Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2021/February

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← January 2021 · February 2021 · March 2021 → · (current)

---

Spread of kanun / canon / قانون / قَانُون

I came across some rfv templates in the descendants section at قانون which are more likely requests to verify the descendants lists. I changed them to rfe, which is less inaccurate. As things stand now Ancient Greek κανών (kanṓn) was borrowed into Arabic. Arabic gave it to Persian which passed it along to the East. Arabic gave it to the Ottoman Empire which gave it to Albanian and English. I bet there are more cognates to be found in former Ottoman territory, and in particular Aremenian, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Turkmen, and Uzbek should gave borrowed it from Persian or Ottoman Turkish rather than directly from Arabic as listed. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:30, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I use {{bor}} to link Azerbaijani words of Arabic origin unless it is demonstrable that a word is indeed coined in Iran or Ottoman Empire using Arabic roots. For older words, it's seldom possible to demonstrate convincingly that a word came in via this or that intermediary. What these words have in common is that they were introduced by the literati, and they knew both Persian and Arabic. As for kanun, it is attested already in XVth century, so if anything, it should be put in as inherited from Old Ottoman Turkish, but I think this is a bit excessive. Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 14:45, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Korean 무 /mu/ "gusset (in clothing)"

무#Etymology 5. Any ideas? I couldn't find any discussion of this in Korean sources.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 14:46, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

If we entertain the possibility of cognates in Japonic, we have Old Japanese 裳 (mo, “lower robes; clothing worn from the waist down”, our entry is currently deficient, see also the etym note at 衣#Japanese). Such garments often have lots of gores and gussets, generally more so than the upper robes. I've also run into cases where what appears to be this same mo is spelled instead using the character 衽 (usual meaning of "gore, gusset"). This reading seems to be rare or obsolete; it's missing from Jim Breen's entry, likewise from Daijisen as seen at the top of this Weblio page, but further down that same page there's a kanji dictionary entry that does show the mo reading.

That said, the Old Japanese phonetic texts use the ⟨mo₂⟩ spelling, often reconstructed as /mə/ as more of a front vowel, so overlap with the back vowel in Koreanic /mu/ seems less likely at first glance. We need more data showing clear JA ↔ KO sound correspondences. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:49, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

See also 袴 (hakama, “traditional Japanese trousers”), a compound where the 裳 (mo) element became that final -ma. Within Japanese, a shift from ⟨mo₂⟩, /mə/ to /ma/ appears to be more likely than from back-vowel variant ⟨mo₁⟩, /mo/ or /mwo/ to /ma/. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:54, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• I noticed too that the 무 (mu) entry lists 마찌 (majji) as a synonym for the gusset sense, particularly with regard to modern clothing. This might be borrowed from Japanese 襠 (machi, “gusset”). The Japanese term is attested only from the late 1300s in the Taiheiki, and I have no clear etymology for the term, so I suppose the possibility is there that it might have been borrowed the other way, from Korean into Japanese. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:42, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Stonk

What is the etymology of stonk?

I would imagine sense 2 of the Noun would be a blend of stock and stink Leasnam (talk) 20:59, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Added  Done Leasnam (talk) 21:14, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I would think there is probably more influence from stronk or thonk before stink, as the former are both also internet slang, and they both use /ɒŋk/ to evoke humour. AquitaneHungerForce (talk) 10:07, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Romanian ghiurghiuliu (rose-colored), derived from what Ottoman word?

It's obvious the word is derived from Ottoman گل / gül (rose), but I am not able to find details of the Ottoman compound from which it was derived. Romanian Academy's dictionary says it's gülgülü, but what does this word mean? Bogdan (talk) 21:45, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Based on consulting dictionaries, probably كلكلی (gülgüli, “pink”). See also كلكون (gülgün, “rose-colored”), كلكونه:

Kélékian, Diran (1911) “كلكونه”, in Dictionnaire turc-français‎^[1], Constantinople: Mihran, page 1035

Redhouse, James W. (1890) “كلكلی”, in A Turkish and English Lexicon‎^[2], Constantinople: A. H. Boyajian, page 1564

Redhouse, James W. (1890) “كلكون”, in A Turkish and English Lexicon‎^[3], Constantinople: A. H. Boyajian, page 1564

I don't know if "pink" and "rose colored" are really different or if we have one word with three forms. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 01:37, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I created the most likely source word كلكلی. Could be gülgüli/gülgülü (the first may be an error in Redhouse 1890) was formed in Turkish while gülgün is the equivalent word in Persian. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 01:48, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. I tried searching gülgülü in some online Ottoman dictionaries, but I couldn't finding it. Perhaps those scanned dictionaries are better, I'll use them when I need them.

As for pink and rose, it's not uncommon to be the same word, like in French rose; in particular the Romanian word ghiurghiuliu used to be used for rosé wines. Bogdan (talk) 20:35, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

𒀭𒆘

A bunch of terms are given as cognates here. Perhaps they're actually descendants? --Pious Eterino (talk) 14:14, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, fixed. Somebody's only edit was to change 'Descendants' to 'Cognates' there. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:44, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

gaslighting

Some months ago, Sgconlaw split the etymology of this entry per each POS, gerund and present participle. I believe they derive from the same etymon. Also, according to policy on inflected forms, I think it can probably be disposed of altogether. Thoughts? Assem Khidhr (talk) 07:14, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

The reason is that there are two separate subcategories, “Category:English words suffixed with -ing (gerund noun)” and “Category:English words suffixed with -ing (participial)”, and each {{suffix}} statement can only categorize an entry into one of these categories at a time, as far as I’m aware. — SGconlaw (talk) 12:26, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

@Sgconlaw: Ummm I see, though I also don't think that duplicating an entry in both subcategories of a parent category would have an incremental significance, especially that the two aren't defined as mutually inclusive and that a third intersection subcategory isn't there. In fact, it might be confusing. It may be better in this case to make do with the parent category, thus easily calculating the intersection of both subcategories by difference (between their sum and the parent's count) while also dispensing with the painstaking extra |id2= parameter altogether. Assem Khidhr (talk) 03:44, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

I’m afraid I don’t really understand your point. I didn’t create the subcategories, but since they exist I assume it is thought desirable that entries are placed into them rather than lumped into the parent category. — SGconlaw (talk) 04:54, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

@Sgconlaw: I'm trying to point out that, on a meta level, those two subcategories may sound exclusive, as if lemmas belonging to one of them aren't likely to belong to the other. Accordingly, unless the subcategories are explicitly defined as overlapping, and to avoid unnecessary inflation of the seemingly rigorous taxa, entries that are both gerundial and participial, like gaslighting, are better either left in the parent category or even more favorably moved into a new third subcategory for (gerundial and participial). Such hierarchy would be semantically cleaner, so to speak (cf. Dirty data). Assem Khidhr (talk) 10:40, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Pinging @Leasnam as the creator of the subcategories. — SGconlaw (talk) 13:34, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

...Why not apply one category via parameter and one category manually? But yes, as Assem Khidhr points out, inflected forms do not normally have etymologies at all, particularly when they are transparent like this. Would anyone else like to comment? It seems the etymologies should be dropped. - -sche (discuss) 04:41, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

I suppose that’s one way we could do it. — SGconlaw (talk) 04:54, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Adding one category via parameter and any manually is what I do when something belongs in both CAT:Irish nouns suffixed with -ach and CAT:Irish adjectives suffixed with -ach but has only one Etymology section. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:46, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Alternatively, should {{suffix}} (and related templates) be updated so they accept multiple |id= parameters (@Erutuon)? — SGconlaw (talk) 09:59, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't think having two etymologies for what is now usually viewed as a single ing-form in current English is supportable. Why waste the extra screen space on this? DCDuring (talk) 22:27, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Murray's OED1 did it and so does the current OED3; based on the two etymologies of the "-ing" suffix. Not that we should necessarily follow suit. - Sonofcawdrey (talk) 09:49, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Old Norse fjǫgur and Proto-Germanic

Wouldn't this point towards a Proto-Germanic form of *fegwōr? (presumably from a dissimilation of *fedwōr) If so, can someone add that to the Proto-Germanic entry, please.

I've added it to the descendants.  Done Leasnam (talk) 06:11, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

τώρα

This is from Ancient Greek τῇ ὥρᾳ (têi hṓrāi), right? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:22, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

The Greek Wiktionary says: from Ancient Greek τῇ ὥρᾳ (ταύτῃ), which, I presume, means that τῇ ὥρᾳ is an idiomatic shortening of τῇ ὥρᾳ ταύτῃ.  --Lambiam 09:40, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

@Lambiam: Thank you! Can you add the etymology? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:35, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

It seems plausible enough, with the common adverbial use of the dative to indicate the time at which something takes place. I am nevertheless a bit reluctant to add this without some conformation from outside the Wikisphere that τῇ ὥρᾳ ταύτῃ was indeed used adverbially in this sense. Thus far I have only found one instance of adverbial use of τῇ ὥρᾳ, meaning, however, “at its best moment”^[4] – corresponding to a sense for ὥρα of “the fitting time or season for a thing”, or adverbially in the accusative “at the right time” for τὴν ὥρην, given by LSJ.^[5] Some GBS hits suggest that τώρα or τῶρα occurs in the Apocalypse (according to the Greek Wiktionary the form τώρα is already Koine), but I have not spotted this directly,  --Lambiam 13:57, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

I see, thanks. I wasn't able to find an occurrence in the Apocalypse either using BibleHub, but maybe their text is normalised and this form is only found in certain variants. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:45, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

manual (2)

A leftover item from this entry.

(military) A drill in the use of weapons, etc.

Anybody got a clear idea which of the two ety sections this belongs under? Mihia (talk) 18:58, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I believe it's under the correct etymology. It's short for 'Manual of arms', which was orignally an instruction booklet on how to handle weapons. :) Leasnam (talk) 01:56, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Mihia (talk) 14:35, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

ልጅ

I have a strong suspicion that ልጅ (ləǧ, “child”) is derived from *walad- (“give birth”), by aphaeresis of the weak first radical and palalisation, but I have no source of Amharic etymologies. Can anybody confirm or refute my suggestion? --ColinFine (talk) 14:34, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

@ColinFine: Usually, d is palatalized to ǧ before a front vowel (diachronically and synchronically), but also in a few words in absolute final position, e.g. in *yad > እጅ (ʾəǧ, “hand”), and also in the word for child. Here is a confirmation from a paper by Pat-El, I hope you can open the page. –Austronesier (talk) 15:36, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, Austronesier, I've added it, with the reference. --ColinFine (talk) 23:26, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

toil, toilen, etc.

We need to have the etymologies for these be consistent.

Given some of the forms of both toil’s Middle English etymon and till’s Middle English etymon, it is clear that whether or not toil initially originated from an Old French word (or, for that matter, Middle Dutch tuylen), it was certainly conflated at some stage with variant forms of tilyen. This provided or at least solidified the meaning of "to labour" for the word.

However, very few etymologies detail all of that. Most actually claim that it is a simple borrowing from Anglo-Norman/Old French, and that the Anglo-Norman/Old French word was from Latin. Nothing further is usually given.

With that said, the Century Dictionary notes the distinct likelihood of the conflation, and the Online Etymology Dictionary entry for the verb merely suggests that it is possible.

Our own etymology sections for words relating to toil do not seem totally consistent. See the two entries in the subject line above. We ought to make them consistent for the sake of Wiktionary readers. Tharthan (talk) 01:10, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

hull (English)

Is there any reason to think etyms 1 and 2 aren't the same? Both concern a "hard protective covering".__Gamren (talk) 18:23, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Etymonline gives a conjectured alternative etymology for the sense of the casing of a vessel. This seems so weak to me that (IMO) it deserves at best a passing mention if it can be sourced, but not a separate section. In my mind, there is no doubt that the mathematical sense is definitely from the same PIE etymon as the seed pod; cf. German Hülle, which is used in the maths sense for example in konvexe Hülle. The latter is indubitably related to the verb hüllen and not to any conjectured Middle English term. The relationship between its cognate Old English hyllan and the noun hulu (“seed covering”) posited at hull deserves further study.  --Lambiam 10:12, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Does Old English hyllan exist? I can only find behylian.^[6][7][8]  --Lambiam 12:47, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

I haven't been able to find an OE sourced hyllan "hide, veil". I can certainly see the maths sense coming from hull (ship's hull) based on the curved shape resembling a ship's hull; not from a seed pod. Otherwise, if it's related to the German, it would have to be borrowed (?). This context must be fairly recent. Leasnam (talk) 08:46, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

The image on Wikipedia has a smoothly curved boundary (the hull is not that boundary, though, but all of the red and blue combined). But this is not some property of convex hulls, but in this case purely due to the set of which the hull is taken, rendered in red. In general, the boundary is not at all curved: [9].  --Lambiam 10:36, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Old Norse descendants of Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/immi

This page lists emi as one of the descendant forms in Old Norse, which User:RubixLang has requested a source for here. cc @Theudariks, who added the form in question. — surjection ⟨??⟩ 20:34, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

I have studied Old Norse and other Germanic languages for several years, and I have never encountered this form. It is not consistent with any sound changes either. I say it should be removed. Mårtensås (talk) 10:00, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Vowel breaking in Old English eom

Inspired by User:Surjection's post, I have a hypothesis about the breaking present in OE eom. Since breaking normally only occurs before h,r,l, or w, is it possible Proto-Germanic *izmi had not yet assimilated to *immi? Consider the following sound changes:

1. *izmi
2. *iRm
3. *ioRm
4. *iomm
5. iom > eom

Is this consistent with OE sound changes? RubixLang (talk) 15:38, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm not an expert, and I am impressed with what you've put forth -- it does make a lot of sense; but does R before a nasal cause gemination of the following consonant, or does it cause lengthening of the preceding vowel, as in *twiRn > twīn (“twine”) so that we end up with *īom > *ēom ? Or can it be both/either ? Leasnam (talk) 05:58, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

I believe compensatory lengthening of the vowel is usual. However, we don't have to posit gemination to explain the form of eom; we can (and maybe should) posit compensatory lengthening, then shortening under low stress subsequently. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 06:05, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Or compensatory lengthening may have simply failed to happen because of the word usually being unstressed. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:58, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Good point; I agree that PG *immi > OE eom looks doubtful phonologically, and PG *izmi > OE eom makes a lot more sense. So this argument implies *iʀm for PWG? Or could it still have been *iʀmi? But maybe *iʀ- was restored on the way towards Old English, although I'm not sure how. Or could the restoration already have happened in PWG?

I'm not even sure on which basis the assimilation *-zm- > *-mm- is reconstructed for PG, and on what argument it is concluded that it cannot have been a later assimilation in Gothic and elsewhere. Ringe (2006: 141) is not clear on this. I suspect he simply assumed that because all Germanic descendants show -m(m)-, he should reconstruct *-mm-, apparently overlooking the significance of the vowel breaking in OE eom, which does suggest otherwise. (This is the West Saxon dialect form, by the way; Anglic has eam, am, which however exhibits breaking too.)

I think that it is usually assumed that PWG *i was lowered to *e before *ʀ on the way to OE (see Campbell 1959: 48), so PWG *iʀm became (Anglo-Frisian?) *eʀm first and then with breaking *eoʀm, before the *ʀ was lost one way or the other (not sure exactly how).

Brunner (1962: 277) assumes that the eo of eom was taken over from bēo, but I find that explanation dubious (Anglic eam, am cannot be explained through bīom). In fact, Brunner suggests that eom was originally *ēom and later shortened in unstressed position (which would help his hypothesis), but even if this is true, the hypothetical *ēom, as mentioned above, would equally fit PWG *iʀm > *eʀm! --Florian Blaschke (talk) 09:50, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

A friend pointed out to me that OE him < PG *himmai < *hizmai constitutes a potential counterexample. Although heom, eom is also attested, this appears to be a late (from Ælfric on) analogical form – heom occurs as a plural form, and could be modelled after the nom./acc. pl. hēo. We could get rid of the counterexample him if its vowel had been levelled on the basis of the acc./gen. sg., but that's a tricky assumption to make.

Generally experts treat it as an unsolved problem that OE has eom ~ eam, am and not the expected **im. My friend thinks it's most likely that the assimilation of -zm- > -mm- already happened in PG, after all, and *-s-, *-z- or *-r- was somehow restored at some point in the history from PG to OE. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:07, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Based on examples by Jassanoff (2007:259), it looks to me as if loss of R and vowel breaking are mutually exclusive processes (e.g. meord/mēd < *mizdō). –Austronesier (talk) 15:56, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

I think the vowel in mēd comes from the "Anglian Smoothing" (*ioR > *eoR > ē). I'm not how the vowel quality would change from i to e otherwise. EDIT: Nevermind, it doesn't appear the AS would occur here. RubixLang (talk) 18:13, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

It's definitely not Anglian smoothing. Apparently, between a front vowel and a dental, PWG *z is lost with compenstory lengthening in the north of WG, but not in the south of WG, per Sean Crist; OE shows both types. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:17, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, this form is pretty unique though so who knows what happened here, maybe a -r- was lost in an unstressed *eorm. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:49, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

cervesia#Latin

Our entry currently describes this as "Ultimately borrowed from Proto-Celtic *kurmi (“beer”)." However, the phonology seems quite odd to me -- the initial Latin cer- and Proto-Celtic *kur- makes sense well enough, but then how on earth do we get Latin -vesia from Proto-Celtic -mi? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 06:56, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Not sure, but the entry Proto-Celtic *kurmi might hold the key--it shows the stage development through *kurmēsyā toward the Latin, but I wonder if the Latin might not instead be descended from the Brythonic branch showing *kurβ̃ (?) + *-ēsyā, which seems to match better phonetically Leasnam (talk) 07:56, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

@Victar In this edit from last October, you added a Proto-Brythonic *kürβ̃ėsi but didn't actually put Latin cervesia beneath it as a loanword. Did you mean to? Does *kürβ̃ėsi need to be reconstructed for anything other than as the source of the Latin word? Also, when you created the page, you wrote Latin: {{l|la|cervisia}}, {{l|xce|cerevisia}}, {{l|xce|cervesia}} {{see desc}}, tagging all but the first variant as Celtiberian (xce) rather than Latin. Are any of these spellings attested for Celtiberian? —Mahāgaja · talk 09:08, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Conflicting Etymology for Dieffenbachia (Wikipedia vs Wiktionary)

There are two conflicting etymologies for the word Dieffenbachia. Under Dieffenbachia, Wikipedia says: "Dieffenbachia was named by Heinrich Wilhelm Schott, director of the Botanical Gardens in Vienna, to honor his head gardener Joseph Dieffenbach (1796–1863)." However, Wiktionary says: "After Ernst Dieffenbach, a German physician + -ia"

Our etymology is wrong. Ernst Dieffenbach was active in New Zealand, but Dieffenbachia is from the West Indies. What's more, the original description was published in 1829, when Ernst Dieffenbach was 18 years old. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:14, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

buccia

RFV of the etymology.

• Via German Borke from Old Norse bǫrkr, from Proto-Germanic *barkuz.

According to this, it went from Old Norse directly to modern German, and from there to Italian. This seems strange for a word attested since the late 13th century in Italian. Aside from the time travel required, there's the matter of intervening languages such as all the Low German lects. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:59, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Note: It was removed from the descendants of the German term by Florian Blaschke (Special:Diff/61824016: “Not believing it”; related edits: Special:Diff/61824007, Special:Diff/61824015, Special:Diff/61824027). J3133 (talk) 08:30, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

First off, the German word isn't said to be from North Germanic (and it should use the "borrowed" template, not the "derived" one) elsewhere at all (Pfeifer says it's probably borrowed from Middle Low German – it's already attested in Late MHG; though I don't think it's regionally specific to Northern Germany, as claimed at Borke, but it might have been in the past –, and that's what we say as well), so we can already discount that part, and second, the alleged borrowing from German into Italian is implausible phonologically, so I don't believe it without a source.

Better chuck the whole etymology. Italian Wiktionary and the explanation shown by Google directly as answer on top when you enter "buccia" etimologia ("Lat. volg. *bucea, der. di *buca, variante di bŭcca ‘guancia’, che ha assunto il sign. di ‘escrescenza, crosta, scorza’ •sec. XIII."), although I haven't been able to find out where exactly it comes from (Oxford Languages is linked, but I couldn't find it there), contradict it as well. (Other Ghits say "etimo incerto", which adds to the doubt.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 08:49, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

GBS indicates a hit for [buccia etimologia bucea] on page 56 of: Giacomo Devoto (1996), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana, but refuses to show even a snippet of text. There is apparently also an 1982 edition. If you wish to be treated to an assortment op erudite but audacious hypotheses, ranging from “Dutch” borke to Ancient Greek λοβός/λοπός to Latin praeputium, see Ottorino Pianigiani’s 1907 Vocabolario Etimologico della Lingua Italiana.  --Lambiam 21:35, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

I have to admit, a sense development from "cheek" to "rind, peel, husk, pod" is somewhat difficult to trace...Leasnam (talk) 08:11, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

pentacle redux

Our current etymology has:

From Middle French pentacle, from Old French pentacol, from pent (“hangs”), a (“from”), and col (“neck”), thus "hangs from neck".

The online OED has, reportedly:

< Middle French pentacle talisman, most often in the form of a five-pointed star ... and its etymon post-classical Latin pentaculum ...

Regardless of its plausibility, it cannot be right to completely ignore the etymology at the OED. For an earlier extensive discussion, see Talk:pentacle § pend-a-col, Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2013/March § pentacle and Talk:pentacle § Etymology according to the OED. See also Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2021 February 8#Earth pentacle of the Golden Dawn. To make the circle round, our etymology for Latin pentaculum is that it is a “Latinized version of the Middle French word pentacle”. However, Le Trésor supports the Medieval Latin origin, and so does the ODEE, although marking “– medL. *pentaculum” with an asterisk. (The OED reportedly claims it is attested in a 1590 translation of a passage from 1531.) What is the best way to handle this? Exhibit the full range? Is it conceivable that two different etyma (Old French pent a col and Medieval Latin pentaculum) converged to a single form?  --Lambiam 12:11, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Frankly, Medieval Latin lexemes are always tricky to build hypotheses on ... people seem to forget that Medieval Latin was secondary to the spoken languages, and probably not primarily a source of new lexemes, rather than a destination into which vernacular lexemes were imported and superficially Latinised. Hence, I suspect that Old French pent a col was Latinised as Medieval Latin pentaculum, which was (probably by scholars) assumed to be related to Ancient Greek πεντάγραμμον (pentágrammon), and then reborrowed into Middle French as pentacle. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:16, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Prague

Surely the English is from the French, not the German? If not, the etymology leaves the use of the French spelling a mystery.... Andrew Sheedy (talk) 05:27, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

At The Hague, it is claimed that the spelling comes from French, but how else should an Anglification of Middle Dutch Die Haghe have been spelled? The spelling of plague definitely does not come from French; see also the non-French etymologies of brogue and drogue. The English name for the capital of Bohemia may also have come from Latin Praga.  --Lambiam 06:32, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I'd always understood those odd ⟨gue⟩ and ⟨gui⟩ spellings as, if not directly from French, then at least French-inspired orthography to disambiguate /d͡ʒ/ G and /ɡ/ G, since ⟨g⟩ is never affricated when followed by ⟨u⟩, but it usually is when followed by ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩.

But perhaps I got the wrong end of the stick at some point? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 01:02, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

But G always makes a /ɡ/ sound at the end of word, so if it was borrowed from German, why not retain the "Prag" spelling? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 01:17, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

If the word once had a follow-on vowel, especially if that follow-on vowel were an /e/, spelling it without that ⟨u⟩ would cause the ⟨g⟩ to affricate. The ultimate etymon has a following vowel, as indeed do many (most?) cognates.

Alternatively, if the word were previously pronounced with a fronted A as in /ɛi/, English orthography dictates the "silent E" on the end, which would again cause the ⟨g⟩ to affricate if it didn't also have that ⟨u⟩.

I do note over at w:Prague#Name that "In the 19th and early 20th centuries it was pronounced in English to rhyme with 'vague'", FWIW. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 01:38, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Also, the spelling ⟨Prag⟩ invites the pronunciation /pɹæɡ/.  --Lambiam 14:36, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

pi, pie

(letterpress typography) Metal type that has been spilled, mixed together, or disordered.

Synonym: pie

(letterpress typography) To spill or mix printing type.

Synonym: pie

Do pi and pie (in these senses) have the same etymology (they are now listed under different etymologies: pi: “From Ancient Greek πεῖ (peî)”; pie: “From Middle English pye, pie, probably from Latin pīca (“magpie, jay”)”)? J3133 (talk) 07:32, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Dutch pastei,^[10] French pâté^[11] and Italian pasticcio, all culinary terms, also have this sense of a typographer’s nightmare – the Italian actually in a more general sense of a complete mess. That makes it plausible that the English sense is also a figurative use of the culinary sense. Possibly, this is a semantic loan. — This unsigned comment was added by Lambiam (talk • contribs) at 15:00, 18 February 2021 (UTC).

Ace

We don't list this, but "Ace" is also a surname of Germanic origin, partly from a. an Old French name from Frankish that was essentially something going on the same idea as "Adelheid" (except that it was a male name, rather than a female one), b. probable cognates to that Frankish given name present in other Germanic languages, and also possibly c. from shortened forms of "Adolf" (and the like).

Do we know if any instances of the given name "Ace" may be more likely to be applications of the surname, rather than being formed based on the English word "ace"? Or do all instances of the male given name postdate the popularity of informal English "ace", rendering that pretty much impossible?

Pinging potentially knowledgeable parties:

@Lambiam, @Florian Blaschke, @Chuck Entz

Tharthan (talk) 23:09, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Also, if it's an absurd idea, then please do state as much. I am not campaigning for Wiktionary to state that the given name is from the surname, I am simply asking whether it is at all possible. If the given name postdates or coincides with the popularity of the informal English usage of ace, then that would render more or less impossible derivation from the aforementioned not especially common surname.

The only reason why I raise this matter here at all is because there have been many instances where what seems at first glance to be the same surname / given name can be demonstrably shown to be a number of different surnames / given names that happen to be spelt and pronounced the same way. Given the existence of the Ace surname, I was simply asking whether that was the case here or not. Tharthan (talk) 18:41, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

As a surname, this is fairly rare. The English Wikipedia has only one article on a person with this surname as a birthname, British dramatist Juliet Ace. As she is of Welsh extraction, one might entertain the theory that this is an English adaptation of an originally Celtic name. As to a Germanic origin, I can’t think of Germanic names that might be cognates.  --Lambiam 14:01, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

The rarity of the surname would make the possibility of the far less rare given name being derived from the surname incredibly unlikely. That is good to know.

With regard to Germanic origin of the surname, Old High German name Azo has been suggested as a cognate. Tharthan (talk) 00:52, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know anything specific. This name is so short it could be derived from anything, especially given that shortenings of names, especially in -(i)zo, are so common already in Old High German. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:53, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

cuina (Catalan)

RFV of the etymology. It says "From Old Catalan coïna, from Old Occitan [Term?], from Vulgar Latin *cocīna, from Latin coquīna", but does intervocalic c normally disappear in Old Catalan/Old Occitan? Is it not more likely to be from culīna? Loss of intervocalic l seems more likely (it was a regular sound change in Old Portuguese, for example), though admittedly I don't know if it's any more regular in Old Catalan/Old Occitan than loss of intervocalic c is. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:14, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

If culina was from "cluster simplification of a pre-form *kokʷlīna", you are back at square one. Corruption from coquina does not look any more attractive and you might as well ask if Latin has it from Catalonia. Plenty of options there as it used to be linguistically quite diverse across the centuries. This is culinary by the way. 109.40.241.179 06:16, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

No, I'm not back at square 1. I'm only asking about the immediate ancestor of cuina, which I believe to be culīna rather than coquīna. The fact that those two Latin words may well be etymologically related themselves is irrelevant to my question. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:57, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

What little information I can find suggests that yes, cuina is from cocina and c does disappear in other words, like dir, dur, rebre and veí. Obres completes, v. 3 (Pompeu Fabra, Jordi Mir, Joan Solà, Antoni M. Badia i Margarit; ECSA, 2006),

• page 110, on what h in the (older/occasional) spelling of some words indicates: [...] una consonant llatina desapareguda; per exemple, vehina, de VICINA, rihent der RIDENDO, rahó de RATIONE. Però això no impedeix que escriguin fiar (FIDARE), tihó (TITIONE), niar, nuar, pais, cruel... Inadvertencia, diran alguna, cal escriure fihar, tihó, nihar... Perfectament, i, llavors, també cuhina, (COCINA), dehia (desia < DIZEBAT), duhia, (dusia < DUCEBAT)? Es que aqui, pot replicar-se, les dues vocals formen un diftong.
• page 214: Però aquests dos empleus de la h son incompatibles en molts casos, per exemple en cuina, de COCINA, aon la regla etimològica exigiría cuhina, es dir, l'interposició, entre ·ls dos elements d'un diftong, d'un signe que es precisament l'indicador de la pronunciació dissillàbica. La h representant de C, D, etc. [...] com rehebre (de RECIPERE), esdevinguda rebre, en paraules com dihent, rahó, en què la pronuncia no s'oposa al seu manteniment, [...]

- -sche (discuss) 16:37, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, that's very interesting and good to know. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:47, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Let me add, not every intervocalic -c- disappears; Latin sēcūrus became Catalan segur; w:Phonological history of Catalan has an explanation of the peculiar loss of the consonant in Latin -ci-, -ce- words, and even then, when I go through all of our Latin lemmas which list Catalan descendants and look at Latin words with -oci-, most enter Catalan with the -oci- intact (e.g. Latin sociālis → Catalan social), although that may be because they're learned or later borrowings or alterations(?). However, Latin vocitus → Catalan buit is another example of the specific change from Latin -oci- to Catalan -ui-. (OTOH, Latin būcina became Catalan botzina.) In comparison, Latin words with -uli- for which we list Catalan descendants also mostly preserve the -uli- intact and also mostly look like they may be due to learned borrowing or alteration; examples include Latin culīnārius(!) → Catalan culinari, as well as Latin Iūlius → Catalan Juli, Latin iulius → Old Catalan juyl → juyol, jullol → Catalan juliol (which however says it underwent particular semi-learned alterations on top of other alterations designed to differentiate it from June)... but Latin fulica did become Catalan folliga, fotja, and Latin mulier became Catalan muller, which Wikipedia suggests is the/a typical development of Latin -Vli-. - -sche (discuss) 00:51, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I think this is the relevant portion in Phonological history of Catalan#Common features with Occitano-Romance languages (tag dropped):

"Merger of Proto-Western-Romance /ð/ (from intervocalic -d-) and /dz/ (from intervocalic -ty-, -c(e)-, -c(i)-). The result was originally /z/ or /dz/, still preserved in Occitan and partly in Old Catalan, but in modern Catalan now developed to /w/ or lost."

Old Catalan may have had *co(d)zina or *cu(i)zina or so, then. Not sure if the word is attested early. However, see coquina#Descendants. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:39, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Sure enough, the 1905 Diccionari popular de la llengua catalana, although it mentions some odd theories about the etymology, does list cuzina as a spelling of the word, as does Thomas N. Bisson's 1984 Fiscal Accounts of Catalonia Under the Early Count-kings. (As an aside, Bisson also has an example of choch(in)es as a spelling in the Latin of the area: "Et expensauerunt in ligna .iii. denarios; in mel .iiii. liures .iiii. denarios; in choch(in)es, scilicet in espinax et cepe .xiii. denarios; in oleo .xxviiii. liures [...]". As another aside, I also spotted two cookbooks from 16th-century Spain titled, in Spanish, "libro de cozina", a spelling we don't currently mention anywhere.) Whereas, it seems like we would expect a descendant of culina to have ll or l. - -sche (discuss) 09:09, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

round tuit

I'd like a source for the claim at round tuit that it dates to the 1964 New York World's Fair. So far I haven't been able to find anything particularly reliable. I did a search at Newspapers.com for 1960s articles but turned up nothing. There was a 2018 article which made the point, but it could have obtained the information from the Wiktionary entry. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:41, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Google Books has a cite from the Newsletter - Minnesota Rural Artists Association: Volumes 8-20 dated as 1966, though Google Books datings can be very flaky and this is a compendium of various issues, and cannot be accurately dated due to only snippet views. Trove Newspaper database has nothing before the 1980s, - Sonofcawdrey (talk) 09:41, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

The page with the "round tuit" meme is dated May 1978.^[12]  --Lambiam 09:50, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. So we still don't have enough evidence for the claim that the term was first used at the 1964 New York World's Fair. Shall I remove it from the etymology section? — SGconlaw (talk) 13:08, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

For the record, the claim was added by an anonymous editor on 30 January 2011. Thus, all sources which make the point after this date may simply have got the information from the Wiktionary. — SGconlaw (talk) 13:17, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I've relocated the claim to the citations page for now. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:46, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Surname Horowitz, Czech place name Hořovice -- ultimately from Serbo-Croatian Hrvat?

I stumbled across the mention of Horowitz in an RFV thread, and found myself struck by the similarity with the Serbo-Croatian term Hrvat.

The WP article about the Czech town at w:Hořovice has nothing to say about the origins of the name of the settlement.

Are these related, or is this coincidental? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:45, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Unlikely, I think. IIRC, Czech 'h' is generally from proto-Slavonic 'g' (eg hora from *gora), whereas Hrvat is from *xъrvatъ. --ColinFine (talk) 01:28, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, ya. I note that Czech hora arises from Proto-Slavic *gora via inheritance. Meanwhile, I'd expect an endonymic demonym to wind up in another language via borrowing. I note also the presence of Czech Chorvat, with an initial /x/. Perhaps Czech Hořovice, if from a similar source, may have entered Czech via some indirect route through another language or two? See also Hungarian horvát (“Croat, Croatian”).

If Czech Hořovice is not cognate, does anyone have information on its origins? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 04:42, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Good question! We do have an entry for German -witz as patronymic suffix from Slavic.

That comes unexpected because I was searching for a toponymic suffix. I would hope to relate it to -which, vicus, Proto-Indo-European *weyḱ- (“village, household”), where we find Czech "ves", Serbo-Croation "вас" vel sim. in the desc tree. Schmöckwitz e.g. is both surname and placename, so I am not sure if there was a difference. I wonder if it should bracket -kwitz since I have heared Berlin-Lankwitz pronounced that way from locals. Beware, there are too many placenames in the east of Germany that end on -itz. 109.40.241.179 07:03, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Isn't the name more likely to be derived from a word like hoře or horší than from hora, in view of the -ř-? That said, the combination -řo- is strange, anyway; if it was an old formation, you'd expect **Hořevice, I'd say. Maybe it's a non-Slavic loan. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:46, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

w:Hohenwutzen perhaps? I think they were asking for solid sources though. You know, durably archived, three citations. 109.40.241.139 19:58, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

It's generally difficult to find reliable sources for etymologies for names; etymological dictionaries usually do not include names, so you need super-specialised onomastic dictionaries, which are often simply not available. As for Hohenwutzen, I harbour the suspicion that it has a (partially?) Slavic etymology itself that has become obscured. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:46, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

pineapple

At the Info Desk, someone pointed out how pineapple is split into two etys, with ety 1 for the fruit and ety 2 for things that are called pineapples because they look like the fruit. I think these should be combined; I don't think we need new ety sections for every time a word is extended to refer to something that looks like the thing the word usually refers to. Grenades (and baseballs, breasts, etc) can also be called apples, but this is handled just fine under ety 1 of apple. - -sche (discuss) 04:43, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Since you mentioned it, grenade has a fruit sense and an object-named-after-the-fruit sense, both under the same etymology. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:50, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

It occurs to me that a truly "accurate" entry on pineapple would have pinecones as ety 1, ety 2 would be the fruit "because it was likened to a pinecone", and then ety 3 would be the grenade (and ety 4 the banknote?)... yeah I'm combining the etymology sections. - -sche (discuss) 06:57, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Are you sure that the tropical fruit is really only named for its resemblance to pinecones? I find that difficult to believe and the fact that the original is Tupi nanas should be probable cause for a play of words. The fact that we gloss apple as "fruit" here also goes against the idea regarding shape.

On that note, its impossible to guestimate (from our pages at least, so consider it feedback) why conus coniferus should be called fruit, apple (or pomello) and how old the idiom must be.

• pijnappel reads:"From pijn (“pine”) + appel (“apple”). Although the word was formed very similarly to English pineapple,...". I think it is clearly implied that a compound with a Latin loan had to be formed late, but the construct is SOP and the construction equivalent, not just very similar, because it is also implied that a definite sense of apple could be derived from precedent to allow this construction. That's the question, could it? De.WP lists a couple equivalent connstructions and we say that the Latinate analog were Late Latin, but I don't know the chronology.
• Thus follows the question if there could be any reason that Kienföhre ("pine") was not compared to conifer? They have very different etymologies indeed: cone-bearing or Föhre ("fir") with uncertain \*kiRn- > Kien, as in Kienappel. *kiRn- could be from cera ("wax") equivalent to pinus ("pine") from *peyH- ("fat, resin"), I'm almost sure, modulo the n-stem. The ensuing argument is troublesome. For one, Kerze ("candle") from cera could be plausibly linked with Old English ċēn ("torch"), that is the basis (again, in our pages) for reconstructing *kiRn- not as tree name, while we don't index the remaining evidence.
• Although this would seem to have little to do with the pomme de pina, the descriptive name pertaining to form is questionable down the line. Compare Horn, from the same root as sincere (notice the folk etymology about cera). acorn (cf. maple sirup) would not belong here, but can be taken for analogy, if -fera might as well be cognate to berry.
• Since an Iranian apple, Persian سیب (sib) vel sim., is so far unexplained, I think it should be attractive to posit a compound with leading *'k, or maybe *k'n-, indeed as in Kien (if so from Latin) and maybe Schnaps (cp. mead, melitus and melon).
• The semantic distance is too large, so the question for *kiRn- remains admittedly speculative, and the fact that appel < *h₂ébōl, *h₂ébl̥ shows signs of substrate influence certainly complicates the matter. 109.40.241.139 10:17, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

User:Chuck Entz, is ^ User:Rhyminreason again? - -sche (discuss) 20:20, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Certainly looks like it. I've blocked their IP range from the Wiktionary namespace for a year. It may require some adjustment- they were editing from a neighboring IP range when you blocked them the last time. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:30, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Danish ridse

Is Danish ridse (compare also Swedish ritsa, rista; see da-wikt) really a borrowing from German reißen, as claimed in Proto-West Germanic *wrītan? It looks like it's borrowed from ritzen instead. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:22, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• Den Danske Ordbog says directly from Ritze and indirectly from ritzen. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 21:18, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

@Vox Sciurorum: I meant the verb, not the noun. The entry you've linked is about the noun, corresponding to Swedish rits. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:11, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

By the way, the Danish noun appears to mean "notch", which corresponds to German Kerbe, while Ritze means something very different, so I wonder if the Danish noun might not in fact simply be an internal Danish derivation from ridse "to notch", so that the etymology given by the website would be incorrect. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:18, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Portuguese/English lorcha from Chinese long-chuen

Infopédia cites lorcha's etymology as from Chinese long-chuen. I would appreciate if someone could confirm the etymology and indicate which Chinese word it's referring to. (I was going to link lóngchuán, but I don't speak Chinese so chances are that I would be making a gross mistake.) - Sarilho1 (talk) 15:14, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

I see two problematic aspects with the proposed etymology. One is that the phonetic development /ɔrʃ/ < /ʊŋs/ (assuming Cantonese rather than Mandarin) is hard to explain; the combination /õʃ/ is unproblematic. The cultural contact was extensive; this cannot be a name hastily scribbled down by a hearing-impaired missionary while fleeing hostile natives. The second is that, as far as I can make out, it is a rather different type of boat (wind-propelled, used for sea faring) than a dragon boat (hand-paddled, used on rivers).  --Lambiam 16:58, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the OED (entry published 1903) says the origin is uncertain. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:48, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Century Dict offers Portuguese lancha = pinnace, or lanchara = a small coasting vessel of the Malay region - but doesn't seem very convinced. Clearly these involve phonological difficulties. - Sonofcawdrey (talk) 22:02, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Older sources often connect the word to Portuguese settlement at Macau, so if a Chinese lect is involved it does seem likely to be Cantonese, but w:Cantonese doesn't mention /-r/ as a possible final. Dalgado's 1919 Glossário says "Giles, quoted by Yule, says that the word is supposed to have been taken by the Portuguese in America[!], but its use by Fernão Pinto does not seem to support such a provenance. I think lorcha could be a corruption of Chinese long-chuen". A 1931 article in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, after translating part of the same Glossário entry, gives the Chinese spelling "[i.e. 龍船, 'Dragon boats']". Perhaps "corruption" explains the /r/. On the other hand, Eliezer Edwards (yes, an old, probably outdated source) says lorcha "is the Chinese name [...] Mr. Cobden, February 26, 1856, said, [...] 'Lorcha is a name which the Chinese derived from the Portuguese, at their settlement at Macao [...]'", saying it's not a Portuguese rendering of a native Chinese word but rather a (Portuguese rendering of a) Chinese rendering of a Portuguese word, laucha^[sic] i.e. Portuguese lancha, providing early support to that idea which is, as noted above, also mentioned by some more recent sources. Since lancha itself seems to be Portuguese from Malay from Portuguese, it's not implausible lorcha could be some language's attempt at rendering another language's rendering of the same word, although the r remains unexplained. - -sche (discuss) 01:31, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

When is lorcha first attested? Wikipedia says the ships were "developed around 1550", and Portuguese were allowed to settle Macau in 1557, their relationship to the Chinese having previously been more hostile. The word is in Fernão Pinto's memoir (began 1569, published 1614 but mostly drafted before his death in 1583); Pinto is famous for inaccuracies, so it's conceivable he misunderstood the sound or semantics of lóngchuán. Indeed, Macau and older spellings like Amaquão are different from their Chinese etyma, so it's conceivable even earlier Portuguese than Pinto could have corrupted lóngchuán or some other word.
How early is lancha attested? - -sche (discuss) 21:56, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Etymology of murali

We need to decode etymology of murali. — This unsigned comment was added by 14.192.0.104 (talk) at 15:44, 26 February 2021 (UTC).

There's Sanskrit मुरली (muralī), but I don't know if that's related. Lycium barbarum doesn't look much like a flute or pipe. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:56, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

The Hindi Wiktionary gives a secondary meaning: a type of rice (चावल (cāval)), which at least is something botanical. In an issue of the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, I saw: “Lycium barharum L. (Vern. Murali or Morali)”.^[13] This is only a snippet; since several articles in the issue discuss flora or fauna of other regions such as Nepal and Uttar Pradesh, this is not necessarily a Hindi vernacular name.  --Lambiam 22:13, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

@Mahagaja, Lambiam: The word is likely ultimately derived from Dravidian *muḷ sg, *muḷḷu pl (“thorn”), which is used for both spiky bushes and fish, compare मुरल (murala, “needle fish”). --{{victar|talk}} 01:00, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

In fact, Tamil முளரி (muḷari, “bramble”) is probably the origin. --{{victar|talk}} 18:53, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

贛

There's no etymology. — This unsigned comment was added by Pizza0614 (talk • contribs) at 22:36, 26 February 2021 (UTC).

Which language? Which pronunciation? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:08, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, the rfv-etymology template has been added to both major Chinese words (the river name and the surname). - -sche (discuss) 20:55, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Proto-Germanic *-aną

On what basis is the final *-ą reconstructed? The page in question says it derives from the PIE verbal noun marker *-nom. However, that page says it is an adjectival marker. Furthermore, it may be an entirely different etymology because of the acute accent. No examples of *-nom with the same verbal noun functionality in the other Indo-European branches are given. RubixLang (talk) 20:58, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

@RubixLang The source is Ringe (ref'ed in the PIE entry), which is partially on-line: "verbal adjectives with zero-grade root were derived by means of the suffixes *-tó-, *-nó-, and *-wó-." and "for examples see 3.3.1. (iii)" [page 76, chapter 2.4.2 (ii) PIE adjective forming suffixes], which see on [https://books.google.de/books?id=2DooDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA186&lpg=PP1&focus=viewport&dq=From+Proto-Indo-European+to+Proto-Germanic&hl=de page 186 (3.3.1 (iii) The past passive participle).194.127.218.33 12:57, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Ringe does not mention the Proto Germanic infinitive, but only the passive participle. Fulk (A Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages, 2018, pp. 252–253; 284–285) describes how the PGmc infinitive is derived from the neuter of the PIE verbal noun formed with the suffix *-no-, e.g. *bher-on-o-m > *beraną. –Austronesier (talk) 13:15, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

@RubixLang "Old English shows indirect evidence that word-final -ą was preserved into the separate history of the language." (see w:Proto-Germanic language) "This can be seen in the infinitive ending -an (< *aną) and the strong past participle ending -en (< *-anaz). Since the early Old English fronting of /ɑ/ to /æ/ did not occur in nasalized vowels or before back vowels, this created a vowel alternation because the nasality of the back vowel ą in the infinitive ending prevented the fronting of the preceding vowel: *-aną > *-an, but *-anaz > *-ænæ > *-en. Therefore, the Anglo-Frisian brightening must necessarily have occurred very early in the history of the Anglo-Frisian languages, before the loss of final -ą."

What do you mean "because of the acute accent"? 194.127.218.33 05:31, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Kamboj, Kamboja, Kambuja

I was just thinking about how there are a few entries where we've seen a lot of attempts over the years to add what look like unreferenceable folk/pet theories, and although I've done the best I could to limit the etymologies to what could be referenced, it would be great to get specialist attention especially from users who could read reliable sources in the languages of the area. And it occurred to me that alongside some editors like User:AryamanA who've been around a while, we also have some users like User:Bhagadatta and User:RonnieSingh who might (or might not) be able to take a look at the entries above and ascertain whether any other details or etymological theories are given, or dismissed, in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi or other dictionaries or other reference works which might say more about these words than English sources do. - -sche (discuss) 20:54, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

{{R:inc:EWAia}} doesn't seem to offer anything we don't already know. Also @Kutchkutch. -- 𝓑𝓱𝓪𝓰𝓪𝓭𝓪𝓽𝓽𝓪^{(𝓽𝓪𝓵𝓴)} 05:06, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Managing this set of terms would certainly require specialist attention in several areas. @Bhagadatta: Regarding काम्बोज (kāmboja):

Just for clarification, is accurate to say that fr. kamboja in the {{R:sa:MW}} entry for काम्बोज (kāmboja) refers to the fact that it is straightforward instance of vṛddhi from कम्बोज (kamboja)? The entry previously had the etymology Vrddhi adjective formed from Kamboja. It still says (nominalized adjective) next to the noun headword. The See also section doesn't make much sense with:

(Sanskrit proper noun)

(Hindi)

(Urdu) Urdu-influenced variant of Kamboj

and links to English entries. Kutchkutch (talk) 13:38, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Also, @शब्दशोधक Kutchkutch (talk) 12:33, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

@-sche, Kutchkutch: I agree Sanskrit काम्बोज (kāmboja) is a vriddhi derivative of कम्बोज (kamboja) and that the see also section doesn't make much sense (perhaps the entry will have to be cleaned up a bit). See this also - "Yāska, in the Nirukta, refers to the speech of the Kambojas as differing from that of the other Aryas. The Kambojas were later settled to the north-west of the Indus, and are known as Kambujiya in the old Persian inscriptions. A teacher, Kāmboja Aupamanyava, pupil of Madragára, is mentioned in the Vamśa Brāhmana. This points to a possible connexion of the Madras, or more probably the Uttara Madras, with the Kambojas, who probably had Iranian as well as Indian affinities."^source MW gives a definition of कम्बोज as "{{lb|sa|plural}} Name of a people and its country" so I believe Kamboja is borrowed from Sanskrit, while Kamboj is the Hindi (or Hindustani) influences spelling of it, dropping the last अकार. Kambuja may as well be related to / ultimately from Skt kamboja. 🔥शब्दशोधक🔥 14:54, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

@Kutchkutch: Yes, Kāmboja is a regular vriddhi of Kamboja. MW's fr. does not refer exclusively to vriddhis and is a general notation used for all sorts of derivations. Still puzzled about Kambuja though. -- 𝓑𝓱𝓪𝓰𝓪𝓭𝓪𝓽𝓽𝓪^{(𝓽𝓪𝓵𝓴)} 04:52, 4 March 2021 (UTC)