Abstract
Latin farferum ‘coltsfoot’: A trace of Indo-European poetic language in Latin plant nomenclature?
Highlights
Since medial -f- ostensibly points to a non-Roman provenance of the word, and plant names are borrowed, the origin of farferum has been sought in Etruscan substrate9; while in principle borrowing always remains a possibility, there is no independent support for this hypothesis10
It is worth noting that the vowel alternation in farfĕrum / farfărum does not necessarily point to a substratum word: -e- is the expected outcome of any short vowel in non-initial open syllables in the position before r (*peparai > peperī, *kenises > cineris, etc. – see Weiss 2009: 116; Kazansky 2017: 49–50), but since the consonants in the first and second syllables of the word are completely identical in our case, vowel assimilation leading to a creation of fully reduplicated form is very likely11
Nothing in principle stands in the way of searching for an IndoEuropean etymology of farferum, and the physical appearance of the plant provides a potentially promising place to start12
Summary
The word farferum (ā/ă?) is isolated in Latin and its etymology remains obscure. Since medial -f- ostensibly points to a non-Roman provenance of the word, and plant names are borrowed, the origin of farferum has been sought in Etruscan substrate; while in principle borrowing always remains a possibility, there is no independent support for this hypothesis. It is worth noting that the vowel alternation in farfĕrum / farfărum does not necessarily point to a substratum word: -e- is the expected outcome of any short vowel in non-initial open syllables in the position before r Nothing in principle stands in the way of searching for an IndoEuropean etymology of farferum, and the physical appearance of the plant provides a potentially promising place to start.
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