One of Hrozný's Hittite etymologies which may fairly be called obvious is the connection of šipanti 'he pours a libation' with Gk. and Lat. spondeo. Hrozný, to be sure, translated the word ‘opfert’, and thus lost the most convincing item in the case. The precise meaning of the word was established by Sommer and Ehelolf, who, however, somewhat pedantically refused to recognize the IE etymology except by implication; they mentioned it only in a parenthesis, ‘ohne damit der Verbindung mit σπϵ́νδ∈ιν das Wort reden zu wollen’.

In the recently published third volume of his Indogermanische Grammatik Professor H. Hirt, in his strikingly original and suggestive way, has unfolded a panorama of the history of the formation of IE nouns which differs so radically from the conception of the majority of scholars both in many details and in his general point of view, that it will be of the utmost importance to examine the credibility of his theories and the reliability of his methods. This is true all the more because his presentation, as elsewhere, through its clarity, through the interest which it arouses, and through the confidence with which it is presented, is apt to fascinate the minds of those who have not yet formed an opinion of their own, but are seeking orientation in the problems of IE linguistics for the first time.

This verb appears in a single folk-tale from Cuenca, New Castile, in three examples: 239 (‘— !Ay, yo tan bonita y venir a por agua! !Arrula, arrula, cantarillo! Y lo echó a arrular y se rompió en mil pedazos.‘)

The chief meanings of this word as registered by Godefroy, are ‘ round dance’ and ‘circle’. The difficulty lies in whether it is to be traced to a Celtic etymon or to the Latin choraules ‘a flute player’. Skeat in the second edition of his English Etymological Dictionary suggested the Celtic origin. He was severely criticized by C. Nigra, in the following terms

Le prof. Skeat appuie son étymologie celtique sur l'autorité du Cornish Lexicon de Williams et cite, entre autres, les termes bret. karoll, corn. carol, gael. carull, etc. [‘song’] dont cependant la provenance française semble bien évident.

In Aucassin et Nicolette, VIII, 7, occurs this passage : Et li cris lieve et la noise, et li cevalier et li serjant s'arment et qeurent as portes et as murs por le Castel desfendre, et li borgois montent as aleoirs des murs, si jetent quariax et peus aguisiés. Roques simply defines 'chemin de ronde'; Suchier, too, has it as 'Gang auf der Festungsmauer' implying, however, that a technical connotation might be involved. It is the purpose of this note to explain what the last named editor fails to explain, namely just what this connotation is.