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Etymology scriptorium

Welcome to the Etymology scriptorium. This is the place to cogitate on etymological aspects of the Wiktionary entries.

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December 2024

Reconstruction:Proto-South Dravidian/cinkiwēr

The redirect doesn't make sense at all, and is clearly vandalism by a currently blocked user. However, even though I'm not a Dravidianist, I question the reconstruction itself: Neither Reconstruction:Proto-Dravidian/cinkiwēr nor Reconstruction:Proto-South Dravidian/cinkiwēr seems to be a plausible reconstruction, given that Old Tamil 𑀇𑀜𑁆𑀘𑀺𑀯𑁂𑀭𑁆 (iñcivēr) seems to be a compound inside Old Tamil, and 𑀇𑀜𑁆𑀘𑀺 (iñci) a loanword (even if Old Tamil is apparently not the direct source of Sauraseni Prakrit 𑀲𑀺𑀁𑀕𑀺𑀯𑁂𑀭 (siṃgivera)). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:03, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

egel

According to the Proto-Germanic pages these are not related. tbf the derivation of *egalaz is phonologically uncertain. Suryaratha03 (talk) 23:17, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Here is a source, but the page for 'egel' has a more recent source which doesn't seem so sure about the connection. Kluge says the origin of Egel is unclear. Exarchus (talk) 12:02, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Proto-Indo-European *h₁eǵʰis says: "Related to *h₂éngʷʰis and *h₁ógʷʰis." Seems debatable/dubious... Exarchus (talk) 12:39, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Filos

Filos, a protist, is the type genus of the family Filidae. I do not have access to the to the full original publication to know its etymology. Can you read this paper: E. Kim, E. et al? Gerardgiraud (talk) 09:53, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

They write:

Etymology: Filos (m.), friend, alludes to its epibiontic relationship with Apoikia; agilis, agile, refers to its swimming motion.

This is a slightly unusual Romanization of Ancient Greek φίλος (phílos).  --Lambiam 08:24, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Korkyra

w:Korkyra_(mythology) tells us she was the daughter of Asopos and Metope. I analyze this as Ancient Greek κόρη (kórē, “girl, maiden”) + Ancient Greek κῡρῐ́ᾱ (kūrĭ́ā, “lady”), thus young lady. 24.108.0.44 13:21, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

You should obviously realise that the mythology can be invented after the island has been named. But the original name is apparently Κέρκυρα, which Frisk (Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch) relates to the Illyric demonym Κέρκυρες, but he also mentions a possible link to Latin quercus (“oak”). Exarchus (talk) 14:41, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia's Corfu article the word already occurs in Mycenaean Greek as ko-ro-ku-ra-i-jo. Exarchus (talk) 15:03, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

The Illyrian reflex of Quercus would probably be similar to Lithuanian perkūnas, so Κέρκυρες would probably be borrowed from this toponym; w:Corfu#Name tells us that Kerkyra is the Doric variant of Korkyra. And ko-ro-ku-ra-i-jo sounds very much like a Mycenean version of κόρη-κῡρῐ́ᾱ. 24.108.0.44 22:27, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

The source for the link to Latin 'quercus' is this article. The explanation given of the first 'k' is assimilation to second 'k' (p.84). But this is simply one hypothesis and Chantraine calls it 'unprovable'. Exarchus (talk) 23:55, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Whether Mycenaean ko-ro-ku-ra-i-jo has anything to do with the island is unclear according to 'The Mycenaean Greek Vocabulary', they also mention a possible connection to γόργυρα or Κροκύλεια. (But maybe those hypotheses are outdated?) The Mycenaean version of κόρη (kórē) is 𐀒𐀷 (ko-wa /⁠kórwā⁠/), so no, it doesn't look like a version of κόρη-κῡρῐ́ᾱ in any case. Exarchus (talk) 09:07, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Few terms in the Lex Frisionum

I've been making a small list of Germanic terms found in the Latin-language Lex Frisionum compiled during the reign of Charlemagne. A few of these I am not sure how to explain, namely

• forresni (“instigation”) (apparently containing for-)
• herthamon (“pericardium”) (containing heart)
• mithridri (“midriff”) (containing mid-)
• screona (“weaver’s hut”)
• sipido (“type of scar”)
• smelo (“upper phalanx of the thumb”)
• lito (“serf”)
• fresum (“a type of Frisian fabric”).

ᛙᛆᚱᛐᛁᚿᛌᛆᛌ ᛭ Proto-Norsing ᛭ Ask me anything 15:38, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

I might hazard a guess that -resni would include the root res- as in English rise and -ni as in the Scandinavian inchoative/ causative verb ending -na. Wakuran (talk) 19:03, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

That, or forresni "treason" is a derivative of Old Frisian forrēda (“to betray”), the -resni part being distantly related to Old English rǣs (“advice”)...Leasnam (talk) 20:18, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

• The others:
  • hertehama = herte + *hama "garment, covering";
  • mithridri = mid + hrithere "diaphragm";
  • screona = Old Frisian skirma (“shelter”) ? or skrīn (“shrine, chest, coffer”) ?;
  • sipido = Old Frisian sipda, spido, septa, septha (“scar”), perhaps from *saipiþu < *saipu "amber, salve", related to Old English sāp (“amber, resin, pomade”) ?;
  • smelo = ? perhaps from smel "small" ?
  • lito = ? perhaps from lēt "half-free";
  • fresum = from Frēs "Frisian", or perhaps related to frēsle "curl, nap";
• Leasnam (talk) 22:49, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

---

Certain:

• herthamon ‘pericardium’ < *hertô (“heart”) + *hamô (“wrapping”).
• lito ‘serf’ < *lētaz (“id.”). Note that ⟨i⟩ represented both [i] and [e] in Late Latin spelling.

Uncertain:

• screona ‘weaver's hut’ < *skūrō (“shack”, see descendants).
• smelo ‘upper phalanx of the thumb’ < *smalaz (“small”). Cf. Old Frisian smel (“small”) for the stressed vowel.

Nicodene (talk) 22:16, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

hurry up and wait

Is this military? TDHoward (talk) 23:19, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

The US Armed Forces appear to be the origin. A former US Army officer (1988–2004) writes at Quora:^[1]

That is exactly the phrase I recall from my days in the military when there was a task that had to be done at a certain time or a place. Unless it was a true emergency, it was almost never tackled right away.

“Hurry up and wait” is military lingo.

For example, if a group of soldiers were awaiting orders from above to do just about anything, they’d be told that orders were pending and to await those orders.

Another Quora post, from a USMC nco (Force Recon-Vietnam):^[2]

The phrase, Hurry up and wait is common in all the branches. It’s almost a Mantra.

 --Lambiam 08:49, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

When I was a child, I heard it from my father (who was in the US Army during WWII) as a characterization of how time was spent, especially during complex operations involving multiple units. DCDuring (talk) 13:11, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I first heard the expression from someone who had grown up an army brat. I wouldn't label it {{lb|en|military}}, but it does seem worth mentioning in the Etymology section that the phrase originated in the military. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:24, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

• The song Hurry Up and Wait doesn't use it militarily P. Sovjunk (talk) 20:16, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Stereophonics? Pitbull? It's a relatively recent song, though, so I ascribe that to poetic licence. Wakuran (talk) 13:39, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

imut

I think the lack of words resembling 'imut' in languages such as Malay and Javanese, added with the fact that 'imut' in Sundanese means 'to smile' (smiling does make someone look cute) would make it a Sundanese-derived Indonesian term. Udaradingin (talk) 12:21, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

@Udaradingin: You're on the right track. In pre-1980 sources, the word doesn't show up other than in Sundanese texts. It starts to appear as a colloquial Indonesian term in the 1980s: this Google Books snippet[3] from the Kamus bahasa prokem is very telling and may indicate how the semantic change has come about. –Austronesier (talk) 18:04, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

つんつん

ぽつんつんぼ 2600:387:B:3:0:0:0:49 14:27, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Latin involō

"to attack, seize, take possession of, carry off" Might this sense not be from such a compound as in- +‎ vola +‎ -ō (to take in one's hand, grasp) ? If we separate the "to attack" meaning it is semantically plausible, even more so than the one we used thus far (to fly/rush in -> invade -> pillage -> seize ?). Saumache (talk) 21:56, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I've found this gloss by Servius on Aeneid 3.233, for what it's worth: "praedam pedibus circumvolat uncis aut circum praedam [dixit] volat uncis pedibus: aut intra volam interiorem manus amplectitur praedam: unde et 'involare' dicimus intra volam tenere, unde et pyra quaedam volema dicuntur, eo quod volam impleant." Other New Latin dictionnaries mention it but I think I'm chasing rainbows. Saumache (talk) 19:11, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Nájera

Rfv of etymology for Spanish town, added by blocked Gfarnab. Exarchus (talk) 18:16, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

hewers of wood and drawers of water

The following page has wrong information: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hewers_of_wood_and_drawers_of_water#English

It states that this biblical term is first mentiioned in Joshua 9:21. Howeverm the term already appears in Deut. 29:10

Avraham Roo 2A06:C701:762A:7000:F966:6AE5:71A9:3F6A 13:32, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Deut. 29:11 has "from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water", so not technically the same as the English expression. Exarchus (talk) 17:30, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

French fuite

It is written that this word comes from the feminine singular past participle of the verb fuir (“to flee, to escape”). However, this inflected form is shown as fuie on this verb's entry. Confusing... OweOwnAwe (talk) 15:36, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I rewrote the etymology based on TLFi. Exarchus (talk) 15:53, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I find the form *fūgĭta given by the TLFi strange. (I haven't looked yet at the references it gives.) The postulated lengthening of the vowel seems unnecessary, since short u sometimes became [y] or [ɥ] before a palatal sound (e.g. Old French dui from duī). I would expect the short i in -gĭta to syncopate, creating a consonant cluster which would protect the following -t-. I see that our entry for fuie actually gives its etymon as *fūgīta: I agree that a form in -īta is more likely to be the source of this form, but doesn't this contradict what the TLFi says?--Urszag (talk) 15:33, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

The length of the i in *fūgīta (at fuie) was changed by IP-user 81.154.157.159, so it doesn't have to mean anything. FEW actually gives fŭgĭta, with short 'u'.

Maybe the 'g' disappeared before the 'i' would have done so. Phonological history of French says about the Proto-Gallo-Ibero-Romance stage: "/j/, /dj/, /ɡj/, /ɡʲ/ have all merged as /j/ by this point." Exarchus (talk) 16:27, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Regarding the length of the 'u', you also have to look at the other Romance languages and wouldn't short Vulgar Latin /u/ have given Italian 'foggire'? Exarchus (talk) 17:04, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

It is cognate with Catalan fuita and Spanish huida, from fŭgĭta according to Coromines. Also participle in Spanish and Old Catalan still used in Balearic: ca:fuit. Vriullop (talk) 19:25, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Old Saxon Delensions of "mann"

I'm not sure if this is the right disscussion room and I don't know how to edit an article but the declension of Old Saxon "mann" is:

singular
nominative: man 
accusative: man
gentive: mannes/mannas
dative: manne/man
plural:
nominative: man 
accusative: man
genitive: manno 
dative: mannun/ mannon

source: "§202. Declination. conson. stämme." p.72 of "SAMMLUNG KURZER GRAMMATIKEN GERMANISCHER DIALEKTE. HERAUSGEGEBEN VON WILHELM BRAUNE" 202.71.151.4 16:59, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Shouldn't the dictionary form be "man" if it is the singular nominative? Wakuran (talk) 20:23, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I believe the nominative singular could also be mann (e.g. uuas thar ên gigamalod mann that uuas fruod gomo) Leasnam (talk) 20:33, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Gothic *𐌻𐌰𐌹𐍃𐍉 (*laisō)

What is the reason for reconstructing this as an ōn-stem? Pinging @Leasnam who created it. — 2600:4808:9C31:4800:411A:E5C7:9C89:9AF0 02:43, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I believe I did because it was presented as such [here]. Why [the] Koebler [website] reconstructs it shows a reconstruction as an n-stem, I have no clue. Leasnam (talk) 02:50, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Köbler doesnt reconstruct anything. The man is mainly a legal expert and started this comprehensive dictionary to contain all important works. For that particular entry he cites Pokorny: click on an entry to view more details. Imbricitor (talk) 21:39, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

It does strike me as odd, since the West Germanic counterparts are strong o-stems, and West Germanic and Gothic tend to agree in keeping PGmc strong o-stems as such. Leasnam (talk) 20:50, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Ancient Greek οὐλόμενος (2nd verse of the Iliad)

This word, when only looking at its morpho-semantical origin, could likely mean "perished". However its meaning really is "destructive". This has been explained by bringing up the curse ὄλοιο/ὄλοιτο "may you perish/may it perish". But I can't see how this is a sufficient explanation. A thing that should perish is not necessarily something destructive, and even less in the context we are given in the Iliad. Sure, when you know something is destructive or will bring ruin, you might wish for it to perish - but this doubling up on the "destruction"-notion seems to be illogical. Instead, it could simply be a special usage of the middle participle with an active meaning. We know a similar case, inversely, from the active perfect ὀλωλέναι "to have perished" where a middle form would be expected. Does anyone know more about this? Imbricitor (talk) 15:06, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an article on deponent verb, perhaps relevant. Wakuran (talk) 16:01, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

καλέω

Beekes might be saying "-έω ~ -άω" and "-ή ~ -έω", not "+ -έω". The problem is that future κᾰλέω/κᾰλέσω and aorist ἐκᾰ́λεσᾰ have short ε while -έω gives a long η future -ήσω and aorist -ησᾰ. Similar problems affect τελέω and ζέω. Perhaps the page -έω needs to be edited? 172.97.141.219 16:11, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure ῥέω or ζέω should be mentioned at -έω, as those verbs aren't ῥ/ζ + -έω. Exarchus (talk) 22:47, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

About καλέω: LIV gives this as *kl̥h₁- + -éye-, so with a different suffix than for causative verbs. I'm going to add that one to the *-éyeti page. Exarchus (talk) 10:09, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Further clarification of associated roots

Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂werg- says it is associated with ἐέργω, whereas the latter is linked to ἔργω, which says it is in turn from Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₁wreǵ-. Further clarification is needed. Σ>―(〃°ω°〃)♡→L.C.D.（-{に〇〇する}-） 17:06, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

dogdraw

Which sense of draw does dogdraw derive from? P. Sovjunk (talk) 20:11, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

(Verb) 4.To move, travel, approach.> 4. (hunting, now rare) To search for game; to track a quarry. [from 16th c.] Chuck Entz (talk) 23:10, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

ചാരായം

The Malayalam etymology says it comes from Sanskrit सरक (saraka), but the Tamil cognate சாராயம் (cārāyam) has it coming from Sanskrit सार (sāra, “nectar, juice”). Pinging @Vis M. Exarchus (talk) 21:18, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

kuit

This entry (for both Afrikaans and Dutch) claims that the two different meanings have different etymologies but the given "etymology" (which only goes back to Middle Dutch) is identical. But the Dutch WT nl:kuit gives both meanings for its etymology 1. (Its etymology 2 is a different word - a kind of beer - which is not mentioned in our article.) The Dutch page also has several references, where we have none. Shall I just go ahead an attempt to update our entry from the information in the Dutch item? ColinFine (talk) 19:31, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

The Middle Dutch could be two different words, so that alone means little. But all of the dictionaries at etymologiebank.nl do agree that it's most likely one and the same. So I've merged them into one etymology with two noun entries. I've not done anything about the beer sense, because I don't know that word. 2.203.201.41 20:02, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

THank you. That's much better (you've even added some etymology). ColinFine (talk) 22:42, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Is there actually a source for indicating the sense "fish eggs" as masculine? Van Dale gives "v(m)". The gender in Middle Dutch was apparently "m., o."

The word is mostly used without article, so I personally couldn't tell what the gender is without looking it up. Exarchus (talk) 17:37, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

The Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal gives (v.) for either of the two,^[4][5] as well as for the third, obsolete “beer” sense.^[6]  --Lambiam 20:06, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I'd change it to feminine then. But 'het kuit' is also used (though a lot less frequently), shouldn't this be added too? Exarchus (talk) 21:27, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

In het Groene Boekje and other dictionaries I could consult, it is strictly a de word in all senses. I bet het kuit is hardly ever used in the anatomical sense – zero ghits for pijn in het kuit en precisely one for kramp in het kuit against a gazillion for kramp in de kuit. We could either ignore the anomalous use of het for the “roe” sense, or mention it in a Usage note while noting that this gender reassignment has not been sanctioned by dictionaries.  --Lambiam 21:02, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I was certainly not suggesting giving the anatomical sense as optionally neuter. But I'm not surprised some people use het for the "roe" sense, given that it isn't a very common term (except in the expression kuitschieten, and also apparently hom of kuit in the Netherlands) and having an uncountable noun as neuter isn't unusual (het zand, het water, het gras,...). Association with het zaad seems also possible. Exarchus (talk) 21:22, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I edited the article (also removing the diminutive), feel free to improve.

Unrelatedly I noticed that many articles are not following the guidelines for Dutch gender, as at barkruk m or f. Exarchus (talk) 23:48, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

méfier bad link?

The “fier” portion points to Latin “ferus”. Should be to Latin “fido”, no? Unless it’s wild to trust ;-) TLauckBenson (talk) 18:03, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

fier#French lists both senses, unless this is some kind of joke. Wakuran (talk) 21:08, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

On the other hand, I see that Latin ferus lists French fer as a descendant instead of fier, which I remember was due to some technical issue. Wakuran (talk) 21:28, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your clarification. TLauckBenson (talk) 04:13, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Definitely technical issues. Now that I've added 'fier' as alternative form for etymology 2 at fer, it is also shown at Latin 'ferrum'. Exarchus (talk) 13:55, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂ṓms

@Exarchus @Caoimhin ceallach I couldn't find any evidence or scholarship that reconstructs an asigmatic athematic root noun for the descendants. The declension table even used to have an s-suffix until Victar removed the s-suffix in 2018, a change whose rationale I cannot figure out. Should we restore the s-suffix to this word? — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 22:13, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Martirosyan thinks the formation is similar to *néh₂s and the derived terms imply an -s, so ...

It's a bit funny how all of h₁/₂/₃/₄ have been reconstructed here. Maybe *H- would be the most honest option. Exarchus (talk) 22:37, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

It's especially notable that Martirosyan doesn't even mention a root noun. Since all descendants are s-stems of some sort, I don't see how PIE could have been anything else. Though what type of s-stem is of course a more difficult question. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 23:05, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Accents on Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/upó, Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂epó etc.

Is there any source for these accents? The *upo page was moved to *upó with argumentation "With h₂epó, pró..." For *h₂epo, Beekes actually reconstructs *h₂épo (at ἀπό). And then the accent at Sanskrit अप- (apa-) was idiotically changed from 'ápa' to 'apá' here and (after being corrected) again here to conform to the reconstruction. Exarchus (talk) 22:36, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Apparently, Andrew Byrd gives */apó/ as alternative for */h₂epó/ at p.8 of The Indo-European Syllable, though without talking about the accent. Exarchus (talk) 19:48, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Add etymology for Spanish empavesar

Thank you. Duchuyfootball (talk) 13:49, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Plausibly borrowed from Italian impavesare.  --Lambiam 13:41, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! Duchuyfootball (talk) 03:27, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Chinese doublets?

Pannonian Rusyn has two words for "tea", тея (teja) and чай (čaj). Obviously, the first one comes from Hokkien and the second one from non-Hokkien Sinitic. But it's the same character, 茶. Are they (the Pannonian terms) technically doublets? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 00:49, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I'd say so, and likewise for any language with both a word from the "tea" family and a word from the "cha(i)" family, since both families descend from the same Old Chinese word. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:39, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

王八蛋

RFV of the etymology. Is it not simply 王八 (wángba, “bastard”) + 蛋 (dàn, “suffix denoting “person of certain characteristics”, usually with a pejorative tone”)? "王 + numeral" for a person of certain characteristics, e.g. 黃六／黄六 (written as 王六 in the Song dynasty work 夢梁錄) and 王老五, is typical in Chinese anyway. RcAlex36 (talk) 02:21, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

オリガルヒ

I changed this from "oligarchy" to "oligarch" because it doesn't appear to mean "oligarchy" based on the original Etymology, and based on the wikipedia entry. But, also, does this word really come from олигархи, and not олигарх? Kiril kovachev (talk・contribs) 03:36, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't know much about how Russian gets adapted to Japanese, but олигарх (oligarx) → オリガルヒ (origaruhi) seems eminently possible since ヒ is pronounced [çi] and consonants have to be followed by a vowel in Japanese (with a few exceptions not relevant here). —Mahāgaja · talk 09:34, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Some transliterations of a final ⟨х⟩:

• Вах (Vax) → ヴァフ (vafu).^[7]
• Сандармох (Sandarmox) → サンダルモフ (sandarumofu).^[8]
• Черных (Černyx) → チェルヌィフ (cheru'nwifu)^[9]

But:

• Генрих (Genrix) → ゲンリク (genriku).^[10]

 --Lambiam 12:54, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Final х → フ is interesting, especially since the transliteration of the German name Bach (as in Johann Sebastian) is バッハ (Bahha). I always assumed that a was chosen as the support vowel precisely to avoid having an f-like sound trying to match a /x/. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:28, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

@Mahagaja In German loanwords/names /x/ generally becomes /hhV/, with the vowel matching whatever vowel comes previously, whereas /ç/ tends to just be represented with ヒ. I'm not sure why German /x/ becomes geminated but not Russian /x/, or why Russian /x/ generally defaults to フ without matching the prior vowel, but either way there's no avoidance to using フ for /x/

German examples:

• Bach /bax/ > バッハ (bahha)
• Bruch /bʁʊx/ > ブルッフ (buruffu)
• Koch /kɔx/ > コッホ (kohho)
• Friedrich /fʁiːdʁɪç/ > フリードリヒ (furīdorihi)
• Lech /lɛç/ > レヒ川(がわ) (rehigawa)

Horse Battery (talk) 21:26, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Looking into it a bit more, the gemination appears to merely represent the short vowel, as with English loanwords, with vowel lengthening representing long vowels: Buchholtz /buːxhɔlt͡s/ > ブーフホルツ (būfuhorutsu) Horse Battery (talk) 21:50, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

@Lambiam That's quite persuasive, because it seems to show that ひ coming from final х isn't usual at all. Before reading this I thought exactly as @Mahagaja's first reply. How did you come up with these examples, and are there any where the sound chosen is ひ? It would be most helpful if we had a source that would weigh in, but no dictionary I have has this word. Kiril kovachev (talk・contribs) 18:26, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

On the English Wikipedia I went through various lists of Russian geographical features, novelists and artists, seeking names ending on ⟨kh⟩, verifying they ended on ⟨х⟩ in Russian, and finally trying to find a Japanese article on the topic. (The final bit was the easy part.)  --Lambiam 20:12, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Daijisen says that it is borrowed from Russian олига́рх (oligárx).[11] Helloworld6666 (talk) 09:31, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

bagatelle

So I was following the etymology of bagatelle, which unsurpisingly comes from French, which comes from Italian bagattella.

On bagattella, it gives the etymology as "From Late Latin baga, from Latin baca. But on the page for "baga", it says it comes not from "baca" but from Middle English bagge, which just means bag. Which all told suggests the word went from Middle English to Latin to Italian to French to (modern) English. Which seems a little improbable. Also the the definitions "trifle" and "bag" is a bit of a stretch. If instead we go to "baca" we find it means "small fruit, berry; pearl; bead", which is a better semantic match.

In short: the etymology for Italian bagattella points to Late Latin baga, which seems questionable. Possibly there is an additional sense of "baga" that is missing here.

98.110.52.169 08:40, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Etymonline says, "perhaps a diminutive of Latin baca (“berry”), or from one of the continental words (such as Old French bague (“bundle”)) from the same source as English bag (n.)", so apparently it might be either one. 'Bag' → 'trifle' on its own might be a stretch, but remember bagattella is a diminutive, and 'small bag' → 'trifle' isn't such a stretch after all. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:27, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Pianigiani’s etymological dictionary^[12] gives as the primary derivation Latin baga, glossed as fardello, roba, but mentions that Schuchardt compares it to bagattino (a small coin^[13]) and derives it from baca; also, Littrè is mentioned as saying that the word was used in a 15th-century text in the sense of circle, ring, suggesting a relation with Low Latin bauga (“bracelet”).  --Lambiam 12:12, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Low Latin bauga (“bracelet”) seems to be a Germanc borrowing as well, aking to Old Norse baugr (bracelet, ring). Wakuran (talk) 12:40, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Coromines^[14] notes the old Italian sense both as trifle and sleight of hand. Apart from Schuchardt's baca, he suggests some Franco-Provençal form akin to Old Occitan bagastel and Old French baastel (sleight of hand). Vriullop (talk) 08:10, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Apparently, baastel is related to Latin bastum, from what I can see. Wakuran (talk) 12:05, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Hello everyone, I'm new to Wiktionary, and I want to ask you to help format my pages.

In particular, I've made edits in 고슴도치 and 셤. Particular about the etymology. I've used textual evidence from Ancient Chinese sources. But I don't know the format of this website. Can you guys help me clean up the page please? Thank you! Blahhmosh (talk) 18:11, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Also, I want to ask. In the same page in <使高麗錄> there is a line saying "麗人謂笠為「軋」", meaning that "Koreans pronounce '笠' (the stereotypical Asian straw conical hat) as '軋'". I've taken a look one of the Middle Chinese/Dialectal pronunciation of 軋, and it is roughly (gat), and is pronunced very similarly to "갓" (gat), the native Korean word for that stereotypical Korean black hat. What do you think? Blahhmosh (talk) 18:28, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

@Blahhmosh Your edits look good to me. It would maybe be helpful to include a transcription of the document/book titles, however (in parentheses following the title). Andrew Sheedy (talk) 22:58, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't think so, if you look at other entries in Wiktionary that talk about Late Old Korean origins of words such as 비#Etymology_1, you'd see that it's much more formatted. I want my entries to be as formatted like the one in the example. @Andrew Sheedy

And I already did include the name of the document as a source. Blahhmosh (talk) 23:08, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

@Blahhmosh The best thing to do would be to take a look at the page for the template that is used. I'm not familiar with it, because I don't edit Korean, but it's explained at Template:ko-etym-native. If you can't figure that out, then take a look at how the titles are formatted in that entry (and earlier in the etymology of 고슴도치). That's what I was talking about (although now I realize that the standard is to put the original script in parentheses, not the transcription). So put "First attested in Transcription of title in italics (Korean script name in parentheses), year, as Old/Middle Korean [term]." Someone else who knows more can then templatize it. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:54, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

I assume you can look at the source of a page you want to emulate, and then copy/ paste the format with replaced word entries. Wakuran (talk) 16:05, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

For most things, yes, but the template he/she is trying to copy is not at all intuitive, IMO. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:29, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Minerva from Etruscan?

Given the ultimate origin of the name is hypothesized to be Indo-European, it's suspicious to see the Latin word marked as a borrowing from Etruscan (rather than the reverse). Does any reliable source actually say this? De Vaan treats it as a native Latin form, only mentioning Etruscan as a means of dating the Latin sound change -sv- > -rv-: "Since the deity Menerva is attested in Etruscan from the sixth c. onwards, the sound law must have taken place before that time" (page 381). Urszag (talk) 21:00, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

That part of the etymology hasn't changed since 2011. It seems to be based an a misunderstanding of De Vaan. The etymology seems decent, but the nature of Etruscan makes it so that if the word was actually Etruscan in origin, it is near-impossible to prove. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 23:36, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

The page for *ménos has Minerva coming from Proto-Italic *menezwā. I suppose Etruscan 𐌌𐌄𐌍𐌄𐌓𐌅𐌀 (menerva) is to be added there, possibly as borrowing from the also to be added "VOLat. menrva, menerva" given by de Vaan. Exarchus (talk) 22:46, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Can VOL menrva be the result of Latin-internal processes? I thought that kind of syncope was specifically Etruscan. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 23:30, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't think Etruscan is required to explain that form. The development of forms like *agros > ager or *tris > ter is usually understood as implying that Latin at some point had a syllabic rhotic that was later resolved to /er/. Lindsay in "The Latin Language" says "There are some indications that vocalic l and r were sounds not unknown to the Italic languages down to a fairly late period, g. Marrucinian pacrsi [...] Sabine Atrno [...] though how far these are merely graphic is hard to decide" (pages 278-279). Early Latin seems to have sometimes used alphabet letters as signs for their names, e.g. Lindsay says "Terentius Scaurus, second cent. A. D. (p. 15 K.) tells us that the letter K was called ka, while the name of C was ce, and that these letters themselves had been before his time used to indicate the syllables represented by their names, e.g. krus (for ka-rus), cra (for cera)" (p.6). Since er is supposed to have been the name of the letter R, it seems possible to me that menrva could be just a defective spelling of /menerwa/.--Urszag (talk) 23:55, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

I've edited the Latin etymology + the *ménos page. Exarchus (talk) 19:13, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Zellack (stone)

Gunter Grass (The Dog Years, p. 5) gives this as Danzig dialect for stone. I can't find anything in German or Polish (or similar languages) to suggest an etymology, so my best guess is that it is imitative of stones clattering against each other. Anyone have any better ideas? (The only Kashubian word I could find, cela (calf), doesn't fit at all). 24.108.0.44 03:09, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Looking through Deutsches Wörterbuch, I came across the German word Zellenkalk (Cellular dolomite), but it might not be that great a suggestion. Wakuran (talk) 19:26, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Old Swedish gjalla “(re)pay”

Some sources (e.g. Derksen 2008, p. 557f; Orel 2003, p. 160f) claim that this word must reflect *gelþ- instead of *geld-, even though Old Norse gjalda (id.) is securely attested, and therefore it alters the whole Indo-European etymology to preclude a reconstruction *gʰeldʰ-, instead requiring *gʰelt-. This seems silly to me, even just focusing on the Old Swedish etymology from Old Norse: the word is also attested with the spellings giælda, gialda, giælla, and gælla (and at this point I'm not sure gjalla is even one of them). Kroonen, a Germanic specialist, makes no mention of the problem. Can any experts weigh in on this? — 2600:4808:9C31:4800:20CB:C23:5C50:263B 04:21, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

-ld- > -ll- is regular in Swedish. Compare Swedish hålla with Icelandic halda. ᛙᛆᚱᛐᛁᚿᛌᛆᛌ ᛭ Proto-Norsing ᛭ Ask me anything 21:09, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Having the Swedish doublets gälda and gälla might seem strange, but the former might have been influenced by Middle Low German gelden and the Swedish noun gäld. Wakuran (talk) 22:57, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Vannella

Vannella (protist) is the type genus of the family Vannellidae, but I have not been able to find its etymology. Any ideas? Gerardgiraud (talk) 15:24, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

A guess: Latin vannus (“winnowing basket”) +‎ -ella. Bovee may have preferred the feminine gender to leave the epithets of species transferred from the genus Flabellula, such as F. crassa, invariant under the reclassification.  --Lambiam 18:51, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

I see now this is also the etymology given for the species name Vanellus, which seems to have lost one n in the process of suffixation.  --Lambiam 18:57, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

That's a good idea, thank you. Gerardgiraud (talk) 22:24, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Dutch joekel, Romani ʒukel

The Dutch is from Romani. Regarding the further origin, the Romani entry derives it from Sanskrit जकुट (jakuṭa) with sources, while the Dutch entry derives it from Arabic جاهِل (jāhil, “ignorant”) without sources. My requests would be: 1.) the Sanskrit should be glossed; 2.) it should be checked whether the Arabic derivation has merit as an alternative theory; 3.) the etymology sections should be brought in line accordingly. 92.73.31.113 21:19, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

There's also Swedish jycke, likely from the same Romani word. Wakuran (talk) 22:50, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

the Sanskrit means "dog", seems clearly a more likely source than the Arabic Exarchus (talk) 13:14, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Okay, thanks! So I'll just adapt the Dutch etymology. If we ever find a source that somehow corroborates the Arabic theory, we can still bring it back. 92.73.31.113 04:18, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, Dutch historical linguist Hans Beelen and etymologist Nicoline van der Sijs agree with the Romani theory, not even mentioning any other.^[15]  --Lambiam 12:18, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

As stated above, the question was not about the Romani origin of the Dutch word, but about the further origin of the Romani word. 92.73.31.113 19:01, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

gramadoela

From Xhosa? Tollef Salemann (talk) 02:14, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

I would assume not. Initial g- pronounced gutturally looks very Afrikaans. Seems to be an Afrikaans word for "boondocks" or similar. At most, it might be an Afrikaans reinterpretation of a native African word, I guess. I'm not entirely sure on what its Afrikaans origin would be, but the part 'doel' could possibly mean "destination". Wakuran (talk) 00:02, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

The ⟨oe⟩ strongly points to borrowing from Afrikaans, in which the term is easily attested. But it is not among the estimated 95% of Afrikaans words that are inherited from Dutch. The Afrikaans pronunciation is probably /χra.maˈdu.la/. An Afrikaans word with initial [χ] not from Dutch is gogga, said to be borrowed from a Khoe language.  --Lambiam 12:57, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

pasmat

Possibly from Dutch "Spaansche mat"? Udaradingin (talk) 09:08, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Nederlandse woorden wereldwijd has this:

Spaanse mat ‘Spaanse zilveren munt’ → indonesisch pasmat ‘Spaans zilveren muntstuk’; ambons-maleis spānsmat ‘rijksdaalder’; javaans sepasmat ‘Spaanse zilveren munt; rijksdaalder’; kupang-maleis spansemat ‘geldstuk’; menadonees spansemat ‘geldstuk’; soendanees pasmat ‘rijksdaalder’; ternataans-maleis spansemat ‘geldstuk’; creools-portugees (batavia) spansmat ‘rijksdaalder’.

Note that a rijksdaalder is not the same as a Spanish dollar. The text “het Holl. Spaansche mat” in the entry PASMAT in the Soendaneesch-Hollandsch Woordenboek is meant to give the etymology, not the meaning. This is obvious in the entry KOEMPĔNI, where “idem” can only mean that the Sundanese meaning is that of the immediately preceding Dutch etymon.

 --Lambiam 11:18, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

It looks like the initial s was dropped through metanalysis of spasmat as = se- + pasmat. –Austronesier (talk) 16:33, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Dearne

River in Yorkshire, no etymology given. I refer to Irish dearna, Welsh darn, piece, fragment, palm of the hand...it seems the most likely explanation. I am also looking at Findhorn -d is intrusive, and wikipedia examines - sceptically - the idea that it derives from Fionn-eireann, although this does not make much sense. I suggest this might be Fionn-dhearna (with the dh soft or silent), in which case it would be similar to the Yorkshire Dearne. Thoughts? 24.108.0.44 05:11, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

I've added an etymology to the page which traces it back to Dirna (AD 1155), and added two possible theories. Please feel free to elaborate as needed. Leasnam (talk) 17:37, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Your explanation of Dearne is better than mine. But I am still interested in Findhorn etc., so I will pursue my suggestions. 24.108.0.44 03:28, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

sallfly

Tagged but not listed.
Named sallfly due to confusion with the somewhat similar looking sawfly ? Leasnam (talk) 21:07, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

heraldic pallets

The etymology of the heraldic sense is clearly more than just "From Latin palla". Collins says it's from Middle English palet, from Middle French palet, from pal, but I'm having a hard time finding either the (relevant) Middle English word in dictionaries or in use (there are of course many other Middle English words spelled palet) or the relevant Middle French word. - -sche (discuss) 22:21, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Gocevia

The protist Gocevia is the type genus of the family Goceviidae. I haven't found the etymology. Any ideas? Gerardgiraud (talk) 08:02, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Probably named after a scientist named Gocev or Gochev or something like that. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:23, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

A good idea but difficult to know who this Gocev or Gochev (Bulgarian surname) is, isn't it? Gerardgiraud (talk) 18:16, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

A plausible guess is Petyr (or Petar) Gochev; [16]. Wakuran (talk) 23:53, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

@Gerardgiraud: Wikispecies has the genus in a category of "Eponyms of Petar Velikov Gočev". If you go to the page for the type species, it has a a reference listing the page number, and a link to a PDF of the original article. On the last paragraph of that page it says:

Това ми даба основание да създамъ отъ него новъ родъ,

нареченъ на името на моя приятелъ, геолога П. Гочевъ -

Gočevia pontica n.g. n.sp.

Which Google Translate quite plausibly renders as:

This gives me reason to create a new genus from it,

named after my friend, the geologist P. Gočev -

Gočevia pontica n.g. n.sp.

The haček was no doubt removed due to the restrictions of the taxonomic code, but it does explain why it's Gocevia rather than Gochevia, which would be a more logical romanization. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:27, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

It may be a "logical" romanization from Cyrillic to English, but it does not compute for romanization from Cyrillic to Latin and many other languages written with the Latin alphabet, such as Czech, German, Italian, Irish, Lithuanian, Polish and Turkish.  --Lambiam 10:34, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Gocevia is pretty logical for Latin. Although Classical Latin doesn't have a /t͡ʃ/ phoneme, Ecclesiastical Latin does, and Gocevia would be pronounced /ɡɔˈt͡ʃɛvia/ in that variety. Note also that Czechia is called Cechia in New Latin. —Mahāgaja · talk 19:01, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

щойно

Does there exist / did there use to exist some *що́йний (*ščójnyj)? If not, where does this come from? Perhaps linked to що (ščo)? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 16:09, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

I've added etymological info from {{R:uk:ESUM}}. Voltaigne (talk) 01:52, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

PWGmc *glāʀōn

Should this be *glāʀōn or *glaʀōn ? If *glāʀōn then there are difficulties with Middle English as one would expect gloren or gleren Leasnam (talk) 19:57, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

etymologiebank.nl says the (Middle) English comes from (Middle) Dutch Exarchus (talk) 15:49, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

From what I understand, Orel simply has MLG 'glāren' as descendant of his reconstruction *ʒlēsjanan. Is there a reason why this wouldn't work?

Notice that MLG has glār ("resin") from < *glēza- according to Kroonen, so maybe there was a *glēzijaną variant... Exarchus (talk) 16:59, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm having doubts about *glēsijaną, which I have mentioned on the talk page [here]. And if Old Norse glæsa has a different origin, then *glēsijaną goes bye-bye. The Middle Low German for "resin" also has a variant that's short, glar, and a denominal glarren (“to apply resin to, smear with a sticky substance”), which also shows a short vowel. Leasnam (talk) 19:45, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure which the most active thread, but I created RC:Proto-Indo-European/ǵʰleh₁-. --{{victar|talk}} 07:43, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

glær

Related to the above, I would like to know what others think of Old English glær (“amber”), and whether the vowel should be long or short. In the past, I set up the OE entry to show both a long and short vowel [here], but recently I decided it was short as most credible resources show it as glær.

Now that Proto-Germanic *glēsijaną is again a thing in my book, this re-opens the door to the possibility that glær could be glǣr. Indeed, Old Saxon glēr (“resin”), if a cognate, supports this. However, the only way I see to reconcile glǣr and glēr is if they come from Proto-West Germanic *glairi or *glaiʀi (unless this is a shared borrowing from another language). Then there is the Late Latin glaesum, which shows a long vowel/diphthong. A while ago, I created added to *glēzô to connect these. Does anyone have any advice on how to straighten out this mess ? Leasnam (talk) 03:43, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Kroonen gives OE glǣr at *glasa- ~ *glaza- and derives it from *glēza- Exarchus (talk) 10:39, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Einführung in das Altsächsische mentions (p.23) that in some words, Proto-Germanic *ē¹ resulted in ē, with gēr as example. It doesn't seem too far-fetched that glēr might be another one... Exarchus (talk) 11:22, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

About Latin: Lewis & Short give Tacitus and Plinius using glaesum so the indication 'Medieval Latin' at *glēzô is wrong (and the borrowing from Frankish too)

To be precise: Pliny uses "glaesum" and Tacitus "glesum". Exarchus (talk) 14:36, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Right, it should be from PGmc. Fixed. Is it "glesum" or "glēsum" ? Leasnam (talk) 18:45, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

It's 'glēsum', but obviously written 'glesum'. But I don't think Pliny the Elder nor Tacitus are 'Late Latin' either. Exarchus (talk) 18:58, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure either why the Gmc reconstruction is an n-stem (as per Pokorny). I favour moving it to a neuter a-stem. Any objections ? Leasnam (talk) 19:06, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

My only objection would be that the word is indicated as masculine in Old English by Kroonen, but I see you changed the gender there, are other sources saying something else? Exarchus (talk) 19:28, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Apparently the original Bosworth Toller's dictionary indicates it as neuter but the 1921 supplement corrects this to masculine (incorporated here).

But I don't know how accurately Old English reflects the Proto-Germanic gender. Exarchus (talk) 20:13, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

It is not uncommon for neuter nouns in PGmc to shift to masculine in West Germanic Leasnam (talk) 20:59, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

The Latin byform glessum correlates too neatly with Proto-Germanic *glasą. Can anyone help rule out the possibility that it may have gone from glessum > glēsum ? or is the inverse the more likely event ? Leasnam (talk) 21:04, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

An obvious question is when did each form first occur. Du Cange quotes Pliny as using "glessum", while more recent editions have "glaesum". So maybe "glessum" is nowadays considered a scribal error when it comes to Pliny. Is there any 20th century Latin dictionary giving "glessum"? Because for some reason, Short's 1891 Elementary Latin Dictionary has omitted "glessum" compared to the 1879 Lewis & Short edition. Gaffiot doesn't mention it. Exarchus (talk) 22:01, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

coacervo

What happened to the <n>? I thought it could only be lost next to consonants and not between vowels. Surface analysis gives co- not con-. 172.97.141.219 04:40, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Usage notes for con- say: "Before vowels and h, the prefix becomes co-, or rarely com-." Exarchus (talk) 09:18, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Oops I misremembered. I mixed Latin rules up with English rules that distinguish co-/con- and retain the <n>. 172.97.141.219 09:42, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Chwalu

Noticed this word looks and sounds an awful lot like the old English cwalu and was wondering if there's an etymological link anywhere or if it's just coincidence? Chwalu doesn't have any etymology listed at all for context which is unfortunately somewhat common for Welsh words. 2A00:23C7:7C04:2601:6029:60FF:FE7D:FAB6 23:35, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I guess not, as Welsh chw- apparently is derived from Proto-Celtic s(w)- and Old English cw- from Proto-Germanic k(w)-. The phonetics don't match up. It might possibly be a borrowing in some direction, but I am inclined to believe it is just a coincidence. Wakuran (talk) 23:55, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Etymologies by User:Minhandsomely

User barely speaks English, is highly creative with etymologies, and seems to mix up Nôm spellings with etymologies. Maybe someone with better command of Chinese and/or etymologies can save some of these, but otherwise they should just be deleted. MuDavid 栘𩿠 (talk) 02:41, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

nhẩn nha

忍牙 → unhurried, leisurely

tha thẩn

赦蜃 → relaxed, with infinite wander

thầm

忱 → in a whispery, breathy, or hushed voice; in secret; secretly

toang hoang

洵荒 → unlocked and wide open

cục mịch

局冪 → dull-witted; stupid; clumsy; foolish

lận đận

吝憚 → beset with difficulties; unsuccessful; ill-starred

long đong

攏凍 → filled with hardship and misfortune

liệt

劣 or 裂 → paralyzed

There’s probably more. MuDavid 栘𩿠 (talk) 02:41, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

hống hách

吼嚇 → overbearing; domineering. MuDavid 栘𩿠 (talk) 03:03, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

ME gloren

Could Middle English gloren ("to shine, gleam, glow; glisten"; whence modern English glore, gloar (“to gaze, stare, shine, glow”)) be from Old English *glārian (further from Proto-West Germanic *glāʀōn) ? The word has counterparts in West Frisian gloarje, Dutch gloren, Low German gloren, Norwegian Nynorsk glora, Swedish glora but the Middle English seems to be the earliest attested, and I'm thinking may be the source of all the others. A few sources cite a rare Middle Dutch gloren, but I haven't been able to find it. Other sources say the word is older and hails from Proto-Germanic *gluz-, but the early evidence is wanting. Leasnam (talk) 04:54, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't see how it would be possible. Proto-West-Germanic *ā regularly became West Saxon *ǣ/Anglian *ē unless it was followed by a nasal, right?--Urszag (talk) 06:02, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

I can think of a few exceptions: Old English slāpan, a variant of slǣpan, which does show the change you mention; plus blāwan from Proto-West Germanic *blāan; sāwan from Proto-West Germanic *sāan; Old English crāwe from Proto-West Germanic *krāā; etc. Leasnam (talk) 06:21, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, I wasn't familiar with those. Ringe and Taylor 2014 says the lack of fronting before *w (unless followed by a high front vowel) is a regular exception (page 146), and that West Saxon *ǣ was probably regularly retracted to -ā- before a single consonant (other than a non-coronal obstruent) + back vowel (page 199-200). So a West Saxon *glārian seems possible after all, although I'm not sure how many such forms survived into Middle English.--Urszag (talk) 06:49, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

I dare to conjecture that Middle English glaren and gloren may actually be the same word... Leasnam (talk) 06:53, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

I created RC:Proto-West Germanic/glōrōn. --{{victar|talk}} 07:35, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

January 2025

inverno

Can a Vulgar Latin *hinbernum ~ *himbernum really yield these forms with /v/? Wouldn't, for example, the Italian outcome of such a form be *imberno rather than inverno? 92.73.31.113 03:46, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

The form belongs to a later period in which original intervocalic ‘b’ had long ago turned to a fricative.

The problem here is that you’ve tried to interpret *hinbernum through the (anachronistic) prism of Classical Latin sound-to-spelling correspondences. Nicodene (talk) 05:50, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Is there any evidence for a separate *hīnbernum form? I would have assumed that an assimilated *hīmbernum form would have gained ground fairly quickly. Wakuran (talk) 12:23, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

I imagine that the nasal simply remained dependent on the following fricative for its place of articulation.

For instance *[imβɛ́rnu] initially, then in places where [β] turned to [v], the [m] followed suit automatically (yielding [ɱ], which can be phonemically recategorized as /n/).

Traditional Latin spelling varies quite a bit in such cases. One author’s imbutus is another’s inbutus, though both probably said it with [m]. The ⟨n⟩ spelling is likely for morphological reasons (the prefix being in-, which generally does have [n]).

Nicodene (talk) 04:54, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

æne#Old English

@Leasnam Any ideas what is triggering i-umlaut in this word? — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 18:32, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Not sure, but it's a pattern seen in many terms related to ān (“one”): āniġ ~ ǣniġ; ānlīċ ~ ǣnlīċ; āninga ~ ǣninga; ānes ~ ǣnes; ānlīepe ~ ǣnlīepe; ānwintre ~ ǣnwintre; etc. Leasnam (talk) 18:49, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Probably the same sound change first seen in Proto-Norse ᛗᛁᚾᛁᚾᛟ (minino), also Old English Wēden. It seems like -an- had a tendency to become -in- in certain words in northern Germanic (Proto-Norse and English). This new vowel caused i-umlaut in OE but not in ON, which was more resistant (cf. Proto-Germanic *hugiz > Old Norse hugr, Old English hyge). So ǣne < *aininō < *ainanō. ᛙᛆᚱᛐᛁᚿᛌᛆᛌ ᛭ Proto-Norsing ᛭ Ask me anything 18:22, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

kecap#Sundanese

Is it possible that the Sundanese kecap ("word") might be related to Indonesian ucap ("to say")? Or maybe with kecap ("tongue smacking") via semantic difference? The latter seems a little far-fetched, though. Udaradingin (talk) 02:05, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

boo (marijuana)

Could the plant be named after the boojum, which was thus named by Godfrey Sykes in the early 20th century? One might see a superficial resemblance between the two plants, especially when "under the influence". And the Boojum is from Baja California, not far from stoner territory. 24.108.0.44 02:20, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Boojum tree? Would it have been widely known, even among stoners? Wakuran (talk) 03:07, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Oh yes, they would go rambling in their VW campers or dirt bikes. Don't you remember w:The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers? 24.108.0.44 03:32, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

ghingheri

^{ghingheri in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana} says it is just onomatopoeical.

^{Pianigiani, Ottorino (1907) “ghinghero”, in Vocabolario etimologico della lingua italiana (in Italian), Rome: Albrighi & Segati} has a more convoluted origin.

As far as I understand (it uses terms that aren't very clear to me):

• guindolo (“winder of silk”) => ghindolo in Tuscan dialect
• it corrupted standard Italian agghindare (“to dress up”) into agghingare in Tuscan dialect.
• A ghinghero is like a nice/fine piece of clothing, from agghingare.
• in ghingheri also used in Italian means "in fine clothes"

Emanuele6 (talk) 01:33, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

eshk

Etymology 1 does not have a source and *aisk- definitely doesn't look right. -saph (user—talk—contribs) 18:30, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Derksen gives Proto-Indo-European *h₂eydʰ- for Lithuanian aiškus, though without mentioning Albanian. Exarchus (talk) 21:51, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

This looks much like ultimately derived from Arabic عِشْق (ʕišq). The Turkish form that should have mediated the borrowing is irregular (aşk), but then I don't know much about what happened in detail to borrowings from Turkish into Albanian. –Austronesier (talk) 19:02, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Glaringly. The Albanian word is another demonstration of the Ottoman Turkish vowel, which varied in this word: there are lots of transcriptions eşk for Ottoman of all eras on Google Books. Nişanyan’s claim that it was ışk until the 18th century is too undifferentiated; this spelling seems least likely and possibly artificial since it in living speech it would conflict with native Turkish ışık ‘light’, though confusion or contamination is also possible.

Etymology 2 also got removed by me, it is obviously a Slavic borrowing, and anyway is an alternative form of another entry where we have both the Slavic and the less likely native etymology in this order. Fay Freak (talk) 13:24, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

cassumunar

Ety guessed as Hindi. What's their word for the plant? Also, would b interesting to see the other local names for it, and see if any resemble 90.174.3.200 19:04, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

If I had to guess, I would say it's from some Dravidian language's name for wild turmeric, such as Tamil கஸ்தூரிமஞ்சள் (kastūrimañcaḷ), or Malayalam കസ്തൂരിമഞ്ഞൾ (kastūrimaññaḷ)(in the derived terms at Malayalam മഞ്ഞൾ (maññaḷ)- see also കസ്തൂരിമഞ്ഞൾ on the Malayalam Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^ml

Trying to reach a consensus on a specific use of -ate (verbal suffix)

See user talk:J3133 § on -ate. I have remade quite entirely the -ate page and categorized most of the lemmas that are part of it over the past few months and realize now how I should have brought up this talk earlier. This concerns the suffixation (here according to my views; otherwise the borrowing...) of Latin verbs with the verbal suffix -ate. Among other uses (if not uses, appearances) of it are through: inheritance through Middle English; anglicizing of Romance verbs; suffixation of a non-Latin verbal stem (in other words: in any other circumstance involving suffixation); back-formation; etc. . The gist of it is, whether we ought to analyze, as many other dictionaries do, verbs such as masturbate (the fortuitous verb which made me raise the point to @J3133) as directly borrowed from Latin perfect passive participles (masturbātus → masturbate) or as derivatives from the verbal root or "participial stems" (see the above talk for more) (masturb(or) + -ate → masturbate). I have followed the latter in my hundreds of edits and I will change the ones concerned according to consensus if needed. My explanation is to be read at the dicussion linked above, it might be a little convoluted, I can always try rewriting it. Saumache (talk) 12:25, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

I realized that what I have said is flawed, especially through the authority of other verbs such as protect (1435) or applause which are early English borrowings, and borrowed directly from Latin participal stem, that in masturbate -ate is here not a suffix but reanalyzable as one. I guess the term "borrowing" just sounds off to me in this case, since we borrow a participle/adjective as a verb. I do maintain that the phrasings

• from masturbatus + -ate
• from masturbat- + -ate

are wrong and misleading. I would prefer such phrasing for any verb (even protect/applause) taken from Latin perfect passive participle: "derived/borrowed from Latin... (masturbātus/masturbāt-, the second as in the OED, accouting for the loss of inflectional endings), perfect passive participle of... (see { {af/m|en|-ate|id1=verb|pos1=verb-forming suffix}} for more/on how verbs have been derived from Latin participles)". Which is actually a phrasing I have used... (irradiate, create,...). And maybe accordingly, making the Etymology section at -ate (verb) more general or adding it to a "further etymology" section would be nice (I know the page may look a little scrappy). Thus, (still according to my volage self) verbs like masturbate are borrowings but can be reanalyzed as having been suffixed (contrary to protect and applause), hence the categorization.

Some specific verbs derived from Latin verbs are still to be analyzed as: root + -ate. e.g. ambiate since the Latin verb which it is derived from is of the 4th conjugation and by borrowing would give English ambit. The case is true for any non first conjugation Latin verb-derived English verb showing final -ate (except collate and other suppletives for obvious reasons). Such a case may even make me think the all thing over again, but I guess it simply is a matter of when lived and who was the word-coiner. Bref, I should stop trying to make language a perfect generative formula. Saumache (talk) 16:14, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

@Saumache: yikes, could you please summarize this? Thanks. (Pinging @J3133 for information.) — Sgconlaw (talk) 23:14, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

I'll try my best...

I was arguing against the wording of most dictionaries concerning the etymology of verbs in -ate derived from Latin 1st conjugation verb through their perfect passive participle which began at the end of the 16th century (e.g., cultivate (1588, Latin cultivo, cultivare, cultivavi, cultivatus), illuminate, and so on).

Dictionaries use something like: "borrowed from cultivatus, perfect passive participle of cultivo (see/compare -ate (verb-forming suffix))". My explanation is long and hard to sum up but the idea is that I thought (I have changed my mind) it more as: "derived from cultiv(o) + -ate (verb-forming suffix)".

I realized the duality where early "borrowings" from Latin participles of the 16-17th century may as well be analized as such in following earlier Middle English verbs such as desolate (enm desolaten) or create (enm createn) or modernly as suffixed with -ate as I held it to be.

My explanation served essencially to assert -ate as a full-fledged suffix when verbs such as cultivate, which do not originate from or are contemporaenous with an heteronymous adjective/past participle (see generate, communicate), started to be used.

In conclusion, these verbs (cultivate, illuminate, ...) paved the way for the Modern English suffix -ate and are reanalyzable as using it but are indeed borrowings (and so are reanalyzable create, desolate, ... though not of the same kind).

This being said (please, may it be clear), later verbs such as deflate (late 19th century) are maybe to be analyzed as: "From Latin deflo + -ate" instead of "Borrowed from Latin deflatus". Since, at this stage, -ate was already a full-fledged suffix. Same thing for horrors like ambiate which, if following protect or delete should have yielded English ambit (because Latin ambio, ambire, ambivi, ambitus).

Whence my proposition of wording: "Borrowed from cultivātus, perfect passive participle of cultivō (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) for more)". Another plea of mine is to stop using the following: "From Latin reverberatus + -ate" (or "reverberat- + -ate"). I should not have to explain the latter...

Thus, I have a lot of pages to edit back (if consensus is made; and in changing my mind I basically endorsed J3133's wording), but not that much since my dum self followed the new pattern I am about to follow on several past pages... Saumache (talk) 13:13, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Just realized it is not even close to being summarized... Saumache (talk) 17:38, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Ehm, no. English deflate (verb) is from Latin *dēflāre, English cultivate (verb) is from theoretical Latin *cultīvāre (it was later borrowed from European languages, originally Old French coutiver, not Roman, its ancestors unattested), be it from actual Medieval Latin cultīvāre or not.

There is no point in using the first person singular present citation form outside the Latin header, the necessary form is indirectly mentioned with presupposed grammar knowledge at the reader’s side, which also (hopefully) encompasses that the studied languages assimilates vocabularies of certain borrowing sources with recurring regularity, the source languages possibly requiring distinct citation forms and their internal morphology carried forward in the lexical descendant language.

Who said rules of one language aren’t valid in the other for but the foreign words of the first? → Talk:inlapidate. Ultimately it is also a signal-to-noise ratio readability question, as seen in the well-covered Romance languages inheriting terms from Latin.

Example: مُلُوخِيَّة (mulūḵiyya) was from Ancient Greek μολόχιον (molókhion, “mallow”) (its plural), I wrote, and I did not even link the citation form of the form in question. Fay Freak (talk) 16:28, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

we

Geordie use of "we" to mean "us" is presently in its own separate ety section (though "West Country, archaic" use meaning "us" is in the main section), but with no actual etymological information. Is it really the case that the Geordie usage has a different etymology from the regular "we"? It seems far-fetched to me. Mihia (talk) 21:25, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Semantic suppletion?

What is it called when an old word is inherited from an ancestor as usual, but its meaning is supplanted by another word that is spelt the same from a different language? Is it still just a semantic loan? E.g. Pannonian Rusyn завод (zavod, “institute”), from Old Slovak závod (“competition”), but supplanted semantically by Serbo-Croatian завод / zavod (“institute”). To be clear, the Serbo-Croatian word and the Old Slovak words are cognates, since Serbo-Croatian (apparently) borrowed it from Czech. But the Serbo-Croatian term has grown to have an entirely different meaning, and it's this meaning that has entered modern Pannonian Rusyn. So would we still say that the Pannonian Rusyn term is a semantic loan from Serbo-Croatian? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 20:00, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

@Insaneguy1083: Yes, a privative semantic loan instead of a cumulative semantic loan. Taking over the terminology from assumption of debt here. For certainly loans are used to redeem other loans, including those owed to one’s parents? We are just a bank that manages humanity’s word-stocks. Fay Freak (talk) 13:33, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

You see this a lot in modern Greek, where words are inherited from Ancient Greek but may have modern meanings that are semantic loans from modern languages. For example δίοδος (díodos) has the inherited meaning "passage, way through" as well as the modern meaning "diode", which is a semantic loan of the English word (the modern sense having been coined in English by William Henry Eccles in 1919). —Mahāgaja · talk 17:57, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

kadaiwa

RFV of the etymology.

The author seems to just be throwing words around now. How did Taíno manage to have a loanword from Old Tupi? The ones in North Brazil are more plausible if we consider the “Tupí” mentioned is Língua geral amazônica, but I suspect they are actually from Nheengatu. Trooper57 (talk) 21:56, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

風 / 风

Please clean up the glyph origin of 風. There are 2 conflicting origins being presented. Duchuyfootball (talk) 00:51, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Schlei (river)

w:Schleswig is named after the w:Schlei, which originally denoted the inmost part of the inlet. We are told that this is from Danish slæ (water plants), but I have checked Dansk Ordbog and can find no evidence of it. More likely it comes from Danish sløv, Old Danish sliø, sluggish, torpid. Can anyone find any evidence of slæ meaning water plants? 24.108.0.44 20:21, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

It might be archaic, obsolete or dialectal by now. I believe Dansk Ordbog only lists current or literary vocabulary. I found an old dictionary listing slæe (note the spelling) meaning algae or seaweed, though. [17] Wakuran (talk) 00:00, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Great stuff! Will you create an article slæe, or shall I? 24.108.0.44 06:46, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

You can do it. Go ahead! Wakuran (talk) 13:48, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

As I interpret the dictionary, slæe gendered common means "algae" and slæe gendered neuter means "seaweed". Probably still variants of the same word, though, akin to Spanish having "barca" for a smaller boat, and "barco" for a bigger boat. Wakuran (talk) 16:48, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

slæe is up, please feel free to make changes you feel desirable. 24.108.0.44 21:09, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Featherstonehaugh

I thought we had a discussion for this already but I dont see it. I read somewhere that it may be that a member of the Featherstonehaugh family, whose name was quite a mouthful, married a member of the Fanshaw family at some point, and the married couple took the spelling of one name and the pronunciation of the other. It assumes that by this point the pronunciation of Featherstonehaugh was already quite slurred but still at least three syllables and without an /ʃ/. Since after all Fanshaw is a name in its own right, not just a simplied form of Featherstonehaugh. I think I may have read this on Quora but right now I cant find that either. Does that sound familiar to anyone? —Soap— 21:40, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Poor answers being deleted by responsible admins on Q&A sites definitely sounds familiar. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 01:25, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

They weren’t poor answers and the admin didn’t delete them, the comments expressing this theory were made by Nick Nicholas and Keili Torborough in the thread entitled ‘How did the surname “Featherstonhaugh” get its completely unintuitive pronunciation?’ which Quora won’t let me link to here. Apparently Longman’s Pronunciation Dictionary lists 4 pronunciations: Featherstonhaw/Feestonhay/Festonhaw/Fanshaw while we have only ‘Fanshaw’ and ‘Feerstonhaw’ listed (so there are potentially 5 possible pronunciations, assuming neither we nor Longmans are mistaken). This article[18] is interesting too, apparently there are many more ways to say 'Marylebone' and 'Cirencester' than you might think and it's rare to hear people with the surname 'Featherstonehaugh' actually call themselves 'Fanshaw'. Overlordnat1 (talk) 08:43, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

hmm, thanks. that's probably what i read. i must have put the "let's get married, honey ♥♥♥♥!" part together in my head. I couldnt find that exact discussion last night either, but for now at least the links seem to work, and they do seem familiar: [19] [20]. i dont think marriage is likely. —Soap— 13:50, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Is Featherstonehaugh particularly unique in this regard? My impression is that there are a lot of unintuitive pronunciations for traditional and rural English place and personal names. Maybe a combination of rural English dialects and Celtic influence or something. Wakuran (talk) 14:11, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

-i (demonym sense)

Surely not all demonyms ending in -i originate in the Arabic nisba? Surely most of the Indo-Iranian-speaking demonyms in this style instead have Persian ـی or Hindi -ई (-ī) or some cognate thereof. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 03:02, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

It's indeed rather a conflation of suffixes, but both the Persian and Hindi suffix are somewhat conflated with Arabic nisba themselves. (And Hindi is conflated with the Persian suffix) Exarchus (talk) 14:21, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

@Exarchus: I have since modified the etymology accordingly. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 17:32, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Etymology of "dụm" in "dành dụm"

I guess the etymology of "dụm" in "dành dụm" (to save up) has somewhat relation to "đùm", meaning to cover, to wrap. Yang Deming (talk) 06:01, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Quite sure it doesn’t. It looks like a reduplicant, as Agamemenon proposed. MuDavid 栘𩿠 (talk) 01:27, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

питам

@Chernorizets @Kiril kovachev @IYI681

The entry for the Bulgarian imperfective verb питам defines the perfective form as попитам, is this correct?

• The references do not mention a perfective form.
• The entry for попитам defines попитвам as the imperfective, not питам.

SimonWikt (talk) 15:28, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

You also asked this question last November in the Tea room. If you can't get an answer there, you are less likely to find an authoritative answer here.

Is it conceivable that two Bulgarian imperfective verbs, like in this case питам (pitam) and попитвам (popitvam), share the perfective? Този потребител не разбира българския език, but in Ancient Greek identical forms deriving from different verbs are uncomfortably common. Here, at least, the meaning is the same.  --Lambiam 00:23, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

@Lambiam My mistake, did not mean to post it here.

SimonWikt (talk) 01:08, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

@SimonWikt In a way, I think you could say it's correct, because the по- prefix indicates the perfective aspect, so a perfective way of saying питам (pitam) is попитам (popitam). Unfortunately, I don't know much better than that — I don't know whether we should formally call попитам (popitam) a/the perfective for the purposes of Wiktionary.

This case is different from some other verbs, like отивам (otivam) and отида (otida), where the perfective counterpart has the same form as the imperfective, barring the final part: there's no *пита (*pita) or something like that, so I understand the difficulty you're having. That's probably why the references don't identify any real perfective form, because there isn't one that isn't just a derivative word with a different structure.

Sadly, while I'm sure there's an etymological reason for these differences, I don't actually know what that is in this case, so I'm not qualified to say :')

As for the second bullet point, I'd say that's correct as it is, i.e. попитвам should be considered the imperfective of попитам. In this light, it seems reasonable to not formally consider питам's perfective to be попитам, since we expect the perfective and imperfective forms to be symmetrical and also mean the same thing, but I'd argue the imperfective попитвам actually means something slightly different to питам - but I don't want to say what at risk of saying something incorrect :) by my intuition though, the по- suffix means something faintly like "to try to do", "to do a little bit", so "попитвам" may mean something less decisive than "питам"; like "I (try to) ask" vs "I ask". But that's to be taken entirely with a grain of salt.

In conclusion, I suppose in some way the article is currently right, but maybe I'm just getting a bit confused. Ultimately, it depends on what function the "perfective" label is meant to serve in the headword line, i.e. whether it should give a lexically similar and synonymous perfective word (probably not possible in this case), or just any perfective word with the closest possible meaning. The second one appears to be what that entry does right now. I think in a way that's fine, because there's no real other way to perfectively say питам, so that's helpful to readers to know how to say it!

Sorry for my rather inchoate points; I hope there was some shred of worth in there somewhere, though... :) Kiril kovachev (talk・contribs) 02:08, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

@SimonWikt there are cases in Bulgarian when two verbs are treated as belonging to the same aspect pair, even if prefixes are involved - a Bulgarian grammar I have gives as examples правя-направя, чета-прочета, деля-разделя and бележа-отбележа. The criterion there is that the verbs are close enough in meaning that the real practical difference between them is the aspect.

As for питам-попитам, I could go either way, but if I were writing that entry from scratch, I probably wouldn't list попитам as the perfective counterpart. For example, "I want to ask him something" is commonly rendered as "искам нещо да го питам", which uses the imperfective verb with a "perfective meaning". It would also be correct to say "искам нещо да го попитам", but it's not grammatically required. Compare that to "I want to read the book", where you have to use "прочета", otherwise the meaning changes - "искам да прочета книгата". Chernorizets (talk) 07:53, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

@Kiril kovachev, @Chernorizets Thank you both for your replies. Would it make sense in this instance to remove попитам from the headword definition and put a comment in a Usage Notes section?

Thanks, SimonWikt (talk) 08:03, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Ὀδησσός ~ ὁδός

Ὀδησσός was the name of two Greek colonies on the Black Sea, Odessa is probably named after one of them. ὁδός (hodós, “threshold”) seems like a good etymology, since the colonies were a doorway to the country beyond. We are told that w:Μάρπησσα derives from μάρπτω, so the grammatical pattern is established. Thoughts? 24.108.0.44 01:34, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

The difference in breathings makes the connection IMO unlikely.  --Lambiam 11:46, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

The fact that both settlements are outside the area where Greek was an indigenous language makes me suspect a non-Greek origin. It probably comes from some pre-Indo-European language once spoken on the western shore of the Black Sea. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:08, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Nebela

Nebela is an amoeba, type genus of the family Nebelidae. I have not been able to read the paper by Leidy, Joseph. 1874. Notice on some Rhizopods. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 26: 155-157, to know its etymology. Gerardgiraud (talk) 08:16, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Obviously from German Nebel (“fog”), referring to its apperarance. 24.108.0.44 02:33, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I find it rather unlikely that an American paleontologist would pick a German word seemingly at random instead of choosing a Greek or Latin. Nebel is an actual German surname, however, although I couldn't find any obvious inspiration when checking out German Wikipedia. Wakuran (talk) 02:50, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

@Gerardgiraud: the referenced paper doesn't say, but on page 145 of Fresh-water rhizopods of North America, Leady gives the etymology under the name of the genus: "Greek, nebel, a bottle". The usual dictionaries don't have any such word, but there are at least a couple of occurences in the Septuagint Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures of the phrase "καὶ νεβελ οἴνου (kaì nebel oínou)" that the King James Version translates as "and a bottle of wine". This is used to render the original Hebrew phrase "וְנֵבֶל יַ֔יִן (w'nebel yayin)" (though we don't have that sense at נבל). I guess the dictionaries view "νεβελ" as transliterated Hebrew, not Ancient Greek. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:19, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

The fact that νεβελ has no written accent is a good indicator that it was not considered a Greek word, not even a loanword into Greek. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:00, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Did the Septuagint originally contain accents, or were they added later? If they were added later, their absence could mean that later scribes were unfamilar with the word and did not know how to pronounce it. BTW, the NKJV has "a skin of wine".^[21]  --Lambiam 10:56, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Surely someone can find a Hebrew dictionary with this word in it? Its existence seems dubious at best. 24.108.0.44 02:46, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

I did come across נָפַח (nafákh, nāp̄aḥ, “to blow”), which might refer to the manufacture. 24.108.0.44 02:55, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Its existence isn't in question. From the Biblia Hebraica Stutgartensis module and the LXX Rahlfs module on my computer:

1. I Samuel 1:24:

   ‏וַתַּעֲלֵ֨הוּ עִמָּ֜הּ כַּאֲשֶׁ֣ר גְּמָלַ֗תּוּ בְּפָרִ֤ים שְׁלֹשָׁה֙ וְאֵיפָ֨ה אַחַ֥ת קֶ֙מַח֙ וְנֵ֣בֶל יַ֔יִן

   καὶ ἀνέβη μετ̓ αὐτοῦ εἰς Σηλωμ ἐν μόσχῳ τριετίζοντι καὶ ἄρτοις καὶ οιφι σεμιδάλεως καὶ νεβελ οἴνου καὶ εἰσῆλθεν εἰς οἶκον κυρίου ἐν Σηλωμ

2. I Samuel 10:3:

   ‏וְחָלַפְתָּ֨ מִשָּׁ֜ם וָהָ֗לְאָה וּבָ֙אתָ֙ עַד־אֵל֣וֹן תָּב֔וֹר וּמְצָא֤וּךָ שָּׁם֙ שְׁלֹשָׁ֣ה אֲנָשִׁ֔ים עֹלִ֥ים אֶל־הָאֱלֹהִ֖ים בֵּֽית־אֵ֑ל אֶחָ֞ד נֹשֵׂ֣א ׀ שְׁלֹשָׁ֣ה גְדָיִ֗ים וְאֶחָד֙ נֹשֵׂ֗א שְׁלֹ֙שֶׁת֙ כִּכְּר֣וֹת לֶ֔חֶם וְאֶחָ֥ד נֹשֵׂ֖א נֵֽבֶל־יָֽיִן׃

   καὶ ἀπελεύσει ἐκεῖθεν καὶ ἐπέκεινα ἥξεις ἕως τῆς δρυὸς Θαβωρ καὶ εὑρήσεις ἐκεῖ τρεῖς ἄνδρας ἀναβαίνοντας πρὸς τὸν θεὸν εἰς Βαιθηλ, ἕνα αἴροντα τρία αἰγίδια καὶ ἕνα αἴροντα τρία ἀγγεῖα ἄρτων καὶ ἕνα αἴροντα ἀσκὸν οἴνου·

3. I Samuel 25:18:

   וַתְּמַהֵ֣ר אֲבוֹגַיִל [אֲבִיגַ֡יִל] וַתִּקַּח֩ מָאתַ֨יִם לֶ֜חֶם וּשְׁנַ֣יִם נִבְלֵי־יַ֗יִן וְחָמֵ֨שׁ צֹ֤אן עֲשׂוּוֹת [עֲשׂוּיֹת֙] וְחָמֵ֤שׁ סְאִים֙ קָלִ֔י וּמֵאָ֥ה צִמֻּקִ֖ים וּמָאתַ֣יִם דְּבֵלִ֑ים וַתָּ֖שֶׂם עַל־הַחֲמֹרִֽים׃

   καὶ ἔσπευσεν Αβιγαια καὶ ἔλαβεν διακοσίους ἄρτους καὶ δύο ἀγγεῖα οἴνου καὶ πέντε πρόβατα πεποιημένα καὶ πέντε οιφι ἀλφίτου καὶ γομορ ἓν σταφίδος καὶ διακοσίας παλάθας καὶ ἔθετο ἐπὶ τοὺς ὄνους

4. II Samuel 16:1

   וְדָוִ֗ד עָבַ֤ר מְעַט֙ מֵֽהָרֹ֔אשׁ וְהִנֵּ֥ה צִיבָ֛א נַ֥עַר מְפִי־בֹ֖שֶׁת לִקְרָאת֑וֹ וְצֶ֨מֶד חֲמֹרִ֜ים חֲבֻשִׁ֗ים וַעֲלֵיהֶם֩ מָאתַ֨יִם לֶ֜חֶם וּמֵאָ֧ה צִמּוּקִ֛ים וּמֵ֥אָה קַ֖יִץ וְנֵ֥בֶל יָֽיִן

   καὶ Δαυιδ παρῆλθεν βραχύ τι ἀπὸ τῆς Ροως, καὶ ἰδοὺ Σιβα τὸ παιδάριον Μεμφιβοσθε εἰς ἀπαντὴν αὐτοῦ καὶ ζεῦγος ὄνων ἐπισεσαγμένων, καὶ ἐπ̓ αὐτοῖς διακόσιοι ἄρτοι καὶ ἑκατὸν σταφίδες καὶ ἑκατὸν φοίνικες καὶ νεβελ οἴνου.

5. Hosea 3:2:

   וָאֶכְּרֶ֣הָ לִּ֔י בַּחֲמִשָּׁ֥ה עָשָׂ֖ר כָּ֑סֶף וְחֹ֥מֶר שְׂעֹרִ֖ים וְ{לֵ֥תֶךְ שְׂעֹרִֽים}

   καὶ ἐμισθωσάμην ἐμαυτῷ πεντεκαίδεκα ἀργυρίου καὶ γομορ κριθῶν καὶ νεβελ οἴνου

The above shows the rather loose correspondence between the Hebrew and the Greek: all indications are that the Septuagint was translated from a different Hebrew text that no longer exists, and the translator(s) probably chose different words to translate the same or similar words in different parts of the Hebrew.

For instance, in the I Samuel 10:3 passage Hebrew נֵֽבֶל is translated with Ancient Greek ἀσκὸν (askòn), but in I Samuel 25:18 with Ancient Greek ἀγγεῖα (angeîa), and in Hosea 3:2, Ancient Greek νεβελ οἴνου (nebel oínou, “nebel of wine”) is used where the Hebrew has an unrelated phrase, Hebrew לֵ֥תֶךְ שְׂעֹרִֽים (“lethek of barley”). These are the kind of inconsistencies that biblical scholars have been studying and debating for centuries- but they would all agree that these words are definitely attested. Ancient Greek νεβελ (nebel) only occurs three times: one of those times not as a direct translation of anything and the others corresponding exactly to Hebrew נִבְלֵ. That suggests that the lost Hebrew text the Septuagint came from had Hebrew נִבְלֵ in the Hosea 3:2 passage and that both times the Greek was an attempt to render the Hebrew. Hebrew נִבְלֵ actually occurs 10 times and is translated various ways in the Greek, but I don't think it would be worth the space to include all of them. Suffice it to say that both the Hebrew and the Greek (Koine, to be precise) are attested. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:25, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Good sleuthing work! What do you think of my suggestion re: נָפַח? 24.108.0.44 05:51, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

admortization

RFV of the etymology: "From Latin admortizatio." z in Latin? - saph ^_^^⠀talk⠀ 13:59, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

The z itself isn't that weird, and even a verb admortizo wouldn't be especially remarkable (see Category:Latin terms suffixed with -izo), but I'm not sure how often Latin verbs in -izo form nouns in -izatio. The only three we have entries for are baptizatio, evangelizatio, and globalizatio. The first of those is in Ambrose (Late Latin) but seems to be extremely rare compared to baptisma. The third is obviously Modern Latin. The second has no quotations or references. At any rate admortization, like amortization, probably got its -ation added in English or possibly French rather than in Latin. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:55, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Latin didn’t cease to be used in Classical times. Nicodene (talk) 12:32, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm not denying that, I just didn't know Latin ever had z at this stage. Removed the RFV. - saph ^_^^⠀talk⠀ 13:40, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

odpocząć: od + począć or od + poczywać?

odpocząć#Etymology mentions od + począć (to begin), which seems more contrived than od + poczywać (to rest, precisely what odpocząć means). Is the etymology entry really correct? Uukgoblin (talk) 14:14, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

No. Updated. Vininn126 (talk) 14:17, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Doesn't the form need further explanation though? PUC – 19:18, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Which form? Vininn126 (talk) 19:20, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

odpocząć from *počiti PUC – 20:15, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps you are right - this is based on what WSJP has. I can try to look into other sources later. Vininn126 (talk) 20:33, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I believe that it doesn't directly go back as far as Proto-Slavic, as it's actually part of the earliest attested written usage of Old Polish. The Old Polish form surely does come from Proto-Slavic, however. Although I'm fascinated by Proto-language etymologies, I feel far too incompetent to edit them. Uukgoblin (talk) 22:52, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes, odpoczywać it is an Old Polish term. However, each morpheme is important in derivation. Our coverage of Old Polish is not complete yet. Intend to add a lot of Old Polish in the near future, as @Benwing2 and I were working on an import of data. Vininn126 (talk) 22:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Sorry for the late response and my apologies that this import has fallen down the priority list ... so many things to do ... Benwing2 (talk) 22:24, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

scutter

Ó Dónaill's Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla (Irish English Dictionary, 1977) includes this entry for "sciodar"

sciodar, m. (gs. -air). 1. (a) Broken sour milk, dregs. (b) Thin porridge. (c) Weak tea. 2. ~ (buinní), scour, diarrhoea. 3. F: (Of person) Scuttler; contemptible, worthless, person. https://www.teanglann.ie/ga/fgb/sciodar

Dinneen's 1904 Foclóir Gaeḋhilge agus Béarla has a similar entry, with "purge" being a euphemism for diarrhoea Sciodar, m., purge; milk sour and broken. https://archive.org/details/b2486285x/page/608/mode/2up 108.52.189.28 23:16, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I've updated the entry by splitting the etymologies. Leasnam (talk) 04:27, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

On bazuca being a doublet of buzina in Portuguese

I get that the first word comes from English bazooka, which comes bazoo, from Dutch bazuin, from Latin būcina, from which Portuguese buzina is derived. But doesn't the -ka at the English word indicate a kind of suffix or excrescent syllable? If so, would it still be considered a doublet, since it's not a form of Latin būcina directly, as buzina is? I think they're just related rather than doublets. (I'm a bit confused). OweOwnAwe (talk) 00:32, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I think doublets just have to share a similar root, originally. They could be derived in very different way. -ka is not a regular suffix in English, and might just be a fanciful innovation. Bazooka might be a blend of bassoon or bazoo and hookah (inspired by its shape), for all I know. Wakuran (talk) 02:42, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

My understanding is that Wiktionary and Wikipedia’s usage of doublet and cognate is more specific, and require that the words derive from an exact same origin word with no unrelated morphemes — for example, our glossary entry for doublet specifies that terms sharing PIE roots do not qualify. Also look at the definition for cognate, if considering doublets as a special case of it. Polomo47 (talk) 05:40, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

There is a strict sense and broader senses. Morphemes may be also by clipped away (as is assumed to have happened with the /n/) or bear, if added, little meaning, consider interfixes, and diminutive affixes in general. It might be disproportionate to hold to the strict definition of doublets then, such that identity of words justifying the notion of duplication is well defensible. Fay Freak (talk) 11:37, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

The definition of doublet at Wikipedia is inaccurate, as I pointed out a while ago. Exarchus (talk) 17:15, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Somewhere on my to-do list was to go through all Bengali doublets, where the standards for assigning them as such are often way too loose. A random example: ছা (cha), ছানা (chana) and ছাওয়াল (chaōẇal) are given as doublets because they all came Prakrit 𑀙𑀸𑀯 (chāva), with different (or no) suffixes added. Those should simply be given as related terms, right? An even better example are the doublets given at ঝাল (jhal) [which has been cleaned up by now, turns out none of the 7 'doublets' are even related].

The original question about bazuca/buzina is probably debatable, as -ka is not a regular English suffix. Exarchus (talk) 18:02, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Oh, I wasn't aware. But what you pointed out appears to align exactly with my impression (which I did also get from reading the article? maybe it's just the examples that are wrong?) Polomo47 (talk) 06:39, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Macedonian вожд

Displaced inherited Old East Slavic? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 15:44, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Probably a mindless copypaste from the Russian entry. Removed. PUC – 14:35, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/dʰwer-

What's the point of having this 'root' entry when there is the root noun *dʰwṓr? Why not simply move all the derived terms at *dʰwer- to *dʰwṓr? Exarchus (talk) 15:49, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

well, i notice some of the descendant terms on *dʰwṓr are derived from the root, not from the fully formed stem. is this normal? if anything i'd wonder if we should move some of the *dʰwṓr descendants to dʰwer-. but i think we need to keep both pages because the ones without underlying -s arent derived from a form with -s. —Soap— 17:59, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

For some languages, such as Latin, the nominative singular is simply used as the citation form of a noun, without any implication that terms noted to be derived from e.g. urbs are supposed to be derived from that specific form of the noun. Other languages, such as Sanskrit, use the stem as the citation form of the noun. Wiktionary:About Proto-Indo-European says to lemmatize PIE nouns at the nominative singular, but I see no guidance there about when it is or isn't appropriate to reconstruct both a root and a noun entry.--Urszag (talk) 18:06, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Which descendants at *dʰwṓr do you mean actually? Some are from the weak stem *dʰur-. At least {{R:ine:NIL|page=130ff.}} doesn't reconstruct *dʰwer- for anything. Exarchus (talk) 18:49, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Neapolitan word for pizza

it is pizz' a word for Neapolitan pizza and uccello for 'cat' ,tavola for plank and then casa as in house. is this true Knites (talk) 13:39, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Uccello should mean 'bird'. Otherwise, I have trouble understanding your question. Wakuran (talk) 15:25, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Apulia

The Latin lemma says it possibly comes from PIE for water, but i can't find that claim in the source cited. The Portuguese lemma Apúlia says it comes from Ancient Greek Ἰαπυγία. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Apuli seems to indicate that this regional name is just from an Ancient Greek transcription of the name of the people of that region. --Espoo (talk) 20:57, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

It seems reasonable that Apulia and Ἰαπυγία are from the same source, though possibly with different suffixes. And Proto-Indo-European *h₂ep- (“water”) is a reasonable source. 24.108.0.44 17:56, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

It's not particularly likely that Ἰᾱπυγίᾱ (Iāpugíā) comes from *h₂ep-, though, partly because of the initial ι and partly because of the first long ᾱ. —Mahāgaja · talk 18:00, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Persian زغال and other Iranian terms at Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/ǵwelH-

Rfv for etymology as the phonetical development seems completely fantastical. I'm not sure the mentioned Avestan term 𐬯𐬐𐬀𐬭 (skar, “charcoal”) actually exists. Persian etymology added by @Word dewd544 in 2016. Exarchus (talk) 23:30, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

@Exarchus: It is already cited, Nourai 2011. Doesn’t mean we need to believe it, I encourage other etymologization. Fay Freak (talk) 13:58, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

OK, but isn't that a completely amateurish source? It basically seems to suggest that *ǵwelH- is an adaptation of *dʰegʷʰ-.

I'm afraid all this stuff will need to be scrutinised. Exarchus (talk) 14:30, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

The etymology for at least some of the forms is discussed at {{R:bal:Korn|page=124}} with further references, if anyone wants to dive. Yes, Nourai is amateurish, should not have been used on Wiktionary so much. Vahag (talk) 15:47, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Proto-Semitic *napaḫ- ~ Naphtha

Did you notice my interest in נָפַח (nafákh, nāp̄aḥ, “to blow”)? This is because I am interested in the etymology of naphtha. I have consulted the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary to trace it back to 𒉌𒆳𒊏 (/⁠napṭu⁠/, “petroleum”) , from the verb 𒈾𒁀𒂅 (na-ba-ṭu /⁠napâṭu, nabâṭu⁠/, “to be(come) bright, to shine; to flare up, to blaze”), and now I find that נָפַח derives from Proto-Semitic *napaḫ-. Might not this be the origin? The semantics would be blow>blow up>blaze>naphtha. It seems to fit. 24.108.0.44 03:27, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Persian سپار (“plough”)

Rfv for etymology. Added at English spade by @Ariamihr in 2017. Exarchus (talk) 11:45, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

@Exarchus: I have removed it and added references. There is lots of material for a Proto-Iranian and Proto-Indo-Aryan reconstruction, before which no Indo-European relation needs to be made. Fay Freak (talk) 14:29, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

miss

• (card games) In the game of three-card loo, an extra hand, dealt on the table, which may be substituted for the hand dealt to a player.

This is under the "mistress" ety, which at first I thought was "obviously wrong", since in fact it meant that you "miss" or "skip" your own hand and take the substitute hand. Now I feel less sure. I haven't been able find any info about this. Sometimes it is capitalised. Any ideas? Mihia (talk) 13:27, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

I mean, it's blatantly sexist terminology, in that case, but the idea of having an "extra missus" on the side doesn't sound like blatantly improbable reasoning by me. But it might need proper sourcing, anyway. Wakuran (talk) 18:43, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

The 1933 OED entertains both theories, miss = “lack” and miss = “mistress”.^[22] A synonym for the sense of “extra hand in card games” is widow,^[23] which fits with the sexist theory. But this dictionary also writes, (Perh. a different word) [than miss = “mistress”].  --Lambiam 20:03, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Actually, the "widow" thing has given me another idea. I wouldn't call this "sexist" -- I think of it as referring to the "widow" being bereft, like the hand of cards is initially "bereft", or "solitary", without someone to play it. Similarly, the "Miss" hand could be thought of as "unpartnered" ("unmarried"). Mihia (talk) 21:30, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Also, since, according to Wikipedia, the game came to England from France, or possibly Holland or Germany, it would be useful to know what the "miss" is/was called in these other countries. Unfortunately, the rules of "Mouche", which Wikipedia says was the original French game, do not mention this spare hand at all, as far as I can see. Mihia (talk) 10:42, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

please, learn yourself some French. mis is past tense of mettre, basically "dealt". The conjugation mostly goes back to Latin mitto and may not be unexpected in Anglo-Norman-French. However, German Miete, from the same PIE root, apparently, is closer to the meaning of stack-raiding as defined in the game of w:Ombre. maître d' or maid further complicate the picture as far as diminution. mistress (compare maîtresse) may be secondary. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 22:38, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

φῆλος

Rfv for etymology added by new user @GatlingGunz. Exarchus (talk) 09:51, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Apparently this is mentioned at Proto-Slavic *zъlъ, but still without source (neither Vasmer or Derksen mention it). Exarchus (talk) 13:24, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Since you did not have the courtesy to ask me directly, I will, as a matter of principle, not reply. You are welcome to challenge me for sources, although I recommend you first look at my remark on Beekes and ask yourself how many of the cited authors you're familiar with. I can already answer that for myself given what is inferable about your command of the pertinent sources.

That is an observation extending not only to Beekes and Greek/Pre-Greek, but also Vedic, I'd wager, actually. You should also revisit Sanskrit kapola and consider that the important thing is that you, who clearly have never known what Mayrhofer/Witzel/Masica/Pinnow, or even Turner think, should refrain from contemptuously antagonizing, well, *anyone*, let alone me. I'll go so far as to bet that you've never even heard of at least one or two of the abovementioned scholars on Vedic (god forbid I do this with the commentary on Beekes).

I presently dislike you, and, more relevantly, consider, with ample, albeit indirect, justification you of limited competence. I recommend you fix that.

GatlingGunz (talk) 14:07, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I pinged you in the above message and assumed that would be courteous enough. Exarchus (talk) 14:46, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I would be willing to grant that, even noting that you could not have, without brazenly defying what is at minimum convention, posted here *without* tagging me, with the ping being incidental. That is, were it not for your "the idea is" comment on my comment on Beekes. I am not, unlike some of Wiktionary's editors (not necessarily referring to you), an implacably intransigent asshat. GatlingGunz (talk) 14:52, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

You have been making several edits that I think most would consider to be dubious (or wild speculation), like here (pre-proto-Germanic kʷ -> p ?) or here (Skt. 'diṣṭa' from PIE *deḱ-?). Or simply dropping Sanskrit terms somewhere without source or explanation why the currently given etymology is wrong. This simply does not give a good impression. Although some of your edits are interesting, like καστόριον maybe being a borrowing from Sanskrit (it would still be interesting to know the date of the first Pali and Ardhamagadhi Prakrit attestations). Exarchus (talk) 15:16, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

...you think pre-proto-Germanic kʷ -> p is "dubious" and "wild speculation"? You must be joking. Like, what the f***. I think virtually anyone competent would now ask you to self-revert and be silent. I cannot even pretend to care what impression you have; your errors are so basic that they astound. You really should self-revert and fundamentally consider that you may have zero idea what you're talking about.

GatlingGunz (talk) 15:29, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

OK, proto-Germanic kʷ -> p is not impossible, but it's irregular and something that needs to be explained, as at Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/fedwōr: "The consonant change was probably caused by the influence of the *p- in the word for "five", *pénkʷe." Exarchus (talk) 15:48, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Good grief. I cite three separate and extremely well-known lemmas exhibiting a sound change you described as "complete nonsense", and you not only fail to notice two of them, but continue to adopt a now obviously ridiculous posture of competence?

I should not have to teach you about one of the most notorious irregularities in pre-Proto-Germanic; I sure as hell am not going to tolerate you attempting to lecture me on things you literally just discovered, courtesy of me, let alone you trying to refer me to lemmas I just directed you to. We can add pre-proto-Germanic to Greek/pre-Greek and Vedic as IE topics you are demonstrably clueless about. You really need to at minimum adopt a posture of humility, as opposed to the condescension that has now blown up in your face in multiple places, some of which you yourself have noticed even without my compulsion, judging by your edits. GatlingGunz (talk) 15:54, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I still think your suggestion of *lībaną coming from *leykʷ- is "wild speculation" as Kroonen describes the change kʷ > p as "a sporadic change of PIE *kw to Pre-Gm. *p after resonants in words starting with a labial". If you can't find a reference for your suggestion, I don't think it should be kept. Exarchus (talk) 16:28, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Can you explain why I, or anyone else, should care what you think, at this point? GatlingGunz (talk) 16:29, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

You still haven't given a reference for comparing अर्ध (ardha) to Latin ordo.

I also would like to see a source for this (वृश्यति (vṛśyáti) from *wreyḱ- ?). Exarchus (talk) 16:07, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I actually can't even find Skt. 'vṛśyáti' Exarchus (talk) 16:10, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I do not feel the need to indulge you; you are both incompetent and obviously intransigently so. Any other established user is welcome to politely ask me for either sources or explanations. You, however, need to start by openly conceding you are out of your depth. Nobody is going to be confused on this point; you’re like a toddler who thinks *runned is the past tense of run, and presumes to demand sources otherwise. You might be accustomed to bullying people and surviving. I’m afraid I only tolerate competent bullies. GatlingGunz (talk) 16:11, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Another dubious suggestion of yours appears to be this: Proto-Indo-Iranian *yáćas as possibly from *déḱos?

And how do you want to derive Latin sciō from *keyt-? Exarchus (talk) 16:43, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I tire of repeating myself. Before I defend etymologies that aren’t even mine, and that any competent scholar would know, yet again, why should I, or anyone else, even bother to entertain a demonstrably and incorrigibly incompetent editor, who is undeterred by multiple incidents of inadertently curbstomping himself? GatlingGunz (talk) 16:48, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

This is a discussion forum, not an insult-and-belittle-anyone-who-dares-to-question-your-omniscience forum. Exarchus may be the poorest excuse for a scholar that ever crawled out of the slime, but you have yet to present any evidence that they're wrong on the original points they made. The {{rfv-etym}} template that links here says "Can this etymology be sourced?". That's what you should be answering. You may not be aware of basic Wiki etiquette, so I'm just warning you at this point- as Jack Webb used to say on TV: "just the facts". Chuck Entz (talk) 16:45, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I have presented evidence that said editor is wildly wrong/not in command of the scholarship s/he is preoccupied with in multiple contexts. Most recently, said editor has been compelled to discovered that kw -> p in pre-proto-Germanic is not “complete nonsense”, but a well-known, if unconditioned, shift, with ample scholarship on the matter. I am happy to entertain, and even conform, to your standards, so long as you rein him/her in, first. But, before that, you *will* examine my comments on Beekes, and/or my edits at Skt. kapola, among others, and revise your own belitting tone. My own authority, infallible or otherwise, is far from what is at stake, yet. GatlingGunz (talk) 16:51, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

But you haven't presented evidence that they're wrong on the matters at hand. That would be the easiest way to shut them up. If you can't do that, you shouldn't be here. Put up or shut up. Chuck Entz (talk) 17:08, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Ross, Rachel, stop fighting. I have added sources to φῆλος (phêlos). --Vahag (talk) 17:09, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

@Vahagn Petrosyan: Thank you! Now we can get somewhere. Chuck Entz (talk) 17:18, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, that's a source, I now belatedly see that Pokorny also gives it at p.490. But Chantraine and Frisk (and Beekes) don't mention Sanskrit ह्वृ (hvṛ) and are skeptical about the link with Latin fallō. The latter isn't linked to ह्वृ (hvṛ) by LIV nor De Vaan.

I think this (about एव (éva, “way, course”)) is another example of an outdated etymology given by user GatlingGunz without reference. The comparison with Latin aevum is still mentioned as a possibility by {{R:sa:Wackernagel|page=867|vol=II.2}} (as originally from Bartholomae 1920), but Mayrhofer and Lubotsky clearly prefer derivation from the root इ (i, “to go”). Exarchus (talk) 18:12, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

"Old norse" is not Old norse

Many pages of words in old swedish refer to old norse as the parent language (ex. kasta). This is not correct as "Old norse" on wiktionary is actually old west norse which is contemporary with old swedish. I feel as if something should be done about this. Timmypirater (talk) 20:15, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Old West Norse and Old East Norse are considered as dialects, but Old West Norse is better attested, I believe. Wakuran (talk) 22:40, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

@Mårtensås For visibility. Also, this is more an issue for Wiktionary:Language treatment requests. Vininn126 (talk) 09:45, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

This problem has been known about for a long time, and also applies for Old Danish and Old Gutnish, which are likewise listed as descendants of Old Norse. We currently group Scandinavian dialects during the period 700–1500 in the following way:

• All writing from Iceland, in Latin and Runic script, throughout the period is covered as Old Norse, sometimes specified as Old West Norse
• All writing from Norway, in Latin and Runic script, up until ~1325 is covered as Old Norse, sometimes specified as Old West Norse. After that it should fall under Middle Norwegian, but that header is almost unused.
• All writing from Sweden, Denmark, and Gotland (which had its own distinct dialect) up until ~1150 is covered as Old Norse, sometimes specified as Old East Norse.
• All Latin-script writing and all Runic inscriptions from after ~1150 from Sweden, Denmark, and Gotland fall under Old Swedish, Old Danish, and Old Gutnish, respectively.

Our unmarked Old Norse is based on Norwegian-Icelandic, as you have noticed. The orthography is conventional, and not very conservative. It does not even reflect the oldest preserved Icelandic sources, which for instance distinguish the vowels e : ę, á : ǫ́.

One solution might be to merge all medieval Scandinavian, which was essentially one language (and viewed as such by its native speakers), under "Old Norse". This is very difficult for several reasons:

• Lexicographically these varieties are treated in separate works. For instance the Dictionary of Old Norse Prose only deals with the language from Norway and Iceland, and there are likewise dictionaries for Old Swedish and Old Danish. Gutnish is typically grouped with Swedish, although that makes little sense linguistically.
• The normalised orthographies (to the extent that such even exist outside of Old Norwegian-Icelandic) diverge substantially. For instance, Old Swedish tælghia and Old Norse telgja reflect the same word with the same pronunciation, but the former is based on Swedish manuscripts, while the latter is based on a mix of Icelandic manuscript spelling (where we'd find telgia) and modern convention (the letter -j-, which did not exist during the period). In order to merge them under one header we'd have to give preference to one norm, certainly the Norwegian-Icelandic, and mark the other spellings as regional manuscript spellings. This is not entirely unreasonable but would require a ton of work.
• It becomes more difficult with dialectal differences. The case tælghia ~ telgja is fairly simple, but what about a word like Old Norse þjófr, Old Swedish þiuver? f and v here probably represent the same sound, a voiced bilabial or labiodental fricative, but in Sweden it was customary to write it with the letter u or v (normalized to v), while it was typically written f on Iceland. The difference between -iu- and -jó- (< Proto-Norse -eu-) is a proper dialectal difference. The vowel -e- in Old Swedish is an epenthetic vowel, probably a schwa, and its spelling varies depending on the preceding vowel. It is not found in all Old Swedish manuscripts (B 45, B 193 have word forms like takr), but it is in most. Now if we move in the direction of older manuscripts and the norm for Old Norse, we get the two word forms Old Norse þjófr and Old Swedish þiufr. They would still need separate entries, but we do get a level of consistency. Of course no existing Old Swedish dictionary would have þiufr as the lemma form, so we're in practice creating a new orthography only used on Wiktionary. I'm not opposed to that, but the usability is questionable.
• Dialectal differences are even more pronounced in the morphology, especially the conjugation of verbs. While all varieties have the same inflections, the endings might vary slightly. In the case of þjófr, þiufr this is not such a big problem since the Norwegian-Icelandic entry and the Swedish entry will have their own pages, but what about a word where the lemma form is the same for all varieties, like taka? In practice we'd need three conjugation templates on this page, which would become very unwieldy.

Another solution could be to populate "Old Norse" with "Old East Norse" forms and list these as ancestral to Swedish and Danish (but what about Gutnish?). This has already been done at very small scale but I am not very happy with the result. Again, since "Old East Norse" in theory only covers the stage of the language written with runes, any Latin script orthography that is not a direct transliteration of the runes (which is not preferable) must neccessarily be somewhat hypothetical. I prefer an orthography that approaches the Norwegian-Icelandic standard without compromising on distinctions that were demonstrably made in the language, but as you can glean from the above discussion that is huge work. Other questions arise here, like how we should handle terms that are not attested in runes. Do we mark these as reconstructed, even when the "Old East Norse" entry is clearly just a normalized spelling of a word preserved in Old Swedish or Danish? It seems absurd.

TLDR: It's a huge hassle and nobody has bothered to do it. ᛙᛆᚱᛐᛁᚿᛌᛆᛌ ᛭ Proto-Norsing ᛭ Ask me anything 02:26, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

carmen

Rfv for etymology. I had removed the suggestion of Latin carmen (“song”) being derived from Proto-Indo-European *ḱens- because this doesn't seem to be taken seriously anymore (not by De Vaan and not by Ernout/Meillet). I think the Latin a makes such a derivation (from the zero grade) difficult. Already Pokorny (p.525) gives carmen as from earlier *canmen. Exarchus (talk) 19:08, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Can anyone give good references discussing the question of rhotacism of -s- to -r- in Latin before a consonant (as opposed to between vowels)? I know there are several etymologies that depend on *-sw- > *-rw- (e.g. Minerva). But for the nasals, I'm not sure how many examples there are, and there seem to be counterexamples showing a lengthened vowel instead (although often the forms with a lengthened vowel go back to *-Csm-/-Csn- rather than *-Vsm-/-Vsn-). We attribute the -rn- in diurnus to rhotacism of -sn-, but De Vaan attributes it instead to analogy with nocturnus, which he suggests might come by syncope of *noctū-rino-. Cases with a long vowel + -m- or -n- include prīmus from *priismos, cōmis from *komsmis, cānus from *kasnos; possibly some formations in *-no- or *-na- such as verbēna, egēnus, bīnus, pulvīnus, prūna, aēnus.--Urszag (talk) 20:10, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

FWIW, for *-sw- > *-rw-, De Vaan refers to Rix 1981 (Rapporti onomastici fra il panteon etrusco e quello romano. In: Gli Etruschi e Roma). Sihler doesn't seem to mention some regular non-intervocalic rhotacism, he does give (p.213): "Unexpectedly, medial *-sg- > L -rg- in L mergo 'dip', mergus 'gull'". Exarchus (talk) 11:49, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/lībaną

I've now found a source that indeed derives this (or at least *bilībaną), from *leykʷ-, being Gernot Schmidt's "Studien zum germanischen Adverb" (1962), mentioned in Lehmann's Gothic Etymological Dictionary, p.69. So yes, I was too quick in dismissing this out of hand, but is this something that should be kept, or does no one take this seriously anymore? (at least not Ringe, Kroonen, Orel, LIV, Kluge or Mallory & Adams) Exarchus (talk) 20:24, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I guess Proto-Germanic *wulfaz also is a famous example of the sound shift. Wakuran (talk) 12:01, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

"Vor-urgerm. *-léi̯pe/o- setzt ein in anderen idg. Sprachen nicht bezeugtes vollstufiges themat. Präs. fort" ({{R:goh:EWA|bilîban}}, thematic full grade without cognates). Kroonen's argument about δάφνη asks for semantic stringency, "a maximally stringent approach is paramount to the study of non-inherented comparanda." (Sub-Indo-European 2004:12-13) This does not hold for IE as it seems when EWA argues completely different senses based on *leyp-, that should raise semantic concerns in the wods of Kroonen's. At lebara (“liver”) they still note Benveniste (cp. linquo) and Kluge²⁵ (cp. iecur) impossible phonologically. The conception of EWA is closer to Wiki's unlimited space compared to those single volume works, arguably in favor to keep. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 11:42, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

I took the liberty to add a link to *librō where the connection is made and have removed the RfE tag, after I did a little digging.

There is another problem where root extension of *(s)ley- in *leyp- and liver (and *lew- in *luftuz) is a theoretic assumption which does not have consensus because *-p and *-kw for that matter are unexplained. The 2016 conference papers in Historische Sprachforschung / Historical Linguistics vol. 131 (2018 [2021]) do not mention these but many similar forms, e.g. Katsiaryna Ackermann p. 106. Nikolai N. Kazanski p. 206f. For Tocharian B lip- (“remain”) Douglas Adams reconstructs *leyp- + *-r̥: Tocharian B l(y)ipär* nearly an isogloss. However, there is *lewH-: Tocharian B li-, “otherwise only seen in Skr. lī́yate ‘disappear, vanish’”. ({{R:txb:DTB|602-603}}) *lewh₃- is also mentioned in the conference papers and the laryngeal is often left undetermined. If one accepts Laryngeal metathesis of semivowels, e.g. Kocharov and Shatskov p. 221, it opens up too many possibilities.

By the way to correct my mistake: Kroonen and friends' "Sub-Indo-European" is of course published 2024. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 10:26, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

δέω ("to lack, need, require")

Rfv for linking this with Sanskrit दस् (das) (which is now taken to be a variant of जस् (jas) by LIV and Lubotsky). Exarchus (talk) 20:45, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Here's a very old source: Fick (1867). Doesn't mention the Greek variant δεύω. Exarchus (talk) 21:54, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Sanskrit दिष्ट (diṣṭá) from *deḱ-

I still think this etymology doesn't make sense, but here we go: rfv. The translation given by Lubotsky is actually "shown (direction)". Exarchus (talk) 21:07, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Sanskrit अर्ध (ardhá) from *h₂er-

Rfv for linking अर्ध (ardha) with Latin ordō. Exarchus (talk) 21:43, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Latin scio

Rfv for comparison of sciō with Sanskrit चि (ci, “to observe”) (which comes from *kʷey-) and चित् (cit) (which comes from either *kʷeyt-, *keyt-, or from both). Exarchus (talk) 21:49, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

tartan (etymology 2): Arabic word needed

For tartan (etymology 2; "a type of one-masted vessel with a lateen sail and a foresail, used in the Mediterranean"), can someone supply the Arabic word transcribed as tarīdah ("type of fast ship") referred to in the etymology? (The OED says there is insufficient evidence that it is the source of the English word.) — Sgconlaw (talk) 22:37, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

The Spanish Wiktionary gives, in their entry tarida, the etymon طريد. Uses of this word on the Arabic Wikipedia appear to mean “outcast”, “fugitive”. I can find no indication that it is also used to refer to a vessel.  --Lambiam 23:47, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Another source gives the form ﻁﺮﻳﺩﺓ, with a tāʾ marbūṭah, supported by quotations.^[24] It is said there to be, specifically, Egyptian Arabic. Pianigiani also states that the term is Egyptian Arabic.^[25] In standard Arabic it appears to mean “game (quarry)”.^[26]  --Lambiam 09:07, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

@Lambiam: thanks! Please update the etymology as you think best. — Sgconlaw (talk) 18:58, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Skt. अधि (ádhi) and स्मत् (smát) from *me

Rfv for deriving अधि (ádhi) and स्मत् (smát) from *me.
Regarding अधि (ádhi), Mayrhofer is fairly inconclusive.
About स्मत् (smát), KEWA mentions p.94 of this article (from 1943), linking स्मत् (smát) to both μετά (metá) and *sem-, through some s-mobile variation. Mayrhofer himself simply says it belongs to सम् (sám). Exarchus (talk) 10:45, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Skt. वृश्यति (vṛśyati) from PIE *wreyḱ-

Rfv. I was misled by Monier-Williams giving 'vṛśati' in thinking 'vṛśyáti' didn't even exist (although it's still only mentioned by Pāṇini) but Apte does give the correct class 4 verb. If someone has really proposed to derive a Skt. form without 'i' or 'e' from *wreyḱ-, I'm curious to know who. Exarchus (talk) 13:31, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Skt. इज्जल (ijjala) from PIE *h₂eyǵ- ("oak")

Rfv. I can well imagine there's a source for this, but Mayrhofer gives this as variant of निचुल (nicula) (also genus Barringtonia). Exarchus (talk) 13:52, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

λύθρον

Rfv for comparison with Sanskrit रुधिर (rúdhira, “blood, gore”). This was originally added by @Advocata. If the homonymy of "blood" and "red" in Sanskrit would be coincidental, that would be pretty remarkable. Exarchus (talk) 14:14, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

FWIW, the usual sources don't translate रुधिर as having the specific meaning "gore". The accent for the meaning "blood" is given by Monier-Williams as 'rúdhira', and also in KEWA, but more recent sources (EWA and Lubotsky) give 'rudhirá' also for this sense, indicating (AVP+), so apparently the relatively recently discovered Atharvaveda-Paippalāda indicates that the original accent (also for "blood") was 'rudhirá'. So the accent isn't an argument for connecting this to Greek λύθρον. Exarchus (talk) 15:52, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Here is an old (1884) source comparing λύθρον and रुधिर (rudhira). But it sees λύθρον as variant of