Euskaltzaindiaren Euskal Hiztegi Historiko-Etimologikoaren aurkezpena (EHHE-200): Euskal ikerketa diakronikoak eta EHHEranzko bidea

Abstract

The aim of the EHHE200 has been to create the bases for the *Basque Historical Etymological Dictionary, which we would like to complete at some point, as soon as possible, establishing for that purpose the most important details (modular, organised by family) and basi criteria (similar aspects of historical grammar’s work). This project is, therefore, located at the point where diachronic linguistics and philology intersect and it is indebted to the beginnings and analytical developments of both. It would have been impossible to launch something like this if the “Mitxelena paradigm” in Bascology had not been advanced, if the search for the supposed origins of B. had remained in well-intentioned and limited amateur hands.

In the M.’s paradigm and beyond that too, the practice of etymology is linked to “the best linguistic theory and most accurate philology”, as Meillet stated several times. The addition of the important necessary information required to make new constructions or update previous ones is limited or scarce: as the comparative method in Bascology spread, so the charms of frivolous kinship discoveries were long since exhausted, and, as M. pointed out half a century ago, because the benefits of rich and enriching research on borrowing were about to be exhausted, we have turned to a more accurate philological method and new analytical perspectives and had to do so if the field is not to perish in the future.

In this presentation, we have sought to demonstrate how the new directions in the general development of diachronic linguistics included here have influenced or can influence the study of etymology –as in more advanced traditions: i. e., the study and spread of the Canonical Root Form (§5), improvements in achieving Formal Etymology (§5.4) and Word Families (§6.2); Grammaticalisation (§6.3); Comparative etymology and motivation (6.4) –because that, typically, is where the main opportunity lies to make significant progress. Here, however briefly and by necessity, as well as mentioning all this, we have not of course overlooked the findings of those philologists that followed Mitxelena (cf. Lakarra 2019a) and, likewise, it was essential for us to complete and disseminate the underdeveloped strong points of the previous paradigm (§6.1), after examining and recognising its main foundations (4.1) and strong rich points (4.2). In order to continue assembling and refining this EHHE, we have also included “How to do more and better etymology” (6.5), and “Extending cognate networks” (6.6), acknowledging its importance.

We selected 200 families (about 100 of them borrowed and an equal amount) from the native lexicon and joined them, although often new members had to be incorporated into some of the earlier ones –mostly from the native lexicon–, in order to be able to reveal still hidden kinships. In those 200 families, up to 2,600 entries and subentries have been collected, as explained in the introductory section of the EHHE by means of a description of the micro- and macro-structure.

Little of the analysis is wholly ours; nevertheless, none of it is merely taken or picked up completely from someone else. There are also many variants, chronologies, dialectal extensions, protohistories and formal or semantic details which are considered good or useful with etymologies... we have added the novelties and details of many aspects (especially in protohistory and the oldest periods), often until questioning or changing what many of us had taken as the “definitive” or “true” etymological analysis.

The EHHE-200 is not, and we would not want the future *EHHE500 or *EHHE1000 to be, just a pretty ornamental but empty coffin of B. words. The EHHE is a tool with which to study the evolution of B. (to make a Historical Grammar of the language) and, therefore, it must be used provisionally rather than kept closed in its pretty wrapping. We have already made noticeable advances in the lexicon, phonology, morphology and diachronic dialectology; that is what we would like to have done, at least. However, we think that even more could be done henceforth in the study of all these aspects and in the history of the language. That is what we find on the paths developed by our mentor K. Mitxelena, reconstructing and extending them.