Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2021/August

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Some suffixes in Romanian

I noticed that a lot of pages for suffixes in Romanian have missing ethymology, so I'm going to discuss a few of them. I'll start with the verbal making suffix -ui. The most likely hypothesis is Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/-ovati. In fact, it's already on the page, despite the missing ethymology on the article. I'm not 100% certain about this ethymology due to the phonetical difficulties (wouldn't -ovi be a more likely descendant?), but seeing that words like Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/trebovati give trebui with exactly the same ending, it's still a possibility. This termination is also very common in verbs derived from Hungarian: făgădui, bântui, mântui... but that doesn't necessarily mean it comes from Hungarian, especially since these verbs have different endings in their mother language. In fact, the slavic languages almost always add their respective -ovati suffix to loanwords, so the possibility for the first hypothesis is even higher considering this. 5.12.15.43 07:37, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't have learned PIE conjugation by heart, but the usage example with trebuie să "we need to" looks like it might be from that. See e.g. 1st Person Dual optative *h₁yih₁wé for *h₁éyti, cp. ire, -ire. It also reminds of the hypothesis that some inflection endings may be related to clitic pronouns. ApisAzuli (talk) 11:05, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

(Same person as above)I'm not sure that's enough consensus to add the ethymology on the article. Moving on to some diminutive suffixes, specifically -ior/-șor. The former doesn't have a page yet, but it undoubtedly comes from Latin -olus, as can be attested with the words derived directly from Latin like capreolus -> căprior, urceolus -> ulcior and the phonetical evolution of intervocalic l to r in general. The question is if -șor is also related to -ior, therefore a descendant of the same Latin suffix. The -or part would suggest that yes, but the "ș" part is more difficult to explain. It's possible that it's just an intrusive consonant, which isn't unseen in other Romance languages (e.g. Spanish -zuelo and -chuelo as variants of -uelo, Italian -cello, -cino, -ciolo). Thoughts? 2A02:2F0E:A200:F000:E494:33DF:DC11:52FA 06:42, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

This is too far out of my comfort zone but I do have to note that almost all examples in the masculine category appear to be following ruki-law, which is not well compatible with those items etymologized from Latin. The derivation from ᴄᴀᴘᴜᴛ is uncanny in this respect, where its original PIE status may be subject to debate. There is also a Hittite suffix/clitic that is reconstructed *-sor though without congeners as far as I can tell. Kapuze ultimately compares Romanian -uț /uts/, but it's uncertain if cappa, cape, vel sim. belongs with caput (cp. hat for the anlaut, or Kutte and cut if equivalent to shirt, skirt, as a Rocker-Kutte tends to be a vest, typically adorned with emblems, which may as well be original since the word has close to no use outside the scene; see in that sense also jaque (“... an alternative origin connects it with jaque de mailles (“coat of arms”)”), jacquet; NB: Fr. -et would be simply *-tos ("Creates verbal adjectives from verb stems."), cp. cognatus). ApisAzuli (talk) 10:03, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

फल, "fruit"

The Etymology at entry फल (phala, “fruit”) says this word in Sanskrit was likely derived from the Dravidian family, but the page then lists many terms in Dravidian languages as borrowings from Sanskrit. What's going on? Could this be cleaned up? Thanks! --Frigoris (talk) 11:28, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

@Frigoris I've updated the etymology. The Sanskrit is either from Dravidian or the other way around. Mayrhofer is generally against Dravidian loans. His first dictionary still contained loads of them, but in EWAia he dropped almost all of them. (Not entirely sure why though.) —caoimhinoc (talk) 00:13, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

@Caoimhin ceallach: is the etymology of फल (phala) related to स्फटिक (sphaṭika, “crystal; quartz”)? The roots claimed to be a possible source for the latter seems to be the same as the former's? --Frigoris (talk) 19:32, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

@Frigoris: Yeah, that's the usual interpretation. I guess because you find crystals by ‘splitting, bursting’ rocks. It's not certain though.

Reference: Mayrhofer, Manfred (2001) Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen [Etymological Dictionary of Old Indo-Aryan]‎^[1] (in German), volume 3, Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, page 775 —caoimhinoc (talk) 20:36, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

मषि, soot, etc.

Another circular borrowing problem with Sanskrit मषि (maṣi). --Frigoris (talk) 11:39, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

I've updated the etymology. In this case too a borrowing into Dravidian seems more likely, because of the broad family of words which exist in Sanskrit. —caoimhinoc (talk) 01:47, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Pennsylvania Dutch: Plural of Gaul = Gaule questionable

Where did you find the plural "Gaule" of the word "Gaul" = horse? The Pennsylvania Dutch-English dictionary names the plural "Geil" keyword: Gaul. The Pennsylvania German/Dutch Wikipedia says the same keyword: Gaul (Mz. = Mehrzaal = plural). -- Cadfaell (talk) 17:25, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

@Cadfaell: What do you mean? Our entry for Pennsylvania German Gaul says the plural is Geil, and has ever since Steapenhyll added it almost four years ago. Perhaps you were looking at Plautdietsch Gaul (“gall, bile”), for which we give the plural Gaule, though I would expect a word with that meaning to be uncountable. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:42, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

It's listed at Gaule, also added by Steapenhyll. Wakuran (talk) 13:55, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

That was probably just a thinko. I'll change it to Plautdietsch now. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:36, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, so it is clarified. -- Cadfaell (talk) 15:15, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

limbat

Are there any likely candidates for the source of this? It seems like the possible source languages would be fairly limited (Greek, Turkish, Arabic, less likely one of a short list of other possibilities). - -sche (discuss) 19:02, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

I've got nothing but Latin limbātus (“edged, bordered”) (perhaps via Italian or Venetian). —Mahāgaja · talk 21:48, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

According to Franz von Löher (Cyprus: historical and descriptive. From the earliest times to the present day, 1878), limbat is an erroneous rendering of l'imbat: "This wind has been erroneously called “limbat” from, we presume, a confusion of a French article with its noun, “l'imbat.” (p. 172)". –Austronesier (talk) 20:44, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, the entries of imbat and ایمبات seem to circle-reference each other though. The first theory seems to derive it from Latinate im- and bat, meaning something like a strike or hit(?) (with intensive prefix), whereas another theory seems to derive it from Ottoman Turkish, although I don't know Turkish well enough to know from which roots that could be. Wakuran (talk) 21:58, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

I've got nothing either, but you only need to look up translations for wind to find potential chance resemblance. 1. An erroneous reading seems to be underlying labriz in Mauritian and Seychellois Creole, too, if from French brise. 2. An etymology for Ossetic дымгӕ (dymgæ) would be a desiderata, cp. Adhyge жьыбгъэ. Are the d and g original? 3. *HwáHatas, cp. باد, Baluchi گوات, do look comparable, related to wind. We also have Old Irish gáeth from a different root (see gaoth next to Welsh gwynt (cp. wind) and awel (*h₂ewh₁eleh₂). If related, the first element reminds of lee, leeward, that sort of thing. ApisAzuli (talk) 05:23, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Since cognates of imbat are found in many languages around the Mediterranean, it is plausible that this was a term in Sabir – which does not help much to pin down the original donor. Nişanyan hypothesizes that the Italian noun imbatto, apparently attested with the sense “sea breeze”, is from in- +‎ battere (as is undoubtedly the case for this noun with the sense “impact”). The VCCVC form does not have a Turkic feel; such Turkish words, if not resulting from suffixation, are typically loans, like imdat from Arabic إِمْدَاد (ʔimdād), ambar from Persian انبار (ambâr), and ekran from French écran. A direct borrowing of (Ottoman) Turkish imbat from Italian/Venetian/... imbatto is less plausible, since the apocope is unexplained.  --Lambiam 20:28, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for tracking down the origin. - -sche (discuss) 18:55, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Bryan

@Leasnam, Lambiam: According to the 2013 "Dictionary of American Family Names":

"This native Irish name had also been borrowed by Vikings, who introduced it independently into northwestern England before the Norman Conquest."

Is that true? Can anyone back that up?

If it is true, then I would imagine that there might be a chance that it could have some sort of presence in some late Old English document somewhere. Is it known to be attested in one? Tharthan (talk) 21:12, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

There's the Icelandic name Brjánn, but according to the page, it's only attested from 1915. Wakuran (talk) 21:59, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

The page says that the first known Icelandic bearer was born in 1915, but the etymology section claims that it was inherited from Old Norse, which obviously was not a spoken tongue in 1915. So if there was an Old Norse Brjánn, then perhaps that was the name that the Dictionary of American Family Names claims was brought to northwestern England prior to the Norman Conquest. Tharthan (talk) 14:57, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Regarding Brjánn, it is of Norse date, attested as the name of the Irish king; in the Orkneyinga saga "earl Sigurd came to Ireland, [and] he and king Sigtrygg marched with that host to meet Brian" in 1014 (translation from Vigfússon's 1894 Icelandic Sagas); a line in Þorsteins saga Síðu-Hallssonar that they "fought with king Brian, and there many remarkable events happened at the same time as is said in his saga" is sometimes cited to support the idea that there was a Brjáns saga, written c. 1100–1190 and used by those later sagas. (The writing of all these postdates Norman Conquest, though.) - -sche (discuss) 15:33, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

The window when the Norse could've spread that name "before the Norman Conquest" seems short. Sean Duffy's 2013 book on Brian Boru and the Battle of Clontarf says "when Brian was born—as we have seen, some time between 927 and 941—the only place in which the name Brian is found is not Ireland but Brittany. (And, incidentally, the occasional occurrence of the name in later mediaeval England derives not from our Brian or from Ireland but from landed connections between England and Brittany arising from the Norman conquest in 1066.) […] the name Brian occurs regularly among the families of the Breton nobility in this age but is hitherto unknown in Ireland […] the only one of Brian's contemporaries to bear it was Brian mac Máelruanaid, the king of Iar-Chonnachta who died in 1004, a younger kinsman of [Brian Boru's mother]." If this is correct—perhaps Mahagaja or another editor of Middle Irish knows—that leaves a window of fifty to ninety years (Brian first being prominent enough to enter the historical record in 977) between when B. Boru might've been well-known enough that people outside Brittany might name kids Brian after him rather than Breton figures / when his descendants existed to use his name as a family name, and when the Norman Conquest brought Bretons with the name. - -sche (discuss) 16:35, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Nonetheless, I see Joslin Fiennes' 2017 Origins of English Surnames also seems to say the name sometimes came to England via Norse. Perhaps someone can find records of the earliest Brians in England, and when and where they were. Poking around, I see George Redmonds' 2004 Christian Names in Local and Family History, page 57, says "The history of Brian, an exceptionally rare name in 1377–81, provides explicit evidence of how such a name might become popular. It has a Celtic origin, and came to be used by the Stapeltons after they were connected by marriage to Brian fitzAlan, one of the great Barons of Richmondshire. The Stapeltons had extensive estates in Yorkshire, and were one of a very few English families to use the name Brian in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries"; their use of it made it common in Yorkshire by the 1500s, though it was still "missing from Smith-Bannister's frequency lists for that period". Indeed, while the Middle English Dictionary has several examples of Brian and Bryan from the 1400s, it has only a few possible ones from the 1300s. - -sche (discuss) 21:34, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

The origin in the Brian fitzAlan / Stapelton case is still Breton/Norman and not Norse, though. Basically, despite the few sources saying some instances derive from Norse, I've yet to find evidence... during the <90-year window between the name not existing outside Breton and Bretons spreading it to England via Norman Conquest, there seem to be few examples in England, and it's not clear why those would involve Norse rather than coming directly from Celtic. John Moss's A History of English Place Names and Where They Came From (2020) mentions that Askham Bryan is in the Domesday Book, which would be an early attestation except that it's only in the book as Ascham; "Bryan" came later (and from Bryan FitzAlan). In various mediaeval English name-lists I've found, I don't see Brian/Bryan as a first or last name until after the Norman Conquest. - -sche (discuss) 02:53, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

The Recorder: A Journal of the American Irish Historical Society (2001), page 199, says "according to medieval baptismal records, the name Brian was popular among both Icelanders and Norsemen" (after Brian Boru gained fame), which suggests the 1915 date in Brjánn is wrong, but whether it was popular among Norse who settled in England in the window between Boru gaining fame and the Norman Conquest is not apparent. - -sche (discuss) 21:53, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Relation between Sanskrit अनु- and Ancient Greek ἀνα-

According to page for *h₂en- these are siblings. Does this differ from the etymology at अनु#Etymology_1? Thanks! --Frigoris (talk) 19:24, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

@Frigoris: According to LIPP *h₂en- doesn't exist. The laryngeal in particular is problematic (see vol. 1, p. 32). So अनु (anu) and ἀνά (aná) are indeed different (I've updated them). —caoimhinoc (talk) 00:53, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

@Caoimhin ceallach: Thank you very much. I did some minor cleanup at ἀνά (aná), but the template {{R:ine:LIPP}} on that page still seems to miss a headword parameter. Could you please check the reference? I don't have access to the work. --Frigoris (talk) 18:41, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

@Frigoris: The template doesn't have a headword parameter. It wouldn't really help in this case though. The headword spans the whole 4 pages I cited. —caoimhinoc (talk) 22:41, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Norwegian Bokmål words of Berber origin

There are numerous words from Berber languages which have entered the Norwegian language, especially from slang amongst foreigners in the Oslo area. It is mostly unclear specifically which words serve as the etymons of these terms, but I have gathered some information, in hope that someone could potentially highlight specifically which Berber language some of these could be from, and hopefully the exact word too:

Norwegian Bokmål word (Meaning) > meaning in original language

- baosj /bɑ.ˈɔʃ/ (police, cops) > from Berber, in the sense of 'boss' or 'head', main meaning 'insect'

- avor /ɑˈʋɑːr/ (to move away, get out from somewhere) > from Berber, Persian or Kurdish

- sjpa /ʃpɑː/ schpa (good, cool, nice, pretty) > from Berber, main meaning "good" or "well"

- sjofe /ˈʃuːfə/ (to watch, look at something) > from Arabic or Berber

- arsko /ˈɑʂkɔ/ (to have sex) > from Berber

- kæbe /ˈkæːbə/ (girl, woman) > from Berber, original sense "prostitute"

- tæsje /ˈtæʃːə/ (to steal; cheat, trick) > from Berber, original sense "to trick"

Any input would be useful, as I have no knowledge of Berber languages myself, some speakers might recognize these words? Supevan (talk) 12:46, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

@Supevan: Based on what you provided, baosj is Tashelhit ⴰⴱⵓⵅⵅⵓⵛ (abuxxuc), kæbe is Moroccan Arabic قحبة (qaḥba), and sjofe is Moroccan Arabic شاف (šāf). The others aren't ringing any bells for me at the moment... maybe @Fenakhay will have more luck. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:42, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

@Supevan I don't know how those are pronounced, but here is what came to mind:

- baosj is from بخوش (baḵḵūš, “a type of insect”), from a Berber language; cognate with Tashelhit ⴰⴱⵓⵅⵅⵓⵛ (abuxxuc).

- kæbe is from قحبة (qaḥba).

- sjofe is from the imperative form شوف (šūf) of the verb شاف (šāf).

- avor is probably from وخر (waḵḵar) with metathesis. — Fenakhay ^{(تكلم معاي · ما ساهمت)} 12:21, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

@Fenakhay That's really useful, thank you! I've added the pronunciation if that helps, I have some more words as well from various languages, if you're interested:

- tert /tɛʈ/ (good, cool, nice, pretty) > from Urdu

- kembo- /ˈkɛmbu/ (huge, big) > possibly from Kurdish, main meaning "it got smaller"

- flus /flʉːs/ (money) > likely from Arabic

- tishar /tɪʃɑːr/ (asshole, douchebag) > likely related to tæsje (to steal, trick)

- lø /lø:/ (lame, boring) and wolla /vɔlːa/ (I promise, I swear) > These must be from Arabic "no" and وَٱللّٰه (by God).

- sjmø / schmø /ʃmøː/ (good, pretty, cool) > of unknown origin. Supevan (talk) 13:05, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

The way arsko is pronounced it must be عشق. Flus we have at multiple places if you only looked flus even. Fay Freak (talk) 13:17, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

I've seen tert spelled as tært in Norwegian texts. I guess the two spellings would be pronounced the same in Eastern Norwegian dialects, though. Wakuran (talk) 13:54, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian огроман / ogroman

Is there any particular reason to posit that it's borrowed from Russian or Czech rather than inherited from a Proto-Slavic etymon? @Vorziblix? PUC – 10:05, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps it is suspicious that this particular shape is used in multiple languages, while there are other options as in Russian грома́дный (gromádnyj). Fay Freak (talk) 11:56, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I find lots of sources claiming it to be a Russian or Czech borrowing since over a century ago, albeit with no explanation as to why they consider it such. Maretić says it and several other words were borrowed by književnici u novijeg vrijeme (‘men of letters in recent times’) and seems to be the source of these claims. Formations based on nativized or calqued Czech and Russian words were popular in the 19th century, which, I assume, is why Maretić singles out those two as possible sources. In practical terms, I can find uses of the word going back to the 1840s (1 2 3 4 5) but no earlier — not that a great deal of material was being published in Serbocroat before then anyway, but I suspect the identification of ogroman as a loanword is mostly due to the lack of earlier attestation. All in all, I don’t know. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 21:57, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Maybe split the etymology of English cardinal?

Shouldn't the etymology for English cardinal be split? I believe that the bird is named after the color, and the color is named after the Roman Catholic cardinal (who wears that color), and the Roman Catholic cardinal is named from the "hinge" sense (ultimately from Latin). I'm not sure what Wiktionary's etymology policies are, but this looks to me like three separate etymologies, not just the one. 73.133.224.40 13:23, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

There is no strict policy on splitting up etymologies and practiced concensus is to get as much under one heading as possible in a compact format. A neat solution I have recently seen is inferential information given in the definition line, as may be seen here for the color.

However, splits are needed if the lower node simply differs, which is a reasonably likely when the next lower node, cardo, is actually uncertain about its origin.

Does the note refer to κράδη only ( "... unlikely as the concordant sense of swing is metaphorical and likely too recent") or also to the alternative suggestion, which hinges likewise on swinging? It might not be so intended, but I think the same argument applies.

It might rather relate with ordo as in coordinate and incidently as in the ordinals; root uncertain but if from *h₂er- ~ h₂or-d-, then *ar- is usually the expected outcome in Italic; cp. *òrmę (“shoulder”) for a sense of hinge, and possibly *Áryas for a religious meaning, though highly contested. The onset cannot be explained from c(o)- without difficulty, but its -o- followed by some later reanalysis would explain the long vowel of ōrdō, if o-grade (and antepenultimate stress) doesn't work. The Greek word does in many ways remind of *ḱerh₂- (“head, horn”) in the sense of "top", which also ... fits well with the meanings "crown of a tree" (κραδάω (kradáō)).

carduelis has more. See in particular the comparison to Lithuanian karsiu (“to comb”), in view of the headdress that would be typically called comb. ApisAzuli (talk) 19:22, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

桜

RFV of the etymology. --沈澄心✉ 04:48, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

See March 2020 discussion for a long row of "words", cognates, or doublets as it were "deriving from verbal root sak-" ([1]).

Do you have any specific doubts to address? I could see a lot of coincidence remaining to be explained while looking up the traditional Chinese characters, but I do not have enough experience with East-Asian languages to form an opinion and I don't expect these pages to fill me in beyond citations. ApisAzuli (talk) 14:00, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

• @沈澄心: It's been a while since I last had a go at the 桜#Japanese entry. Looking now at online sources, I see the following that include a mention of the 咲く (saku, “to bloom”) + ら (ra, pluralizing suffix) derivation:

• Gogen Yurai Jiten ("Etymological Derivation Dictionary", in Japanese)
• Nihon Jiten ("Japan Dictionary", in Japanese)
• The JA WP article section at w:ja:サクラ#語源 also mentions this, but with no references given.

The large Kokugo Dai Jiten from Shogakukan is usually one of the best sources for Japanese etymology, but sadly, it has terrible coverage for terms naming plants and animals -- those entries are closer to short encyclopedia articles, describing the organism, and consistently with no etymology given, unlike many other terms. I suspect that the publisher had different editorial teams working on different subject matters, and the group working on plant and animal terms was not as lexicographically inclined. Online KDJ entry available here at Kotobank, FWIW.

Of the Gogen Yurai Jiten and the Nihon Jiten, the latter tends to just list derivational theories, without regard to likelihood, while the former is more selective and describes which theories seem more or less likely. For semantic reasons, the sa ("grain"?) + kura ("storehouse") derivation they mention doesn't really fit, and for semantic and phonological reasons, the saku ("to bloom") + ra (pluralizing suffix) derivation stands out as the most probable.

HTH, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:11, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

The saku ("to bloom") + -ra derivation can be found in this book: Martin, Samuel E. (1987) The Japanese Language Through Time, New Haven, London: Yale University Press, →ISBN, page 571.

He also compared サクラ with まくら, たから, etc. ‑‑Ydcok (talk) 06:29, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Yiddish פֿונט

@Metaknowledge and anyone else interested: is there good evidence this word was borrowed from Russian rather than inherited from MHG? Couldn't Yiddish-speaking Jews have called a unit of weight a פֿונט long before they ever went to Russia? —Mahāgaja · talk 09:46, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, my first guess was that the initial f- would indicate a Slavic borrowing rather than an inherited form, but then I saw the word פֿערד (ferd), which would indicate that a reduction of pf- to f- happened already in Proto-Yiddish... Wakuran (talk) 13:53, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Also פֿעפֿער (fefer). Wakuran (talk) 16:55, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

@Mahagaja: This is very interesting; I can't remember why I was so sure of that in 2015. I think my original gloss gives a clue: the older Yiddish use conforms to the Russian measure, so I probably concluded that if there was no Germanic definition of a pound, merely a Slavic one, then the word was taken from Russian along with the concept. It could be wrong, but I would like to see evidence of its meaning or antiquity of usage before stating that it's inherited with anything more than weasel words. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:32, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

A counter-argument is that an older word could shift in meaning to conform to the Russian standard. Wakuran (talk) 02:24, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Max Weinreich's History of the Yiddish Language (2008), volume 1, discusses this word in several places and seems to take it as given that it's inherited from MHG inasmuch as he repeatedly discusses it and other inherited words (tropn 'drop' ~ trifn 'drip', etc) in the context of the development and regional distribution of reflexes of MHG /pf/ as /pf/, /p/ or /f/ in different Yiddish dialects and German lects. "Yiddish has funt (pound), epl (apple), kop (head) against MHG pfunt, apfel, kopf, and NHG Pfund, Apfel, Kopf. The /p/ in epl, kop goes the way of Low German, and the /f/ in funt is different again", mirroring (he notes) some East Central German varieties, where "initially we have /f/; for example in fund [...while] in the middle and in the end of the word, we have the unshifted /p/, for example in appel, kopp. We see at once that we have an agreement here with eastern Yiddish; funt (pound) but epl (apple), kop (head)." - -sche (discuss) 02:50, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

OK, it sounds like an inheritance is most likely then after all. I'll change it. Thanks everyone! —Mahāgaja · talk 06:23, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

The form is entirely regular, no doubt. Throughout Central German, Germanic -pp- and -mp- were not shifted. Initial p- was, however, shifted in East Central German, to which Yiddish belongs. The further reduction of initial pf- to f- is also regular in Yiddish and by no means restricted to it. The only German spellings with f- are Flaum and fauchen, but it is a very general feature of German pronunciation throughout central and northern areas. 88.64.225.109 04:18, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

lake

How sure is the claim that this is not related to (and in fact indirectly derived from) Latin lacus? Our claim contradicts what apparently all other dictionaries say. --Espoo (talk) 22:31, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Added an rfv-etym to both statements. All the big popular dictionaries claim a chain of Old English < Old French < Latin lacus, but maybe they're all out of date, who knows. Kroonen has an entry for Proto-Germanic *lakō (pg. 322) but it's a bit ambiguous and doesn't necessarily rule out a Romance borrowing. DJ K-Çel (contribs ~ talk) 01:30, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I believe that the early Middle English form (c. 1121) was lace which was apparently still using Old English orthography (i.e. c = k here) in this excerpt from the Peterborough Chronicle: & swa forð þurh ælle þa meres & feonnes þa liggen to ward Huntendune porte, & þas meres & laces, Scælfremere & Witles mere, & ælle þa oþre þet þar abutan liggan, mid land & mid huses þa sindon on æsthalfe Scælfre mere. There are no French or Old Norman words in it. There is only the one, port which was a borrowing in Old English from Latin, but the language was still purely Anglo-Saxon. It clearly means "lake" in this passage. At this same time in the Northern Oïl languages (if I'm not mistaken) their word for "pit, trench, grave" was lai, the native descendant of Latin lacus. Only later, during the 13th century, was lac re-borrowed as a learned word in Old French from Latin. This cannot be the origin of Middle English lake as the form is incorrect - lake precisely follows sound laws for deriving from Old English lacu; wheras lac might rather have resulted in a word like 'lack' in English instead of 'lake'. Influence from lac is a possibility however. Normans, when converting from speaking Old Norman to Middle English would have found the 2 words similar, just as they did Middle English nose and Old French nés, Middle English riche and Old French riche, but this doesn't mean one was borrowed from the other. As for PGmc *lakō being a borrowing from Latin, I think that is out of the question. *Lakō belongs to a whole family of words in Germanic, and the form and meanings fit well with other words meaning "leak, drain, seep, puddle, etc.". If anything, West Germanic *laku may have been influenced by Latin lacus...I don't know, but it's not impossible. Leasnam (talk) 05:41, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I disagree that it fits well with any of the senses you mention, but have to agree that Latin loans in 500 BC are not concensus. We do list a few more for Proto-West-Germanic, but we also reconstruct a loan from "Late" "Latin" paraveredus (ca. 600 CE, as far as I could tell) in Proto-West-Germanic, and give the Latin entry a classic pronounciation. So take those with a grain of salt.

The topic is all the more difficult because it would be a false cognate whereby the semantics match also in lack < lacuna (the result of leakage, right?), while a true cognate also exists, cp. lagu, except for any other West-Germanic branch. I don' t think that's convincing. The comparanda in favour of PGem *laku with Celtic and Armenian that show only either leakage etc. or sea, respectively, while neither has a cognate to lacus are also peculiar. Well, maybe it is expected that redundancy reduces, but then it shouldn't be expected to exist in the first place (eg. with *h1elh2- "to flow", *(s)rew-, *dhew-, etc. etc.). ApisAzuli (talk) 21:47, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Forgive me, I may have been unclear: I meant that Proto-Germanic *lakō fits well with other related terms in Germanic - so with *lakjaną, *lōkiz, *lekaną, etc. The existence of these related terms makes it more plausible that *lakō is native to Germanic, and exempts us from having to rely on being a borrowing from Latin to explain its existence. Leasnam (talk) 02:40, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

I think you're right, but it's crazy how so many dictionaries (OED, AHD, M-W and the like) all say lacus. There are several other examples of Wiktionary's etymologies showing more modern theories instead of outdated sources. Kroonen simply calls *lakō "a European word." DJ K-Çel (contribs ~ talk) 03:06, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

...

Go us, doing one better than other dictionaries! :) If a lot of references assert a connection to lacus, I think it'd be useful to say slightly more explicitly why that theory is wrong, though; maybe point out something along the lines of "other dictionaries assert a connection to lacus but this is incorrect because [derivation from lacu is a better match phonologically, and ... etc etc]"). - -sche (discuss) 07:45, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Wouldn't at least one scholarly source be required? Otherwise, I'd assume it would qualify as Original Research (or whatever the Wiktionary terminology is) ? Wakuran (talk) 10:28, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Wiktionary does not have such a strictly enforced rule. Own research is permissable if it satisfies accademic rigour. I.e. Kroonen would be more than welcome to comment if there was a good reason to avoid inclusion of lake. So far I see none.

It is infuriating, because you cannot play the chance-card on sound correspondance while denying it on the semantic aspect. There is no rigid methodology for horizontal transfer, including semantics. Trying to own research in a manner of turf war would be an actual problem. ApisAzuli (talk) 19:45, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

...

I just found this discussion. I recently came across the tag at lake and updated the etymology, pretty much like you described @Leasnam, mainly using the OED as source. Want to have a look and make some changes if necessary? —caoimhinoc (talk) 00:41, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

It's fine. I made it a little clearer (hopefully), but kept it basically the same. Leasnam (talk) 13:33, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Bételgeuse

Is this French term really not from the same "yad al-jawzā'" which gave the corresponding English Betelgeuse but from "mankib al-jawzā'"? How did mankib become Bét-? Did the Latin Bedalgeuze have a part in that? MGorrone (talk) 16:27, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

@MGorrone: The Arabic term was copied from the French Wiktionary, where it seems the wrong Arabic word was entered for the actual term's transliteration. Fixed. Kritixilithos (talk) 17:25, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Italian milza

We show Italian milza (and Piedmontese milsa, et al.) being borrowed from Old High German milzi. But wouldn't derivation from Old High German milza (found at Proto-Germanic *meltǭ) make more sense ? Leasnam (talk) 22:16, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Gmc *meltja is a strong neuter, which correctly gives OHG milzi. But a rival, less common feminine form milza appears in OHG — see [2]. Kluge explains this as an analogy with other words for internal organs, which are largely feminine. In the long term, the feminine form wins out in German.

The problem is that we don't know whether both forms existed in Lgb, but Gamillscheg says, "Für ital. milza, wird langobardische Herkunft angenommen, weil das Wort im Alpenromanischen fehlt; doch ist der Schluß nicht bindend." (Gamillschegg, Romania Germanica, IV, 56). There's also the question of assimilation to Gallo-Italian — are there nouns in -i ? — but that is not an area where I have any competence. Not to mention the possibility that original milzi could have been replaced by milza under later Frankish influence (not that I have a source for that). Pfold --2A00:23C6:9E0B:DF00:D115:3C66:DEE6:FAD 10:57, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

piccerillo

Isn't this straightforwardly just a cognate of Italian piccino with a diminutive suffix (-illo/ello) added? So ultimately from Reconstruction:Latin/pittus. 70.175.192.217 18:25, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

What's straight forward about this, where does the r come from? Derivation from *kwetwores- and *penkwos for a four year old seems more likely than that. ApisAzuli (talk) 19:39, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

PIE *penkwos in Latin already is "quinque", cf. modern Italian "cinque" (the word in Neapolitan is similar). I don't see how you get "piccerillo" out of that. Let alone from "quattuor".

I'm not sure about how the "r" got inserted, but I do know at least one other diminutive in Neapolitan that had a similar form: "ciuccio" has the diminutive "ciucciariello", which you can find attested in various songs. That still leaves open how the "in" that we see in piccino got removed, but that word itself is a diminutive derived from "*pittus", so it doesn't seem implausible that Neapolitan developed another derivation, just using a different suffix. 70.175.192.217 03:08, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Vinar, vinarius

The etymological sections for Macedonian винар (vinar) and Serbo-Croatian vinar derive them from Latin vinarius. However, no etymological dictionary I have consulted mentions Latin in relation to these words or there equivalents in other Slavic languages. Hrvatski jezični portal, Български етимологичен речник, and Slovenski etimološki slovar all treat the word for "vintner" in the respective language as an internal derivation, like пчелар, which is obviously "пчела" + "-ар" and not from Latin *pchelarius. I therefore suggest that the etymological entries for "vinar" be rewritten. Martin123xyz (talk) 20:53, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

The difference, of course, is that there is no Latin word *pchelarius, while vīnārius does exist. It's probably impossible to prove for certain one way or the other. I say we hedge our bets and put both etymologies in, along these lines:

Either borrowed from Latin vīnārius or formed internally from ви́но +‎ -ар.

At the very least, that allows categorization by suffix. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:35, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

I agree with this solution. Martin123xyz (talk) 13:58, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

scella

I believe this comes from Latin axilla / Medieval Latin ascella. 70.175.192.217 17:44, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

 Done Leasnam (talk) 23:08, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

tanno

I guess this might come from Latin tandem or a related word (similar to tanto#Conjunction in Italian, which Wiktionary says is derived from "tantus"). 70.175.192.217 01:43, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

I assume that this refers to the Neapolitan adverb. A Latin adverb with the same meaning is tum, but I don’t know how plausible a development tanno < tum is. — This unsigned comment was added by Lambiam (talk • contribs) at 08:19, 17 August 2021 (UTC).

Yeah, tum is much closer semantically, good point. There's also the variant tunc, which has the n, and whose entry lists a number of derivatives. Most of them look more like donca/dunque than tanno, but it still seems possible. 70.175.192.217 03:25, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't know for sure, but it looks like Neapolitan -nn- comes from Latin -nd- (cf. cumannà, rotunno), so this would lead to a term *tando which isn't Latin, but I think it could be a demonstrative formation to interrogative quando (when?) (Neapolitan quanno) after the model of qualis~talis, quantus~tantus. --Akletos (talk) 07:14, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

That sounds like an extremely likely etymology to me. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:10, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

That indeed makes a lot of sense, and there are some book sources mentioning this etymology as well, e.g. [3][4]. 70.175.192.217 04:10, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

媽／妈 (mā)

Should it be added in the entry that 媽／妈 (mā) is a colloquial form of 母 (mǔ), in a similar way that 爸 (bà) is a colloquial form of 父? StrongestStrike (talk) 17:14, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't quite see how it could be similar. The difference is that 父 and 爸 are from the same reconstructed Old Chinese word: 爸 was spelled 父 before the pronounciation shifted and the new phono-semantic spelling was created in accord with the more archaic sound to be conserved. It's age or how much the forms differed by Middle Chinese is difficult to tell. Whether a one-eyed snake 巴 (bā) was chosen on purpose to make an ideogrammatic compound from the phonetic clue isn't indicated.

But 母 < /*mɯʔ/ and 媽 < /*maːʔ/ are contrasting in OC according to Zhenzhang; Baxter–Sagart give only 母 /*məʔ/. The difference is miniscule and B-S don't seem to assume 媽 were reconstructable for that stage. The biggest difference is that the compound uses the graphical cognate 女 for semantics, indicating no continuity from 母--does it?

Whether "horse" is supposed to be a graphic clue is not indicated. The phonetic compounds don't appear identical, although the reconstructions are somehow similar by necessity:

• *praːs or *pra:, B-S /*pˤra/ besides *baʔ for 巴
• /*mraːʔ/, B-S /*mˁraʔ/ for 馬

--I do not know which form is citing whom. I don't know why one reconstructs *r or *-s in particular, but see also 傌 *mraːs clearly indicating a person.

If this is similar then either Zhenzhang is wrong, the two mama words are from one allopham 母 and the situation with 父 and 爸 is principilly similar as you say, or the allofamy is older than Old in the case that it should be undecidable--see the last month about dada words and baby bable.

If the spelling is however decisive, I would realy like to know an argument for reference to discern the different moma suffixes in Tibetan ཉ་མ (nya ma, “housewife”), ཉག་མོ (nyag mo, “woman”), see Proto-Sino-Tibetan *nja-ŋ/k (“woman”) > 女, while on the other hand *mow (“woman, female”) has STEDT's Tibeto-Burman reconstruction and lists reflexes for 母 but the Proto-Sino-Tibetan root is "?", and we list Tibetan in particular བུ་མོ (bu mo, “young girl, daughter”), མོ (mo, “woman”). So, might nyag mo imply that 媽 may have to be read as polysyllabic *女媽? ApisAzuli (talk) 06:55, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

berserk

The etymology has been recently changed, so that instead of this word essentially coming from bear + sark, it says in the entry that it essentially comes from bare + sark. All the dictionary entries at OneLook give bear in preference to bare as a cognate of the first syllable of berserk and, in fact, only three mention the ‘bare’ idea (Lexico, Etymonline and The Free Dictionary). Perhaps we should revert back to our original etymology (though we could include the second possibility later in the paragraph too)? Overlordnat1 (talk) 19:05, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Apparently this has been a matter of debate among etymologists for a very long time. “ber-serkr” in: Richard Cleasby, Guðbrandur Vigfússon — An Icelandic-English Dictionary (1874) devotes a good bit of space to it, but categorically rejects the "bare" etymology. A few other references I checked at least mentioned both. I can see adding "bare" as an alternative etymology, but removing the "bear" one without mentioning it is wrong (the edit also trashed the formatting). Chuck Entz (talk) 19:45, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

The etym was changed by anon IPv6 2607:FB90:6889:79FE:C813:1CF6:8797:E7BB (talk), which is blocked globally for abuse by a user from Metawiki, possibly suggesting that the problematic edit should be removed. User:Qehath disabled the global block locally on EN Wikt for anonymous editing, for reasons I don't know. @Qehath, could you provide any more context? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:43, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

@Eirikr The global block means nothing, because it includes a huge chunk of T-Mobile's address space encompassing the entire US (/32 is 4 billion /64 address ranges). Yes, there's been a significant amount of vandalism from this range, but it's far from vandalism-only. In this case, the edit bears all the marks of a good-faith, but misguided edit by someone who knows nothing about Wiktionary formatting. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:29, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

I’ve just altered the etymology to give priority to the ‘bear’ theory in light of what the prevailing wisdom seems to be though there may still be formatting issues. Overlordnat1 (talk) 01:13, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

I fixed the formatting and removed the "equivalent to" part- the replacement of the word "bear" didn't really work. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:34, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

👍 Overlordnat1 (talk) 01:40, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Someone should harmonize the English entry and Old Norse berserkr, which outright rejects the "bare" theory (whereas the English entry acknowledges the possibility). - -sche (discuss) 17:20, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Do we really need harmony here? Why not just include a "but see" reference to the English berserk etymology in the Old Norse etymology? DCDuring (talk) 17:50, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Initially, I'd guess that the form bersi + serkr seems more probable than bjǫrn + serkr, although it doesn't seem to be a theory that's mentioned in sources. (It's also possibly that si + s wouldn't merge like that in actual Old Norse, as I'd guess...) The form bera is female, which would seem strange for it to be used in that manner in such a macho culture. Wakuran (talk) 13:44, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

• @Wakuran: What is bersi? I only see Italian for that. And in the tables at Old Norse berr (“bare”), the closest inflected form I can find is bers, no bersi. But then bers is the genitive, which I don't think would be used in a nominative compound like berserkr.

Semantically, I must say that "bare shirt" doesn't make sense to me -- if someone is naked on top, they are without shirt. If someone is naked on bottom, no one describes that as "bare-trousered", for instance.

Regarding female bears, are you at all familiar with the phrase mama bear? Females of just about any mammalian species are often noteworthy for how fierce they can be in defense of their young. If a Norse warrior were strong enough to have killed a mama bear, that would likely be worthy of note in a warrior culture. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:19, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Bersi (or bessi) should be an Old Norse word for a male bear, from what I can see. [5] (Entry:bjässe). Wakuran (talk) 18:29, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Yiddish איילבערט 'olive'

The אייל (eyl) portion is obviously the word for "oil", but what's בערט (bert)? Could it be from Old High German oliberi (literally “oil berry”), from Proto-West Germanic *olibaʀi, like Old English eleberġe and Old Saxon oliberi? But then where does the ט come from? Also, Duo Lingo spells it איילבירט (eylbirt); is there some word or element בירט (birt)? I can't find any such word in my Yiddish dictionaries, but maybe it's obsolete outside this term. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:41, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

See Plant Names in Yiddish, page XIII for the answer. --Vahag (talk) 10:41, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

@Vahagn Petrosyan:, thanks for that! It still doesn't say where the t comes from, though. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:52, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

In the list of plant names, the occurrences of בירט (birt) (quite a few) are exclusively in the compound איילבירט (eylbirt). The riddle of the ⟨ט⟩ remains unresolved. Can its development have been influenced by names like Albert, Elbert and Olbert?  --Lambiam 14:00, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

vine staff

If the Romans used a word that otherwise meant "vine" to denote a staff made of vine, and English calls it a "vine staff", is that really a calque? - -sche (discuss) 17:18, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

This seems like an easy case, especially when the word refers to the staff itself. Vine staff is a fuller, more literal, translation of Latin vitis. If Latin had called the thing vitis baculum or vitis scīpio, then vine staff would be a calque. I thought a calque is supposed to be a word-for-word translation (possibly including cases like superman for Ubermensch). DCDuring (talk) 17:42, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

More generally then, a calque is a part-by-part translation, like German Stillleben = still +‎ Leben < Dutch stilleven = stil +‎ leven.  --Lambiam 08:49, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Lithuanian spyna (lock)

I found two references for this that seem to disagree.

[6] This says "W. I. pinna", which I assume is supposed to mean Latin pinna (fin), although I'm not 100% sure that this is the intended meaning. (I'm also not sure what the "W. I." means; "W." refers to a specific book citation mentioned in the glossary, but "W. I." is not mentioned.)

[7] This source says that the term is cognate to the Czech verb s-pjnám, which I can't decode, and to Polish piąć/spiąć/spinać, Lithuanian pinti/supinti, all of which come from Proto-Balto-Slavic *pínˀtei, Proto-Indo-European *(s)penh₁-.

I guess I'm just confused. The latter etymology makes more sense to me, but I'm also not sure I'm even interpreting the first one correctly. 70.175.192.217 01:47, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

As to “W. I.” in the Index, I think it is actually “W. 1.”; compare the shape of other occurrences of the digit “1”. Walde has two entries for pinna,^[8] so I suppose it means the first of the two, not related to Latin penna (“feather”) but reportedly meaning points of various kinds, and said (like Latin spina) to be related to Proto-Indo-European *spey-. De Vaan only mentions pinna as a dialect form of penna. Gaffiot has pinna as an alternative spelling of pina, a Greek borrowing, which we define as “sea pen” (a kind of cnidarian) but which others seem to think refers to a pen shell (a kind of clam).  --Lambiam 10:24, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

sted

Do “(largely obsolete) Alternative spelling of stead” and “short for instead of” have the same etymology? J3133 (talk) 13:52, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Since both stead and instead have the same etymology, I'd say naturally... Wakuran (talk) 16:30, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

It depends on how narrowly you define “the same”. The English noun sted is merely an obsolete spelling of stead, but was stead or its Middle English ancestor ever used in the sense of “in lieu of ”? I wonder if the use as editorial lingo was influenced by German statt with the same meaning.  --Lambiam 10:44, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, ine stude of ("in place of, in lieu of") is attested from c 1200. Leasnam (talk) 03:19, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Sure, but what about historical prepositional uses of naked stude/stede in lieu of a multi-word phrase? I see a difference between the development sted < sted and sted < instead of < ine stede of.  --Lambiam 09:05, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, both the cited quotations for "instead" are missing from the Internet, as of now. Might be a very rare usage. Wakuran (talk) 12:06, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Both cited quotations are AP editorial notes, preserved by the Wayback Machine.^[9][10] It is not hard to find more examples, including more recent ones. Most uses are from AP editors, but this appears to have no AP connexion.  --Lambiam 09:19, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Ah, so it's mostly restricted to journalist terminology. Wakuran (talk) 11:53, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

5 lions, 5 hills or 5 something else?

Does Panjshir come from:

A. 5 lions as per پنجشیر?

B. 5 rivers as per enwiki?

C. 5 hills as per fawiki (as translated by me in A’s Talk)?

D. 5 other critters, angels, devils or geographical features?

Fivefold ćárguš greetings

from curious Zezen (talk) 14:24, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

A is obviously true, so our etymology is correct. The question is whether this is an alteration of a previous name through folk etymology. Enwiki does not make the claim in B. Fawiki lists a bunch of potential origins without any attempt to sift through them, including 5 mountains, 5 rivers, etc. If we're just going to list every hypothesis anyone's ever had, it should be in an autocollapsed box, under the surface etymology we currently have. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:54, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge - thanks for the detailed answer.

B. Enwiki - it does, scroll down to Etymology, with ref: 3. Sinha, Ram Nandan Prasad (1990). Environment and Human Response: Selected Essays in Geography. Concept Publishing Company. p. 296. ISBN 978-81-7022-243-9. (Yet Google Books does not show it.)

A. What proper RS do we have for our “obvious” felines then?

Roarh! Zezen (talk) 18:19, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

@Zezen: it does appear on p. 296 of the book, which reads "The river Panchami which has been identified with the river Panjshir, emerges from the Khawak spurs of Hindukush and joins the river Kubha (Kabul) at Charikar." Here Panchami appears to be an informal romanization of the Sanskrit पञ्चमी (pañcamī), which literally means "fifth" (with feminine stem -ī), see पञ्चम (pañcama). The quotation from the book didn't seem to claim a relation in the etymologies of the Sanskrit term and the Persian place name. Also I didn't think I found the name पञ्चमी (pañcamī) as "the name of a river" in the critical edition of the Mahābhārata based on a cursory search; it is included in the Index to the Names in the Mahabharata link based on some common editions though. --Frigoris (talk) 08:39, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Etymology of French word "gamin"

Could it be derived from the Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌼𐌰𐌽? — This unsigned comment was added by 196.47.128.136 (talk) at 14:57, 23 August 2021 (UTC).

TLFi mentions a similar Germanic theory. [11] Wakuran (talk) 16:34, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

It is (IMO) rather implausible that the word can have survived the ten centuries from Gothic becoming extinct to popping up in French without being recorded somewhere on the way.  --Lambiam 09:36, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

If I got TLFi correctly, it could have been a West Germanic borrowing of a cognate to 𐌲𐌰𐌼𐌰𐌽 (gaman). Wakuran (talk) 11:53, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

пуга́ть

No etymological entry is listed. This certainly derives ultimately from the hebrew radical p.hh.d, most likely by a Yiddish or Knaanic intermediate. Anyone know of any good sources to look thru? — This unsigned comment was added by 73.219.15.198 (talk) at 19:21, 23 August 2021 (UTC).

First learn to spell and transcribe the Hebrew alphabet faithfully on the computer, then make theories. Fay Freak (talk) 19:50, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

That root would be פ־ח־ד, and I suppose the sounds are similar but I'm not finding anything substantiating a connection. This gives some other hypotheses as to the word's origin. 70.175.192.217 21:03, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Hebrew is very unlikely (because of The Pale). As per IP’s hint, let us copy Vasmer here, the simplest: from ruwiktionary.

The 73. ..IP: in future just click the RU link to the source language in wiktionary before suggesting. Zezen (talk) 07:08, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

The root of the verb пуга́ть (pugátʹ) is pug-; the -at′ is just the infinitive suffix. The second consonant of the Hebrew, ח, is pronounced [χ] in Yiddish and would be rendered in Russian with х, not г. The vowels don't match, either. So the two roots have nothing in common but the initial consonant p. The hypothesis is dead in the water. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:11, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

istimewa, Malay/Indonesian

This term means "special", "especially", "even more so", etc. The page currently claims etymology from Sanskrit, however I could hardly recognize the Sanskrit term (which looks like some sort of imperfective for the verb root as, "to be", with the intensifier eva tacked on, which hardly makes sense). SEALang.net Malay dict. says the etymology is from "Arabic", while SEALang Indonesian says "Sanskrit". Neither provides a form for the claims. @Fenakhay, Fay Freak, SarahFatimaK, could you please help with the "Arabic" claim? Thanks! --Frigoris (talk) 19:25, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

@Frigoris: اِسْتِثْنَائِيّ (istiṯnāʔiyy)? Fay Freak (talk) 19:31, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

@Fay Freak:, that looks much more plausible than the "Sanskrit". I don't know anything about Arabic or Malay to speculate about where the "-ewa" came from though. --Frigoris (talk) 19:38, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

@Frigoris: It would have come about because intervocalic glottal stops become glides (ي (y) and و (w)) in informal Arabic. ـثْنْـ (-ṯn-) to ـمـ (-m-) is shakier, also the vocalic correspondence I do not completely understand. Fay Freak (talk) 19:48, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

The Sanskrit etymology is given in Sanskrit Loan-words in Indonesian: an Annotated Checklist of Words from Sanskrit in Indonesian and Traditional Malay by J.G. de Casparis, p. 19. āstām + eva is glossed there as 'thus be it!'.

Wilkinson tried to link it somehow to Arabic[12], but not really in a compelling way. –Austronesier (talk) 21:32, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

@Austronesier, thanks for the info. In that case, I see the Sanskrit term आस्तां (āstāṃ) is the 3rd-person singular imperative of root ās आस् (ās), which can mean something like "continue to be, exist". आस्तामेव (āstāmeva) would mean "May (he/she/it) go on to be [how (he/she/it) is like]." Grammatically this is a correct sentence that carries meaning, but how did it become "exceptional; even more so"? And why did the ā become i? --Frigoris (talk) 07:59, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Prepenultimate vowels, especially a/ā, were usually weakened to schwa as in sederhana (e = [ə]) from साधारण (sādhāraṇa). However, in initial position, the syllable structure of Malay disprefers initial [ə-] in trisyllabic or longer words, so we either get a- (agama < आगम (āgama)) or i- (istana < आस्थान (āsthāna)) here. There is even prosthetic i- as in istri < स्त्री (strī). So the change of initial ā is quite regular, while the shift of the second ā to i (instead of expected schwa) is probably the result of assimilation, or influenced by the shape of many words later introduced from Arabic (which makes it look like an Arabic class X verbal noun).

As for the semantic shift, I'm in the dark. –08:44, 24 August 2021 (UTC) — This unsigned comment was added by Austronesier (talk • contribs).

Add I have found three attestations of astamewa here (spelled "astaméwa"), with the meaning 'even more so'. –Austronesier (talk) 12:19, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

@Austronesier: thank you very much. Is this just an older spelling of the same word as istimewa, or an earlier form from a historical stage of the language? If you can, please help improve the entry, thanks! Also, interestingly the formation seems to have some parallel in the English albeit, although the meanings are not the same. --Frigoris (talk) 13:39, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

@Frigoris: Actually, I am still hesitating about an entry for "early Classical" Malay astamewa, because in the traditional Jawi spelling, no diacritics were used (not even hamza with alif). So I wonder how Teuku Iskandar confidently transliterated ﺍﺳﺘﻤﻴﻮﺍ as astaméwa instead of contemporary istiméwa in his edition of the Hikajat Atjeh without other clues (Modern Jawi spells it ايستيميوا). Pinging @Patnugot123, Xbypass Are you familiar with the history of istimewa? –Austronesier (talk) 14:37, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

@Austronesier: I am not quite familiar with the history of astamewa and istimewa by myself. However, there is not many word with consonant combination of that and context (well, he was transcribing a text, not a word), so it is the same confidence to transliterate txt as text. --Xbypass (talk) 10:26, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

In general, isti- is used to form Arabic verbal nouns. For example, Arabic اِسْتِمَاع (istimāʿ ) means “listening closely”. I couldn’t find any roots m-w-* that might plausibly give rise to a sense such as “special”.  --Lambiam 09:23, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I did some cleanup at the page istimewa#Etymology. At least we now have a reference for the claim. --Frigoris (talk) 12:04, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Rotte

Dutch Rotte and Middle Dutch Rotte (the river that flows near Rotterdam, which is named after the river), both from Old Dutch or Frankish *Rotta, from the same Proto-Germanic root as modern English and Dutch rot. Likely named by early settlers for it's murky water. I noticed this etymology is missing. I wanted to add it myself, but since I'm new to this site, I'd figured I'll discuss it here before I make a mess of it. — This unsigned comment was added by 84.241.207.88 (talk).

What is the status of the derivation from *Rotta? Is it more than just a theory?  --Lambiam 08:32, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Comment: there are a lot of (seemingly) similar river names, including the Rhône (Greek Rhodanos, historically known as Rotten in Germany, commonly derived from an unknown celtic root), and various Rot, Rotach etc. in Germany (generally assumed to refer to the red color). I’d like to see a good source. Cheers  _hugarheimur 16:04, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Always consult Greule, Albrecht (2014) Deutsches Gewässernamenbuch: Etymologie der Gewässernamen und der dazugehörigen Gebiets-, Siedlungs- und Flurnamen, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, →ISBN on rivers. There p. 449 it is really equivalent to English rotten, with an original form *Rottana, n-suffix from it in the case of Rotte (Nied), first attested 1018 ad fluvium Rottena, while the Rotterdam Rotte he puts with question mark *Rottaha, also from early 11th century. There are a bare similar hydronyms that are not related. Fay Freak (talk) 12:59, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Bischof

Given that many of the missions to Germany for Christianity were Anglo-Saxon missionaries, is there any particular reason why we assume that Old High German biscof came directly from Latin, as opposed to biscof being a borrowing from Old English bisċop. Or, if we argue that Irish missionaries introduced the term to the Germans, do we disagree that it was reinforced or influenced in form by the Old English word?

After all, the Anglo-Saxons did form some faith terms in German in the Old High German period. Heiliger Geist is one such term.

And, with regard to the word for bishop specifically, Old Norse's biskup was indeed a borrowing from Old English bisċop. Tharthan (talk) 15:45, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

German der Heilige Geist descends from a calque, not a loan. Did the Irish missionaries introducing the term speak Old English or Old Irish? Assuming they knew Latin, ther heilago geist may (IMO) just as well have been a direct calque of Latin Spiritus Sanctus. The apheresis and voicing of the resulting initial consonant is consistent with a Romance donor, but not so much with ecclesiastical Latin, although this was undoubtedly an intermediary: Old High German biscof < ? < Latin episcopus < Ancient Greek ἐπίσκοπος (epískopos). (The Old Irish term is epscop.)  --Lambiam 12:12, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, it seems that there was a particular Vulgar Latin form similar to *biscopo. Otherwise, the various Germanic forms appear very similar, without having been derived directly from episcopus. Wakuran (talk) 21:20, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

The Anglo-Saxon missions started only in the late 7th century. 1.) It's quite doubtful that the first phase of the High German consonant shift (postvocalic p, t, k > ff, zz, hh) was still active that late. 2.) It's unlikely that the Germans hadn't a word for bishop by that time. 3.) Pfeifer says: "In den germ. Sprachbereich dringt das frühe, noch vorfrk. Lehnwort aus dem Roman. durch das römisch-rheinische Christentum ein." (The early, pre-Frankish loanword enters the Germanic linguistic sphere from Romance through Roman-Rhenish Christianity.) -- So if anything, you guys got the word from us ;-) 88.64.225.109 04:35, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Does 峠 have an etymological relationship with 卡 in Chinese?

The Chinese Etymology 1 for 峠 calls it a variant of 卡, but is there a reference for this? I didn't find anything, though maybe there's a source I'm not aware of. Especially since Wiktionary says 峠 is a Japanese-created character, it seems unlikely to me that it would be used for anything meaningful (as a variant), except perhaps for Japanese proper nouns/names. I suppose the similarity of the characters might influence the Chinese pronunciation of 峠 if it is ever read, but that feels different from a variant. ChromeGames923 (talk) 06:32, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Added by Special:Contributions/223.81.204.180 along with an edit to 込. Without evidence or a reference, I'd just remove it. —Suzukaze-c (talk) 23:55, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me, thanks for the advice! ChromeGames923 (talk) 15:34, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

抬頭

RFV of the etymology for etymology 2. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 23:39, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

pree

What’s the origin of the (mainly and originally) Jamaican word ‘pree’? This page (https://preelit.com/2018/04/17/what-is-pree/) has some interesting ideas and claims, without proof, that it dates from 2005 or slightly before but it seems more likely to me that it has something to do with how ‘pray’ or ‘prey’ are pronounced in JA than, for example, how ‘prayer’ or ‘pry’ are pronounced. The earliest evidence of the word I can find is 2007 (https://www.discogs.com/Elephant-Man-Leftside-All-Bad-Man-See-Dem-A-Pree/release/3754638) Overlordnat1 (talk) 12:26, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Given the meaning (“to watch attentively”), borrowing (and in particular recent borrowing) from English pray or prey appears IMO unlikely, regardless of how these are pronounced in Jamaican English.  --Lambiam 13:13, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Semantically it almost seems closer to Scots pree than to the English words. —Mahāgaja · talk 13:17, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I disagree about the semantics, as it seems to be mainly used to mean ‘stare at’ or even ‘stalk’ and if you stare at someone (whether in hatred, a state of jealousy, or lust) or stalk them you could be considered to be preying on them; alternatively, you could be considered to be praying for their downfall, or for them to respond to your amorous gestures and advances, depending on the context. On the other hand the nearly extinct Scottish word means ‘taste’ or ‘test’ and it seems unlikely that such a word would resurface decades or even centuries after it was widely used in Scotland in Jamaica, half way around the world from its native land, with a vastly different meaning. I remain open to persuasion that I’m wrong though. Overlordnat1 (talk) 14:04, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

What about simple metathesis of English peer? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 05:47, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Not so simple: what exactly is changing place with what? It seems strange for a postvocalic sound to move into the slot behind an initial consonant in the same syllable. Also, I believe Jamaican is non-rhotic, which would complicate things even more. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:55, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Fair enough. I was reminded of a Bengali friend of mine years ago, who pronounced film as flim, leading me to wonder if a similar shift might be possible here, where a liquid moves from coda to initial. But I guess not.  :) ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 04:26, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Might it not work along the lines of Old English brid (apparently also used, at least until a few decades ago, in a broad Yorkshire dialect) becoming bird? If you want proof that some Jamaicans say flim by the way, look up Vybz Kartel’s song ‘Last Man Standing’ on YouTube. Overlordnat1 (talk) 12:24, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Leaving the semantics aside, the geographical part isn't much of an issue: Jamaica was a British colony, and there's a significant amount of Scots in Jamaican. Not only that, but it's quite common for obscure vocabulary to live on in peripheral dialects and as loanwords in other languages after it's died out in the area of its origin. It wouldn't be surprising for something like this to pass unnoticed in some corner of Jamaica and re-emerge a century or more later. Of course, it being plausible doesn't necessarily make it likely. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:55, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

I suppose it’s plausible the word spread from Scotland to Jamaica in the distant past, only to change meaning at some point and spread to the rest of the island and elsewhere relatively recently but it doesn’t seem like the most likely possibility. As far as rhoticity is concerned, ‘peer’ is a word that would normally be pronounced with the final ‘r’ in Jamaica, so metathesis seems possible too (though sometimes ‘peer’ is a homophone of ‘pare’ or ‘pear’, which of course usually means ‘avocado’ rather than ‘non-spherical apple’ in much of the West Indies/Caribbean). Overlordnat1 (talk) 10:03, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

According to our entry pear, dem pear are also pronounced with a final /ɹ/. A Scots trilled /r/ may have resisted leaving without a trace.  --Lambiam 09:00, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

As to the semantics, in the lyrics of the dancehall song “Dem e Pree”, the sense of glaring at (presumably delicious) behinds is close to “tasting”. If the term became popular in the 2005 dancehall scene, it may have been used in song texts in ways lending to an ambiguous interpretation and resulting shift in meaning.  --Lambiam 09:21, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

That’s definitely the best justification yet for the Scots origin hypothesis (though I’d say it’s still my third favourite one). There seems to be a lot of variation in the quality of the ‘r’ sound in Scotland: trilled in Dundee (think George George Galloway), tapped in Glasgow and almost American sounding from some speakers (think Andy Murray, essentially from Dunblane despite being born in Glasgow); regardless, metathesis wouldn’t occur if ‘pree’ was borrowed directly from Scots to become a Jamaican word. Overlordnat1 (talk) 10:13, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Also, what do we think about the lyrics to The Mission by Damian and Stephen Marley? All the lyrics sites have Damian singing: “If Marcus Garvey say fi read then why some man ah pree?” [13]. Surely it would make more sense with ‘nah pree’, where pree either means ‘listen’(to Marcus Garvey), ‘read’(like Marcus advises), or ‘study’(the works of Marcus)? Any one of these interpretations would fit into the most general sense of ‘look or listen intently’ but without the negative the lyrics don’t really make sense, what are people meant to be ‘preeing’ instead of reading? Overlordnat1 (talk) 10:26, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

"They don't read, they just look." ?... Wakuran (talk) 13:57, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

I've never really understood Jamaican patois, but isn't "batty ting" another gay slur? Wakuran (talk) 13:03, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes it is, the attitudes are unfortunate but I’m not suggesting using this particular passage as a quotation on the entry page itself. You might have a point about a word like ‘just’ or ‘only’ being implied but not sung, I hadn’t considered that. Overlordnat1 (talk) 14:56, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Anyway, I don't find the sentence "a batty ting dem a pree" particularly clear about the meaning of "pree", it could mean a lot of different things without more context, even implying preying. Wakuran (talk) 16:11, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Also of interest is the following link, which seems to suggest that ‘pree’ has developed in meaning from ‘look(at);listen(to)’ (especially if attentively) to ‘pay attention’ to the even more general ‘think about;consider;examine’ [14]. Of course this is just a mention not a quote and I don’t know the precise identity of the author or the date it was published. Overlordnat1 (talk) 08:41, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

I’ve found clear evidence that ‘pree’ was used in at least 3 dancehall songs in 2006 in a quite incredible YouTube video. It features the ‘slackest’ dancing known to man and the DJ and organizer of the festival portrayed is none other than Dudus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Coke), who’s quite happy to be filmed offering free stolen phones to all the participants! Look on YT for ‘Passa Passa 2006’ by KingYikez89, as I can’t post the link here. ‘Pree’ appears at 23:51, 46:37 and 1:13:02. Overlordnat1 (talk) 23:33, 10 October 2021 (UTC)