Basque gersti “handle of a vessel”

The 17^th century lexicographer, Sylvain Pouvreau, a Francophone who studied mainly the Labourdin dialect of Basque, listed the following:

gersti “handle of a vessel”

gersti is not an isolated error. It is or was a real word. Azkue lists the following degraded variants (along with gersti):

(AN, Araquistain) feste “handle of a pan”

(Z) greste “handle of a pan or a basket”

(BN-Salazar) keste “handle of a little basket or a pan”

I say degraded variants. Orthodox Vascologists will doubtless disagree. But I go to places to find answers where orthodox Vascologists refuse to tread. I follow Basque words back to Iberian, just as one follows French and Spanish words back to Latin. More on that shortly.

(Z) greste exhibits a curious metathesis of /e/ and /r/ to produce the initial /gr/ cluster, which is forbidden in Vasconic languages (except in very recent loanwords and phonosymbolic words). Orthodox Vascologists have tried to explain greste as a borrowing of Spanish cresta or Old French creste “comb of a bird, tuft, top”. While the metathesis might have been influenced by these words, the meanings are quite different. Spanish cresta and Old French creste always refer to something on top, whereas the handle of a vessel or pan is likely to be at the sides (in order to avoid scalding). A basket can have a handle that is on top, but only two of the four words refer to a basket.

(BN-Salazar) keste appears to have been influenced by Basque ertsi or estu “narrow”, which alternates been /r/ and no /r/ forms sometimes within dialects.

(AN, Araquistain) feste is quite strange because it exhibits the rare initial /f/. I would suggest that this variant has been influenced by Spanish fiesta, Old French feste “festival”.

I regard gersti as original because the first part of this probable compound is recorded in Iberian. It is to be found on the First Lead Foil of Alcoy, a roll of donors of grave goods written in the Ionian Script. In that text, Iberian gers is the second component in the tripartite anthroponym, Sesgersduran.

gersti might be a compound comprising an Iberian gers “vessel” and ti or di “handle”. Iberian ti and di are both attested as anthroponymic compound elements.

It is clear from the context that Iberian gurs referred to a large ceramic vessel that was donated as a grave good (possibly a funerary urn). This word does not exist in Basque. Could gers and gurs be the same word? Could it be that the addition of a suffix has shifted /u/ to /e/? Are gers and gersti a rare example of ablaut in Vasconic? Possibly. However, both gursand gers are present on the First Lead Foil of Alcoy, so they were clearly separate words 2,000 years ago. A /u/ to /e/ ablaut in Basque does exist. In Gipuzkoan, one says det and degu for dut and dugu, following the addition of agreement suffixes, but du where the agreement suffix is null. British Vasconic probably has *kurvV and *kervis and *survV and *servis, where the addition of the sibilant suffix has resulted in a shift from /u/ to /e/ in the substantive part of the word. Basque has (AN) guldi and (c) geldi, both “quiet”. Perhaps the deflection of noun suffixes on to this adjective has exceptionally resulted in a shift from /u/ to /e/? However, geldi is recorded in Iberian while guldi is missing from the Iberian record (much of the Iberian lexicon is unrecorded, so guldi could still be there). Another possible ablaut vowel change is Basque (B) guzur, (c) gezur, both “lie”.

A curious fact about this group of words is that Basque gersti and all its variants exhibit the apical /s/ only, while Iberian gers and gurs are written with the No-2 S-sign.

Do Basque gersti and Iberian gers and gurs have cognates in other non-Vasconic Dene-Caucasian languages further afield? Consider the following:

North Caucasian

Lezghian k:ur “cup, basin”

Rutul gɨr “cup, basin”

West Caucasian

Abaza gara “cradle”

Urartian

kerǝ “bowl”

Burushaski

Yasin gran, girán “large basket”

Hunza girán “large basket”

Nagar girán “large basket”

Old Chinese

kraʔ “round basket”

Note the distribution of first syllable vowels in the above and compare them to how the word behaves in Basque.