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Reconstruction of the Ancient Numeral System in Basque Language applyparastyle “fig//caption/p[1]” parastyle “FigCapt” Philology, vol. 4/2018/2019, pp. 157–172 © 2019 Fernando Gomez-Acedo & Eneko Gomez-Acedo - DOI https://doi.org/10.3726/PHIL042019.3 2019 Reconstruction of the Ancient Numeral System in Basque Language 4 Fernando Gomez-Acedo & Eneko Gomez-Acedo Bilbao 00 157 Abstract In this work a new insight into the reconstruction of the original forms of the first Basque cardinal numbers is presented and the identified original meaning of the names given to the numbers is shown. The method used is the internal reconstruction, using for 172 the etymologies words that existed and still exist in Basque and other words reconstructed from the proto-Basque. As a result of this work it has been discovered that initially the 2018/2019 numbers received their name according to a specific and logic procedure. According to this ancient method of designation, each cardinal number received its name based on the hand sign used to represent it, thus describing the position adopted by the fingers of the hand to represent each number. Finally, the different stages of numerical formation are shown, which demonstrate a long and diachronic development of the whole counting system. Contents Keywords basque language, numeral system, internal reconstruction, etymology Reconstruction of the Ancient Numeral System in Basque Language 157 Fernando Gomez-Acedo & Eneko Gomez-Acedo 157 Introduction The Basque language is recognised having no known relatives, so the internal reconstruction of the proto-Basque has been the object of a num- ber of studies in the recent past; this method requires no data from external languages so it allows to reconstruct important characteristics of earlier stages of the language (Trask, 1996). Within the work carried out in the 20th century to study the Basque language, Mitxelena’s work stands out (Mitxelena, 1961-1985); his study established the foundations that made possible the reconstruction of the proto-Basque. As far as numerals are concerned, Mitxelena proposed (1977, pp. 93, 336) as the old form of the number one ‘1’ *bade > bat, based on the comparison of bat with bedera ‘one apiece’, and bederatzi ‘nine’. He also took as the more ancients the forms found in the northern dialects of Basque: Philology, vol. 4/2018/2019 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 158 Fernando Gomez-Acedo & Eneko Gomez-Acedo number two ‘2’ biga; number three ‘3’ hirur; number four ‘4’ laur; number five ‘5’ bortz; and for the number seven ‘7’ *bortz-az-bi ‘two with five’ > zazpi; for the number eleven ‘11’ he proposed *ha- ma-*bed-ka > hamaika, but without giving any further explanation about it. Afterwards, Agud & Tovar (1992) gathered in their etymological dic- tionary the early work done by previous scholars up to the 1960s (Giese, Bouda, Ribáry, Campion, Gavel, Lafon, Harris, Coromines, Löpelmann, etc.). In this dictionary several etymological proposals for some of the the basque numbers were collected, being these a mixed bag regarding rigour. Later on, Trask mentioned (1997) the variant *bada for the ancient bat. Already in the 21st century, Lakarra proposed [2002, 2010] the etymolo- gies of the numbers: one ‘1’ *bada ‘there is’ > bat; two ‘2’ *goni > *goi(n) ‘on top’ > *gwi > bi; three ‘3’ *her ‘three’ >*her-ahur ‘handful of three’ > hirur; for the four ‘4’ he proposed two proto-forms, *larr-ahur ‘big palm of hand’ > laur; and later retracting from the first etymology, labur ‘short’ > laur; for five ‘5’ *bor-tz ‘(round (hand) + suffix’ bortz> ; six ‘6’ seni ‘child’ > sehi > sei ; seven ‘7’ *bor-zaz-bi ‘two with five’ >zazpi ; eight ‘8’ zorrotzi ‘sharpen’ > zortzi; nine ‘9’ *bada-*eradontsi ‘substract one’ > *bederadontsi > bederatzi; ten ‘10’ *han-*bor ‘big round (hand) [= two hands]’ > hamar; eleven ‘11’ *hama(b)i-*(b)e(d)eka ‘twelve minus one’ > *hamaeka > hamaika; twenty ‘20’ *bor +*gen-i ‘round (hand) - added’ > ogeni > ogei; for one hundred ‘100’ he proposed *hen-*hun ‘trunk-ivy’ > ehun; and later and retracting from the first, ehun ‘fabric (weaving)’ > ehun; finally for a half ‘1/2’ he proposed the Latin word tertium ‘third’ > erdi. However, as stated in Orduña (2011) it can be seen that this previous work has not provided coherent results from a semantic point of view. This lack of coherence in the names of the cardinal numbers can be seen in the fact that the etymologies proposed necessarily require very different and hypothetical explanations for terms such as ‘short’, ‘child’, ‘sharp’, etc. being used in the past. As a result, these results seem semantically inco- herent and unconvincing. To overcome this reservations, in this work a new insight is present- ed into the internal reconstruction of the original forms of the Basque cardinal numbers from ‘1’ to ‘20’ with the addition of ‘1/2’. For this reconstruction, key words that were ignored by previous etymological studies have been taken into consideration; these words prove to be Philology, vol. 4/2018/2019 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Reconstruction of the Ancient Numeral System in Basque Language 159 crucial for the understanding of the original names given to the Basque cardinal numbers. Development In order to carry out the etymological study for each Basque cardinal num- ber by internal reconstruction, it is necessary to be aware of some key words that existed and still exist in Basque language, and of other recon- structed words from proto-Basque. These words will be explained as they appear in the text, but there is a particular one that proves to be essential as it appears repeatedly in almost all numbers, which is the word for ‘fin- ger’ eri. In Basque there are in fact two words for ‘finger’: i) the first one as mentioned is eri, which can be found still today as eri in most of the dialects and as erhi in the northern dialects [Orotariko Euskal Hiztegia, henceforth OEH]. The word eri, of great antiquity, has left a number of de- rived words as for example erpuru ‘thumb’ from eri+buru ‘main finger’; erkhain ‘fingertip’ from eri+gain ‘finger top’; or eraztun ‘ring’ (using an unidentified *-aztun), which has another variant eleztun where a change r>l occurred [OEH]; and ii) for ‘finger’ there is also the probably newer word (h)atz that is the most used in Basque today. With this in mind, in the following points the particular etymological analysis for the first cardinal numbers of the Basque numeral system, from ‘1’ to ‘20’ with the addition of ‘1/2’, will be given. Analysis of the number ‘1’ bat bat is of general use in all dialects, and used indistinctly as a numeral and indeterminate article, being no formal mark to distinguish these functions [OEH]. The form bet is also found in Biscaye. Agreeing with Mitxelena about the similarity between bedera ‘one apiece’, and bederatzi ‘nine’ (1977, pp. 70, 134, 235), it will be taken as a starting point the root *beder, but also *bader, because it is not possible to exclude the possibility of a transformation from a>e as it happened with the form bat > bet heard in Biscaye. In this way, the proposed etimology is: Philology, vol. 4/2018/2019 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 160 Fernando Gomez-Acedo & Eneko Gomez-Acedo *bada-eri > *badei > *bade > bat. Here it is used bada ‘there is’ (from bai ‘yes’ + da ‘is’) and eri ‘fin- ger’. The meaning of *bada-eri then would be ‘there is a finger’, where the hand sign of a extended finger is used to signify a unit; aditionally as it is used the singular form bada (the plural form is badira), it means that there is only one finger and not more. In this way, starting from *bada-eri ‘there is a finger’, the transform- ation would occurr firstly to *badei (ending in -ei like sei), then to reach the form *bade proposed by Mitxelena and finally to the modern bat. Analysis of the number ‘2’ bi bi is of general use in all dialects, documented already in medieval texts [Letts 1946]. In the northern dialects, where bi is used, also exist the forms biga, bida, bia, used to designate ‘2’ when unaccompanied by a sustantive [OEH]. In this case, for the reconstruction of bi we start from the root *berr- found in the construction of the composed words berrogei ‘forty’ (< berr- ogei ‘two times twenty’) and berrehun ‘two hundred’ (< berr-ehun ‘two times a hundred’). The root *berr- implies the meaning of ‘other’ as in berriro ‘again, another time’; and bertze ‘another’. For this reason the pro- posed etimology of bi is *berr-eri, where it is used the root *berr- ‘another’ and eri ‘finger’. Its literal meaning then would be ‘another finger’, this is, another finger added to the first finger, thus making two. In this way, by using eri along *berr-, it was acquired the letter -i that holds the modern word bi. The exact transformation that took place is difficult to assess because there can be a time-lapse of some four or five centuries between two distinct linguistic states; between them even transi- tory different forms including many abandoned offbranchings can coexist until the most used one is established [Joseph and Janda 2003]. However, to assess the intermediate forms between *berr-eri and bi, we can take into account the existing words berriro ‘again, a second time’, birritan ‘two times’, and biribil ‘circle’, all of which have a relationship with the proto- word *berr-eri ‘two’ as it is shown here: *berr-eri-hor ‘two (fingers) there’ > berri-ro > berriro ‘again, a second time’.
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