Template:etymon

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The following documentation is located at Template:etymon/documentation. ^[edit]

Useful links: subpage list • links • redirects • transclusions • errors (parser/module) • sandbox

This template may be used in Wiktionary entries to indicate a term's immediate ancestor. Note that generally, an "etymon" can refer to any kind of etymological ancestor, but on this page, "etymon" will be used specifically for an immediate ancestor. For example, the etymon of English nexus is Latin nexus, and the etymon of Latin nexus is Latin nectō. Terms can have multiple etymons, so the etymons of English toothbrush are both tooth and brush. Even if the etymology of a term is completely unknown, this template may still be useful.

Usage

Suppose that the etymon of English pay is set to Middle English payen, and the etymon of payen is set to Old French paiier. The template is then able to intelligently connect pay and paiier, even though they are two steps apart. The template thus reduces duplication across entries by making it unnecessary to manually specify that pay and paiier are connected.

To do this, the etymology ID must be specified at every step along the away. Otherwise, there is ambiguity between homographs: when we write pay is from paiier, we really mean pay in the sense "to give money", not "to cover the bottom of a vessel with tar or pitch" (which has a completely different origin). The only way to ensure that the template is able to traverse these etymological chains without getting confused is to ensure that both senses of pay are given unique IDs which allow them to be distinguished. This mirrors the practice of the OED, which identifies these two pays as 1139292520 and 4272270366, respectively. However, unlike in the OED, the identifier should be a word or short phrase which summarizes the definition of the term rather than a meaningless string of numbers. In the case of pay, the two IDs might be give money and smear.

Parameters

The template takes the following parameters:

|1= (required)

The language code of the current entry.

|id= (required)

The etymology ID. This parameter also creates an anchor to the current section. For example, if the template at English father is {{etymon|en|id=male parent}}, this etymology section is directly linked to by father#English: male parent.

|title=

This parameter manually overrides the current page title. For example, if an etymology tree is created at Latin pōnō (located at pono) it is necessary to specify |title=pōnō to ensure that the macrons are displayed.

|tree=

If set to anything, displays an etymology tree.

|text= [EXPERIMENTAL]

If set to anything, displays some text describing the etymology. The text modes are: 1 (all steps, no glossary links; the default), - (single step, no glossary links), + (single step, glossary links), and ++ (all steps, glossary links).

|2=, |3=, ...

These are the etymon parameters. Each etymon parameter can be either an etymon, a confidence keyword, or a derivation keyword. There can be any number of etymon parameters.

Etymons

Etymons must be written using the following format: languagecode>term>id. For example: en>pay>give money represents English pay (etymology 1). As a shortcut, it's possible to omit the language code (i.e., just writing pay>give money). In this case, the template will assume that the language is the same as the one set in |1=.

Confidence keywords

Each confidence keyword applies to all the etymons that follow it. A confidence keyword is reset by another confidence keyword or a derivation keyword.

• conf: (default) short for "confident".
• unc: short for "uncertain".

Derivation keywords

Each derivation keyword applies to all the etymons that follow it. A derivation keyword is reset by another deviation keyword. For example, |inh|etymon1|etymon2|bor|etymon3|etymon4 means that a term is inherited from both etymon1 and etymon2 and also borrowed from both etymon3 and etymon4.

• from: (default) unspecified derivation type within a language. Corresponds with {{from}}, as well as a wide variety of miscellaneous derivations including {{clipping}}, {{deverbal}}, {{back-formation}}, and others.
• der: short for "derived". Used when a term is borrowed from another language, but may have been altered in some way. Corresponds with {{derived}}.
• bor: short for "borrowed". Used when a term is borrowed from another language directly. Corresponds with {{borrowed}}.
• lbor: short for "learned borrowing". Used when a term is borrowed from another language directly, but done intentionally rather than through normal language contact. Correponds to {{learned borrowing}}.
• inh: short for "inherited". Used when a term comes directly from the parent language unchanged. Corresponds with {{inherited}}.
• calque: used for calques. Corresponds with {{calque}}.
• influence: used when a term is influenced in some way by another. For example, the modern meaning of English discomfit is influenced by the unrelated word discomfort. This does not correspond with any existing template.
• af: short for "affix". Used for compounds, affixation, and any other template where a "+" is involved. The keywords af and afeq are unique in that the order matters: |af|etymon1|etymon2 means etymon1 + etymon2, while |af|etymon2|etymon1 means etymon2 + etymon1, which would be an entirely different word. Corresponds with {{affix}}, {{compound}}, and others.
• afeq: short for "equivalent affix". For example, English childhood is from Middle English childhode, but is equivalent to child +‎ -hood. Currently, any etymons associated with this parameter are ignored entirely. However, it may be used for something in the future. Corresponds with {{affix}}, {{compound}}, and others.

Using a keyword not on this list will produce an error.

Examples

{{etymon|en|id=male parent|inh|enm>fader>father}} (on English father)

This means: father is inherited from Middle English fader.

{{etymon|ine-pro|id=father|af|unc|*peh₂->protect|*-tḗr>agent noun}} (on Proto-Indo-European *ph₂tḗr)

This means: *ph₂tḗr might come from *peh₂ + *-tḗr. In this case, the etymons are associated with both the derivation keyword "af" and the confidence keyword "unc". Note that since the language is not specified for either etymon, the template assumes that the two etymons are ine-pro (Proto-Indo European).

{{etymon|pl|id=floor|podłożyć>put}} (on Polish podłoga)

This means: podłoga comes from Polish podłożyć. Currently, there is no keyword specifically designating a deverbal. This may be changed in the future.

Test cases

See Template:etymon/testcases for test cases and more examples of use.