I've finally gotten around to tracking down the connection between the Spanish word "bosque," as in the woods in the Rio Grande valley, and the English word "bosky," which I came across in Milton or Spenser or somebody and which also means wooded or bushy. I did what I could, but I had to rely much more on wikis than I would have liked. So I may have to correct some of this later.
My first guess was that the English was borrowed from the Spanish, or maybe both of them were descended from Latin. But it looks like that's not so! I think I've found one of those rare instances where the Latin and the Spanish both borrowed from Old Germanic. According to this source
there's not much agreement where the old Germanic term came from, and
one expert thinks it originally came from the Latin "buxus," box tree; but nobody else thinks so.
"Bosque" apparently comes by way of Catalan/Provencal/Old French, "bosc," from the proposed Germanic "busk," meaning brush or thicket. The Latin "boscus, bosci" is a medieval (not classical) word meaning wood or wooded area. Fun fact: descendant words are "ambuscade," meaning an ambush set up in the woods, and "oboe," which is -- a woodwind!
I would like to see what the OED has to say about the English "bosky." Merriam-Webster just ties it to Middle English "bush" or "bosk," and I want more details. The whole business about the SH and SK at any rate makes sense - English apparently did that a lot. You see the same thing in "shirt" and "skirt," which are exactly cognates only one of them had more Norse influence. I think. If I'm remembering.
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I love etymological puzzles. Here is the OED entry for "bosky":
Etymology: < bosk n. (not recorded between 14th and 19th cents., but preserved in dialect) + -y suffix1; or alteration of busky adj., after Italian boscoso.(Show Less)
Thesaurus »
Consisting of or covered with bushes or underwood; full of thickets, bushy. (Also transf.)
a1616 Shakespeare Tempest (1623) iv. i. 81 My boskie acres, and my vnshrubd downe.
1637 Milton Comus 312 And every bosky bourn.
1757 J. Dyer Fleece ii. 65 The bosky bourns of Alfred's shires.
1810 Scott Lady of Lake iii. 116 The bosky thickets.
1851 H. Melville v. 33 A brown and brawny company with bosky beards.
Here is the listing for "bosk": Pronunciation: /bɒsk/
Forms: Also ME boske, (18 bosque, rare).
Etymology: The early Middle English bosk(e was a variant of busk, bush n.1; bosk and busk are still used dialectally for bush n.1; but the modern literary word may have been evolved < bosky adj.1
Nothing in there about German, and now you have the possibility of Italian.
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