are the facts that Iberian had no "p" sound, and that
: the word seems to be of recent origin, since it does not occur at all
: in old Spanish texts, where "can" is always used.  In his "Diccionario
: Critico Etimologico", Corominas concludes that the word is most likely
: of rural (shepherd) origin.  Gomez de Silva's Etym. Dict. agrees, and
: says: "probably from <perr>, <prrr>, <brrr>, sounds used by shepherds
: to urge on both the shepherd dogs and the sheep." 

: Many other canine words are of unknown/obscure/recent origin: English
: "dog" (vs. "hound"), Catalan "gos" (vs. "ca"), Irish "matad,
: madra(dh)" (vs. "cu"), Russian "sobaka" (vs. "pes").

:  
: ==
: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal                     ~ ~
: Amsterdam                   _____________  ~ ~
: mcv@pi.net                 |_____________|||

: ========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig

I've read somewhere that Catalan "gos" derives from "canem gothicum", a specific
type of dog imported by the goths. Can anybody confirm this theory ?

Henno Brandsma

