Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2016/March

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Appendix:Proto-Slavic/tělo: Not an o-stem

In OCS this was an s-stem and must have been in Proto-Slavic. Can someone fix the declension? Benwing2 (talk) 00:18, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

•  Done —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:40, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! Benwing2 (talk) 17:15, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

etymology of Latin curtus

According to short, it and curtus come from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker-, but according to curtus, curtus comes from Proto-Indo-European *(s)k(ʷ)Art-, *(s)k(ʷ)Ard- (“short”). --Espoo (talk) 00:40, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't trust any etymology that uses "A" in a PIE form. *(s)ker- could easily have dental extensions *(s)kerd- (in Germanic) and *(s)kert- (in Italic). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:13, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

De Vaan supports PIE *(s)ker- (“shave; scratch off”) > *(s)kr̥-tós > PItc *kortos > curtus (“mutilated, circumcised; imperfect”) (via Pre-Latin *orC to *urC also seen in currō). —JohnC5 06:19, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

rain on someone's parade

I'm trying to reason this idiom semantically: is it from parades getting wet (and often thus the parade is ruined, awkward, cancelled or stuff gets damaged) when performed outside in the rain? Hillcrest98 (talk) 20:56, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes. You are ruining the "parade" by being the rain. --WikiTiki89 21:00, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Old Prussian tēr and līgu

Anyone know anything about these words? No sources or descendants, so I'm not sure if they belong in the Appendix (or Reconstruction) namespace, or if they existed at all. KarikaSlayer (talk) 23:18, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Mažiulis's Prūsų kalbos etimologijos žodynas ({{R:prg:Mažiulis}}) has ter and ter ains but not ligu. —JohnC5 20:09, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

frico

Semantically fits, but gʰr to fr? Does this really exhibit the irregular sound change like in fundo? Hillcrest98 (talk) 00:07, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Sihler doesn't mention frico, but he does say that word-initial gʰr usually becomes either gr (e.g. gradus < *gʰredʰ-) or r (e.g. rudus < *gʰrewd- or ravus < *gʰrōwo-). So it would have to be an irregular sound change. (He says that gʰ > f before u is regular but that fundo is the only example.) —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 11:18, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

De Vaan suuports fricō < PItc *frikāō < a secondary construction from *frī̆āō (whence friō (“pulverize, crumble”)), a denominal < PIE *bʰriHós (“cut”) < *bʰreyH- (“to cut”). If someone pesters me, i will probably make a page for *bʰreyH-. —JohnC5 06:19, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Latin scalpō, talpa < *skerp-?

Etymologies of several words such as harvest were alluding to a variant *skerp- of the PIE root *kerp-, yet without giving any cognates that would seem to descend from such a form. I've zapped references to this variant from the reflexes for now.

Some weirder examples also turn up. A number of pages were alleging that Latin cassus would derive from the root — a claim that seems to have gotten there thru some kind of a game of broken telephone, based on that sources seem to connect this to careō, for which we currently claim derivation from *(s)ker- rather than (as de Vaan does) from Proto-Italic *kas-.

The words in the header could still use a closer look. talpa has a sourced claim that it might be related to scalpō, which in turn is still claimed to be from *skerp-, but if there's otherwise no evidence for such a form, maybe we should do away with that as well.

There also remains a reference to PIE *skerp- at *sek-, but without any meaning given. --Tropylium (talk) 20:37, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Corrinne

RFV of the etymology:

From Ancient Greek κόρη (kórē, literally “Maiden”).

The entry was added complete with the etymology by a notoriously incompetent IP. It's possible they got it from a good source, but they usually make stuff up based on bad guesses. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:46, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

That's the same etymology as Corinne has had since 2007 and Corinna has had since 2008, so either they're all wrong or they're all right. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:44, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

天主

RFV of the etymology. According to this Wikipedia article, it doesn't seem like it comes from Japanese. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 15:37, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

@Fumiko Take pinging you as you may have other sources. Wyang (talk) 08:00, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Hanyu Wailaici Cidian (Dictionary of Chinese loanwords) says the word comes from Japanese and ultimately, Ancient Chinese; it quotes Shiji (History Records). ばかFumiko￥^talk 08:10, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

• Notably, Japanese sources list additional senses of the central deity / deities in Buddhism; the one main god of the eight heavenly gods in ancient China. The latter sense is further corroborated by the 天主 article on the ZH Wikipedia.

As such, the Catholic or Christian senses would be much more recent and would represent a normal and unexceptional repurposing of a term for a similar meaning, and I don't think this would qualify at all as wasei kango. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 19:36, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

ἀρχός

Seeing a PIE root "*arkhein", can someone clean this up? Pretty obviously copied from Etymonline, which doesn't bother with laryngeals. Hillcrest98 (talk) 04:25, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Am I missing something here, or did Etymonline just stick an asterisk on the Ancient Greek infinitive and call it Proto-Indo-European?. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:25, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, doesn't look like a PIE lemma. Obvious Greek infinitive there. Hillcrest98 (talk) 15:05, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

I assume it's a copy/paste error or something on the part of etymonline. --WikiTiki89 14:42, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

discipulus

RFV of the etymology.

User:Ninud tagged this. At the time, the etymology was:

From discere, present active infinitive of disco, and the root of puer, pullus.

This is basically what L&S has (here at Perseus), but it seems a bit of a stretch (plus the infinitive is unnecessary).

I replaced it with:

Perhaps from some form of disco + -ulus, but the "p" is unexplained.

Obviously, I'm still not happy with it

Etymonline cites Barnhart and Klein's claim that it's from a lost compound *discipere "to grasp intellectually, analyze thoroughly," from dis- "apart" (see dis-) + capere "to take, take hold of". Chuck Entz (talk) 13:48, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

gardalei ("balcony")

This is clearly not a native Veps word on account of its shape (voiced initial consonant, final -ei), but I can't find anything in the translations of balcony that resembles this. It looks like it might be French, but Veps tends to borrow internationalisms through Russian so it is likely present in Russian too in some form. Does anyone have any ideas? —CodeCat 20:49, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

I found one [Finnish ?] source saying it is an alternative form of galdarei, from Russian dialectal (translit.) galderéja, galdaréja, possibly from Dutch galderij, a byform of galerij. I'm really not sure but hope there's something in there that's useful Leasnam (talk) 21:26, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

As Leasnam said, there is a dialectal Russian form галдаре́я (galdaréja), галдере́я (galderéja, “balcony”) recorded inter alia in Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Karelia, Smolensk, Novgorod and Yaroslavl. It is either an alteration of галере́я (galeréja) by folk etymology under the influence of галде́ть (galdétʹ, “to make a din”) or reflects the -d- in Dutch. --Vahag (talk) 21:40, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm having trouble tying the ends of the etymology together. галдаре́я (galdaréja) seems like the closest form, but the metathesis that appears in Veps isn't explained. I have two sources with gardalei (with different declensions, though: genitive gardalejan or gardalein) but I find nothing about the unmetathesized galdarei. Most of the Google results are in Basque. —CodeCat 22:42, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Veps at one point must not have allowed coda /l/ (having vocalized it to /u/), so my guess would be that coda /l/ in Russian was substituted by /r/, followed by dissimilation *gardarei > gardalei. --Tropylium (talk) 01:44, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

甪

RFV of the etymology.

The original etymology, added by a Japanese IP in December of 2006:

originally 角 is written by mistake, which the sound is "gluk".

I tagged it with rfc because it seemed strange to be discussing pronunciation in a translingual entry, and because it was ungrammatical. It was changed by another IP to:

Originally, this character was 角 written by mistake.

That IP later changed it further, along with some very clear, but unrelated vandalism in the same edits. Once I reverted that, that same IP restored the original etymology. I just reverted it, then realized it was the original etymology. At that point, I figured it was best to get this fixed by verifying the original etymology, rather than tinkering with something I know very little about.

One of the Old Chinese reconstructions given in the Chinese section is close enough to make me think the original IP may have known what they were talking about- however poorly they expressed it.

While I'm at it, I might as well ping @Wyang, in case he doesn't have this watchlisted. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:03, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

甪 is a variant (in some dictionaries, "incorrect") form of 角 (jiǎo). Wyang (talk) 01:08, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

How is the sound "gluk"? Also, can you please provide a reference in the "reference" section? 15:38, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Исоусъ

RFV of the (Old Church Slavonic) etymology:

From Latin Iēsus.

Shouldn't that be Ancient Greek Ἰησοῦς (Iēsoûs)? After all, written OCS was started by Greek missionaries to translate Greek texts. I have no OCS reference material, so I thought I'd check before changing it, even though it seems obvious, and the contributor is known for problematic edits. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:09, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

This anon has been spewing nonsense all over Slavic etymologies. I agree that it almost certainly came directly from Greek. Although, I thought the more common form would have been Їисоусъ (Iisusŭ). --WikiTiki89 14:37, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, definitely. The -и- and probably also the -оу- would prove that, if any phonetic argument were needed; because, of course, it is illogical that Church Slavonic should have borrowed this abundantly important word from Latin instead of Greek. Kolmiel (talk) 21:51, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

The -и- (-i-) does prove it, but the -оу- (-u-) does not, since it was the standard spelling of the /u(ː)/ sound. However, -оу- (-u-) spelling in overall orthography of OCS was in fact borrowed from Greek. In other words, if the word had been borrowed from Latin, the last syllable would still have been spelled -оу- (-u-), but the -ē- would have been borrowed as -е/є/ѥ- (-e/e/je-), or perhaps -ѣ- (-ě-). --WikiTiki89 15:48, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I really don't know anything about Church Slavonic. (I didn't mean to sound as if I did.) I just figured from the Greek and didn't figure quite corretly; but it's also logical because the Greek -ου- had, of course, long been a monophthong. Kolmiel (talk) 02:45, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

פרדס

@ZxxZxxZ: Judging from the relative earliness of the borrowing, I would have thought this word would have come directly from (some variety of) Persian, and not from Greek. Judging by the definition in the entry ("orchard, grove, fruit garden"), would this make sense semantically and which variety of Persian would it have come from? --WikiTiki89 14:40, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

I have collected the known Iranian forms and the loanwords at Reconstruction:Proto-Iranian/paridaiĵah. It is difficult to determine the exact source of each loanword, but in my opinion Hebrew probably borrowed via Akkadian from an unattested Median form. --Vahag (talk) 07:44, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, Median is probably the ultimate source. Also, as far as I know, the s is not an Iranian development here. --Z 09:23, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Now that I think about it, the direct source in Hebrew is probably Aramaic, rather than Akkadian. --WikiTiki89 18:53, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Could be. But the Aramaic is itself borrowed from Akkadian according to DJBA, page 927b, which is borrowed from Median *paridaiza- according to Janda, page 106. --Vahag (talk) 06:08, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

That sounds likely. Aramaic had plenty of contact with Akkadian, and Hebrew had plenty of contact with Aramaic roughly in the period of time this word first appears (Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and Nehemiah). --WikiTiki89 15:20, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

*pissiō and *pictō

Does anyone know if these terms should be reconstructed with a long ī? All of the descendants for both words show IPA^(key): [i], presumably from Latin ī. I can't find any sources that show Vulgar Latin long vowels for these words, though. KarikaSlayer (talk) 19:43, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

I can't say for sure about the longness of -i-, but the descendants of *pictō are clearly off. Most of them reflect *pinctō instead. —CodeCat 20:54, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

δεῖγμα

This is compared to δείκνυμι (deíknumi), just as παράδειγμα (parádeigma) is compared to παραδείκνυμι (paradeíknumi). But the root-final consonants don't match; -g- appears in one form, -k- appears in the other. This appears similar to the problem with digitus, where the consonant mismatches that of dīcō in the same way. Are these Greek forms actually from the same root, and is there some sound law that accounts for the voicing? —CodeCat 20:50, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

If you compare all Ancient Greek words ending in -κμα and all Ancient Greek words ending in -γμα, there are exactly two hits for the former and 280 for the latter- that can't be a coincidence. Chuck Entz (talk) 09:17, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Ok, I think that settles it then. Thank you. —CodeCat 15:05, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Didn't see this till now. Yeah, κ (k) in a root regularly assimilates in voice to γ (g) before μ (m) in an ending: δεικ- (deik-) > δέδειγμαι (dédeigmai), τακ- (tak-), root of τάττω (táttō) > τάγμα (tágma). Of course, there's still κμ (km) here and there; not sure in what sort of cases assimilation didn't occur. — Eru·tuon 02:56, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Sälskup

Etymology is basically missing since the German one points to OHG, not PGM. Old Saxon gisellio points to Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/salō but Sälskup is listed as a descendant at Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/saliz. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 10:23, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I've created *gasaljô, but I don't know more than that. —CodeCat 19:49, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I believe this comes from Middle Low German sellschap or German Low German Sellskupp, as a borrowed term Leasnam (talk) 15:46, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Dutch etymologists needed: 'mekaar', 'mekander', 'melkaar', 'melkander', 'malkaar', 'malkander', and the ambiguous relationship between them

Somewhat inexperienced editor here. I will try to describe this problem as clearly as possible. It concerns the following (some archaic, some dialectal, some both) Dutch words, all meaning each other, for which I have been trying to create proper entries (atm they are somewhat messy):

• mekaar
• mekander
• melkaar
• melkander (also attested, possibly more often, is melcander)

and

• malkaar
• malkander (also malcander, malckander etc.)

Problem 1: They all ultimately derive from the latter, malkander (alternatively malcander). This much is clear from the sources listed below. However, the exact relationship between these words is unclear. The etymology malkander/malcander > malkaar is well established. The thing is however, melkander could either be

1. An uncontracted (earlier) version of melkaar and be an alternate form of malkander, or

2. A later formation from melkaar through analogy (contamination? not sure of the English word) with malkaar/malkander and elkaar/elkander.

The latter option is a possibility because the former is not sure either: Etymologiebank (see below) has mekaar as a form that derives from malkaar, presumably through melkaar though that is not explicitly stated. Hüning has melcander from the 17th century, so the form is pretty old. But if mekaar derives from malkaar, then melkaar is likely an alternate spelling of malkaar, the etymology of which is clear. Is melkander then the ancestor of melkaar, or a later formation based on it? In other words, is the etymology:

Malkander

Melkander

Melkaar

Mekaar

Malkaar

or

Malkander

Malkaar

Melkaar

Mekaar

Melkander

or somehow a combination of both?

And more importantly, how in the name of all that is holy do you present this information succinctly in the etymology section of each entry? Do we then need alternate entries for melkaar and melkander? Do we add the alternate options to see also, synonyms, alternative forms, derived terms, or etymology?

Problem 2: A smaller problem concerning mekander, similar to what was said earlier about melkander. Mekander could either be a formation based on mekaar, or a variation of melkander. There is little on this in the sources I cited. Further help would be appreciated.

Sources:

• Etymologybank entry for elkaar/mekaar
• Hüning, Matthias, Reciprociteit in het Nederlands: De geschiedenis van elkaar en mekaar, Nederlandse Taalkunde 11.3 (2006), pp.185-217

I don't know much about Dutch, but in Low German, the two forms malk/melk are distributed based on regional variations in accent/stress, with neither being ancestor to the other. So that's a possibility to consider. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 09:42, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

ps.: The phænomena in question being that a) in some regions heavy syllables like -lîk trigger an umlaut and b) in some regions some words (malk, man, mar, wan-) get raised in unstressed position, giving melk, men, mer, wen-. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 12:38, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

You can create entries for all forms that are sufficiently attested. I would label all of them alternative forms of mekaar, which is probably the only form that sees some usage in contemporary Dutch. You only have to write one etymology, for the lemma "mekaar" in that case. About the -aar I would simply say that it's a contraction of -ander (from dialects that use aaier < ader via w:North Sea Germanic spirant law). As to "mal-" vs. "mel-" it is most likely that the latter is a conflation with "elkaar", but Korn's argument is also mentionable, provided you can attest mellic as a variant of mallic. You don't have to derive the forms like a family tree. They have probably continuously influenced each other anyway. Kolmiel (talk) 03:01, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Sais

Anyone knowledgeable about Syriac able to confirm that the word sais ("groom; chauffeur") ultimately derives from the Syriac sausi ("to coax"): see Citations:sais? If so, could you please update the "Etymology" section of sais? Thanks. — SMUconlaw (talk) 18:27, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

@Lingo Bingo Dingo, are you able to assist with this? — SMUconlaw (talk) 15:44, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Not really. J. Payne Smith's A Compendious Syriac Dictionary, page 368 indeed has "to coax" as a meaning of ܣܘܣܝ sawsi, a shaphel conjugation of ܐܣܐ asa "to heal". But there are also other meanings listed that may be more relevant ("to tend", "to foster") and I can't actually confirm it's the etymon. According to J. Payne Smith the word ܣܘܣܝܐ susaya "horse" (same page) derives from the same verb, but I wonder whether it isn't related to things like Hebrew סוס instead. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 08:51, 31 March 2016 (UTC) ("shaphel" should be "saphel" Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 11:52, 31 March 2016 (UTC))

Thanks for your views. I guess we'll leave the etymology as it stands for now, then. I also had a look at what the OED says, and it only mentions the Arabic words. — SMUconlaw (talk) 09:20, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Maybe @Wikitiki89 knows more about etymologies involving Syriac and what's possible with them? There's btw also an Arabic سيسي "pony". Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 11:52, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

The Arabic word probably does not come from Syriac, but is of course cognate to the mentioned Syriac terms. Furthermore, within Syriac the verb s-w-s-y (which is found only in Syriac) does not derive from the noun ܣܘܣܝܐ (sūsyā, “horse”) (which is found in all dialects of Aramaic). This noun is cognate with Hebrew סוּס (sūs, “horse”) and the Arabic verb in question here. The would-be equivalent Arabic noun سُوس (sūs, “moth-worm”) seems to lack the meaning of "horse", despite a plethora of horse-related terms with this root. --WikiTiki89 13:42, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Fascinating! Is it worth adding the cognate terms to the etymology? — SMUconlaw (talk) 15:06, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Probably not to the English word's etymology. They really aren't relevant to English in any way. --WikiTiki89 15:12, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

OK, though I have seen cognate terms in some etymologies before. Thanks also for adding the vowel notation to the Arabic words in the etymology. — SMUconlaw (talk) 15:23, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

ἀήρ

According to the entry, the a is long. But such a long vowel couldn't come from the initial laryngeal found in the PIE root. So where does it come from? Is it even from that root at all? Or is the vowel maybe short? —CodeCat 23:55, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

I mistakenly said the word came from *ahwēr, but it turns out Kiparsky actually proposes that derivation in Sonorant Clusters in Greek (in the PIE form *awsēr), and connects it with ἦρι (êri, “early”), as in ἠριγένεια (ērigéneia), and ἠέριος (ēérios). Then the word would be related to ἠώς (ēṓs, “dawn”), from the root *h₂ews-.

Oh, I see someone has already updated the page, and Beekes gives the same explanation as Kiparsky. — Eru·tuon 00:40, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

@Erutuon: In truth, Beekes is citing Kiparsky. —JohnC5 01:07, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

burek

The etymology in the English entry says that the Turkish word came from Persian, but the etymology at börek says that it came from Old Turkic. Which one is correct? --WikiTiki89 19:31, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

zaman

See also: User talk:Dijan#zaman

Hello. I want discuss origin of this word for Turkish language. zaman meaning in TDK dictionary. TDK - Türk Dil Kurumu (Turkish Language Association) is the official regulatory body of the Turkish language. What you think about? Is it borrowed from Arabic or Persian? --Aabdullayev851 (talk) 18:08, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

The Semitic words are attested all the way in Ge'ez and Biblical Hebrew, so that's probably the ultimate source, with (some of?) the Iranian words listed at زمان being loans from that direction (also Sogdian shows what looks like irregular ž-). This does not however rule out loaning as Semitic → Iranian → Turkish, which might even be more likely in light of the word having been already in Middle Persian. But we would likely need additional comparative or philological evidence on when the word first appears in Turkic. Is it found in Turkmen or in the smaller outlying Oghuz varieties? If yes, that will be an argument in favor of Persian being the immediate origin. --Tropylium (talk) 19:09, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on Ge'ez, but the Biblical Hebrew instances are attested in later books, which makes it easily possible that it could have been borrowed from Aramaic, which in turn borrowed from an Iranian language. --WikiTiki89 19:16, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Genesius says that the Biblical Hebrew is from Aramaic, as is the Arabic, and that the ultimate source is Old Persian "zrvan, zrvâna", though the latter is contested with Assyrian being another option. -- It's always possible, however, that the New Persian word is actually a (re-)borrowing from Arabic, even if Arabic has it from Old Persian. Kolmiel (talk) 21:49, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

But Gesenius is not always right about these things. He speculated a lot. However, that is a plausible theory. --WikiTiki89 15:24, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, sure. I just wanted to have mentioned it. This particular etymology seems to have been discussed by some notable orientalists (19th / early 20th century, of course). Also, I don't know to what extent Old Persian zrvan or zrvâna > Modern Persian zamân would be a regular development. I know little about the sound changes in Persian. Kolmiel (talk) 21:50, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

sparerib

Please see talk:sparerib, where someone has challenged our etymology.​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:35, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Weißbier

Is it possible that this comes from a dialectal form of Weizen, rather than from weiß? --WikiTiki89 00:29, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Almost certainly it comes from that, and Duden marks it as an alt form of Weizenbier. But perhaps it's a reänalysis? @Angr? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:48, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Well, Duden marks it as meaning Weizenbier, but it doesn't say that it's etymologically from Weizenbier. I can certainly imagine a dialectal form like *Weizbier becoming Weißbier by folk etymology, but I don't know if there's any evidence that that's the actual etymology as opposed to straightforward weiß + Bier. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:54, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

In our entry for wheat, we list the Alemannic German translation Weisse, and at *hwaitijaz, we list Luxembourgish Weess, so I was thinking the Bavarian dialect might have something similar. --WikiTiki89 10:26, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

It's possible. But Grimm's dictionary also says it's simply from weiß (“white”), pointing specifically to senses pertaining to food that is lighter in color than related foods: "häufig terminologisch zur unterscheidung einer helleren von einer dunkleren sorte derselben ware und allgemeiner zur unterscheidung einer helleren von einer dunkleren gattung derselben art; die entfernung von der reinen farbqualität geht dabei verschieden weit. von hier aus entwickeln sich zahlreiche compositionen; vgl. z. b. weiszer wein — weiszwein, weiszes brot — weiszbrot, weiszer kohl — weiszkohl". Of course weiß and Weizen are etymologically related themselves, but so far no dictionary is claiming that Weißbier is etymologically anything other than weiß + Bier. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:47, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Is Grimm's dictionary generally well-informed about dialectal forms? --WikiTiki89 11:01, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't know. But I still don't want to include an etymology unsupported by published research, however plausible it may seem. Maybe someone somewhere has published the claim that Weißbier is etymologically from Weizenbier, but Duden and Grimm aren't that someone. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:22, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

@Korn, Kolmiel, Matthias Buchmeier, -sche: What do you guys think? --WikiTiki89 12:32, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

It's a southern German variant of Weizen. It's more or less common knowledge in Germany, so I wouldn't think it's wrong. Of course, it might be. But DWB says about "Weizen": Die späteren schreibungen weisze, weisse einerseits, weize, weitze anderseits zeigen frühe verallgemeinerung der durch die westgerman. konsonantenverdoppelung entstandenen formen mit einfachem und mit doppeltem t, s. E. Reuter westgerm. konsonantengem. 77. die formen mit sz sind wesentlich alemannisch, fränkisch, mitteldeutsch, fehlen aber auch bairisch u. schwäbisch nicht; schriftsprachlich sind sie noch im 16. jh. häufig, mundartlich reichen sie bis zur gegenwart. ("The later spellings weisze, weisse on one hand, weize, weitze on the other show an early generalization of the forms with and without doubled t, arisen through West Germanic consonant doubling, see Reuter [source]. The forms with sz are mainly Alemannic, [Upper] Franconian, Central German, but they also occur in Bavarian and Swabian; in the written language they were still common in the 16th century, in the dialects they remain to this day.") So that should settle the deal. Kolmiel (talk) 18:53, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Well no, because it still doesn't say that's the etymology of Weißbier. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:06, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, true. I don't know. What I meant was: All I've ever heard was that it means "wheat beer" and that's it Bavarian. I've heard that many times. So the source I gave proves, at least, that this not just a modern legend. There is a word Weiß/Waiß/Woaß in Upper German meaning "wheat"... But yeah, the rest is still open. Kolmiel (talk) 19:26, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

PS: By the way: It seems to be w:bar:Weißbier in Bavarian, rather than *Woaßbier, which would indeed imply that it's from "white". (OHG -ei- becomes -oa- in Bavarian.) Hmm... Maybe common knowledge is wrong once more. Kolmiel (talk) 19:31, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Okay. What I wrote above seems to have been premature. Mea culpa. Now, I haven't found much that is really etymological literature, but websites about beer generally trace it back to "white". And some of them look quite knowledgeable. Let me say this now: In some dialects "white beer" and "wheat beer" may merge or almost merge. Thence probably the idea, which I really have heard several times, that it actually means "wheat beer". Thence also google hits for "Woaßbier", at least some of which seem to actually be Bavarian, not fake Bavarian. But the original form may indeed be "white beer".Kolmiel (talk) 19:58, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

This all reminds me of the time I was at a barbecue restaurant in Texas where you had your choice of two types of bread. The server asked me, "Do you want white or wheat?" I said, "What?", and she gave me white. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 22:38, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't know WHAT the gods are trying to tell me with this, but this very week I tried my first Weizen and had one just before I came online here. Incidentally, I also read a bit about beers. This is just anecdotal, though, I claim no expertise. I have never come across a hint that Weißbier is meant to be a dialectal form of Weizenbier. There are Schwarzbier and Dunkelbier, which seem to come up in the same time as Weißbier. The Bavarian forms do hint at "white" and an ordonance from 1612 from the "Fuerstenthumben Obern und Nidern Bayrn" consistently uses "Weiss Bier", inflecting Weiss like an adjective, not like a noun. Seems early enough to me to regard it as the original form. And now excuse me, I have to plan a beer sacrifice to some unknown power guiding me. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 00:45, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Joachim Heinrich Campe's Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (1811) says it gets its name because it's lighter in colour than Braunbier.

In the Sitzungsberichte der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften from around 1900, Otto Böhtlingk writes of Einige angebliche Volksetymologien including Weissbier und Weissbrot:

"Weissbier mit Paul auf Weizenbier und Weissbrot mit Kluge auf Weizenbrot zurückzuführen, liegt nach meinem Dafürhalten keine zwingende Veranlassung vor. Weissbier steht im Gegensatz zu Braunbier und Weissbrot zu Schwarzbrot. Zudem ist zu bemerken, dass Weizen, wie ich aus Pierers Universal-Lexikon unter dem Artikel „Bier" ersehe, keinen wesentlichen Bestandtheil im Weissbier bildet, und Weizenbier ein besonderes Bier ist, das mit dem Weissbier Nichts zu schaffen hat."

Böhtlingk is referring to Hermann Paul's Deutsches Wörterbuch, which however only says "Weißbier, vielleicht eigentlich = Weizenbier" (at least in the later 1908 edition).

Oskar Reichmann (in Historische Lexikographie, 2012) also considers the "Weizen" theory to be, if not a folk etymology, something that's told to English tourists without regard for its veracity.

- -sche (discuss) 06:29, 2 April 2016 (UTC)