Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2016/July

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جمهورية

Etymology says coined as a translation of republic / res publica with the rise of Pan-Arabism during World War I, however this may be wrong. According to Nişanyan, Ottomans used to call the government style of Switzerland and the Netherlands جمهور (jumhūr), however as early as 1876, the term جمهوريت (jumhūriyyet, “republic”) appears in Ottoman dictionaries. I dont speak Arabic but according to Nişanyan this derivation is also irregular and fits the Neo Ottoman coinage style. The entry can be found in Nişanyan, Sevan (2002–) “cumhuriyet”, in Nişanyan Sözlük, however I believe you need a membership to read all the details. --Anylai (talk) 08:51, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

While we're at it, it's not clear to me when, how, and from which language Swahili jamhuri was borrowed, considering that this is after the influx of Arabic loanwords. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:23, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

I am not sure how Arabic loans were rendered in Swahili. Basically the Arabic ية (-iyya) is most of the time "-iyyet" in Ottoman Turkish. Plus as I said, originally in the 1800s, the word for this western government style was already called جمهور (jumhūr) in Ottoman. I don't know if the Arabic entry is lacking this sense or even had it in the past at all. First we must know if this derivation fits the rules in Arabic, plus if it was coined in WW1, Turkish form can not be borrowed from Arabic, it was coined a lot before than that in Ottoman. --Anylai (talk) 23:06, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Kopf

1. Kopf itself says it is probably from cuppa, and that in turn lists it as a descendant. And cup also claims Kopf as a cognate: or, rather, says 'compare' with a list. So these branches all refer it to PIE *kewp-.
2. Under cup, by the way, Kopf is glossed as "cup; bowl", a sense that's not mentioned under Kopf itself.
3. But cop also claims it as a cognate, and takes them back to Gmc *kuppaz, which of course should go back to a PIE beginning with */g/. That Gmc entry displays an impressive array of descendants, which might well trump the 'probably' in the first point. Could the Gmc have been late enough, and the Latin variant cuppa early enough, for this to be in fact a borrowing?

I realize that these have been confused for a good 2000 years, and are not easy to unravel now, and we have some merging, but is one side of this less plausible than the other in modern thinking? --Hiztegilari (talk) 15:19, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

German Kopf now means only "head". The sense "cup" still existed in early modern German, while the sense "head" is as old as the 13th century. (Both senses still coexist in Dutch kop.) -- The predominant opinion throughout the German and Dutch etymological standard literature is that all the relevant continental Germanic words are borrowed from Latin cuppa. None of these sources considers the Germanic words to be inherited from PIE, though some of the Dutch sources say that, alternatively, the Germanic and Latin words could be borrowings from the same unknown substrate language. So the point is simply that our Gmc *kuppaz (< PIE) is a very doubtful reconstruction that shouldn't be treated like a fact. (We do that all the time.) Kolmiel (talk) 14:32, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

If the word was indeed borrowed from Latin, it looks like the forms with o are older (early West Germanic or Late PGmc). The ones with u are more recent re-borrowings (probably in Mediaeval times with the spread of Christianity). Late Latin cuppa may have even been borrowed from a Germanic tongue then borrowed back into Latin (i.e. cūpa > Gmc/(Frk) *kuppa > Latin cuppa; alongside older Latin cūpa). Leasnam (talk) 15:41, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

The older Gmc words also deviate further from anything resembling a "tub": e.g. Old English and Dutch words meaning "spider". This makes it doubtful that it could have been a borrowing, since the semantic distance covered is too great for so short a time Leasnam (talk) 15:51, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

chantre, chanteur

I'm looking for a name to a new category that would gather pairs of French words such as: pâtre-pasteur; chantre-chanteur; moindre-mineur; on-homme. These are not really doublets, for which we already have a category. Rather, one word comes from the Latin nominative, while the other comes from the accusative. Any idea? --Fsojic (talk) 09:30, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

I'd say they are really doublets. Why wouldn't they be? They're just a very specific kind of doublet. Parallels in English are mead²/meadow and shade/shadow, which come from different cases of the same Old English word. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:33, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

gestio

French gestion and Spanish gestión have etymologies just mentioning Latin gestio. But we only have this as a verb, with no obvious relation of meaning; there would presumably have been an abstract noun gestio, gestionem as intermediate, at some stage of Latin. --Hiztegilari (talk) 15:24, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

 Added the noun. It's attested from the classical period. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:20, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

clubs (in cards)

Wondering if anyone had any insight as to why we call the suit in cards "clubs", when in fact it isn't a club at all...it's a clover. Is there some reason for this ? Is it a horrific corruption of clovers...just comparing the Dutch klaveren (“clubs”, literally “clovers”), Swedish klöver (“clubs”, literally “clover”) Leasnam (talk) 00:32, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

In earlier times, each language had its own name and symbol for the four suits. French trèfles (clovers, which is why our modern club suit looks like clovers), Italian bastoni (clubs, walking sticks), Spanish bastos (clubs, truncheons, with a drawing of a walking stick), German Eichel (acorn). In recent times, a single set of symbols (basically the French set) for the four suits has been adopted by all languages, even though the old name for the symbols has been maintained by each language (hence a clover called a club in English, or Eichel in German). —Stephen ^(Talk) 01:15, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Wow, ok. So in the past, in England the cards had images of literal clubs ("cudgels/bats/sticks") on them ? Leasnam (talk) 01:22, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

England used the Italian name (translated), but applied it to French cards. ref., eg., http://www.wopc.co.uk/uk/index2 --Catsidhe ^{(verba, facta)} 01:30, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

I see. Ok - Thank you, all ! Leasnam (talk) 01:31, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/arwaz

Old Norse descendant is ørr, the ø a result of u-mutation + i-mutation. *arwaz yields u-mutation only. What is the reason - levelling from the plural? --87.63.114.210 17:05, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

According to Kroonen's Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, the Nordic (and Finnish) forms are from a variant *arwiz-. KarikaSlayer (talk) 03:55, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

It's an *e-stem in Finnic though (*arpe-); these are probably more often from *a-stems etc. than from *i-stems. --Tropylium (talk) 17:00, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Is this suffix possible with neuter gender? --87.63.114.210 17:02, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Greek βούρτσα, Turkish fırça

The Turkish word is claimed to be from the Greek, which in turn is claimed to be from German Bürste. The former part is confirmed by Turkish wiktionary, the latter seems perfectly impossible to me. Now, isn't rather the Greek from the Turkish and it from Arabic فرشة [furša]? The Arabic word belongs to a fully developed root (whose original meaning may be “to spread”, but need not, since these meanings could be denominal from فرش [farš], carpet). Kolmiel (talk) 00:40, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

PS: Greek wiktionary also mentions a lot of strange things, considering Old High German, Italian, Turkish, and Albanian origin. Pretty much everything but Arabic. (I google-translated it.) Kolmiel (talk) 00:46, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

The Turkish etymological dictionaries unanimously derive fırça from Greek. The origin of the Greek itself is disputed. Your Arabic comparison seems interesting. Note also Persian فرچه (ferče), Armenian ֆըռչա (fəṙčʻa) (from Turkish). --Vahag (talk) 07:52, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

The Turkish word looks to me like a conflation of the Greek and Arabic words. If it's just from Greek, why isn't it *vırça? I think /v/ is a perfectly ordinary consonant in Turkish. And if it's just from Arabic, why isn't it *fırşa? Again, /ʃ/ is a perfectly ordinary consonant in Turkish. Instead it looks like speakers took advantage of the overall similarity of the two words, but got the /f/ from Arabic and the /tʃ/ from Greek /ts/. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:41, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

More cognates which may help determining the real source: Middle Armenian վրձին (vrjin), Bulgarian ву́рца (vúrca), Romanian vîrță, Albanian vurcë. --Vahag (talk) 10:01, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Okay. So it's a bit more complicated than I'd thought :) But German Bürste has nothing to do with this, right? Kolmiel (talk) 13:50, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

I have been looking at Nişanyan's dictionary and the oldest attestation is from 1501 فرچه (furça) and claims it is from Greek "vrútsa" which in turn is borrowed from Vulgar Latin "*bruscia" (see brosse). Maybe it would be good to know since when the Greek form is attested. Plus Greek entry shows the origin as Bürste. According to Nişanyan "*bruscia" is derived from Latin bruscus and it is also a borrowing from Celtic. But the French entry "brosse" says *bruscia is from Proto-Germanic. So everything is messed up. I have looked at the entries starting with /f/, there are indeed 3 or 4 Greek words starting with /v/ or /b/ rendered as /f/ but it may not directly be from Greek. Although f is not native to Turkish (except onomatopoeia), Greek f = Turkish f. I went through all of the entries starting with /f/ in his disctionary, the result was: apart from fırça; fesleğen (“basil”) (attested since the 1600s, from βασιλικόν (vasilikón)) and fıçı (“barrel”) (attested since the 1500s, cognate to Latin buttis) and fiğ (attested at the 1300s, apparently from βικίον (vikíon)) were the only words rendered with /f/ that had either /b/ or /v/ in their Greek counterparts. I went through all of the entries starting with /v/ too, Greek /v/ is equal to Turkish /v/, interestingly they all correspond to /v/ at any language. Apart from Turkic ones like (ver- (“to give”), from *bēr-).

Plus, could the Arabic word فرشة (furša, “brush”) be also a borrowing from the same source but wrongly connected to فرش (faraša, “to spread”)? Perhaps from Ottoman? I can see that Ottoman /ch/ sometimes was rendered /sh/ in Arabic in borrowed words. For example شيشكلي (shishekli) equivalent to Turkish çiçekli and شاويش (shawush, “sergeant”), equivalent to Turkish çavuş. Have they been always like that or just later assimilations? --Anylai (talk) 13:53, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

The Turkish "v" is more of an approximant /ʋ/ isn't it? So Greek /v/ -> Turkish /f/ would not be extremely surpsrising maybe. — Now, Latin bruscus ~ bruscia is a much better candidate than the German word. It's probably Germanic, see the details at brush. (It's also remotely related to Bürste actually.) — The Arabic word could indeed be unrelated to the root. But note that Steingass also mentions a sense “to have dense and extended branches”, which seems much to closer to “brush”. Kolmiel (talk)

PS: Yes, Turkish /tʃ/ generally becomes Arabic /ʃ/. — To me personally the most probable path would now seem to be Germanic > Latin > Greek > Ottoman > other "Islamic" languages. Kolmiel (talk) 14:33, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

PPS: Other sources say that Latin bruscus is a conflation of ruscum ("thorny shrub") with brucus ("heather"), which latter would indeed be from Gallic (cf. brusque). At any rate, bruscus meant a shrub, and this also the original meaning of French "brosse". (Incidentally, the notion that βουρτσα is from German seems to be from the idea that "brosse" is from Old High German burst ("bristle"), also found on French wiktionary, but this is contrary to the original meaning of the Romance word.) Kolmiel (talk) 15:59, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

So the Arabic word might be showing signs of folk etymology? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:01, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Maybe, although furša alongside firša is as close as you can get to Turkish fırça in Arabic (provided Arabic got it from Turkish). Kolmiel (talk) 16:41, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

How old is the *b- > v- shift in Turkish? It seems possible at first glance that Greek β had already turned to labiodental [v] while Turkish initial v was still bilabial [β] (and understood by speakers as an allophone of /b/) (phonetic vs. orthographic notation are getting confusing here, but bear with me), which might have left labiodental [f] a better substitution. --Tropylium (talk) 16:36, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

According to w:Turkish phonology vu- is still pronounced /βu-/, /β/ here being a stop. So [f] may indeed be closer or just as close. Kolmiel (talk) 16:41, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

The examples of *b- > v- shift are few actually: ver- (“to give”), var- (“to arrive”), var (“there is”) and vur- (“to hit”) (which is actually expressive). In the dictionary of Clauson I can see they have already shifted to v- in the earliest Turkish texts (from 14th century). Some suffixes also followed *-b > *-v > ∅. Some verbs like ol- (“to become”) (from *bōl-) were interestingly never attested as *vol- too, but this loss is very rare in such stems. I wish I knew about quality of the consonants, I am inadequate at these topics but I can give some examples of -v- > -f- examples, since these were not tolerated word initially. For example yufka (“thin”), küf (“mold”), ufal- (“to get small, to shrink”), ufak (“little”) comes to my mind. They ultimately all go back to *v < *b. --Anylai (talk) 17:41, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

I wonder if it's related to French bruyère and the second etymology of briar (briarwood pipes are made from roots of w:Erica arborea, a species of heather). Chuck Entz (talk) 03:00, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

The Greek word comes from the Byzantine period. It is attested in the forms βούρτζα (boúrtza), βούρτσα (boúrtsa), βρούτζα (broútza), βρούτσα (broútsa), βρουτσίν (broutsín) (hence directly վրձին (vrjin)). The earliest datable attestation I could find was from the 12th century, but this one, 7th row from the bottom is probably even earlier. Apart from the Romance–Germanic explanation discussed above, a native origin from βύρσα (búrsa) has also been proposed. --Vahag (talk) 17:19, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Hebrew transliteration

Tweaks to the Hebrew word ילם appearing in the etymology section of ylem so that an automatic Roman alphabet transliteration appears would be much appreciated. — SMUconlaw (talk) 20:07, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Two things: One, Hebrew does not have automatic transliterations. Two, there is no word ילם meaning "blind"; the closest word I can find is אילם / אִלֵּם (ʾillēm, “mute”), the word for "blind" being עיוור / עִוֵּר (ʿiwwēr). Also, according to w:Ylem, Ganow said I mean this is the old Hebrew word meaning something like "space between heaven and earth". I can't think off the top of my head what word that could be with that meaning, but I will try to find it, but for now it seems that אילם / אִלֵּם (ʾillēm, “mute”) would be the best guess. --WikiTiki89 20:58, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Another possibility is something from the root ע־ל־ם (ʿ-l-m) (נֶעֱלַם (“to disappear”), הֶעֱלִים (“to conceal”), עוֹלָם (“word, eternity”)). --WikiTiki89 21:11, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

However, in all likelihood, this guy had no idea what he was talking about and there never was a Hebrew word. --WikiTiki89 21:14, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I noted from the source that Gamow did not actually identify the Hebrew word in question. I don't know which editor added the Hebrew bit. Do you think we should just omit it, or add a "best guess"? — SMUconlaw (talk) 21:43, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, remove the Hebrew. I'm sure that Gamow, who was a mild antisemite, had no clue. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:54, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Really, I had no idea. Don't know much about the chap, apart from having read one of his books about the Big Bang. I've removed the information. — SMUconlaw (talk) 11:37, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

What's the source of these Russian terms - Modern or Ancient Greek?

I'd like to ask why Russian derivatives from Greek where Ancient Greek [b] is now [v] in Modern Greek are considered to be borrowings from Ancient, not Modern Greek.

Examples: Вениами́н (Veniamín) - ancient Βενιᾱμῑ́ν (Beniāmī́n), modern Βενιαμίν (Veniamín).

Same with алфави́т (alfavít, “alphabet”), Вавило́н (Vavilón, “Babylon”), etc. The etymologies might be right and they are usually sourced but aren't the spellings and pronunciations adjusted to the Modern Greek where letter β is now pronounced [v]? @Vahagn Petrosyan (edited Вениамин), @Wikitiki89 (edited алфавит). --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 08:28, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Those words are attested already in Old East Slavic and are borrowed from Byzantine Greek, which we treat under Ancient Greek. See the 10th and 15th century pronunciations in Βενιαμίν (Beniamín) and ἀλφάβητος (alphábētos). No one ever borrowed anything from the useless Modern Greek. We should probably generate a script error when people use {{etyl|el|xx}}. --Vahag (talk) 09:16, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

(E/C) @Vahagn Petrosyan Thanks. Did Byzantine Greek have "v" pronunciation of "β"? I just want to know how "v" came about in Russian in Greek derivations. Perhaps the use of "в" (v) vs "б" (b) in Russian is of interest for words where English or other European cognates have "b". --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 09:31, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

I would just mention that the sound changes that affected β began in one region in about 300 BC (beginning of the Koine Greek period), and gradually moved across the entire Greek language area until the sound shift was completed by about 300 AD. Most Greeks were already pronouncing β as v by 100 AD. Here in the West, we like to pronounce Ancient Greek beta with a b because that was the pronunciation during the Classical period, which ran from 510 BC to 323 BC. In the Koine period, beta changed to veta, but we still assign the sound of b to the beta of this time. I think we generally consider Koine Greek to be Ancient Greek for the purposes of etymologies (but I could be wrong about this). —Stephen ^(Talk) 09:27, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

@Stephen G. Brown Thanks, Stephen. It seems Russian has borrowed from later forms of Greek but directly from Greek not via other languages. алфави́т (alfavít, “alphabet”) is especially good example (it's "-vit", not "-bet"), since letter βῆτα (bêta) in Ancient Greek changed to βήτα (víta) in later forms of Greek, which is also reflected in the Russian borrowing. The letter "β" itself is called бе́та (bɛ́ta) in Russian, which is apparently from Ancient Greek, possibly via another language. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 09:31, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

The Cyrillic alphabet itself has some obvious clues as well. В being pronounced /v/ or /ʋ/ is one of them, but also И is based on Greek Η, yet pronounced /i/. Х was /x/, no longer an aspirated plosive. Oddly, Г kept its plosive pronunciation, as did Д, so they weren't entirely consistent with it. —CodeCat 13:04, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

That's true, of course, and I had this in mind when asking the question. Old East Slavic and Russian were definitely influenced by the late forms of Greek. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 13:12, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

I wonder if the reason that Г and Д kept their pronunciation as stop sounds is simply that the corresponding fricatives didn't exist in late Proto-Slavic (or rather in Old Bulgarian as of 850 AD or so). Benwing2 (talk) 16:12, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Г was a fricative in some Slavic dialects, but not anywhere in South Slavic. —CodeCat 16:48, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that you're right about "not anywhere in South Slavic". --WikiTiki89 14:23, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

It doesn't matter, though. The important thing is that no Slavic variety contrasted /ɡ/ and /ɣ/ phonemically, so the Greek letter gamma could be borrowed for any Slavic language's reflex of PSl. *g, regardless of its phonetic realization. And no Slavic language ever had /ð/, so the Greek letter delta could be borrowed for stop /d/, even if it wasn't a stop in Greek. But since /b/ and /v/ did contrast in Slavic, they needed separate letters, so they took Greek beta for /v/ (as it was also pronounced in Greek at the time), and modified it for /b/ (which existed in Greek only as an allophone of /p/). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:04, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

skrattuz & butmaz

In looking at the declension (inflection) tables of these two: *skrattuz, *butmaz, are they correct? I mean, should they show a different consonant due to Verner's alternation: *skratt- vs *skrad- and *butm- vs *budm- ? Comparing the descendants, it's obvious they should (?) Or perhaps, was the distribution unknown ? Leasnam (talk) 00:51, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

*krattijô--this too. Old High German suggests *krad- Leasnam (talk) 01:19, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Włochy

Recent edits to the etymology of this term have instigated a conversation where I have been accused of committing "cuntery", because I reverted the etymology to its original form which, according to an anon, is "mad". I started this discussion here to come to a community consensus – several words in related and unrelated languages have the same source, so it sure would be nice to have an official and consistent source. All input is welcome! --Robbie SWE (talk) 18:55, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

As rude as the anon was, he's right. This word comes simply from Proto-Slavic *volxъ. See also Włoch. --WikiTiki89 19:03, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Great! Thanks @Wikitiki89, still a bit pissed about being called a cunt though, but I'll get over it :-) --Robbie SWE (talk) 19:21, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Just think what a sucky life he must have that his only comfort is calling people cunts on the internet. That should make you feel better. --WikiTiki89 19:34, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/ɸēskos et al.

Why exactly do we include the ɸ- in words like this? AFAIK ɸ is deleted word-initially in all Celtic languages so why is it reconstructed at all? I know that PIE *p in some positions ends up as a consonant rather than nothing, e.g. in Old Irish secht < *septṃ, but in this case the Proto-Celtic word is already written with /x/, i.e. Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/sextam not Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/seɸtam. Why don't we include the resolution of ɸ to either nothing or x or whatever, rather than inconsistently including ɸ itself? Benwing2 (talk) 05:04, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Your assumption seems to be wrong (although I had thought this, too). But even the shift p > ɸ is only reconstrued for late Proto-Celtic according to wikipedia. I think PIE p- was definitely lost in Insular Celtic so that none of the living or well-attested Celtic languages have it. Maybe also in other branches, but Proto-Celtic seems to have retained it. Kolmiel (talk) 17:14, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

ɸ is lost word-initially in all attested unambiguously Celtic languages, but it leaves traces in other positions (e.g. sɸ- is distinct from both s- and sw-; intervocalic -ɸr-/-ɸl- becomes -br-/-bl-). And then there are ambiguous cases that might indicate a word-initial consonant in Proto-Celtic, but not necessarily. The Latin place names Hercynia and Hibernia seem to show /h/ in words that would be reconstructed with word-initial ɸ, but (1) word-initial /h/ was lost early on in Latin anyway, so these spellings may not actually indicate a true /h/, and (2) the etymology of Hercynia isn't entirely certain. Then there are Lusitanian words spelled with p that come from PIE p (e.g. porcom (“pig”)), but Lusitanian might not be descended from PC. If it is, however, then it's possible that Lusitanians used the letter p to stand for /ɸ/, meaning that porcom would be pronounced /ɸorkom/ and be descended from *ɸorkom. Since word-internal ɸ is definitely needed for PC reconstructions, and since word-initial ɸ might be needed for them, it seems safest to reconstruct it everywhere it's expected. All modern Celticists I'm aware of regularly use ɸ (or f to stand for the same thing) in their PC reconstructions. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:43, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

I prefer using the letter "f" to be honest. We use it for the same sound already in Proto-Germanic and Proto-Italic. —CodeCat 21:51, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Germanic and Italic eventually did shift *[ɸ] > [f], though; the latter also *[θ] > [f], which most likely never involved an *[ɸ] stage. Celtic didn't, which would seem to make using *‹f› a bit odd. --Tropylium (talk) 23:40, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Not odder than using ⟨ö⟩ for [ø] rather than [ö]. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 00:12, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Tropylium. I also think it's not bad to have the somewhat "obscure" letter <ɸ> for a sound that may not even have been there anymore, rather than the straightforward <f>. Kolmiel (talk) 00:19, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

OK, makes sense, but it still doesn't answer the question of why we have Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/sextam instead of Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/seɸtam. Benwing2 (talk) 00:27, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Partly because that's what the sources do (all Celticists I'm familiar with would reconstruct it as *sextam and not *seɸtam~*seftam) and partly because you can't tell from a [xt] or [xs] cluster in PC whether it goes back to PIE [pt]/[ps] or [kt]/[ks], so if there was a word with an unknown etymology you wouldn't be able to decide between them. As for which symbol we use, I have no particular objection to using "f" instead, and some sources (e.g. Matasović 2009) do use "f", but I think "ɸ" is a little more common. Maybe "ɸ" is good because of its visual similarity to "∅", thus reminding us that in most contexts it disappeared (became zero). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:15, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

OK, the same argument about not knowing whether ɸ was present in words of unknown etymology applies even more to word-initial ɸ, so I'm still confused as to why the sources are inconsistent in sometimes including ɸ and sometimes its resolution. Benwing2 (talk) 16:31, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Modern sources consistently show word-initial ɸ/f, though sources from a hundred years ago, like {{R:MacBain}} and Pedersen's Vergleichende Grammatik der keltischen Sprachen didn't. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:35, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, what I meant was, is it really the case that the sources consistently include initial ɸ e.g. in ɸēskos (rather than omitting it) but don't include ɸ in seɸtam (instead including x)? This still seems strange to me, since it both cases you can only know that the ɸ was present (rather than something else like k, or nothing at all word-initially) using PIE etymologies. Benwing2 (talk) 21:45, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it's really the case that they do so. As to why, maybe it's because in sextam there's still something holding the place of ɸ, while in ēskos there wouldn't be. Or because, as Hibernia, Hercynia, and porcom show, there is still a chance that Proto-Celtic had a genuine ɸ in ɸēskos before it broke up, but there's not the slightest indication that it ever had anything but /x/ in sextam. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:48, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

stogie

RFV of the etymology.

This entry has not one but three numbered etymologies in one etymology section, and they sort of overlap. Could someone sort through these and merge them into one accurate one? Chuck Entz (talk) 13:55, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Looks like each is built upon the previous: Etym 3 from Etym 2 from Etym 1 Leasnam (talk) 15:35, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

I did some research - and these all look like unsupported guesses, not supportable by available evidence. Re-did etym accordingly...for the interim. What I did find is that "stogie" = cigar dates back to 1869. And "stogie" = boots to at least 1855. Seems that stogies = boots is from earlier "stoga boots" - though, don't know the etym of this, and perhaps unrelated to the cigar meaning. Although there are plenty of essentially contemporaneous citations for Conestoga Wagon, there are none to support that either the boots or the cigars were in any way associated with these wagon; similarly, nothing I could find supported that the cigars were associated (back in 1869) with the township of Conestoga or any cigar manufactory or brand there. I think we need to delete def 1, which is a back-formed def based on the supposed etymology. Sonofcawdrey (talk) 01:20, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

OED says that the word was originally stoga, from Conestoga, Pennsylvania, and then notes: "It is alleged that stoga boots and stoga cigars were so called because they were used by the ‘stoga drivers’, i.e. the drivers of the Conestoga wagons plying between Wheeling and Pittsburgh." — SMUconlaw (talk) 09:28, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, alleged, though doesn't seem to be proved. Cannot find any citations for "stoga drivers". Though, there are citations for "stoga cigars" from 1870-1890s. So, could amend to "probably". Will attend to it. - 110.92.124.164 02:07, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Luxembourgish Minn (etymology 3) and English minnow

Are these two related? BigDom 18:48, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes. The Luxmbourgish / Central Franconian word is from Middle High German *müne, which is in line with Dutch meun, Middle Low German mȫne, Old English myne. Alongside there's a variant with -w- in English minnow, Old High German muniwa. Both are seemingly from Proto-Germanic *muniwō. Kolmiel (talk) 19:38, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

I've written the etymology. Kolmiel (talk) 20:03, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt response! I'd guessed it was, but wasn't sure about the in-between MHG word. BigDom 04:58, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

German Schmand vs. Czech smetana vs. Hebrew שמנת (shamenet)

The Slavic word is clear, also that regional German Schmetten derives from it. German Schmand is a matter of faith: both the Germanic and the Slavic derivations are plausible. But now I've come across the Hebrew word additionally. Apparently it's modern and derived from an older word for "fat". — What's the deal here? I suppose that the "fat"-word is unrelated. (Is it?) But was the derivation for "cream" formed under the influence of the Slavic and/or Germanic words? Or is that coincidental, too? Anyone know anything? Kolmiel (talk) 20:48, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

The Hebrew looks like an example of phono-semantic matching, meaning it was coined using existing roots and morphemes but intentionally (or perhaps subconsciously) in a way to sound similar to Yiddish שמאַנט (shmant) or German Schmand. --WikiTiki89 20:55, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes. That's was I was going for, too. Didn't know the technical term, though :) Kolmiel (talk) 21:45, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Just to be more specific, this word was formed from the root שׁ־מ־ן (see category) in the pattern קַטֶּלֶת. --WikiTiki89 00:21, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

I made a little note in the etymology of the Hebrew word. Kolmiel (talk) 18:29, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

hypochondria

This says it's derived from Medieval Latin, which is in turn from New Latin. Something fishy... —CodeCat 01:00, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

@CodeCat: Fixed. I believe both terms are early-modern coinages. Isomorphyc (talk) 01:33, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Dan Polansky added it in 2009, but noted that he got it from the 1911 Century Dictionary ([1]). I agree that there's no way ML can come from NL. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:37, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Appendix:List of Proto-Indo-European nouns

I was checking errors for further automatisation: double spaces and spaces after comma, rendering of Albanian. When arriving into full stops, which where used in some transcriptions (!?), I left two final: in Avestan būza. and Old Church Slavonic zrĭno.; please check whether the result is correct. Sobreira (talk) 10:06, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

The full stop in both of those forms is an error, not part of the transliteration. The only language I'm aware of in which we use a full stop as part of the transliteration is Burmese. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:16, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Also Kashmiri, Kamviri, Hittite and Kashubian? Sobreira (talk) 12:20, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

I guess as well that all the </> and <;> are separators, sometimes even not used as it (I mean the separated part is missing). Sobreira (talk) 12:32, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes, the slash is used in these PIE lists to separate stages of the same language, e.g. Old English/Modern English, Old Persian/Modern Persian, Old High German/Modern German, etc. The semicolon is used to separate words in the same language. I strongly suspect Kashmiri and Kamviri should not have full stops in transliteration. Hittite definitely shouldn't: the "Tarx.u" given on the page should probably be "Tarḫu". And Kashubian is written in the Latin alphabet and so shouldn't be using transliteration at all. According to Kashubian alphabet the diacriticked forms of "o" are ò, ó, and ô. I have no idea which one "taro.n" is supposed to have. These PIE lists are an almighty mess anyway. I've half-heartedly tried to clean some of them up in the past, but I don't have the patience. All the words really ought to be cited in the original script and linked to with {{l}} or {{m}} (with automatically generated transliterations where possible), rather than the way they are now. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:39, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

'blate' is a cognate of 'éblouir'.

Will someone please add https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/blate#English as a cognate to https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A9blouir ?

blate is not really a true/full cognate. In form it descends from a different root, but the Scottish word picked up some of the meaning from Old English blēaþ Leasnam (talk) 15:41, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

faeder

Really from Old English? The quotation with what appears to be the original usage appears to be from the Netherlands. DTLHS (talk) 03:12, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

to bait

Are there really three different verbs? "Etymology 1" and "Etymology 2" look quite similar to me. --Fsojic (talk) 14:25, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Hmm, not quite sure...possibly, IF Verb-Etym_1 is a recent formation from the noun (adhering more closely to the noun senses in Etym_1), and Etym_2 is much older, and has deviated from the literal meaning Leasnam (talk) 16:58, 2 August 2016 (UTC)