This base type goes back to Latin
mŭlgēre 'milk' (cf. also
grc. ἀμέλγω, where the initial alpha is obviously to be interpreted as a prefix, although its motivation remains unclear for now). The Romance equivalents such as
ita. mungere (cf.
Treccani, under
mungere) or
lld. mùje (cf.
EWD IV, 488), however, presuppose conjugation change to
mŭlgĕre and a shift from
-l- to
-n-.
A connection with
Malga is logical semantically, but phonetically problematic because of the differing sound vowel. According to
Kluge, 614
lat. mulgere, like
deu. milk and
grc. ἀμέλγειν, goes back to
ine. *melǵ- 'to milk'.
Romani, Luigi: Vocabolario Treccani
LinkKramer, Johannes (1988-1998): Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Dolomitenladinischen, Hamburg, vol. 1-8, Helmut Buske
Seebold, Elmar (2012): Kluge. Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, Berlin, DeGruyter
Griechisch (ISO 639-3)
Italienisch (ISO 639-3)
Ladinisch (ISO 639-3)
Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Dolomitenladinischen
Latein (ISO 639-3)
Deutsch (ISO 639-3)
Indogermanisch (ISO 639-3)