Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2013/May

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knˤnw and Canaan (כנען)

I'm not an etymologist, so I'll ask here - are they cognates? Hyarmendacil (talk) 09:15, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Probably not a cognate, since that would mean inheritance from a common ancestor, and Proto-Afro-Asiatic is very, very old. The Egyptian is probably a borrowing, and the Hebrew might be as well. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:15, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Kidney – *neurô et al.

We have two Proto-Germanic reconstructions for “kidney”: *neurô and *niurą. The former seems to fit better with the Latin and Greek cognates. The latter seems to have been created to explain the -ý- in Old Norse nýra, but it has the wrong ending/declension; it should be an n-stem as well: *niurô. I am not particularly happy with this form, however. It seems to me that PG -iu- does not guarantee ON -ý- (see sjón < *siuniz; its alternate sýn can also be explained as i-mutated from the -iz, as with neyð/nauð). Also, as I understand it, PG forms with -i- (and without a later -ij- causing a mutation) normally derive from zero-grade forms of PIE roots with -y- in them, which can hardly be the case here. A possible solution would be *niurijô (then only for ON nýra and its descendants). Having two PG forms still doesn’t sit well with me because not only would the latter only apply to Old Norse, but only to Western Norse, because Swedish has njure and Old Danish has -iu- (modern Danish has nyre, but iu regularly changes to y in Danish; cf. nyde, tyr, etc.). Personally I’d be content with a single page at *neurô with a note on the unexpected i-mutation in Western Norse and possible explanations. – Krun (talk) 18:34, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

There may be an alternative explanation. If you look at the declension table of a Proto-Germanic n-stem, you'll see that some endings have -a- while others have -i-. The i-endings would trigger i-mutation but not the a-endings, so there would be an alternation between neuran- and niurin- within the same paradigm, just like in strong verbs. The different Old Norse forms then probably are the result of levelling out these alternations in one direction or the other. —CodeCat 18:42, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Ah, yes, I see it now. Thanks. I think we can be content with *neurô then? – Krun (talk) 19:50, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

vägnar(sv) vegna(is) wegen(de)

vägnar is related to vegna and wegen, though how I'm not sure. Here's a source from 1922 in Swedish: http://runeberg.org/svetym/1249.html 83.254.136.152 11:42, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, they're all derivatives of the respective words for "way", in the sense of "by way (=cause) of" Leasnam (talk) 06:42, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

strategy

RFV of the etymology. Just one bit really, Old French strategie seems not to exist; http://www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/strategie says it was first recorded in 1808, coined based on Latin strategia and its Greek etymon. But when is it first recorded in English? If pre 1808 then it cannot be from French but coined based on the Latin and the Greek. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:52, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that's incorrect. Century Dictionary has it from Old French, but coming directly into Modern English...that's not right. No Middle English dictionaries I've checked have it. It should show from (Modern) French, from Greek (per the cite above); OR French, from Old French strategie, from Latin strategia, from Greek. Leasnam (talk) 03:17, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

שמאָק

RFV of the etymology. Tagged, but not (yet) listed by our new (yay!) Yiddish contributor, Sgold84 (talk • contribs):

From Polish smok (“dragon”).

I was under the impression that this was cognate with German Schmuck (“jewelry, ornament”), through the idea of someone being so useless as to be "just for show".

The word has umlaut in plural (shmek) and diminutive (shmekl). To me it looks like a word that is inherited from Old High German. Or do borrowings from Polish have umlaut in Yiddish? --MaEr (talk) 09:12, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't be surprised if Polish borrowings had umlaut in Yiddish, since umlaut is a productive morphological process in Yiddish, and speakers of a language don't stop to ask themselves what the etymology of a word is before applying morphological processes to it. However, I would be surprised if Polish /s/ showed up as /ʃ/ in Yiddish since /sm-/ is a perfectly acceptable word-initial cluster. In short, I agree that this is far more likely to be from the same source as German Schmuck, though the semantic connection I had heard is that Schmuck came to mean 'penis' (cf. senses 2 and 4 of שמאָק) through the idea that a man's penis is his "jewel" (cf. English family jewels (“testicles”)). —Angr 20:23, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

smok

On a somewhat related note, I'm not so sure about the etymology at smok (“dragon”). A Polish IP answered an rfe with their only edit ever:

From Proto-Slavic *smokъ

Given that there's already a Proto-Slavic term for dragon: *zmьjь, and given the lack of any gloss or cognates, I wonder if they just guessed. Polish is interesting for being at the geographical intersection of Slavic, Baltic and Germanic. Could there be some connection with Lithuanian smauglys (“boa”) or (less likely) a relative of English smoke? Chuck Entz (talk) 23:14, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

I thought smok might be the source of the name Smaug, the dragon in The Hobbit, but w:Smaug says Tolkien says it's from "the past tense of the primitive Germanic verb smugan, to squeeze through a hole: a low philological jest". It is true Tolkien is more likely to go to Germanic than Slavic for his coinages. —Angr 20:27, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Etymology of some italian/latin and albanian words.

I have been able to find recently the etymology of some latin and albanian words. Here's an example (with links in google translate)

Imagine some armed person in a supermarket. Someone notices him and screams "Gun, has a gun, Run!"

eng: gun, run away <-> alb: arm, ik

alb: arm ik => armik

eng: enemy / hostile <-> alb: armik

If some armed person approaches you, you're scared and about to run a way. If this person doesn't have hostile intentions, he might say "don't run away / I'm not hostile / I'm friendly"

eng: don't run away <-> alb: mo ik

alb: mo ik => moik => mik

eng: friend <-> alb: mik

eng: is <-> alb: eshte (Tosk dialect/official) == asht (Gheg dialect/old Albanian)

However people still use 'a' to mean 'is' (in Gheg dialect)

eng: is friend <-> alb: a mik

Albanian appends an 'u' to bring 'mik' in definite form:

eng: the friend <-> alb: miku

Ultimately:

alb: a mik(u) <-> eng: is (the) friend

alb: a mik(u) => amiku == amicu => amicus (latin)

Italians have used 'ne' to mean 'no' originally. This can be attested in the word 'nesuno':

latin: 'ne' <-> ital: no <-> eng: no(t)

ital: uno <-> eng: one

ital: nesuno <-> no one

So back to 'a mik(u)-s':

lat: ne mik(u) <-> eng: no(t) (the) friend

ne mik(u) => nemiku == nemicu => nemicus

However, people never appended 's' - only priests did (to distinguish themselves from the rest). So, the words evolved in present day italian as either:

amic (alb: a mik) => amic+o

nemic (alb: no mik)=> nemic+o

or the last 'u' evolved in 'o'.

My question is, should I break the above analysis and update the entries for each of the above words? I just created an account here, so I'm a beginner. — This unsigned comment was added by Elvis22 (talk • contribs).

Etymologies need to be researched in reliable sources such as published dictionaries and published books and articles on historical linguistics. One's own personal observations do not belong in etymology sections here. Some of the things you've noticed (such as Latin inimīcus being the negation of amīcus) can be confirmed by means of reliable sources, but some of the other things you've mentioned probably really can't. Before adding etymologies to words, please go to the library and find out what the experts have said. —Angr 12:41, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, what constitutes "a reliable source"? This is pretty much guess-work. And what if the etymology of some word is guessed wrong, does an online media (such as wiktionary) need to wait until all printed publications are updated, or only some of them? If the later case, then how percent of publications need to be updated before wiktionary considers the new explanation a "reliable" one? And what's the point of being an electronic media, with history, revisions, and undo capabilities if you need to wait for paper publications to be updated first? — This unsigned comment was added by Elvis22 (talk • contribs).

For etymology purposes, I'd say Wikipedia's definition of a reliable source applies here too. Something that's been published in a peer-reviewed way. Etymology is not mere guess work; you can, and historical linguists do, apply the scientific method to it: hypotheses are formed and tested against the data and either discarded or evolved into theories. All we can do is report on the current state of scholarship, but the advantage to being an electronic medium, and a wiki at that, is that we can update our page quickly as the state of scholarship changes. But this isn't the place to air our own etymological speculations. —Angr 14:04, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

It would help if you could tell us where you found these etymologies. Dbfirs 17:37, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Christian, Christianity

See the edit histories and User talk:-sche#Error. A user changed the etymology from "Latin Christianus, from Greek Χριστιανός, from Greek Χριστός + Greek -ιανός" to "Latin Christianus, from Greek Χριστιανός, from Greek Χριστός + Latin -anus". I reverted, thinking it improbable that Greek would have formed Χριστιανός by adding a Latin suffix to Χριστός, rather than by adding -ιανός. (Our entry for the suffix eve lists Χριστιανός as a textbook example of its use.) Has anyone got an authoritative reference either way? - -sche (discuss) 17:05, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm unaware of any Ancient Greek suffix -ιανός, and when χριστιανός is the only word in Category:Greek words suffixed with -ιανός, it makes me suspicious of its reality. I think it's just the Latin suffix -(i)ānus written in Greek letters. Most likely Christianus was coined in Latin by adding a Latin suffix to a Greek loanword, and then borrowed back into Greek as χριστιανός with the suffix intact. But I don't have the sources necessary on hand to verify my suspicions. —Angr 18:54, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Russian вор

Good evening,

This word, "thief", looks a lot like Latin fur, which has the same meaning. Might they be cognates? --Fsojic (talk) 20:27, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

No, Russian v normally corresponds to Latin v. Latin f corresponds to Russian b or d. —CodeCat 20:29, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

That's what I thought. Thanks! --Fsojic (talk) 20:35, 2 June 2013 (UTC)