Reconstruction:Proto-Brythonic/pɨskọd

This Proto-Brythonic entry contains reconstructed words and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Proto-Brythonic

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin piscātus.

The classical usage of piscātus primarily verbal refers to the act of fishing, but as a verbal noun it developed the sense "catch, caught fish" in a collective sense.[1] This is evidently the meaning that was carried into Proto-Brythonic, where it may have further developed a sense of "fish used as food" continued in Welsh (compare Spanish pescado for a parallel development). This plural would then have taken a regular singulative form *pɨskodɨnn.

Subsequently, *pɨskọd was generalized as the plural of *pɨsk (“fish”), due to the appropriate grammatical number and semantics for both terms and perhaps reinforced by the similar *-od plural suffix applied primarily to animals (compare e.g. *llug (“mouse”) ⇒ *llugod (“mice”)). As a corollary, this resulted in two competing singular terms for "fish", *pɨsk and *pɨskodɨnn; the former was generalized in Breton and Cornish, while the latter became the general form in Welsh.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /pɨˈsˑkɔːd/

Noun

*pɨskọd m pl (singulative *pɨskodɨnn)

plural of *pɨsk
(possibly) food fish, fish meat used as food

Descendants

Middle Breton: pesquet
- Breton: pesked
Middle Cornish: puskes
- Cornish: puskes, pùscas
Middle Welsh: pysgawd
- Welsh: pysgod

References

Adams, James Noel (2007) The regional diversification of Latin, 200 BC - AD 600, page 596:
Like many abstract verbal nouns piscatus acquired a secondary, concrete, meaning (‘fish’, collective), which apparently lies behind the Welsh word. Was this use of piscatus ‘fish’ distinctively British? It was not. The concrete sense (TLL ll. 48–9 ‘i.q. res piscando captae, capiendae (pisces nimirum praeter l. 51)’) is attested first in Plautus (several times), then in Turpilius, Pomponius, Cicero, Varro, Vitruvius, Apuleius and others: it was a mundane usage from the earliest period of attested Latin.

R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present), “pysgod”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies

[1] Adams, James Noel (2007) The regional diversification of Latin, 200 BC - AD 600, page 596:
Like many abstract verbal nouns piscatus acquired a secondary, concrete, meaning (‘fish’, collective), which apparently lies behind the Welsh word. Was this use of piscatus ‘fish’ distinctively British? It was not. The concrete sense (TLL ll. 48–9 ‘i.q. res piscando captae, capiendae (pisces nimirum praeter l. 51)’) is attested first in Plautus (several times), then in Turpilius, Pomponius, Cicero, Varro, Vitruvius, Apuleius and others: it was a mundane usage from the earliest period of attested Latin.