Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2019/August

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← July 2019 · August 2019 · September 2019 → · (current)

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察爾汗

RFV of the etymology: From Tibetan. Wyang (talk) 04:45, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Old Irish olann

Are we sure this come from PIE *h₂wĺ̥h₁neh₂? Not only do we have o- instead of expect f-, but the DIL lists oland as a variant. RubixLang (talk) 15:45, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

I think the real question is whether this comes from Proto-Celtic *wlanā. The latter looks fine as a descendant of Proto-Indo-European *h₂wĺ̥h₁neh₂ as far as my limited knowledge of Celtic historical linguistics goes. There are processes that could explain the "d", but I don't know if they're relevant in this context. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:20, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

@RubixLang, Chuck Entz: The nd is irrelevant; /n͈d͈/ fell together with /n͈/ during Old Irish, so both spellings can be used for both etymological forms. The fact that the /n͈/ is fortis rather than lenis is phonologically regular; there is a dissimilation rule turning a lenis sonorant (l, n, r) into a fortis (ll, nn, rr) after an unstressed vowel that is preceded by another lenis sonorant. (Another example is Éireann.) What is indeed unexpected is the o for w; the word seems to come from a Proto-Celtic *ulanā instead of Proto-Celtic *wlanā. It may have been some sort of sandhi variant. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:10, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Sanskrit द्वार

Is there any established explanation why the aspiration of Proto-Indo-European *dʰwer- was lost in Indo-Aryan? In other words, why isn't the Sanskrit word ध्वार (dhvāra)? —Mahāgaja · talk 15:03, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I have yet to see a convincing one. Hölderlin2019 (talk) 21:36, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Many Prehistoric Roots

Please comment below if you feel this is correct.

-𐌿

Could Gothic -𐌿 come from Proto-indo-European *-wē,*-we? If we apply sound laws, it would give us Proto-Germanic *-u through the loss of final e; that in turn would explain the Gothic suffix. 𐌷𐌻𐌿𐌳𐌰𐍅𐌹𐌲𐍃 𐌰𐌻𐌰𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌺𐌹𐌲𐌲𐍃 (talk) 22:31, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

𧫆

RFV of the glyph origin: 言 + 党. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 14:24, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Almost all of the 內政部戶政用字 (characters used for registry of names) in CNS 11643 have Mandarin readings that are phonosemantically derived in such a way, e.g. 言 + 党 (dǎng) → 𧫆

党 (dǎng) itself is attested in 宋元以來俗字譜 (1930) as a variant form of 黨 (dǎng), and is also part of the non-Han surname 党項 (Dǎngxiàng, “Tangut”).

Perhaps I shouldn't add glyph origins to every Chinese character that I encounter, especially characters that are found only in 內政部戶政用字? KevinUp (talk) 19:24, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

@KevinUp: The problem is that 𧫆 might be a variant of 讜 (but of course we don't have much proof as of now). I think it's best to leave it out for now if you don't have actual proof of it. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 23:21, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Okay, I've removed the glyph origin. Although we don't have proof of 𧫆 as a variant form, two other characters, 鎲 and 𫽮 with the same component 党 are attested as variant forms of 钂 and 攩 respectively. KevinUp (talk) 10:20, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Tibet

The current etymology links it to Tibetan བོད (bod) via Persian تبت (the Persian entry does not itself have an etymology) and has no references for this. Previously the etymology was linked to Turkish Turkic via Arabic as can be seen in this discussion here Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2016/April#Tibet. The previous etymology seems to be have been directly copied from the Wikipedia article Tibet#Etymology which has a single ref to a Brill journal.

The Arabic origin can be seen in other sources as well, such as Etymonline which links it to Tibetan Bod with an unknown ultimate origin; the Arabic origin is also found in The Concise Dictionary of World Place Names which says "The name Tibet may be derived from Thubet, a 5th-century Mongolian prince or taken from the Arab name Tubbat." but does not provide a further etymology.

The Brill ref mentioned above states this in the text (from the limited preview in Google Books):

Chapter 3 (“Tibetan in Context", pp. 7-38) presents a very carefully written introduction to the linguistic and historio-sociological context of the Tibetan language. The Chinese 'exonym' (to use J.A. Matisoff's terminology) for the Tibetans, Fan/Bo < (Pulleyblank's) Early Middle Chinese *buan < (Schüssler's) Old Chinese *pjan, which is written with four different characters in the compound Tu^1-2fan/bo^1-4 (EMC T^h₃^h-buan < OC *Tha?-pjan, 'Tibet') in Chinese sources, is hesitatingly linked up by Beyer with Old Tibetan bon ("shamanic religion", p. 7, n. 1 and pp. 16-17) and said to mean "barbarian" in Chinese. The variation in the selection of characters used to write this compund (on which see H. Giles, "The Character fan¹ or fan⁴, in: China Review 7, 1878 and V. Mair, "Tufan and Tulufan: The Origins of the Old Chinese Names for Tibet and Turfan", in: Central and Inner Asian Journal 4, 1991) suggests that Tu1-2fan/bo^1-4 was a purely phonetic transcription of an underlying *Töpün, which has been convincingly argued by Bazin and Hamilton ("L'origine du nom Tibet", in: E. Steinkellner [ed.], Tibetan history and language, Festschrift Uray Géza, Wien 1991) to be a reflex of Old Turkish töpä/töpü 'peak', 'height'. This word would have reached the Chinese by interference of the Tuyuhun or 'White Falcons', apparently an 'Altaic’ speaking tribe known to have dwelt between China proper and Tibet since at least the 4th century A.D. The final -t evidenced by later Chinese and Sogdian transcriptions […]

So can someone verify if the ultimate origin is Tibetan or Turkish Turkic. The intermediator seems to be Arabic rather than Persian. Also see the entry at the French Wiktionary fr:Tibet.

On a related note, we also have तिब्बत (tibbat) in Hindi which provides an etymology from Sanskrit त्रिभोट (tribhoṭa) which seems to be sourced from the Hindi Shabdasagara. But I cannot find त्रिभोट in Sanskrit Dicts and the Hindi word looks to be pretty close to the English one. Maybe @AryamanA can help here. — This unsigned comment was added by Gotitbro (talk • contribs) at 04:40, August 10, 2019 (UTC).

'Tibet' in Old Turkic is usually transcribed as tüpüt while the 'top' word is töpü, but this word is not found outside of Old Turkic and Middle Turkic as far as Räsänen knows, and these don't generally differentiate between ü and ö (unless the word is attested in Brahmi, which I have no way of checking), and the word in Mongolian is Төвд (Tövd) so maybe töpüt could be a possible rendering.

I'm not familiar with any cases of a common noun + -t forming an ethnonym, but I haven't done any research on this and -t does exist as a formant in some Turkic ethnonyms (it also occurs more generally as a plural suffix in Mongolic).

The word is found in Sogdian as [Term?] (“twp'yt”), so maybe it could be one of the links in the chain of transmission.

Ultimately, the Turks, as far as we can tell, had no significant early contact with the Tibetans, so I doubt they would have a native name for them, my personal low confidence guess is tö- is some sort of prefix or compounded word from an unattested intermediary and -püt derives from བོད (bod). Crom daba (talk) 22:11, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

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We use the language name “Turkish” for modern Turkish. Maybe the name goes back on some Turkic language.  --Lambiam 12:29, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Oh, I meant Turkic only which can also be seen in the previous discussion (the Brill text mentions "Old Turkish" though, maybe just an older terminology). Thanks for pointing out; edited. Gotitbro (talk) 19:39, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

The current Hindi etymology makes no sense phonologically (Sanskrit tribhoṭa should give Hindi ti(b)h(o/u)ṭ or something). If anything, it's probably a nativized borrowing from English. —Aryaman^{A (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान)} 23:00, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

I think the main sticking point is the part about "Turkish" people reaching Tibet in the Old Chinese period. Pan-Turkists will tell you that the Turks were everywhere from the beginning of time and that this has been covered up by everyone else for nefarious reasons. This is usually justified by an isolated word or name here or there that superficially resembles a Turkic form, as well as the assumption that being agglutinative means that a language is related to Turkish somehow. The main people pushing this etymology both here and at Wikipedia were, by all indications, Pan-Turkists. That's not to say the Pan-Turkists are always wrong, but their involvement raises red flags.

At any rate, I found the Festschrift article mentioned in the Oriens article, and I think I can piece together the following (found by searching for Turk) from snippets (using the search inscriptions "runiformes"):

(first snippet)

twpyt comme nom du Tibet. ⁷ De plus, le médicin grec du XI^e siècle, Syméon, fils

de Seth, aurait Τουπάτα ou Τουπάτ comme le nom du pays d'òu vient le

musc. ⁸ Or, toutes ces différentes formes du nom Tibet en sogdien, en pehlevi,

et en grec peuvent se ramener à un prototype *Topet.

Remontant toujours plus haut dans le temps, dans les inscriptions turques

(second snippet)

runiformes de la première moitié du VIII^e siècle, on trouve le Tibet désignée en

turc ancienne sous le forme Töpüt. ⁹ Or, entre la forme turque runiforme que nous

lisons Töpüt, et la forme sogdienne, pehlevie, ou grecque que nous lisons *Topet,

existe une difference sensible, à savoir la presence a la deuxième syllabe d'une

voyelle labiale -ü- dans le premier cas et d'une voyelle plus ouvert -e- ou -ä- dans […]

Perhaps someone with a better French vocabulary can find something more relevant than this chunk of the second and third pages of the article Chuck Entz (talk) 02:52, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

I am fairly sure these two snippets connect without gap; the p.10 snippet contains the last line of the running text on the page – it is followed by a continued footnote – and the connection is grammatically perfect and semantically seamless. I have been able to extract some material preceding the first snippet; combining this all results in:

... normale en arabe d’une forme telle que twp’yt en écriture sogdienne, que nous lisons *Topet et qui figure comme nom de Tibet au début de la l. 19 de la version sogdienne de l’inscription trilingue de Qara-Balgasun datant de la deuxième décennie du IX^e siecle.⁵ En effet, à la voyelle labiale -w- de twp’yt correspond la première voyelle labiale -u- de la forme arabe, à la consonne labiale sourde -p- de twp’yt, qui manque en arabe, correspond la consonne labiale sonore renforcée -bb- de Tubbat, tandis que la voyelle semi-ouverte et moyennement antérieure du genre de -e- ou -ä- qu’ont dû noter les deus lettres sogdiennes ’y de twp’yt, mais qui fit également défaut à l’arabe, est rendue dans la syllabe finale de Tubbat par la voyelle ouverte -a-. La forme twp’(’)yt du nom du Tibet figure également dans l’inscription sogdienne du Ladakh datant de l’an 841-842.⁶ Par ailleurs, dans un texte pehlevi, rédigé probablement aux alentours du IX^e siècle, figure la forme twpyt comme nom du Tibet.⁷ De plus, le médicin grec du XI^e siècle, Syméon, fils de Seth, aurait Τουπάτα ou Τουπάτ comme le nom du pays d'òu vient le musc.⁸ Or, toutes ces différentes formes du nom Tibet en sogdien, en pehlevi, et en grec peuvent se ramener à un prototype *Topet.

     Remontant toujours plus haut dans le temps, dans les inscriptions turques runiformes de la première moitié du VIII^e siècle, on trouve le Tibet désignée en turc ancienne sous le forme Töpüt.⁹ Or, entre la forme turque runiforme que nous lisons Töpüt, et la forme sogdienne, pehlevie, ou grecque que nous lisons *Topet, existe une difference sensible, à savoir la presence a la deuxième syllabe d'une voyelle labiale -ü- dans le premier cas et d'une voyelle plus ouvert -e- ou -ä- dans le second. ...

This is the continued footnote referred to above, plus part of the next one:

______________________________

Tibet noté tbt dans l'édition, Paris 1836-1840, par A. Jaubert de la Géographie d'Édrisi, tome I, pp. 490-493 et 498, tome II, pp. 221 et 350. Pour les formes tbbt et tubbat voir l'édition par V. Minorsky de Hudûd al-'Ālam, pp. 92-93, ainsi que son édition de Sharaf al-Zamān Tāhir Marvazī on China, the Turks and India, §42, pp. 27-28 et *16-*17.

     ⁵ A la différence d'Olaf Hansen, qui, dans la première édition de cette inscription, a lu ici à la l. 19 twp’wtā’ny “tibétain” (cf. Olaf Hansen, «Zur soghdischen Inschrift auf dem dreisprachigen Denkmal von Karabalgasun», Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne, XLIV/3, Helsinki 1930, pp. 20 et 34). ...

It is a pity we don’t see more of the discourse concerning the notable difference of the Turkic labial vowel -ü- and the more open -e- or -ä-.  --Lambiam 05:12, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

This (second) vowel might as well have been -ö-, this would be supported by the lack of raising in Ordos /tʰɵwɵt/. Crom daba (talk) 15:46, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

I have managed to extract another piece from p.13:

(ainsi, tarqa ~ tarqan ~ tarqat; *tegi ~ tegin ~ tegit). C’est précisement cette alternance que nous retrouvons dans les formes töpä “sommet” ~ *Töpän ~ *Töpät “Tibet”. Cette même alternance étant, comme on l'a vu, classique en mongol (mori ~ morin “cheval” ~ morit “chevaux”, etc.), et le sens de töpä “sommet, hauteur” convenant bien pour désigner le “toit du monde”, région des hauteurs par excellence, nous proposons d'attribuer à ces noms du Tibet (donc à leurs successeurs arabo-persans, puis occidentaux) une étymologie turque ou turco-mongole.

    Notre proposition entre donc en contradiction avec les étymologies généralement proposées à partir du tibétain Bod, nom indigène du pays, alternant parfois avec Bon, nom indigène de la religion, et complété parfois par d’autres mots ...

The crucial piece is where the authors write: “we propose to attribute a Turkic or Turco-Mongolian etymology to these names of Tibet (and thus to their Arabo-Persian and next Western successors).” Even with only the snippets we see, this contribution to the festschrift is a serious study (and Wolfgang Behr, in the book review of The Classical Tibetan Language cited above by the OP, writes that in this study the authors have ”convincingly argued” that the Old Chinese name for Tibet comes from *Töpün (and so has an apparently Turkic or Turco-Mongolic origin)). While nothing in etymology going back this far is ever certain, this is a theory that should definitely be mentioned as a serious possibility (with an appropriate reference to “L'origine du nom Tibet”). Based on what I see, I do not fully understand, though, why this could not indicate just a Mongolic origin (without a “Turco-” component).  --Lambiam 23:17, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

The etymology is based on a Turkic word and Mongolic alternation, thus "Turco-Mongolian".

The Turks and the Chinese might as well have received the word from the Tuyuhun, who spoke a para-Mongolic language (I know nothing about this language since I still, after two years, have no access to Shimunek's Languages of Ancient Southern Mongolia and North China), but we don't have a code for this language and we have no grouping for Para-Mongolic or Macro-Mongolic or however you'd call it. Crom daba (talk) 22:13, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

La Henricus > Pro-Gem Haimarīks

Did the Latin term Henricus really derive directly from Proto-Germanic *Haimarīks as suggested by the Proto-Germanic entry? To me it seems that most words from Proto-Germanic to Latin go via Frankish and I was wondering if that was the case here too.Jonteemil (talk) 16:57, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Based on the loss of medial -a- in the Latin name, and e in place of ai, I would reckon that an intermediary Frankish or Old High German step is probably involved somewhere. Determining which of the two it is may be problematic, and perhaps showing that it ultimately comes from PGmc is easiest. Leasnam (talk) 20:58, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Okay, thanks!Jonteemil (talk) 12:14, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

odiatus

What does singular mean in this sentence from the etymology: "Attestations are singular, but found in the name of the species Culicoides odiatus? DCDuring (talk) 23:34, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

maz

RFV of etymology 4: from Proto-Tai *ʰmaːᴬ (“to come”). ma is the expected reflex of the Proto-Tai word. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 23:19, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Cf. Pittayaporn (2009): pp. 582, ma:^A2 -i for Lungchow; Gedney (2008): pp. 89, CN - LP, LM, WN, LC, PS, NM maa⁴; Li (1977): pp. 72, Lungchow maa^A2. Wyang (talk) 10:50, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

@Wyang: Thanks! In the note for 582 in Pittayaporn (2009), it says "SWT and CT dialects point to earlier voiceless onset", but shouldn't it be "voiced onset"? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 21:25, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that is a typo. Wyang (talk) 07:29, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

@Wyang: Great, thanks! BTW, do you know what "-i" in some of the words listed in Pittayaporn (2009) mean? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 22:39, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

-i = initial, I'd imagine. Wyang (talk) 01:53, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

خَنْدَق (ḵandaq) and Greek borrowings

The entry خَنْدَق (ḵandaq) lists χάνδαξ (khándax) in the descendants as a Koine Greek word, but I suspect it is a later borrowing into Byzantine Greek. --Z 06:38, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

@Erutuon, Mahagaja — We have the code grc-koi for Koine Greek, but Module:grc:Dialects has no code for Byzantine Greek – which in my opinion is an omission.  --Lambiam 09:21, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

@ZxxZxxZ, Lambiam: the code for Byzantine Greek is gkm. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:03, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Is this documented somewhere? It is not an ISO 639-3 language code, and “Byzantine Greek” or “Medieval Greek” is not listed in Wiktionary:Languages and Wiktionary:List of languages. They are mentioned in Wiktionary:About Greek and Wiktionary:About Ancient Greek, but without reference to any code. Our entry for Byzantine Greek specifically mentions ISO 639-3 code grc as its code.  --Lambiam 14:23, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

@Lambiam: Like grc-koi, gkm is an etymology language code found in Module:etymology languages/data, and only full languages from the submodules of Module:languages are listed in Wiktionary:List of languages. — Eru·tuon 16:41, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

So it is hidden in a place where one would not look. Shouldn’t this be mentioned at least in Wiktionary:About Greek and Wiktionary:About Ancient Greek? The etymology-only code hbo is mentioned in Wiktionary:About Hebrew.  --Lambiam 17:07, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Well, so are the other etymology-only codes, like grc-koi. But I agree it isn't helpful. — Eru·tuon 17:15, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Added a section to Wiktionary:About Ancient Greek listing Ancient Greek's etymology language codes. — Eru·tuon 17:50, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Added a label for Byzantine Greek to Module:grc:Dialects. It looks like we've gotten by without it because there just haven't been many Byzantine forms in alternative forms sections. "Byzantine" or "Medieval" are only used in labels in εἰμί (eimí) and παραγίγνομαι (paragígnomai). — Eru·tuon 17:14, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Zaphnath-Paaneah / צָפְנַת פַּעְנֵחַ

In addition to Steindorff's proposed reconstruction, I think two folk etymologies are notable enough to be mentioned.

1. the Jewish etymology (derived from Hebrew), "revealer of mysteries". I don't know how this etymology is derived, but the first part of the name is probably somehow related to צָפַן "to hide". This etymology is used in the targums and in Josephus.

2. the Christian etymology (derived from Coptic), "the savior of the world", in which the name's Greek transcription is retranscribed into Coptic as ⲡⲥⲟⲧⲙⲫⲉⲛⲉϩ, which is taken as Coptic ⲡ- "the" + ⲥⲟⲧ (probably some variant of ⲥⲱⲧⲏⲣ "savior") + ⲙ- "of" + ⲫ- "the" + ⲉⲛⲉϩ "eternity" or "age" (taking Coptic ⲉⲛⲉϩ "age" as synonymous with Greek αἰών "age" or "world" / Hebrew עוֹלָם "age" or "world" / Latin saeculum "age" or "world", which is then reinterpretted as Latin mundus "world"). This etymology is used in the Vulgate.

2601:49:8400:FB40:6DCF:CF9D:53D9:D7A8 15:15, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

See also Zaphnath-Paaneah on Wikipedia.  --Lambiam 19:34, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

melonic

Just to highlight this one, for which five very different senses are given, all of which supposedly having the single etymology of melon + -ic.

The etymology is correct for "melon-like" but definitely not for "Alternative form of melanic", where "melonic" is a homophone in some accents. This makes the applicability of the etymology to the other three senses questionable.

Can anyone track these down and split the entry up by etymology? — Paul G (talk) 05:45, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

ecky-becky

RFV of the etymology (not originally tagged by myself), with the given comment "Sounds very dubious. Sources?". — surjection ⟨?⟩ 13:39, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

“Bequé” does exist as a surname, but “Equé” would be a quite unusual Christian name. In an essay “A Deeper Level of Diversity” (pdf) Tricia Callender calls this etymology “Bajan lore”; we can report it as such. Callender is quoted in the book English, But Not Quite.  --Lambiam 23:21, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

ἄελλα vs. awel

Recently, I discussed a Hesychius gloss αυεουλλαι as part of the Sappho work on my blog, and wondered about the etymology of ἄελλα. This appears to come from the root *h₂weh₁- which gives ἄημι and more. However, the two lambdas are unexplained. I StackExchanged my idea of an etymology, and was told combining that root with *welH- wasn't a thing PIE did, and besides a *h₂weh₁-welH would give ἀϝηϝελ-, not the ἀϝέϝελλ(α) I wanted. It seems there is some root ἀϝελ- which, combined with a -ϳα, would give ἄϝελϳα>ἄελλα. This would point to a relation with awel, which would be a Celtic cognate. However, I can only go as far back as Proto-Celtic *awelā here on Wiktionary in the etymology of awel, and that is neither given further etymology, nor listed as a derivative of *h₂weh₁-. So:

1. Are these two related?
2. Where does PC *awelā come from? Is *h₂weh₁- in the picture?
3. The answer at Stack Exchange gives a picture of a dictionary which suggests there should be a root *h₂w-, which would give *h₂weh₁- via addition of -eh₁, and then *h₂w-el, whence ἄελλα (and I assume awel?), and then another root *h₂ew- (e-grade of *h₂w-?) whence αὔρα. What gives?

BTW it might be time to create an entry for ἄελλα.

MGorrone (talk) 14:51, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

@MGorrone Acording to Matasović, Proto-Celtic *awelā (“breeze, wind”) is cognate with Ancient Greek ἄελλα (áella, “stormwind”); coming from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ewh₁. I don't know much about Ancient Greek sound laws but a deriviation from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ewh₁-el- or *h₂wh₁-el- would give Ancient Greek αελ- (ael-) both because in the first case, the laryngeal turns the "e" into "a", in the second the laryngeal "h₂" becomes "a". Someone with a greater knowledge of Ancient Greek may be able to explain with more certainty, stil hope that helped. 𐌷𐌻𐌿𐌳𐌰𐍅𐌹𐌲𐍃 𐌰𐌻𐌰𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌺𐌹𐌲𐌲𐍃 (talk) 16:42, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

I’ve given ἄελλα (áella) a shot. Please check.  --Lambiam 22:56, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Proper etymology for barbeque

Moved here from Wiktionary:Tea room/2019/August#Proper etymology for barbeque.  --Lambiam 17:43, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
The etymology for barbeque should say something like "from barbecue with spelling altered by comparison with BBQ. Danielklein (talk) 12:35, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Google Ngrams viewer suggests that “barbeque” took off before “BBQ”.  --Lambiam 13:50, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Google Ngrams is from books. It doesn't cover popular usage. BBQ would have been used informally for a long time before being printed in a book. Anyway, the data looks a bit suspect because BBQ became hugely popular exactly during World War II and dropped back to its previous usage immediately afterwards. That seems very unlikely. No matter how you look at it, the current etymology is very poor and needs to be improved. Danielklein (talk) 14:04, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

If you throw “barbecue” into the mix, it does not look as if BBQ temporarily became hugely popular during World War II.  --Lambiam 18:04, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

On the contrary, Google Books also includes pamphlets, newsletters, and plenty of other non-book documents. Looking through the actual search hits themselves, "barbeque" starts appearing in US government documents around 1930, suggesting that it is by then an acceptable alternate spelling; whereas the first hit for "BBQ" that isn't an OCR error is from a 1967 list of food prices in Vend magazine. In contrast, similarly informal shortenings like "lite" or "nite" are well-attested in Google Books results during the first half of the 20th century, so the absence of BBQ isn't solely the result of its informality. Furthermore, do a search of historical photos through Library of Congress... "barbeque" appears frequently in the early 20th century, but "bar-b-q" and "BBQ" don't seem to start showing up on restaurant signs until the 1970s. [3]. Anecdotally, it seems to me that the use of anagrams and phonetic letter-replacement wordplay became much more popular during the 60s and 70s -- think BLT, CDB!, rebus puzzles, etc. so it makes sense that BBQ would be introduced during that time period as well. I don't know where the spelling "barbeque" came from, but unless you actually have evidence to support the assertion that it is in any way related to the use of "BBQ", this sentence should be removed from the entry. 50.1.38.221 00:57, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

poisoned chalice

Is the origin of this phrase from Macbeth, or is there an earlier usage?

https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100333715

If Oxford Reference writes, “the phrase is found originally in Shakespeare's Macbeth”, it is pretty unlikely we would know of an earlier use that has thus far somehow managed to escape the attention of Shakespeare scholars.  --Lambiam 19:40, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Apparently the metaphor can be found in fifth-century Latin writings of Benedict of Nursia, and is memorialized on the Saint Benedict Medal. But it does not appear there as a noun phrase. DCDuring (talk) 23:51, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Actually not in the writings of Benedict himself but in the writings of Pope Gregory I about the life of Saint Benedict. Also, in the narrative, it is not a metaphor but meant to be understood literally. In an English translation: “the glass which contained the empoisoned drink”.  --Lambiam 10:06, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

dash

Merriam-Webster has quite a different etymology for this word than we have:

"Middle English dasshen, probably from Middle French dachier to impel forward"

Now I have very little respect for Merriam-Webster, personally, but their proposed etymology for dash makes me wonder if the reason why dash has so many different meanings (in the way that it does) is potentially due to a historical conflation of different words. Could the swiftness-related sense be from this Middle French "dachier" (a word that I am not familiar with), whereas the strike-related sense is from where we say that it comes from? Tharthan (talk) 06:10, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

No verb (or any lemma) dachier in the online Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (1330-1500).  --Lambiam 07:30, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

I wonder what they are talking about then. Is there any other Middle French verb that they may be thinking of? Tharthan (talk) 18:58, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

No idea. There is an Old French adjective dachier, found often in the combination branc dachier, that seems to mean something like “made of steel”.  --Lambiam 09:53, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

As a side note, branc dachier is no doubt to be read branc d'achier with a (dialectal?) spelling of acier. Sprocedato (talk) 09:28, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

I take it you haven't checked Godefroy, which covers part of the Middle French period. The definition isn't a perfect fit, but it seems relevant. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:48, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

I suppose MW's use of impel here signifies "propel" (lancer), which would basically mean to throw or hurl and not to drive (move swiftly) or rush. The main issue I see with this is that the Middle English verb is attested since 1330, however the Middle French dachier doesn't appear till 1619...that's much later. It would almost seem like the French word is borrowed from the English Leasnam (talk) 04:14, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

acescent

The etymology here is clear, but not typically formatted according to (high?) Wiktionary standards. --Mélange a trois (talk) 21:56, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Resolved; properly formatted by Fay Freak.  --Lambiam 09:36, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Afrikaans graf

Afrikaans graf is said to derive from Dutch graf, but the plural grafte suggests derivation from the obsolete chiefly Hollandic variant graft instead. It is not a clincher, but this sentence from Van Riebeeck indicates the presence of graft in early South African Dutch: Wij vonden oock alhier bij de vellen een weynigh van haer gereedtschap van hoepen, 3 à 4 lege vaetjens, met een graft, daer een cruys op stont met eenige stucken van botteljes, somma het scheen al frans gedoen te sijn. [4] ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 08:14, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

If all this is not a clicher, do you think it possible that Afrikaans graf and grafte have different etymologies, one a descendant of Dutch graf, the other of Dutch graften?  --Lambiam 09:58, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Well, essentially yes. It is quite possible that the actual etymology was very messy, with both graf/graven and graft/graften occurring in the lexicon during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Graaf/grawe is given as "spade, shovel" in word lists from the late 19th century. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 11:20, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Loss of final t after a fricative seems to be a regular process:

• Afrikaans krag < Dutch kracht, but plural kragte;
• Afrikaans  reg  < Dutch  recht, but  plural regte.

 --Lambiam 10:24, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

@Lambiam Yes, it is more or less universal in Afrikaans that t (but not d) is lost in a final cluster of obstruents (except maybe for recent borrowings from languages other than Dutch): konsep, konsepte; kontak, kontakte. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 11:03, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge Though the 'exact' etymology is likely not ascertainable, the above may interest you. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 12:14, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

@Lingo Bingo Dingo: Thanks for the ping. I think that the evidence you've presented is pretty good, so a short weasel-worded summary in the ety section would improve the entry. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:22, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

finora

finora (so far, until now in Italian) has no etymology. I would have thought it would have come from fino (until) + ora (now)

kaddîska in cat

Most sources on the web identify kaddîska 'wildcat' as Berber, specifically Moroccan or even Kabyle, and so did we. Per this edit, Torvalu4 (talk • contribs) changed the article to say that kaddîska is identified as "Barabra", i. e. Nubian, rather than Berber, in Pictet (1859), which seems to be the original source. I'm ready to believe this is true, also considering that kaddîska doesn't really look like Moroccan or anything Berber from what little I know about the family (I think none of the modern languages has long vowels?), though it would be nice to see the original if only in the form of a direct quotation. It is sure worrying, though, that this word, incorrectly attributed, has been copied from source to source since 1859 with nobody bothering to double-check it, nor trying to find out the precise language kaddîska comes from. Also, this is significant because if kaddîska is actually Nubian just like kadīs, and kadīs is a borrowing from Arabic, and Arabic from Latin, then kaddîska is probably also from Arabic and we can forget about it. (Even if it was Berber, it could be a Latin loanword.) And this puts the nail in the coffin of the "wanderwort from Africa" hypothesis, pretty much, and strengthens the rival hypothesis positing a Northern European origin decisively. At this point, Wikipedia still identifies the word as Kabyle – can anyone with access to Pictet fix that? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:51, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

I updated the Wikipedia entry. Torvalu4 (talk) 12:36, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you very much! --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:56, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke, everyone has access to Pictet. Just click the link generated by the reference template in cat. It indeed says "Barabra". --Vahag (talk) 07:20, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

@Vahagn Petrosyan Thanks, I had completely missed that. Another thing though: Where does Pictet mention kadīs? He says "le nouba kadiska et le barabras kaddîska"! Is that another point that has been incorrectly copied throughout the literature, or is that the part that has been corrected later by actually checking the lexeme in Nobiin, with only kaddîska left with an incorrect attribution? That one could really need a double check by an expert in Nubian languages. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:09, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

shinny, shimmy

(This was originally brought up in the Tea room, but Chuck Entz pointed out that this is a question of etymology, which it indeed is, and so I now bring it here.)

I am personally aware of the common conflation/confusion of these terms, and have heard "shimmy" when people meant "shinny". To be honest, I think that I heard "shimmy" used for "shinny" before I heard "shinny" used for "shinny".

Lexico (powered by Oxford) indicates this as well:

https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/shinny

(also, see definition 2.1 at : https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/shimmy)

Might I suggest having a section like this for "shimmy"?: 

 

Etymology 2

Corruption of "shinny", by misassociation with definition 5 of the previous.

 

"The previous" being, of course, the actual word "shimmy".

Or were these identical meanings found for both words formed independently? Tharthan (talk) 17:10, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

xeriff

Found this word while I was working on a word puzzle. I am not an expert in coins, but after an hour of research... it seems this word was used during the 18th and early 19th century to refer to some kind of gold coin originating in either Turkey or Egypt. I have not found any dates or descriptions associated with the coin, so it is not clear to me what kind of coin this definition is actually referring to. My best guess is that the word xeriff is a mangled transliteration of kurus or qirsh, a type of coin used in the Ottoman Empire and some of its successor states. Maybe someone who is more familiar with Ottoman Turkish (or with historical coins) could do some digging? 50.1.38.221 22:56, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

I am more inclined to think of nominalized use of Arabic شَرِيف (šarīf), Modern Turkish şerif. The phonetic distance with Turkish kuruş seems unbridgeable.  --Lambiam 23:28, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Fair enough. My only evidence for suggesting the connection was that it seemed like the only possible phonetic match among coins I could find pictures of, so if it seems wildly implausible, I am happy to be corrected. 50.1.38.221 01:04, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

أَشْرَفِيّ (ʔašrafiyy) is a coin, the first printing of which Arabic Wikipedia dates to 1407, Circassian Mamluk Sultanate. A variant of this coin name is شَرِيفِيّ (šarīfiyy), so in Dozy I 749b, although one finds a bugger searching this variant on the web or Google Books. In one list I found in Google Books one mentioned a عُمْلَة (ʕumla) شَرِيف (šarīf), but no further information. The coin’s use seemingly faded four hundred years later. The coin collector site Colnect has four Egyptian ašrafīs and one Turkish one, and 33 Nepalese ones, for which reason ever (one can switch the langcodes in the URLs on that site). So much for “languages well documented on the internet”. But keep adding obscure coins to Wiktionary 👍, this is a desideratum that will give us traffic. Fay Freak (talk) 02:05, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

In early modern Spanish, the letter "x" was pronounced [ʃ], as still in some Mayan languages today (see "Chicxulub" etc.) AnonMoos (talk) 09:12, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Also, Catalan... AnonMoos (talk) 09:21, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

In the whole of Iberia, including in Basque, and also in Italy and particularly Latin. One wasn’t sure how to write /ʃ/ in Latin. One also wrote it ­⟨sc⟩ while modern Italian has it for /ʃ/ only when one writes ­⟨i⟩ or ­⟨e⟩ after it. So retained in the genus name Cuscuta which according to modern Italian rules would be *cusciuta.

But this is supposed to be an English transcription. And English has few rules. Until changed in March 2019, English was the sole example for “irregular” in the Wikipedia article orthographic depth. But still ­⟨sh⟩ is a more likely transcription. It is perhaps transmitted from Romance. But our corpora are too small. For the English form they barely suffice, so I find no Spanish or Portuguese equivalent form. Fay Freak (talk) 12:45, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Xeriff is not really an "English transcription", it's an English spelling of past centuries, which may have been influenced by the spelling in some Mediterranean Romance language through which it was borrowed into English (a reasonable hypothesis, though not proved).

As for "orthographic depth", the spelling of the Irish language before the reform of 1947 puts English to shame (as does probably also Tibetan, as far as I understand it)... AnonMoos (talk) 16:44, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

False dichotomy here. Is this an English word? The speakers back then would have answered no, and would have answered yes to “is this a transcription?” It is a string in use to denote an outlandish coin. The “English” is low here. There are words that are much English, and words that are less English. The concept of “English” is open-ended and blurry at its corners, and your assertion of this being English is dogmatical. On Wiktionary one can just include anything that is used in English text because the space is unlimited. But this doesn’t mean that “being English” excludes being a transcription. That’s just your private understanding of the word. The question is whether speakers are still coupled to foreign language use, or their memory thereof, how ever indirect this knowledge is. Most commonly ezafe and the alternative forms listed there are transcriptions of foreign terms, used with the supposition that English speakers know the term but at the same time trying to adhere to an original source – the distribution of spellings is not a coincidence –, be the uses of the spellings English or not. Only to the Wikipedia type of people polyglotism and polysemy is a mystery and a fiction of English leads the way. Fay Freak (talk) 21:09, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Hate to burst your bubble, but the vast majority of English-speakers in 1707 would not have known what a "transcription" was (other than a scribal copying). The idea of a systematic and consistent phonetic notation was somewhat poorly developed at that time (despite the efforts of a few spelling reformers, whose attempts were mostly met with silence)... AnonMoos (talk) 21:23, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

How did the character "會,会" fist come about and what did it represent?

Hello, I apologize if this is a difficult or confusing question. However, since many Chinese words first came about as scribbling real-world objects, but what object or concept did this verb represent? I am unable to think of an object or concept for illustrating "can," "be able to," or "will," as in the future tense. Thank you.

See the glyph origin and etymology sections at the entry for 會 / 会. The character seems to have originally represented a container with a lid, and the root meaning seems to have been something like ‘to join, to come together’, with ‘lid’ as another (obsolete) meaning and ‘can’, ‘will’ as presumably later sense developments. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 16:12, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

A container with a lid? For example, a can? That's an amusing coincidence. —Mahāgaja · talk 06:05, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Teuton

RFV of the etymology.

Some time back @Stephen G. Brown added "Russian чужо́й (čužój, “stranger”), чудно (čudno, “strange”), чу́до (čúdo, “miracle”)" to the list of cognates". As @LazC pointed out on the talk page, this doesn't match our etymology at чудно. The first on the list certainly looks plausible as a cognate, but are all of them related? Chuck Entz (talk) 13:54, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

The Russian Wiktionary gives the same etymologies as we do, referring to Fasmer. That makes чужо́й and чу́ждый cognates of Teuton, but not чу́дно and чу́до.  --Lambiam 13:18, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

baddie

Equinox mentioned last year that he believed that this was simply "bad" + the suffix "-ie" (sense 2), rather than a corruption of "bad guy". I agree.

Do we have any more information on this that could support (or disprove) our current given etymology? Tharthan (talk) 02:03, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

The theory that this is a corruption of “bad guy” (rather than just meaning “bad guy”) appears inordinately fanciful and needs strong support before it is flaunted. But I don’t know what kind of information could serve in either direction. The only online dictionary (other than Wiktionary) that offers an origin theory is Dictionary.com (based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary), which gives, “An Americanism dating back to 1935–40; bad + -ie”.  --Lambiam 07:40, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

It seems an obvious antonym to goodie, goody, which appears in contexts that make a good + guy contraction an unlikely derivation. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 16:58, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

As additional evidence for the productivity of [ADJECTIVE] + -ie, see also meanie and the related discussion at Wiktionary:Tea_room/2019/August#meanie. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:15, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

blue meanie

Sense two.

What is the derivation, exactly? It has been many, many years since I saw Yellow Submarine, so if the second sense is somehow derived from the first sense or something, I don't recall anything (from my hazy memory) in that film about that. Tharthan (talk) 17:46, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

rook#Etymology_2 -- the "chess piece" sense

The etymology there now traces this as:

From Middle English rook, roke, rok, from Old French roc, ultimately from Persian رخ (rox), from Middle Persian lhw' (rox, “rook, castle (chess)”), possibly from Sanskrit रथ (ratha, “chariot”). Compare roc.

Perusing the etymology for Spanish rincón, I discovered the existence of Arabic رُكْن (rukn). Given that rooks are positioned in the corners of the board, I find myself wondering if the Arabic might have been an influence on, or influenced by, Middle Persian lhw' (rox)? (Also, what is up with that Middle Persian spelling and transliteration?)

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:03, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

One of the ways to say “rook” in Modern Arabic is رُخّ (ruḵḵ), which is thought to come from Persian رخ. The Persian term probably arose in the early 7th century before Arab influence is likely. Also, if the Persian term came from Arabic رُكْن (rukn), you would expect the Modern Arabic form to have retained more of the earlier Arabic. (Note that the kāf, transliterated as k, and the khāʾ, transliterated here as ḵ, represent quite distinct phonemes in standard Arabic.) In the converse direction, it is particularly hard to explain the appearance of an /n/.

I too find the spelling of Middle Persian with Latin letters puzzling. It is not hard to figure out the correspondence with inscriptional Pahlavi; some Middle Persian lemmas use that script, some use Latin script, and some exist in both versions.  --Lambiam 22:01, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

What is up with that? The main script of Middle Persian, Book Pahlavi, is still not encoded. That’s why some just created entries with the transliteration as title. But I recommend to not do that and to move the transliteration to |tr= and the transcription to |ts=, perhaps with |sc=Phlv, and care for other languages in the mean time – after all for the current Persian much is lacking. The script requests will be filled in the future when the script is encoded. Fay Freak (talk) 23:48, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Book Pahlavi is probably not encoded because it's rather strangely ambiguous -- letters writing completely different sounds have taken on the same visual shape, with no attempts to avoid such coalescences and few attempts to resolve the resulting ambiguities, plus the added layer of Aramaiograms. Wikipedia's "Pahlavi scripts" article has a whole section on "Problems in reading Book Pahlavi". AnonMoos (talk) 23:07, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

quisling

Some have argued that this is ultimately Kvislemark + -ling, or Kvislemark + -ing (see the Danish suffix, sense 2).

But of what origin is "[k/K]visle"? Tharthan (talk) 23:31, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

According to the Danish Wikipedia, kvissel is Old Danish for “cleft branch”. Compare also the placename Kvissel, located between two rivers at their point of confluence.  --Lambiam 08:11, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Then, is it related to Old Norse kvistr? Tharthan (talk) 18:26, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Apparently, it goes back on Old Norse kvísl, from Proto-Germanic *twīsilō, so the -l is old. And kvistr is said to stem “in some shape or form” (whatever that means) from Proto-Germanic *kwastuz. If both are true, cognation appears to be ruled out.  --Lambiam 05:00, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

However, at least one Icelandic–English dictionary states there is a relationship (without elaboration). There is also this, which I find hard to interpret, what with the strange code switching between English and German.  --Lambiam 05:12, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

According to another Icelandic-English Dictionary, the initial k- in both Old Norse kvistr and kvísl mutated from earlier t-, so before were tvistr and tvísl. The latter word is then derived from tví-, “two-”.  --Lambiam 05:28, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Anglo-Saxon had a word twisla “fork” (of a river, road, etc.).  --Lambiam 05:40, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks much for the research. I have added the relevant information to quisling’s etymology section. Tharthan (talk) 16:05, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Rambo apple

The given etymologies for this seem to be all over the place.

Some say that this is ultimately from an Old Norse *Hrafnabú.

Others say that it is from French Rambour (another type of apple).

And then some say that it is from French Rimbaud.

Do we have any idea which of these is the most probable? Tharthan (talk)

You don't believe Rambo apple on Wikipedia.Wikipedia ? DCDuring (talk) 02:32, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Proto-dravidian/Sanskrit Forest/grove/cloud/strength/pain/hill

• Kannada ಪಳು (paḷu)/ಹಳು (haḷu), ವನ (vana), ಹಳುವು (haḷuvu)

• Tamil வல்லை (vallai), வனம் (vaṉam), வியல் (viyal), புறவு (puṟavu), பொழில் (poḻil)

• Malayalam വനം (vanaṃ)

• Sanskrit वन (vána)

https://dsalsrv04.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/burrow_query.py?page=477

 5289 Ta. vallai extensive thicket, big forest. Ka. (Hav., Gowda) balle thick bush, thick jungle. Tu. ballè a thicket, bush. / Cf. Skt. (lex.) vallara- vallura- arbour, bower, thicket; Pkt. (lex.) vallara- id. ---D.E.D entry

I am unsure as to whether and how all of these terms are related. Some are clear, but others are more murky. Can someone familiar with dravidian etymology help add these etymologies?

There are a few different meanings shared between these words, but I am unsure of their origin. User:hk5183 011:09, 31 August 2019