Talk:lupus

Surely, if Proto-Italic were *lukʷos, then the Latin reflex would have been **luquus. This all depends on when the metathesis occurred. If it occurred early in Proto-Italic (which seems likely, given *lukʷos) it would not have reversed to create a Latin **volquus. Dave crowley (talk) 04:58, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I have cleaned up the entry accordingly. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 07:47, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Non-Canine Canid Etymologies
Some canid etymologies seems quite confusing to the non-linguist. We have two very similar-seeming pairs: Latin 'lupus' (wolf) with the very similar Sanskrit 'lopāśá' (fox); and 'wolf' with the very similar Latin 'vulpes' (fox). In both cases, the wiktionary etymologies seem to give completely separate derivations (i.e. they directly relate 'wulf' and 'lupus', 'vulpes' and 'lopāśá', with no interactions between the pairs. As described, any similarities are completely accidental). Is this really the case? Or is it possible that there was some crosstalk between the two, perhaps if earlier populations occupied areas where one of the two groups (wolves or foxes) was absent or rare? --Urilarim (talk) 00:36, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

RFD discussion: November 2018–October 2019

 * See Talk:chinensis.