Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2021/December

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Hormosira

Hormosira is an algae, described by Endlicher and Meneghini in 1838, from Hormosiraceae family. What is its etymology? "Horm" refers to a rope and "sira" too, in reference, it seems, to the shape of the seaweed. Thanks for your help. Gerardgiraud (talk) 19:40, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

My guess would be Ancient Greek ὅρμος (hórmos, “necklace”), since the plant is also known as Neptune's necklace. DJ K-Çel (contribs ~ talk) 01:44, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

OK @Djkcel: for the fist part. Is the second part could be , referring to algae resembling necklaces tied together? Gerardgiraud (talk) 15:01, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Unlikely, because the nominative singular -s almost never gets included when compounds are made. So this is most likely to be hormo- + sira. The second could be σειρά (seirá, “cord, rope”), making this alga a "necklace cord". —Mahāgaja · talk 15:42, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

A Contribution to the Flora of Australia (1867): “It derives its name from hormos a necklace, and sira a chain, as it consists of a series of inflated internodes, similar in character to vesicles.” J3133 (talk) 15:46, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

σειρά (seirá) can also mean 'chain', though it's usually more 'rope' or 'cord', so that must be what is meant. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:34, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for these informations and this source. Gerardgiraud (talk) 17:45, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Doesn't the root *twerH- ring a few alarm bells? Regardles of the remarkable coincidence that we would have hormo < *ser-(?)- + seira < *twerH-, which I must ignore, the notion of palatization in pre-Greek terms according to Beekes should come to mind. In addition it does look a loot like the root mentioned at queer, and chance of Thorn-clusters seems high. Third of all, a mythical connection with Neptune is all the more reason to suspect Pelasgians, for lack of a better identifier. In sum, the surface analysis alone cannot carry conviction. ApisAzuli (talk) 22:00, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

@ApisAzuli No, because this is a taxonomic name that Stephan Endlicher included in a volume of the Latin botanical work Genera Plantarum that he published in 1836. He obviously knew Ancient Greek, but there weren't a lot of Pelasgians around at the time he made this word up.

Here is the page in question. It's presented as some kind of subdivision of the genus Cystoseira, and includes Latin monilis, so you have an Ancient-Greek-based name ending in seira/σειρά (seirá) right next to a Latin translation of Ancient Greek ὅρμος (hórmos). We can't read the mind of someone who's been dead for over 170 years, but it's very suggestive. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:51, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: That's good to know that I can actually ignore the compound. I took the time to investigate the matter a little, and I still don't see the vowel change nor overwhelming evidence for the affrication. Which is to say, I did not have anything specidic in mind with my comment. The funniest part:

*tewk- shows no Greek reflex but refers (possibly) to *(s)tewk-, where *s- is exhibited exactly nowhere (what?). It is grouped with other forms under the unproven assumption of root extensions under *(s)tew- where Greek reflects *(s)tewg- with στ- but *(s)tewp- once with τ-, δ-, and epic -γ-δ- (wha-waht???).

For reference: Beekes (Palatalized Consonants in Pre-Greek, in: FS Kortlandt, 2008). Refering to Palmer (The Interpretation of Mycenaean Greek Texts, 1963) with regard to "tʸ" adduces "well-known cases like τεῦτλον - σεῦτλον and τῦκον - σῦκον" (2008: 52), sv. σῦκον. If I understand correctly, he takes vexilation of -σσ- with dental clusters as tell-tale signs of pre-Greek influence, but "The analysis of these variations is not easy [...] why exactly s or t are involved in the given variation" (EDG, 2009, pg. XXV) eg. ιξαλοσ, ισσέλα, ιτθέλα, `billy-goatʼ, assuming a cluster *-ktʸ-al- (2008: 48) or an initial *sʸ for σιαγον `jawʼ (2008: 52). In this view,I suppose that σάλος should remind of θάλασσα vel sim. "Everyone agrees that θάλασσα is Pre-Greek (i.e. not IE)" (@AlexB. over the Latin Stackexchanfe[1] where Latin and Greek are treated one and the same). ApisAzuli (talk) 22:36, 3 December 2021 (UTC) I need to note that the comparison of salos "earthquake" only makes sense with a further comparison to Turkish talaz (“tornado, hurricane”) in mind. The Law of Large Numbers holds, that superficially similar terms for comparison with σειρά "cord" are virtually guaranteed, if you know where to look. ApisAzuli (talk) 00:55, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Latin Aprīlis

In working on my Spanish, I was curious about the etymology of abrigo (“coat”), and found that this is from Latin aprīcus, in turn from aperiō (“to open, uncover”) + -cus (adjective-forming suffix). (Our Latin -cus entry states that this only appends to nouns, but aperiō is clearly a verb -- what gives?) The similarity in form with Aprīlis and the potential for a semantic match as well (with April possibly as the opening of the verdant part of the year?) got me to wondering: if aperiō + -cus → aprīcus, then presumably aperiō + -ilis → Aprīlis.

However, the etymology currently at Aprilis#Latin hazards that this is "[p]erhaps based on Etruscan 𐌀𐌐𐌓𐌖 (apru), from Ancient Greek Ἀφροδίτη (Aphrodítē, “Venus”)."

Is aperiō + -ilis → Aprīlis only an accidental match, and the Ancient-Greek-via-Etruscan derivation is the scholarly consensus view?

Curious, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:29, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Both look far fetched, but thank you for asking - I took a peek at Ἀφροδίτη#Ancient Greek which gives better references.

Zezen (talk) 09:03, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

De Vaan does not derive apricus from aperiō, but refers to Nussbaum who posits derivation from a Proto-Italic noun ^✽ap(e)ri- “openness”, from ^✽ap(o), whence also ab; the precise relation to the verb is not further detailed. For aprilis, de Vaan observes that this was the second month of the Roman calendar, and suggests a connection with ab.  --Lambiam 12:04, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you both, @Zezen and @Lambiam. Sounds like both entries aprīcus and Aprīlis might be in need of updating. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 20:07, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

PS: If Aprīlis derives from ab but not from ap(e)ri-, any ideas where the medial "r" comes from, and whether the end is the same as suffix -ilis? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 20:09, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

De Vaan writes: “This could reflect the same preform ^✽ap(e)ri- ‘openness’ as posited s.v. aprīcus. [...] The suffix -īlis can be analogical to the months Quintīlis and Sextīlis [...] .” Presumably, although this is not stated, the verb is also supposed to come from this reconstructed “preform“.  --Lambiam 20:47, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Does abrigo (“coat, covering”) really come from Latin aprīcus (“sunny”) ? Interesting sense development :\ See the etymology at French abri... Leasnam (talk) 20:59, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm fascinated by the etymology given at French abri. The purported derivation "from Old French abri (“a place where one is sheltered from the elements or harm”), from abrier (“to cover”), itself probably from Latin apricor (“sunbathe”), from apricus (“sunny”)" has a bizarre semantic jump there in the shift from Latin to Old French -- how on earth would "sunbathe" wind up becoming "to cover, to take shelter"?

The etymology at French abri continues: "or less likely from a Late Latin abrigō (“to cover, shelter”), from a- + brigō, from Frankish *berīhan (“to cover, protect”)..." Why is this latter theory "less likely"? The semantics seem much more sensible, and the phonology appears to be a clean match.

FWIW, if we can clear up these oddities in the French etymology, the etymology for Spanish abrigo could wind up being much more straightforward.

Also FWIW, the etym at Spanish abrigar includes more detail than at Spanish abrigo. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:00, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

English nibs#Etymology_2

Another Spanish-inspired query.

I'm most accustomed to hearing the term nibs used in reference to playing cards, usually about the jack, and by extension, to anyone who is important or self-important.

I stumbled across Spanish naipe (“playing card”) today, which apparently derives "from Arabic نَائِب (nāʔib, “deputy”), the second-highest court card in the Mamluk deck". The potential overlap between the Arabic نَائِب (nāʔib) and English nibs led me to nibs#Etymology_2, but we have nothing there. Merriam-Webster's entry also has no etymology.

Can anyone shed some light on this? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:43, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Polish strzyga

From Greek, indeed? See my Talk:strzyga

Zezen (talk) 08:59, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

I added a source to support that, at least. DJ K-Çel (contribs ~ talk) 08:06, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the update. However, as we can see:

1. ^ Kolberg, Oskar (1882). The People. Their Customs, Way of Life, Language... 15. Kraków: Uniwersytet Jagielloński. p. 24.

so as I had written there - it is close to folk etymology, given the year etc.

Let me also quickly add Mr Brückner's DOB, just in case:

Aleksander Brückner (Polish pronunciation: [alɛkˈsandɛr ˈbryknɛr]; 29 January 1856 – 24 May 1939) was a Polish scholar...

I thus suggest that we just ignore anything older than, say, the 1990s there for now, to avoid fakelore.

Zezen (talk) 08:19, 4 December 2021 (UTC) 08:17, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

The age of the hypothesis is no hindernis so as long as it is correct. If you think it is incorrect, you should have pointed out why already. Recent publications surely repeat the same idea, so we consider it notable and lemming it anyway. Doubt should be left to the discretion of the reader.

I did not search for either Kolberg or Brückner, but I trust pl.WP's summary is apt:

According to Alexander Brückner's research, the Slavic striga comes directly from the Roman strix (plural striges), a female demon with bird's claws that feeds on blood. In a vague manner, these beliefs, probably through the Balkan peoples, were adopted by the Slavs, overlapping in part with the figures of the phantom and the vampire [2]. (google translated https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strzyga)

Is it implied that there are Latin language sources using the name? Whether that's really from the owl or a transliteration of something else may be difficult to judge. Naturally one would want corroborating cognates. Rumanian WP however suggests it is chiefly Silesian. de.WP and ru.WP instead talk about Двоедушник and, like en.WP, stress the notion of two hearts and two souls. More over, the various methods of protection layed out here and there sound like a collection from various, possibly unrelated myths. The bird form tangent favours the owl interpretation, of course, so it would be inappropriate to blame Brückner without any evidence to the opposite. ApisAzuli (talk) 14:51, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Dear @ApisAzuli,

Thank you for your extensive reply. Indeed, when I wrote this query (maybe too short), I had found some sources that suggested otherwise, but as I cannot find them that quick now, let me translate a less-than-ideal tip I have quickly (re)found now here:

Można zatem założyć, że obydwa duchy dotarły do Poradni z pogranicza - ukraińsko-polskiego, = It can therefore be assumed that both spirits [ie. words: Двоедушник and this strzyga] reached [us, i.e. Poland] from the Ukrainian-Polish border ... (source)

In our research let us thus continue to avoid Mr Bruckner and post-Bruckner folk etymologies, from plwiki and related, e.g. this interview with a non-specialist or that somewhat fanciful descriptions from ruwiki: а в Верхней [= in Upper Silesia] — стрыга, если это была женщина, или стрыгун, если это был мужчина. В легендах сообщалось также, что можно украсть у стрыги покойника, которого она ходит пожирать, with Sympathetisch- und Antipathetischer Misch Masch and similar from 1715...(valid as primary sources there in Wikis, but not here in Wiktionary, methinks), or with its direct Greek etymology "proven" with Jan Piotr Dekowski, Strzygi i topieluchy. Opowieści sieradzkie . - Warszawa, 1987 (very likely relying on Bruckner himself) as given as a ref in this ruwiki, and maybe also reflected in this source etc.

My hunch for now is to look at Ukrainian or Russian Стрыг*s e.g. Стрыгин, стрыгою in Демьян etc., using the usual etymological methods, or at least mark it as "unknown, traditionally derived from Greek as per Mr Bruckner", "tbd" etc. there for now.

I am thus curious what you and other multilingual colleagues may come up with, using Derksen and such.

With striga bows here, Zezen (talk) 16:10, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

OK, we have it fixed, without Mr Bruckner. So we can close this one, methinks. Zezen (talk) 16:39, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Ovid's Amores does tell of blood sucking striga, and Plina knew one posessed by witches, by the way. That's too early for a derivation from Dracula, I'm afraid, and further comparison with Ricdin Ricdon and the Rumpelstilzchen, that does fly away away in one version collected by Grimm, would surely remain fruitless. Ironically, the method of protection against Rumpelstiltsken is calling it by its true name! Regardless, as I have already schemed a comparison of Landstreicher and strumpet (assuming Nasal Spirant Law) or stealcung and Stelzbock, you can imagine my surprise at Dutch strompen (“to stalk”). ApisAzuli (talk) 22:09, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

A meta beauty, ApisAzuli! Scheming and stromping is our Game 2. I am planning to copy it onto https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Hillbillyholiday_Unfrozen (now much refrozen) for one Lady of the Desk, q.v. Zezen (talk) 01:31, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Notheia

Notheia, which gave its name to the Notheiaceae family, is an epiphytic algae on Hormosira seaweed mentioned above.
In my etymology dictionary I find Noth meaning bastard or false. But what is false? The name of the species is Notheia anomala, anomala = presenting an anomaly / unusual / abnormal. No explanation in the original description here => Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, 1848-1851, p. 371 : read on line. Any idea? Thanks. Gerardgiraud (talk) 16:28, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

It's true that νόθος (nóthos) is a child born out of wedlock or to parents of unequal social status and that νοθείᾱ (notheíā) is the birth of such a child, but whether that's the origin of this alga's name (and if so, why), I can't say. It is the source of notho- "used to form names of taxonomic ranks of hybrids", but of course this genus of algae isn't a hybrid. —Mahāgaja · talk 19:05, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Given the exact correspondence between the taxonomic name and the transcription of the Greek word νοθείᾱ (notheíā) and the tradition of using such words in taxonomy when possible, it is a very reasonable conclusion that it is the source of the name. What fancy of the namer it may derive from is not immediately obvious, though he may just not have liked the species being an epiphyte. DCDuring (talk) 19:49, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Very funny indeed this proposed reason to explain this name. In any case, thanks for your ingenuity. It is indeed perhaps the way of the author to signify the fact that the alga is an epiphytic, i.e. the illegitimate child of Hormosira "mother" seaweed. Gerardgiraud (talk) 17:25, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

澙 historical attestation

The glyph origin section of 澙 asks "Can this glyph be traced earlier than the Internet era?" by Dokurrat. I'm not sure what this is implying since I think there are very few unicode glyphs that originate after the internet. Was there renewed interest or usage of this glyph due to the internet?

Either way, 舃 appears to better match many historical forms of 舄 so I don't think its usage is surprising. Indeed the Kangxi dictionary entry for 舃 seems to write both 磶 and 潟 with 舃 rather than 舄. (Though unfortunately there isn't a code point for 磶 with 舃 yet). Regardless 澙 seems to see usage, so does that make the glyph origin section unnecessary? ChromeGames (talk) 12:59, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

sarn

Anything salvageable from OVERLY CAPITALISED bit in the etymology section? Notusbutthem (talk) 13:36, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Yeah the formatting on that second sentence was atrocious and all needed to be thrown out. I created a Proto-Celtic entry for the reconstruction that the Welsh word is likely from and linked to it from sarn. DJ K-Çel (contribs ~ talk) 19:33, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

vulgar fraction, common fraction

The page vulgar fraction needs an etymology. Some references that might be helpful:

• David Eugene Smith, 'History Of Mathematics Vol II', page 219: https://archive.org/details/historyofmathema031897mbp/page/218/mode/2up
• The bottom of this page: https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Miller/mathword/v/

This page might also be relevant to the use of the term in the Unicode standard:

• https://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/Archives-Old/UML017/0483.html

The page common fraction also needs an etymology. The following is partially a hypothesis based on the sources I've provided: The etymology of common fraction is closely related to that of vulgar fraction; vulgar and common generally share the same literal meaning (ordinary, popular, general). Both can be used with a derogatory connotation, though the derogatory sense for "common" has become obsolete, while for "vulgar", the derogatory sense has become the primary definition.

Someone might want to check the sources listed in the footnotes of the references I provided to confirm this hypothesis.

Some cognates (possibly parent terms, possibly descendants) that I came across while looking this up:

• Latin: fractiones vulgares
• French: fraction vulgaire
• Spanish: fracción vulgar, apparently a synonym of fracción común

My apologies if I've made any mistakes here. 2001:18E8:3:1087:F000:0:0:4FE 19:56, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Latin vulgaris does not have the pejorative connotations of its descendants, although, at their earliest attestation dates, the term vulgar and cognates probably did not yet have a strongly pejorative sense either. Here is a use in Latin in a treatise by Jean Fernel from 1528, with the modern sense of a pair of numerals, one on either side of a horizontal bar. At that time, mathematical treatises were rarely written in the vernacular, so it is more than plausible that the Latin term is at the root of these terms. If we may explain vulgar fraction as a calque of Latin fractio vulgaris, then this explanation serves equally well for common fraction.  --Lambiam 06:35, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

af sted

I think it is likely that Danish af sted literally means "from/out of the place". Do you agree? Prahlad balaji (talk) 20:43, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

That’s what it says in the definition: “literally out of or from (a) place.” — This unsigned comment was added by Lambiam (talk • contribs) at 05:49, 6 December 2021 (UTC).

Well, it also says that "Particularly, would appreciate an explanation of the sense development." Since I'm not a professional linguist, I just wanted to make sure. Prahlad balaji (talk) 10:27, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

As a Swedish speaker, "off the stead/ place" seems a pretty straightforward sense development to me. Cf. certain senses of go off, get off. Wakuran (talk) 16:31, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks all, it has been added. Prahlad balaji (talk) 18:39, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

That seems fairly unhelpful. The gloss adds nothing that couldn't be gleaned from links in the headword line, and the Norwegian (bokmal or nynorsk?) and Swedish comparison might give the false impression of cognates when they might as well be loans.There is,alas,no case inflection to sted that would warrant reading (from). German native speakers have trouble explaining ab die Post all the same, where case would be expected. On the other hand, with være til stede ("anwesend sein", pons.de, cp. zu(r) Stelle sein, 'be ready', zugegen sein 'be present'), and the verb stede, which sted 2. "imperative" suggests, need compared, cf. auf der Stelle 'on the spot, immediately; now!'. Auf! and Ab! are rather close in this one. Besides this, I wonder if stand-up (comedy) is really about volunteers stepping forward, or originally rather about improv.

The paradigm from *steH- ~ *stel- is just a mess in Germanic. ApisAzuli (talk) 09:39, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I mean, cp. Sw. Hunden jagades av katten, En. The dog chases after the cat, Ger. Der macht Jagd auf die Katze. Although you could translate it as make chase of. ApisAzuli (talk) 11:55, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't fully understand your last point, but Hunden jagades av katten would be translated as The dog was chased by the cat. Wakuran (talk) 15:40, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

• Your German example is also a bit odd:

Der macht Jagd auf die Katze → literally, "The might(noun?) chase(noun) on the cat" → uncertain meaning? After definite article der, the word "macht" would presumably be Macht (“might, power, strength”, noun). As an alternative parsing, you're missing the head noun Hund (“dog”), and "macht" here is intended to be "makes": Der [Hund] macht Jagd auf die Katze → "The [dog] makes chase on the cat."

Not sure what your digression about case inflection is intended to convey -- Danish doesn't have much case, and there is no dative or ablative for regular nouns that would apply to sted, so there's no grounds for arguing that af (“from”) would cause any inflection of sted that would appear in the phrase af sted. See also w:Danish_language#Nouns. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:45, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

tepui

Not standard layout for wiktimology Notusbutthem (talk)

• Fixed —Mahāgaja · talk 12:22, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

  Love you so much Notusbutthem (talk) 12:23, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

/* English */ Nexine: In the pollen grain wall or spore wall -the inner non-sculptured part of the exine (outer layer), which lies below sexine (the sculptured outer layer of the pollen wall)..

The inner, non sculptured part of the exine which lies below the sexine. Maybe divided into an outer foot layer (nexine 1), pedium or sole and and inner endexine layer (nexine 2) next to the intine. Etymology (Erdtmann G. 1952 'Pollen Morphology and Plant Taxonomy. Angiosperms. Almqvist and Wiksell. Stockholm. ) from 'n' in non-sculptured and 'exine'. — This unsigned comment was added by Iain C R (talk • contribs) at 23:20, 6 December 2021 (UTC).

sexine

Etymology "Sexine (from 's' in sculptured, and exine) is the outer sculptered part of the exine." from Erdtman G. 1952. Pollen Morphology and Plant Taxonomy. Angiosperms. Almqvist and Wiksell, Stockholm. — This unsigned comment was added by 2407:7000:8200:2400:D052:5398:B541:EE7C (talk) at 23:28, 6 December 2021 (UTC).

scat in "quicker than scat"

This appears to be a fossil word, but the meaning of the original word is obscure. You might think it comes from the interjection "scat!", but according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it's actually the opposite: the interjection comes from the phrase. A clue is that early forms of the phrase sometimes appear in the form "quicker than 's'cat" or "quicker than s'cat". One theory, which seems very dubious to me, is that it comes from a hiss followed by the word "cat". Can anyone figure out a convincing etymology for this? Nosferattus (talk) 00:48, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I think the Online Etymology Dictionary is just wrong. The phrase "quicker than scat" (or "quicker 'n scat") seems to pick up popularity around 1890, but several older sources use a more lengthy phrase which might be the predecessor:

• "quicker 'n yer 'd say 'scat!" (1855)
• "quicker 'n you can say 'scat!'" (1857)
• "quicker'n you could say scat" (1864)
• "quicker'n I could say 'scat'" (1877)

So I think "quicker than scat" derives from the interjection "scat" rather than the other way around. Nosferattus (talk) 02:07, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

The alternative etymology for scat is however lacking. The un-assibilated initial would suggest Norse, thus perhaps scatter (“disperse”).

On the other hand, there's a German Idiom: wie /Schmits/ Katze (where Schmidt "smith" may be spelled variously)[2] [3] [4] so I cannot not read it as cat, assuming a fossilized determiner sʼ and that the variants with "quicker than you can say ..." are reinterpretations necessary to make the phrase legible in print, once the fossil is no more understood, inasmuch as quick used to mean "lively". Skandi variants of a similar ilk would be more than welcome. A possibly unrelated theme in a similar sense could be live fast, die young (popularized only recently) as I am beginning to doubt it meant rapid and after only a few years, rather than steadfast and youthful, "having the look or qualities of a young person". ApisAzuli (talk) 11:51, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

To add another perspective, Finnish too has multiple expressions about urgency and saying 'cat', such as ennen kuin ehdit kissaa sanoa (“before you can even say cat”). No etymology is given by any of usual source, according to this answer [5] at kirjastot.fi.

Brittletheories (talk) 17:29, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Origin of 'harmonica' — English or German origin?

The current English page for 'harmonica' states the origin of the word to be German; meanwhile, I was about to make an etymology section for the German page Harmonika, I see that the origin is apparently... English...? According to Duden.de, which is (to my knowledge) considered an authoritative source, the term in English derives from Benjamin Franklin's name given to his glass harmonica. (Which has nothing to do with the modern 'harmonica'.) This little cylical conundrum is quite confusing — does anyone know where the word actually originates? Kiril kovachev (talk) 22:21, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

* Fixed, German borrowing was definitely wrong. DJ K-Çel (contribs ~ talk) 06:15, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Scoresbyella

Another seeweed genus name Scoresbyella. No Latin or Greek root in this name of an Austalian seaweed, but probably a tribute to a certain Scoresby. But impossible to know which one. Is it William Scoresby or his son Robert Edmund Scoresby-Jackson or William Scoresby Routledge or the biologist Shepherd Scoresby, or another one? I cannot access the original 1987 description for Womersley. Thanks for your help. Gerardgiraud (talk) 09:09, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

@Gerardgiraud: Electronic Flora of South Australia (from The Marine Benthic Flora of Southern Australia by Womersley (1987, part II, page 259)): “It is named after Mr Scoresby A. Shepherd, collector of the type and whose SCUBA collections have contributed greatly to our knowledge of southern Australian deep water algae.” J3133 (talk) 09:29, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks so much @J3133. Gerardgiraud (talk) 12:51, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Agar Agarum Agaric

The word "agar" derives from Malay and is translated by the same word in English. In French there are two words "agar" and "gelée" i.e. something like "jelly". Three words seem to share this same root:

• the historical toponym Agarum,
• the seeweed genus Agarum
• and some vernacular names of mushroom Agaric genus Agaricus.

But in fact, do these 3 terms really have the same etymology? Gerardgiraud (talk) 13:52, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

The toponym is also attested with a /k/ as "Akarum", which is probably the earlier variant. I don't know about the history of Malay, maybe agar originally had a /k/, but there's almost no possibility of Malayo-Polynesian languages being spoken as far west as Agarum, anyway. Some have tried to trace the name to Sumerian or Old South Arabian, though.

The fungus is probably not related to the toponym or the Malay word either. It's said to derive from Agaria, a place in Sarmatia, which means it might have some sort of Indo-Iranian etymon, I think.

As for the seaweed, I can't read its original description (Dumortier 1822), but it may be named after the fungus! airy—zero (talk) 14:40, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Our etymology for agarwood is agar + wood. Any thoughts on how this connects to any of the senses of agar or any of the other terms? DCDuring (talk) 16:52, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

That's likely from Sanskrit अगुरु (aguru) (or a descendant). See w:Agarwood#Etymology for names in other languages. 70.175.192.217 17:10, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

This looks like a colonial-era loan from Hindi अगर (agar, “agarwood”) or similar. Google Ngrams gives the first attestations around the late 19th century in books on India. I'll add it to the entry :-) airy—zero (talk) 17:15, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

It is worth noting that aloe is probably from the same ultimate Dravidian root. 70.175.192.217 23:48, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Indeed @Airy-zero Agaricus, the fungus, dates from Linnaeus 1753. Much earlier than the alga Agarum.

Here is what A. de Théis wrote in 1810 here: "As most of these plants grow in Greece it is believed that the name of agaric does not express the place where they were found but the usual use made of them by the inhabitants of Agarie. The Sarmatians have always eaten a great number of species of mushrooms even of those among us which are reputed to be poisonous ". Gerardgiraud (talk) 18:03, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

In this web site : Agarum, CFB Phycokey is said :

"Name derivation: Agarum : L. agari= agar, an old word for mushroom or a type of fungus; also algal gelatin (Malay) "

It looks like you were right @Airy-zero

But it is not said why an alga is related to a fungus Gerardgiraud (talk) 19:48, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't think it has to be related per se, just perceived as similar. Wakuran (talk) 22:59, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I wouldn't rely much on the Phycokey etymology.

It seems that the name Agarum was used about "sea grasses" by G. E. Rumpf et al. in Herbarium amboinense (ie, present-day Indonesia), published only in 1741, but the writing of which was completed in 1690. This influential pre-Linnean work would have been known to Dumortier (A. clathratum, 1822, cool waters), Postels and Ruprecht (A. pertusum and A. turneri, 1840, found in near-Arctic waters), and Bachelot (A. asiaticum). Rumpf used the name for other species, notably A. marinum, of which he says the Malay name is Agar agar cupan, but also A. secumdum, A. funiculare, A. lactucarium, and A. corticosum. I haven't determined what the current names of all these species are, but they seem unlikely to be the cool/cold water species now in Agarum. DCDuring (talk) 01:54, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Agar (the jelly-like substance) is obtained from some species of algae. According to the Malay Wikipedia, the name of the substance stems from the Malay name agar-agar for these algae. Apparently, Rumpf also named his Ambonese sea grasses after this Malay name, like A. marinum being named after Malay agar agar cupan. He may have reused this generic name for sea grasses not called agar-agar in the local vernacular. (The dominant Ambonese language is a Malay-based creole.) Later marine biologists may have hijacked the name for their own unrelated cold water species, possibly even unaware of its etymon.  --Lambiam 17:54, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Until there was taxonomic description, placement, and circumscription that passed 19th-century taxonomic muster taxonomic names were volatile. It has happened that genera have been emptied of most of their species, including even the type species, so that the nature of the genus is almost completely changed. The greater use of molecular-based, rather than morphology-based, characterization of genera is causing similar phenomena now. I had hoped to be able to find the modern names for Rumpf's Agarum species and the times they were transferred to other genera, but I have not yet found a source. DCDuring (talk) 18:47, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

All these hypotheses seem to definitively separate the etymologies of Agaric / Agaricus (the fungus) from Agarum (the seaweed). It would be a coincidence of quasi-homonymous names. Gerardgiraud (talk) 18:37, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

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I doubt that he felt he was establishing a new name rather than using a long-established pre-Linnaean one. He is associated with Agarum because he came up with a good characterization of the genus and published it, not because he invented the name. As lexicographers rather than taxonomists we don't follow the naming system of the Codes to determine where names come from, especially in the cases of the older names. DCDuring (talk) 18:54, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

What I found looking at Dumortier's 1822 work was that:

1. He was familiar with the work of Rumpf/Rumphius
2. That he populated the genus with three species, referring to Linnaeus for the genus.

Linnaeus (General System, v. 2) refers to Gmelin, who, among the half-dozen Gmelin's must be Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin who authored Historia Fucorum.

Gmelin describes "Fucus Agarum", "Fucus Clathrus" (probably either Agarum clathrus or A. clathrus, and "Fucus Bracteartus" (referring to Rumph's "Agarum secundum"). He places many species in his "Septimus Order" "Agara".

From all this I conclude that my hypothesis was correct: that there was no reason for Dumortier to have any reason to think he was coining the name rather than using one well known among those who cared about seaweed taxonomy. DCDuring (talk) 19:32, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Moreover @DCDuring, knowing that "Agar agar" comes from red algaes, it is interesting to note that 13 years before the name of Dumortier, in 1809, Link (Heinrich Friedrich Link) named Agarum a red algae. See here => GBIF-Agarum After that :

1/ In 1822 the name was given to the "brown Agarum" by Dumortier

2/ In 1843 the "red Agarum" was renamed Phycodrys (a red algae) by Kützing. Gerardgiraud (talk) 14:13, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

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It would really be nice to know where Malay agar came from, when, and whether it had other meanings in Malay. We know it is from well before 1690, at least where Rumph was operating. We say it means "agar#English". Were the people of southeast Asia and Indonesia making some gelatinous stuff from seaweed before the Japanese (folkloric?) discovery/invention of agar in the mid-17th(?) century? The early Japanese method of agar production involved freezing a seaweed jelly, presumably a method not practical in the tropics.

“agar-agar”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC. has "The native name of Ceylon moss or Bengal isinglass, consisting of dried seaweed of several species, such as , [now ], etc. It is much used in the East for soups and jellies. Also called agal-agal. See gelose."

This raises the possibility that agar agar has origins in India, perhaps a connection with agarwood/agalloch.

The Agardhs (father and son) wrote a famous work on algae. Was this a coincidence? I think not. ;-) DCDuring (talk) 15:52, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

There's a fairly detailed discussion by Paul Silva (Nomenclatural remarks on Agarum, Jpn. J. Phycol. 39: 217-221, 1991) => here that shows how convoluted the history of the algal name is. It started with Georg Eberhard Rumphius and his Herbarium Amboinense, with the explanation for the name Agarum on page 181 (not 180 pace Silva) here.In 1768 Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin published a species called Fucus agarum in his Historia Fucorum (description and illustration). In 1809, Johann Heinrich Friedrich Link published a description of a genus he named Agarum, but it was completely unrelated to the modern genus aside from the name, which he probably got from Rumphius, and the fact that it referred to algae. Then in 1822, Barthélemy Charles Joseph Dumortier published the modern genus by briefly mentioning here that three species that were then considered to belong to Laminaria (published by Agardh) belonged to Agarum because they shared a particular feature not common to the rest of the former genus.

In 1822, Jean Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent published an article that asserted that Link's Agarum really belonged to another genus. In 1826, he published a description of his own Agarum, which coincidentally covered exactly the same thing as Dumortier's Agarum. Bory de Saint-Vincent's version was the one used in the literature for over a century and a formal decision was made in 1954 to conserve it over the Link version (merging one taxon with another doesn't invalidate the original description of the name, so Bory de Saint-Vincent's Agarum was itself invalid according to the rules).

Paul Silva pointed out that Bory de Saint-Vincent's type species had already been named by Dumortier in 1822, so the taxonomic rules dictated that Dumortier's name, which used Dumortier's version of Agarum, was the correct one. Having the type species for a genus published 4 years before the publication of the genus- but using the same generic name- was confusing. Silva said that a proposal would be submitted to conserve Dumortier's Agarum instead of Bory de Saint-Vincent's Agarum would be submitted. All the current sources list Dumortier as the author of the genus, so this must have been done.

As for Agaricus, this is an ancient Latin name borrowed from Greek, so Linnaeus didn't invent it. As mentioned above, it apparently comes from the Sarmatian place name, Agaria. Pedanius Dioscorides used it in his 1st-century work De materia medica, though it's not completely clear what it referred to (there were probably multiple things referred to by the name). For instance, here he compares its root to that of silphium, which would be very odd for a fungus. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:34, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Nice demonstration, I simply corrected 1922 to 1822. But since Dumortier did not describe "his" Agarum as it is the custom - he simply named a brown algae Agarum, and in 1843 the former red Agarum became a Phycodrys -, that does not tell us if the word Agarum himself; which designates first a red algae and after a brown algae; comes, or not, from the Malaysian word Agar. It would be necessary to have access to the oldest nomination and to know what justified this name. Perhaps the work of Rumpf et al. Herbarium amboinense(1690 or 1741) previousely mentionned. Gerardgiraud (talk) 22:48, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

This work: Drew et al. An interpretation of Rumphius's Herbarium amboinense, 1917 ==> read on line does tell us anything about that. Gerardgiraud (talk) 23:15, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Malay agar-agar originally refers to the algae, and only secondarily to the food extracted from it. It is related to Javanese ager-ager/ager, Sundanese ager. The oldest attestation is in Old Javanese (OJv), where agěr-agěr (ě = [ə]) appears in texts from the Majapahit era and denotes some kind of sea weed ("Sphaerococcus lichenoides" per Zoetmulder in Old Javanese-English Dictionary). The schwa in the final syllable is original, while a in Malay agar is the result of the merger of *a and *ə in the final syllable in Malay. Note that *ə is a robust proto-phoneme in Austronesian languages, and not the product of vowel reduction (at least not in the ultima and penultima). The deeper etymology of OJv agěr-agěr is unknown (but certainly not traceable to agal-agal or agalloch). The corresponding forms in Malay in Sundanese are either cognate, or borrowed from OJv. –Austronesier (talk) 12:35, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks @Austronesier for so much learning about Old Javanese and Malay Agar.

And sorry @Chuck Entz I did'nt red Nomenclatural remarks on Agarum you speak to previously. This paper fully clarifies the origin of the genus Agarum Gerardgiraud (talk) 13:44, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

裡番

From Japanese 裏番組? 恨国党非蠢即坏 (talk) 03:03, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Key West

This has gotta be borrowed from Spanish Cayo Hueso (“Bone Cay”), right? — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 06:07, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

And adapted by folk etymology, of course. But you must be right; if it were simply named for being the westernmost (inhabited) of the Florida Keys, it would be called West Key, not Key West. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:32, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Corrected accordingly. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 15:58, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Especially since, further west there are still the Marquesas Keys. Gerardgiraud (talk) 18:21, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

утка (Russian)

The Russian entry for утка (utka) currently says that it derives from Old East Slavic уты (uty), but does nothing to explain the -ка at the end. Could the word утка in Russian possibly have a diminutive suffix -ка (-ka) or be derived from Proto-Slavic *ǫtъka, which does explain the ending? Prahlad balaji (talk) 14:59, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes, of course. Fixing. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:08, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

etymology of Swedish herre

This has been removed from the list of cognates of Herr with the reasoning that this Swedish word seems to be borrowed from Old High German. This is what herre says too, but it seems SAOB disagrees. I realize our entry on motsvarande is not trustworthy since it's partly not even real English, but as far as i can tell this word does mean "corresponding to", so according to SAOB, herre is borrowed from Old Saxon but not from Old High German like we claim:

fsv. härra, härre, liksom d. herre, isl. herra, herri, feng. herra, av fsax. herro, äldre hērro, motsv. fht. hĕrro, varav mht. herre, t. herr (jfr äv. ffris. hēra, holl. heer); eg. komp. av fsax. o. fht. hēr, adj., upphöjd, förnäm m. m., urspr.: grå(hårig), gammal, motsv. isl. hárr, gråhårig, feng. hār, eng. hoar(y), grå. Med avs. på bet.-utvecklingen jfr fr. seigneur, sieur, sire, it. signore, span. señor osv., av lat. senior, komp. till senex, gammal, ävensom lat. dominus.

Could someone please translate the important parts of this SAOB etymology so i can use the translation as a model to understand other SAOB etymologies and their annoying and unnecessary abbreviations? --Espoo (talk) 00:57, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

While we're waiting for someone who actually speaks Swedish, I thought I would try my hand at expanding all the abbreviations just to see if I could do it. I copied this into Google Translate, then looked at the translation tables of terms that I would expect to see in such an etymology, with Google Translate serving as confirmation as to whether I was anywhere near correct. My best guess:

• fornsvenska härra, härre, liksom danska herre, isländska herra, herri, fornengliska herra, av fornsaxiska herro, äldre hērro, motsvarande fornhögtyska hĕrro, varav middelhögtyska herre, tyska herr (jämför även fornfriska hēra, hollandska heer); egentligen komparativ av fornsaxiska och fornhögtyska hēr, adjektiv, upphöjd, förnäm med mera, ursprunglig grå(hårig), gammal, motsvarande isländska hárr, gråhårig, fornengliska hār, engliska hoar(y), grå. Med avs. på beteckning-utvecklingen jämför franska seigneur, sieur, sire, italienska signore, spanska señor och så vidare, av latinska senior, komparativ till senex, gammal, ävensom latinska dominus.
• Translation:Old Swedish härra, härre, as well asDanish herre Icelandic herra, herri, Old English herra, from(?) Old Saxon herro, older hērro, compare Old High German hĕrro, (?) Middle High German herre, German Herr (cf. also Old Frisian hēra, Dutch heer); actually comparative of Old Saxon and Old High German hēr, adjective, august, distinguished, etc., originally gray (-haired), old, corresponding to Icelandic hárr, grayhaired, Old English hār, Engish hoar(y), gray. With (?) sense-development compare French seigneur, sieur, sire, Italian signore, Spanish señor, etc., from Latin senior, comparative of senex, old, even Latin dominus.

As you can see, most of the abbreviations aren't as hard as they look. Once you know about f- (“Old”), t. (“German”) m.m./osv.=etc. and jfr. (“cf.”), the rest is mostly just filling in the blanks Chuck Entz (talk) 03:45, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

The text says "herre" is a borrowing from Old Saxon, the precursor of Middle Low German. (In Scandinavian contexts, Old Saxon and Middle Low German are generally conflated, since it's basically the same language/ dialectal area during different periods). Should I elaborate? Wakuran (talk) 22:47, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

frisson

The English entry says it is a doublet of friction, but the French entry says it is unrelated to friction. Which one is right? This, that and the other (talk) 08:27, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

The etymology provided by Le Trésor sketches the same story as given here in the French section: the Classical Latin noun frictiō from fricō (“I rub”) +‎ -tiō – whence French friction – has a Vulgar Latin homonym, this time best explained as arising from frīgeō (“I am cold”) +‎ -tiō, which is the alleged etymon of frisson. This fits in with the difference in meanings in current French.  --Lambiam 21:30, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Good info. I'll remove the "doublet" template from the English entries, then. This, that and the other (talk) 10:33, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

पिउ

RFV of the etymology.

This has been the subject of an edit war between @Svartava2 and @IMPNFHU, with the latter asserting that it's a borrowing from Punjabi and the former defending the status quo saying that it's inherited. IMPNFHU has been advancing a definite POV in the etymologies (removing any references to Old Punjabi, for instance) and answering with assertions devoid of any actual evidence. Of course, that doesn't mean they're wrong- which is why I'm bringing it up here. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:49, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

@Kutchkutch. Thoughts? -- 𝓑𝓱𝓪𝓰𝓪𝓭𝓪𝓽𝓽𝓪^{(𝓽𝓪𝓵𝓴)} 03:03, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

@IMPNFHU, Chuck Entz, Kutchkutch, Bhagadatta: The inheritance etymology is well-sourced, [6] (H. piu) which is considered a good reliable source for Indo-Aryan inherited words, [7] gives pitā as the etymon, which is nothing but the nominative singular of पितृ. The same etymology is also in [8], dictionary of अपभ्रंश (apabhraṃśa, “corrupted form of a word”) lexicon. But its used mostly by Punjabi speakers in Hindi, which is why I didn't revert it again; it requires more attention. Alternatively, we could put the inherited etymology and add "possibly through Punjabi". —Svārtava ^{[t•c•u•r]} 03:16, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

@Bhagadatta, IMPNFHU, Svartava2: Since the inheritance etymology is well-sourced, it should be mentioned. If the Punjabi usage is directly from Punjabi, it could be the result of what AryamanA explained at: Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2020/September#Northwestern_Indo-Aryan.

I'm afraid the tree model is too simplistic for IA in general...On a purely lexical basis, as examined from the view of lexicostatics, Kogan (2016) finds Punjabi to be closest to Hindi...Hindi itself, as we know, is a highly mixed language that developed in Delhi from contact between many languages in a political centre, as reflected in its early forms such as Sadhukkadi, in which case even it is not a purely Central IA language and probably is highly influenced by other Central (Braj, Haryanvi), Northwest (Punjabi)...lects of IA

in which case there should be more such examples. Kutchkutch (talk) 12:40, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

anangeon

I'm at a loss as to how we get from Ancient Greek ἀναγκαῖον (anankaîon) to Latin anangeon, which appears in a number of Renaissance rhetoric texts. Classical Latin borrowed the same Greek term (with a different sense) as anancaeum, which I can understand. But where does the -ge- in anangeon come from? My best theory is that the Renaissance writers were influenced by the Byzantine pronunciation /a.naɲˈɟe.os/ given at ἀναγκαῖος (anankaîos), but that assumes that they were aware of how contemporary Greek speakers were pronouncing the language. The fact that all these writers arrived at the same spelling seems rather miraculous in that context. This, that and the other (talk) 05:02, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

The earliest use I saw is in the index of a 1516 edition of Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria, annotated by Badius.^[9] The text itself uses the spelling anagkeon in the margin where the annotating text has ἀναγκαῖομ (sic).^[10] In De Elocutione Oratoria (1592) Ludovico Carboni used the spelling anangæon^[11], although he used anangeon in his 1595 Divinis orator.^[12] The Romanization ng for γκ remains mysterious; perhaps someone (the compiler of the 1516 index?) made this mistake, and others just copied it.  --Lambiam 10:36, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

I like your thinking. I summarised your theory in the entry, hopefully not at too great length. I really should have given you credit in the edit summary - sorry about that! This, that and the other (talk) 08:48, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

No [sic] needed on that ἀναγκαῖον, it’s a nu, not a mu. Nu used to look like that in Byzantine greek minuscule script, and the form survived in other Greek scripts for a long time. It’s still distinct from mu in lacking a final leg. I’ll change it in the entry. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 18:47, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Edit: As an aside, I don’t see why Renaissance writers would be unfamiliar with contemporary Greek pronunciation. After all, Greek refugees from the fall of Constantinople bringing their classics west were one of the main spurs behind Renaissance humanism in the first place! It may be the spelling with -ng- was intentional, as a fairly straightforward rendering of the Greek speech of the time. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 19:00, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Sanskrit श्रवण

Could Sanskrit श्रवण (śravaṇa) possibly be from the root श्रु (śru)? Prahlad balaji (talk) 16:05, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Etymology 2, absolutely. Etymology 1, not so clear. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:05, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Yeah everyone knows Etyl 2 is from श्रु. As for Etyl 1, I'm quite sure (without bothering to look it up in Monier) that it's related to श्रोण (śroṇa) meaning the same. -- 𝓑𝓱𝓪𝓰𝓪𝓭𝓪𝓽𝓽𝓪^{(𝓽𝓪𝓵𝓴)} 09:21, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Germanic terms for earring

I don't know what would be the compounding form of a neuter an-stem, but it would be needed to reconstruct a proto-form of the cognates of earring (it has extensive West Germanic cognates, in addition to some North Germanic cognates). — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 18:46, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

I would expect that there would be an '-n-' or at least an '-a-' from the neuter n-stem, but the OHG simply has ōrring (cf. OSX ōrhring, ANG ēarhring). I would nevertheless reconstruct it as Proto-West Germanic *auʀahring, and chalk it up to influence from the following 'r' sound (*auʀahring > *auʀhring > descendants). I could find no Old Norse parallel, so I imagine the Scandinavian terms (DA ørering, SV örring) are borrowings. Leasnam (talk) 21:55, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

@Leasnam: Scanning through the PWG compounds we have already reconstructed, the treatment of the linking vowels in compounds seems to act on a spectrum. Old High German preserved the linking vowel most often, while Old English deleted it most often. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 00:25, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes, OHG not only preserves the linking vowel, but will also add one where there originally wasn't one, making the lack of one even more notable. Thanks for correcting the gender, I truly fat-fingered that 'n' for an 'm' :} Leasnam (talk) 02:20, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

@Mellohi!: While that might be correct in general, and it still is, there is no evidence of an Old High German earring that I'm aware of. Grimm lists "mhd. ôrrinc, ôrinc, inauris (Lexer 2, 168 f.), ..."[13] and by the way variants like "ohrenring". This does approve at least of the assimilation, although [ˈoːɐ̯ˌʁɪŋ] (de.WT) disagrees and maintains that it does have to be not univerbed, reasonably so as the individual morphemes are still legitimate. Wondering whether Ohr- has an unexpectedly different origin, at least Lat. inauris if not Latvian auskars or indeed from *wo through Norse oo, might be besides the point if the "extended nazalized" *-ngʰ- in the stem remains poorly understood. ApisAzuli (talk) 10:42, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Yiddish גאָרן 'floor, stor(e)y'

@פֿינצטערניש, Wikitiki89, Svenji, NordaVento, Metaknowledge, Lingo Bingo Dingo, Johanna-Hypatia, Castillerian Any ideas? I can't find a suitable-looking word in Germanic, Slavic or Semitic to be the ancestor of this. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:15, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Also not in any other language (Baltic, ...). Was there perhaps a dramatic semantic shift? If we accept the possibility, Ukrainian/Russian горн (gorn) may be a candidate. Or maybe from a shortening of Bulgarian горен кат (goren kat, “upper storey”)? But Yiddish terms are unlikely to be derived from Bulgarian. BTW, the word גאָרן can also be an inflected form of גאָר (gor), but I don’t think there is a relationship.  --Lambiam 10:19, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

More like garderobe, warderobe, Waren-Haus? Otherwise some rural words for rural architecture in the central east Middle High German dialects might yield. I was thinking of haystacks in barns, first, but the closest I could find would be schweizerdeutsch Schüür for ModHG Scheune (barn, de.WP). I thought my country grammar family refers to the second floor in the barn as Tenne although this is either a threshing floor, which may be inside, or in Austrian it denotes the whole barn. Although these comparisons are untennable for gorn, they go to show how variable the jargon may be per region. ApisAzuli (talk)

If you think “Tenne” has to do with storeys then it is of course Hebrew גורן / גֹּרֶן (gṓren, “threshing-floor”). I wonder on the other hand whether for East Slavic горн (gorn, “fireplace”) one has to consider drawers in or compartments beside ovens: Jews would have particular uses for that, keeping warm food when making fire was not allowed or the like. Fay Freak (talk) 11:32, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Semantically, I really like גורן / גֹּרֶן (gṓren, “threshing-floor”). It's a little problematic phonologically as Hebrew holam normally gets borrowed as /ɔɪ̯/ in Yiddish, so we'd expect *גוירן (goyrn). But maybe there's a way to finesse that. Maybe there was a conflation of the Hebrew 'threshing floor' word with the Slavic 'fireplace' word? —Mahāgaja · talk 11:52, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Though the proposed derivation from גורן \ גֹּרֶן‎ works reasonably well semantically, how often do Hebrew words in Yiddish change their spelling? In this case, the Hebrew spelling of /o/ with vav being replaced by the Yiddish spelling of [o~ɔ(ɪ̯)] with aleph. Johanna-Hypatia (talk) 19:25, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

There are a few cases of Hebrew loanwords being spelled phonetically rather than imitating the Hebrew spelling, such as טרייף (treyf) and קלעזמער (klezmer). In this case, if גאָרן (gorn, “floor, story”) is a loanword from גורן (“threshing floor”), perhaps the semantic shift was enough for people to forget that it was a Hebrew word, so it got spelled phonetically. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:21, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

See here for the origin. Vahag (talk) 12:03, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Excellent find, thank you! —Mahāgaja · talk 12:32, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

We have the Gaden mentioned by Weinreich. Vahag (talk) 12:54, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I know this word in the form Gadem n from my local Middle Low German, but rhotacism of intervocalic /d/ in German dialects as in US English has not been related to me before, in the sources for specific dialects: So we must write it is a borrowing from Bavarian or Rhine Franconian or local standard Early New High German—it has not been told where this Yiddish is used, but apparently it is, originally at least, southern Western Yiddish, so @Mahagaja’s “cognate” is not true. Of course with the quotes for Garn n and Gadem n in Grimm in the meaning Stockwerk the identity of the word is proven; all to be lemmatized under Gadem n or Gaden n, as Besen or Boden. Fay Freak (talk) 17:11, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Why are there so few German borrowed words from English?

I'm looking at Category:German unadapted borrowings with 35 entries. Is that right? The Duden mentions a few more while concerned with spelling and noting that the growing number of English borrowings is growing too high for the taste of language purists, and I could easily chalk those up as code-switching in a business environment where a minor bilingualism should be expected.

What stands out is that th is completely missing from these round about sixty items. Not only would it be a matter of spelling, if eg. thread is colloquially rendered as "Fred" in forums. tether eg., albeit rare yet difficult to translate might be pronounced * tezzer instead, prompting for an illegitimate spelling pronounciation. Proper nouns do not count as unaddapted borrowing, of course.

So, are there any proper loans with fricative th in German among the growing number of anglicisms? And if not, why not? ApisAzuli (talk) 10:23, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Category:German terms borrowed from English has 960 entries; if the subcat referring specifically to unadapted borrowings is so low, it's probably mostly because people are unaware of {{ubor}} and so haven't been using it. I was unaware of its existence until this moment. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:15, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

I don’t know those distinctions “adapted” and “semi-learned” and all, even knowing the templates. And those English terms in German, are too uninteresting, in an English dictionary, to be entered, relatively to what could be entered. Fay Freak (talk) 11:35, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

"Interesting" isn't a criterion for inclusion. It could be good for a learner to be reassured that Button really does mean “button”, considering that Bodybag doesn't mean “body bag”. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:41, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

It isn’t the criterion, only my breviloquence for the criterion. It could be good, but other things could even more be. The criterion is whether one would like to know what it means or a definition or translation, which interest is to a large extent not there, to some extent even because the words are ad hoc and of no known internal lexicalization. The word “interesting” is abused by many who have nothing to say but not by me. Fay Freak (talk) 11:49, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

This is all beside the point. ApisAzuli should not conclude what is in a language from what is on Wiktionary, unless he specifically knows that a lexical area has been thoroughly covered. And I hinted why it isn’t covered, because the glosses would end up the English words in almost all cases, and it regularly satisfies to have a word entered in one language, particularly under the condition that it it appears manifest that a word has been formed in one language if one encountered it in another. I have defined what dépeçage is in Private International Law, and it will be apt to serve explanation if one comes thither from a text in German or another language, even if no one reassures that it is German; or sometimes someone will be served by an Arabic entry for Persian or even and Ottoman entry to understand something in Arabic. I also note that the example Bodybag Mahāgaja estranges as I have never encountered the word except in remote newspapers, while I know the meaning of a corpse container well, in spite of the fact that I have never been to any supposedly English-speaking country but always in Germany, so this also shews how the idea of words “in a language” is constructed. Fay Freak (talk) 12:03, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Thriller is supposed to have a /θ/ sound, but in practice, it's often assimilated, apparently. I guess English words with /θ/ just aren't that frequent enough to be borrowed to a large extent, and words with /ð/ mostly seem to be words fulfilling grammatical functions and such, being basic words that are unlikely to get borrowed. Wakuran (talk) 14:44, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

I also found Thinktank or Think-Tank. [14] Wakuran (talk) 14:48, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

But of course, assimilating foreign loanwords isn't anything unique for either German or fricative sounds. A German female friend I know pronounced "job" as "chop", so out of context, I first thought she said "shop"... Wakuran (talk) 14:53, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Thriller seems to be the example I was looking for.

Schackeline, Zementa, etc. are a running gag, implying that these realisations are common enough for the joke to be understandable.

Incidently, Samantha is one of the nine lonely entries in those categories besides Thriller, Synthesizer, Klathrat, empathogen, Empathie, Edith, Arthur, Alexithymie, and actual aspiration along morpheme boundaries in Penthouse. Of these, the proper and common nouns have regular variants with /t th/, and the scientific terms might be considered neo-Latin instead of English. Empathie was, as far as I know, coined by German philosophers. If thriller should be deemed an outlier, it may be a learned borrowing for some folks inasmuch as it can be associated with written genres, anyway jargon.

The frequency argument might be plausible in a summary overview, and maybe more so if focused on the Germanic stock which is per se less likely to need borrowed. Although thousand entries is far from complete or representative, it gives a fairly comprehensive overview. I just got lost in the categories. ApisAzuli (talk) 18:22, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

English Belteshazzar

I've heard that this name (from the book of Daniel) means "may Bel protect the king", but I've also heard it means "Bel's prince". Any possibility of the latter? Also, a few questions:

1.) A couple of months ago I copied and pasted the cuneiform (𒊩𒆪𒈗𒋀) from Wikipedia into Wiktionary's Belteshazzar, Baltassar, and Balthasar entries. (Maybe I shouldn't have done that without a better source?) Anyway, Wikipedia doesn't cite a source and I am just wondering where this cuneiform comes from? Is it actually attested somewhere, or only a scholarly reconstruction? How certain are we that the name "Belteshazzar" actually comes from 𒊩𒆪𒈗𒋀 and not from some other string of glyphs with similar pronunciation?

2.) I don't know Akkadian so bear with me. Comparing the name Belteshazzar (𒊩𒆪𒈗𒋀) with the similar name Belshazzar (𒂗𒈗𒋀), I see that only the beginning is different (𒎏 in place of 𒂗). I am assuming that 𒆪 is an alternate form of 𒂗 (pronounced 'bel' and means "lord"), whereas the 𒊩 is apparently the feminine suffix (pronounced "t", I guess cognate with Hebrew ת and Egyptian -t, but I guess it gets written before the noun)? So then, I suppose 𒎏 actually means "lady" (this word?)? Why, then, is Belteshazzar interpreted as "may Bel save the king" rather than "may Belit save the king"?

3.) Back to the "Bel's prince" interpretation, what would the cuneiform look like for that? Or is it completely implausible? 73.133.224.40 13:49, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

About "Bel's prince", my Akkadian's a bit rusty but I think it would be something like rubê Bēli(m). Anything with that genitive construction would have to have Bel at the end, so it definitely wouldn't be a possibility for this name. airy—zero (talk) 14:49, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

The Sanskrit root ऋ

Could this root possibly be from Proto-Indo-European *h₃er-? Most terms from this Sanskrit root seem to be from the Proto-Indo-European root *h₃er-. Prahlad balaji (talk) 19:30, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Danish smil

Could the Danish noun possibly be from the verb, "smile"? Prahlad balaji (talk) 02:54, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

According to this page, yes. [15] Wakuran (talk) 02:56, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

lokao

I've been trying to track down the botanical identity of this Chinese green dye, which was very much admired and discussed in 19th-century Europe, but abandoned after synthetic dyes became available (probably Rhamnus globosa, a.k.a. Rhamnus chlorophora or Rhamnus tinctoria). The name is obviously from Chinese, but aside from the hunch that 綠／绿 (lǜ) may be the first part, I have no idea what Chinese term that might be. Pinging people who might know: (Notifying Atitarev, Tooironic, Suzukaze-c, Justinrleung, Mar vin kaiser, Geographyinitiative, RcAlex36, The dog2, Frigoris, 沈澄心, 恨国党非蠢即坏, Michael Ly): Chuck Entz (talk) 04:48, 18 December 2021 (UTC)