Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2022/December

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← November 2022 · December 2022 · January 2023 → · (current)

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Sanskrit हड्ड, तिल, कोटि, खर्व, अर्बुद, ढुण्ढन, उज्झति, उड्डयन, अट्टाल, हट्ट, घट्ट, आन्ध्र, कुटुम्ब, झष, टोपिका~टुप्पिका (> Hindi टोपी) and Hindi टापू, पेटी, गाड़ी

2nd and 3rd ones are likely from a Munda language but in Munda languages koṛi means 20 not a crore; 1st one too probably because of the double ड्ड. I remember seeing witzel proposing Mesopotamian ellum is from Para-Munda comparing it to Munda "jar-tila" AleksiB 1945 (talk) 09:16, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

झष could be from Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/dʰǵʰu-, *dh followed by palatovelar *gh can yield Sanskrit झ- in some cases. However there is the problem that the vowel of the original root is not represented. But in a fashion similar to मूष , the final /s/ can sometimes become /ṣ/ when preceded by /u/ or /ū/. Stegotyranno (talk) 10:48, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

born vs borne (vowel)

Our entries and other sources (such as the old OED and Dictionary.com, which distinguish horse vs hoarse vowels) all attest that although these originated from the same Old English word, and now sound identical again, in the interim they diverged in pronunciation for a while: born had /ɔ/, borne /o/. Why'd they diverge? - -sche (discuss) 10:13, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Is neither of these vowels long? I guess they could have diverged in order to separate the two different meanings, and later having merged again due to the subtle differences between the vowel qualities. Wakuran (talk) 16:40, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Borne historically had the force vowel, which usually comes from a long vowel in Middle English. For what it's worth, other past participles in -orn such as sworn and torn also historically had the force vowel. Perhaps born shifted to the north vowel when it was no longer felt as the past participle of bear and was so released from the analogy of the /ɛːɹ/ : /oːɹn/ paradigm. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:37, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

There's no reason for born to randomly shift like that. More probably, born represents a form that originally had a short vowel; Middle English /ɔr/ usually becomes force when preconsonantal. This short vowel either because early syncope of /ɔrən/ blocked open-syllable lengthening or because trisyllabic shortening was generalised from inflected Middle English borene). while borne represents a form with later syncope. Conversely, borne represents a form where open-syllable lengthening operated as normal (as in sworn < ME /ˈswɔːrən/ etc. < OE swŏren, etc.). To recapitulate:

• born: ME /bɔrn/, /ˈbɔrənə/ > EModE /bɒrn/, later /bɒːrn/ (still Walker 1793 [bɒːɹn])
• borne: ME /ˈbɔːrən/ > EModE /bɔːrn/, later /boːrn/ (still Walker 1793 [boɚ̯n])

Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 09:34, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Fascinating. Thank you both. I suppose once different forms/pronunciations developed, people would've found it useful to fall into using one pronunciation for one meaning and one for the other. (Like speakers often dissimilate aural from oral, because otherwise it's unusable.) - -sche (discuss) 22:52, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

The name of the city of Lipjan (Kosovo) being derived from Illyrian

Isn't this a peculiar claim? We basically don't know the exact relationship between Illyrian and Albanian (if any), nor many details at all about Illyrian, so it feels strange to have a recreation for such a word. Also, this name seems to be derived from Latin Ulpiana, which is more likely to be derived from Ulpius rather than something local in the Balkans. Bogdan (talk) 21:30, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Ulpiana was indeed named after Trajan, né Marcus Ulpius Traianus. I don't speak any Albanian, but if the Wikipedia article at Lipjan is to be believed, Selami Pulaha's argument is just that the sound change from Latin followed expected sound changes in early Albanian. There's some confusing stuff about derivations from (South Slavic) lipa and (Albanian) ujk on Wikipedia as well that seem hard to believe, but nothing about Illyrian. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 22:05, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

@Bogdan:In Slovakia, there is a town Lipany (regionally Lipjany) which has a plausible connection with the linden tree. Read more about the history of this city. --78.98.244.243 04:08, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Paisaci etymologies for Punjabi

I noticed that the Punjabi word here ਖੂਹ is listed as coming from Paisaci, but Wikipedia seems to indicate that there is no attestation of Paisaci, nor in the region in which Punjabi is today spoken, instead citing Pollock as saying "Linguists have identified this as everything from an eastern Middle-Indic dialect close to Pali to a Munda language of inhabitants of the Vindhya Mountains […] Paishachi is the joker in the deck of South Asian discourses on language, having an exclusively legendary status, since it is associated with a single lost text, the Bṛhatkathā (The Great Tale), which seems to have existed less as an actual text than as a conceptual category signifying the Volksgeist, the Great Repository of Folk Narratives" on the page for Paisaci, and stating elsewhere that Punjabi descends from Sauraseni Prakrit. Where do we derive the supposed Paisaci etymons from? Or are we treating Paisaci as a cover term for whatever Prakrit developed into Punjabi Qwed117 (talk) 08:29, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

grody, gro, etc

Two issues: one, we need to pick one spelling to centralize the ety / content on, because currently it's duplicated (and not entirely synchronized) between grody, groty, grotty, etc. But the issue which has to do with etymology is: grody, grotty etc say they're from grotesque, but also imply a relation to gross, and gro directly says it's a "shortening of gross (adjective), perhaps via grody"... but gross is not related to grotesque AFAICT. - -sche (discuss) 23:03, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

This makes me wonder whether there may have been any input into grody from gross + disgusting = gro[ss] + di[sgusting] Leasnam (talk) 23:32, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Nôm character 𠬠 (một)

The current description of the glyph's origin as a phono-semantic compound of 一 + 文 looks suspicious to me. Can we be sure that it is not an abbreviation of 殳 ultimately from 没/沒? In the 1870 and 1902 versions of Truyện Kiều, the word một (line 3 in both versions) is attested as 𱥺 (氵 + 𠬠) which resembles 没 even more closely.

In addition, most computer fonts today display the character 𠬠 as 丷 + 又, which is consistent with the stroke count listed in the Translingual section of the entry 𠬠, as well as with the stroke count given in the Unihan Database for this character. The stroke order GIF given in the entry, however, is inconsistent with said stroke count. OosakaNoOusama (talk) 07:13, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

chullo

ENWT says the word is from Quechua, while ENWP says it is from Aymara. Neither are sourced. Numberguy6 (talk) 23:04, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

RAE says Quechua, and I trust them more than English Wikipedia, plus es.wikipedia also says Quechua. I've added it in. DJ K-Çel (contribs ~ talk) 23:16, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree that Quechua is overall more supported by sources. For example, it occurs in Diccionario de la lengua Quechua, p. 48 (hdl:20.500.12365/17170), Kawsay Vida: A Multimedia Quechua Course, p. 30, Introduction to Quechua, p. 127 and many other sources. A couple sources on Google Books say llucho is the Aymara word, while ch'ullu is the one in Quechua (obviously an example of metathesis). That said, a small number of sources claim ch'ullu is also an Aymara word, e.g. Diccionario de la lengua Aymara, p. 50 (hdl:20.500.12365/17169). It could be a loanword. 98.170.164.88 23:42, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Malagasy bibasy

From French bibacier. ?
Please see Talk:bibasy Flāvidus (talk) 01:33, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Considering that Madagascar used to be a French colony and French is still an official language there, French is the first choice when looking for foreign sources of loanwords in Malagasy. Since there doesn't seem to be any history of significant contact with Chinese people I don't think a direct borrowing from Chinese is very likely.

That said, French bibace/French bibasse (the fruit) and French bibacier (the tree) are probably from Chinese- at least that's what fr:bibace says. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:22, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

The talk page is updated as resolved. Thanks. Flāvidus (talk) 23:14, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

hemlock

Online Ety. Dict. has the Old and Middle English from hem- ("poison") + -ling, -ig ("plant suffix"), citing Liberman. This differs greatly from ours, which seems less plausible to an amateur like me. Another plant, bryony, shared a name with poison hemlock in OE and ME, which, to me, increases the plausibility of Liberman's reading of hem-. DCDuring (talk) 21:15, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

The OED (the Oxford one) also notes "no cognate word is found in the other languages": if that's true then a Proto-Germanic etymon shouldn't be listed at our entry. The Proto-Germanic *humalaz we have listed there is cited in Gerhard Köbler's Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch as the source of German Hummel ("bumblebee, humble-bee"), but I can't find anything online linking it to hemlock other than copies of this entry. *humalōn and the Scythian/Proto-Iranian root turn up nothing other than Wiktionary. I don't know where the Scythian stuff is coming from.

Liberman has a paper in Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference (2001) that (based on Google snippet view) summarises the various theories surrounding the word—probably what etymonline is referencing—but getting access to it without trekking to a library that has it in person seems pretty hopeless. From what I can see, though, Liberman still views the word as "obscure" so his theory shouldn't be cited without qualification. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 22:16, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Also worth noting now that I've looked at the page history that the etymology seems to have originally been added by User:Flibjib8 a decade back, and from their talk page they apparently had a habit of problematic etymology-related editing. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 22:21, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Glad I asked. Sounds like the etymology should be reduced to the uncontroversial parts. DCDuring (talk) 22:25, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

The possible Old Norse cognate humli is stated to be a borrowing from Slavic, but if the root existed both in Old English and Old Norse, that assumption might be more dubious. The relationships between the Anglo-Saxons and the Slavs appear to have been fairly rare. Wakuran (talk) 23:34, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Don't forget that the Angles, Saxons and Jutes came from the mainland (mostly modern-day Denmark), so they might very well have had more interactions in those earlier times. They certainly had a name for them: Old English Winedas (per Bosworth-Toller). Chuck Entz (talk) 23:47, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

The Liberman paper does mention humli, but he is apparently sceptical and concludes that "Despite several authoritative statements to the contrary, OE hymele is isolated in Germanic", supporting the Oxford take. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 23:51, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Could the -ock part be a diminutive? as in hillock, etc. Then it could be related to the word for hops after all.

Anyway, even if the Germanic word is a loan from Slavic, I doubt the trail ends there, because I dont know how Slavic could ever have ended up with word-initial /xm-/ (or even *xъm), so they must have borrowed it from somewhere else, and I think it's at least plausible that it was loaned from Germanic to Slavic instead. Also, I'd like to see other words with hem- that refer to poisonous things just so we know Liberman wasn't just guessing blindly. —Soap— 23:59, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

The Wiktionary entries of similar, related words give a hodgepodge of different sources and directions of borrowing. It's possibly an old Wanderwort. Wakuran (talk) 01:00, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

It's a bit annoying to piece together Liberman's reasoning since I'm relying on the scraps I can wring out of Google, but the hymele (hops) > hymlice > hemlok theory seems to be specifically what Liberman rejects (from searching "hymele" in the preview: "This shaky suggestion […] should be abandoned"). From other passages, he sees the background of hymele itself as unknown and so rejects the derivation as obscurum per obscurius. It should probably be mentioned as one theory though. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 00:01, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Well, if we can find OE cites for the claimed spellings, I'd say that gives a major boost to that theory and a major blow to all the others. If we can't find cites, then I still think the hop theory makes sense, but that -ock would more likely be a diminutive than a variant of -like. —Soap— 00:23, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

OE hemlic and cerlic are respectively the sources of hemlock and charlock via ME. -lic is also found in baerlic (“barley”). DCDuring (talk) 00:41, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I've found a source which I do actually have access to, also by Liberman and reworked from his earlier paper, his rather long discussion of hemlock on pp. 105–108 of the Analytical Dictionary of English Etymology. Among other things, he notes: "In both hemlock and charlock, -lock appeared relatively late. It is -lic and -lc that need an explanation", "Apparently, -ling alternated with -ig in plant names, at least in English", and finally, "Hemlic probably goes back to hem-l-ic, a variant of *hem-l-ing or *hem-l-ig. For some reasons, -l-ic has been recorded only in hem-l-ic and cyr-l-ic (with its doublet cyr-l-c), but by the year 700 the suffix had become unproductive and dead; hence the recorded forms ending in -luk and -lok. An association with lock is due to folk etymology".

The derivation from hymele "hop" is rejected as follows: "The only basis for Holthausen’s etymology is the phonetic similarity between the two words. […] Hymele seems to have reached Europe from the East, whereas hemlock is a native plant, and its name is probably also native. Folk etymology may have connected hymele and hymlic […] but that late association has nothing to do with their origin." —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 00:51, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

I've edited the etymology a bit, removing some of the uncertain parts. As far as the -lī̌c(e), -lī̌ċ(e) ending is concerned I'm leaning toward it being derived from some suffixed form of lēac (“onion, leek”), from Proto-West Germanic *lauki m and *laukijā f. To me, the flowers of hemlock and bryony do resemble the flowers of wild onions and wild leeks quite a bit (?). Leasnam (talk) 03:22, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

They're all white. That's about it:

• 
  Bryony
• 
  Hemlock
• 
  Leek
• 
  Onion
• 
  Ramsons or Bear Leek

Of course, it's uncertain exactly which species of Allium is referred to. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:40, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

True. In the selected images, bryony looks most dissimilar (to me). In OE lēac could also refer to any garden herb...it was just a theory. Leasnam (talk) 06:11, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

There's also cedelc, cydic (modern kedlock), so perhaps not a derivative of leek...perhaps -el+-uc (?) Leasnam (talk) 06:22, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

If the -elc in cedelc corresponds to the -lic mentioned above, then deriving -lic from -ling (supposedly via -lig as in īfiġ) would have more difficulties. Leasnam (talk) 06:46, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

fag tag and fish-fag

Which definition of fag would these terms come from? fag tag is probably from the first textile term, but fish-fag seems to be etymologically unrelated. Flackofnubs (talk) 09:55, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

A US equivalent of fag tag is (or was half a decade or so ago) (fruit loop. I guess the implication (among the young adolescent boys who used the term) was that it was one of those fussy little details that only gays cared about. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:23, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Maybe "fish-fag" is an assimilation of "fish hag", although I also found an older meaning of faggot meaning something like 'shrew, hellcat, bitch'. Wakuran (talk) 14:39, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

• All the sources I've found seem to indicate it relates to etymology 2 of fag, i.e., hard work, drudgery. See [1], [2], and this source which uses the compound in a different sense: [3].
• The fact that it is chiefly used of women does give one pause, but that could just be a sociological happenstance unrelated to the etymology. Furthermore, there are no relevant results for "fish-faggot". (Is there evidence that this female sense of faggot was shortened to fag back in the 19th century?) OTOH, there are a handful of search results for "fish-hag", but the connection seems uncertain.
• Worth noting that Cassell's Dictionary of Slang (2005) gives an entirely different meaning of fish-fag as "pickpocket", relating to etymology 1 of fag. 98.170.164.88 18:52, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

What do you mean by "etymology 1"? Wakuran (talk) 21:21, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Cassell's says that the term might derive from fag-end, which is linked to fag#Etymology 1, "end of a thing". However, Cassell puts a question mark on this and says it might alternatively come from dialectal fag (“to cut corn with a sickle”), which we don't have (but is in EDD). To be clear, Cassell is only discussing the pickpocket sense of fish-fag, which we don't have, not the fishmonger sense that we do have. 98.170.164.88 21:57, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

I've only heard the term fag tag once in my life .... when an older boy used a stretched-out coat hanger to grab me from behind so i couldnt walk away. The implication was clear .... but I've only heard it used once, so there's always the possibility that it came from some innocent meaning and got reinterpreted. —Soap— 15:24, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

I also always interpreted the "fag" in "fag tag" as being the F-slur. Since a fag tag is not, in fact, "a rough or coarse defect in the woven fabric", I don't think the textile sense of fag is a likely source. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:00, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

"[S]uch a loop, supposedly, can be used to hold a victim ready for buggery (cf. fairy loop n.)." From Cassell's Dictionary of Slang (2005). The earliest source I was able to find is less explicit about the etymology, but still gives "fruit loop" as a synonym. This source gives a different interpretation than Cassell's, but still relates it to homosexuality. 98.170.164.88 17:38, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Scaphidiodon (Protozoan)

The family name Scaphidiodontidae comes from the genus Scaphidiodon, composed of scaph- (from the Greek σκάφος / skáfos, boat), and -diodon, “two teeth; bi-toothed”, in reference to the boat-like shape of this organism. But, the presence of a single point towards the back and not of two, as the suffix "diodon" seems to mean, casts doubt on the meaning of the latter. What's your opinion? Gerardgiraud (talk) 19:06, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

It might be from σκαφίδιον (see Greek at el:σκαφίδιον) + the tooth suffix. We only list the English -odont, so I'm not sure that was actually a suffix in classical Greek .... it might therefore not follow classical rules. Anyway σκαφίδιον is a diminutive of the above word for boat. —Soap— 20:40, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

The word σκαφίδιον is also attested in Ancient Greek.^[4] Nomenclaturists with an adequate classical training will use the stem of a Latin or Greek word when extending it with a suffix. The stem of both Attic ὀδούς (odoús) and Ionic ὀδών (odṓn) is ὀδόντ- (odónt-). Hence we have odontalgy, odontist, odontogeny, and so forth.  --Lambiam 10:02, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

German Ulk

Etymology missing (as for Dutch); de.wikt states:

originally of student language, from (Middle) Low German ulk ‘noise’, ‘ruckus’, ‘quarrel’; onomatopoetic

… from its Duden source, and also:

documented since the 17th century

… from its much more elaborate Grimm source, which also lists it as a dialect word, as well as cognates ulch and olk, and considering its origin obscure and suggesting to dismiss Kluge’s proposal of a Rhenish origin. However, they itemize quite a host of relevant sources and references. -- WA1TF0R (talk) 05:50, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Kyaroikeus

Kyaroikeus is a parasitic protozoan of dolphins. I was unable to read the original diagnosis by Sniezek et al. here, but can its etymology be composed of of Kyara, κυαρα / kyara, diminutive of κύων / kyon, "sea dog", and the οικοσ / oikos, cage? Gerardgiraud (talk) 05:52, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Sniezek, Coats and Small wrote: “Etymology. Kyaroikeus is from the Greek “kyaros” meaning hole or orifice and “oikeus” meaning dweller. Kyaroikeus therefore denotes the region of the host from which this parasitic ciliate was collected.” AFAIK there is no Ancient Greek word that would be Romanized as “kyaros”. There is a word κύαρ (kúar) meaning “eye of a needle” but also “orifice of the ear, earhole”. However, its root is κύατ- (kúat-), so used as the first part of a Greek compound it should have become kyat(o)-. The second part, οἰκεύς (oikeús) “housemate”,^[5] is fine. (Other Greek words meaning “orifice, hole”, not so specifically of the ear, are πύλη (púlē) and τρῆμα (trêma).)  --Lambiam 20:50, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

There's always the possibility that the authors just stuck the dictionary citation forms together because they didn't know anything about Ancient Greek morphology. The part about "kyaros" for κύαρ (kúar) does look like something an ignorant amateur would write. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:55, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Gone are the days when biologists were required to learn Latin and Greek before they were allowed to go around naming things. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:39, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

On the other hand, LSJ doesn't list the genitive κύατος (kúatos) (or any other forms built on that stem), so I wonder whether it's actually attested or whether lexicographers like Bailly simply assume it on the basis of things like ἧπαρ (hêpar)/ἥπατος (hḗpatos). There certainly don't seem to be any attested compounds using κύαρ (kúar) as the first element, either. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:47, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I find τοῦ κύατος used in Katharevousa, like here.  --Lambiam 09:52, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

@Lambiam, Gerardgiraud. @Mahagaja, yes, you may be correctL medical Katharevousa texts have genitive -ατος. But at Koumas Grammar (1856.ed.2+additions) p.65 it is stated: "neuters ending in -α-η-ι-υ-αρ-ορ-ος-ας have genitive -ατος, except ψάρ (psár), ψαρός & κύαρ (kúar), κύαρος." (may I add the ancient ἄορ (áor)-ορος). Also at {{R:Dimitrakos 1964}} the lemma is "κύᾰρ, -ᾰρος [τό]". ‑‑Sarri.greek ^♫ I 09:00, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Curiously, while the rule is about neuter nouns, the exceptions are identified as masculine: “ὁ ψάρ”, “ὁ κύαρ”. Ancient Greek ψάρ is masculine too, while Ancient Greek κύαρ is given as neuter by L&S, Bailly, and Beekes. The latter writes, “An old r/n-stem”. Beekes describes the etymology of ἧπαρ too as having an “r/n-stem”.  --Lambiam 10:48, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Acropisthium (protist)

Is Acropisthium type genus of the family Acropisthiidae derived from acro-, "end; summit" (from the Greek άκρος / ákros, edge), and from ὄπισθεν / opisthen, "behind"? Thanks for answer. Gerardgiraud (talk) 23:52, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

The first part looks eminently plausible, except that Ancient Greek ἄκρος (ákros) is an adjective; see also the wider range of meanings at acro-. For the second part, note that ὄπισθεν (ópisthen) is an adverb. The term opisthium is the expected Latinization of Greek ὀπίσθιον (opísthion), the neuter form of the adjective ὀπίσθιος (opísthios), “hinder, belonging to the hinder part”,^[6] used as a noun.  --Lambiam 00:35, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Can we think that the author would have wanted to mean literally (by suffixing with the Latin plural ending "-ium") "which has extremities (of which) that of the back is remarkable" since this protozoan looks like a "root of turnip"? As you can see here Acropisthiidae. Gerardgiraud (talk) 09:09, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

A Latin noun in the nominative case ending on -ium is always singular. (The ending is also seen in the genitive plural of some third-declension nouns: avium, ilium, gentium, ... . However, for the purpose of nomenclature one does not use oblique case forms.) The Latinization -ium < -ιον is a fully standard one, already in classical times: apsinthium < ἀψίνθιον (apsínthion), acatium < ἀκάτιον (akátion), ..., Zephyrium < Ζεφύριον (Zephúrion). One should not be tempted to seek a deeper meaning. Naming something after its characteristic of having a sharp behind already implies that this characteristic is at least somewhat remarkable. The acropistiids should be grateful not to have been named gongulidids after being turnip-shaped.  --Lambiam 10:34, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

I see that you are not without a sense of humour. Anyway, thank you for this lesson in Latin and Greek grammar. Gerardgiraud (talk) 13:23, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Albireo

Our entry says Albireo derives from Arabic مِنْقَارُ الدَّجَاجَة (minqāru d-dajāja). Wikipedia says the origin is instead:

"the Greek name ornis for the constellation of Cygnus, which became urnis in Arabic. When translated into Latin, this name was thought to refer to the Greek name Erysimon for the plant called Hedge Mustard (Sisymbrium officinale, which in Latin is ireo), [...with later] confusion between ireo and the scented flower Iris florentina. This was variously miscopied, until "ab ireo" was treated as a miscopy of an Arabic term and changed into al-bireo.

without minqāru d-dajāja being involved. - -sche (discuss) 02:33, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

While Deneb (Cygnus α) was ذنب الدجاجة (ḏanab ad-dajāja), “the Hen’s tail”, Cygnus β at the other far end was the Hen’s beak, minqāru ad-dajāja. But the Ancient Greeks named the constellation Ὄρνις (Órnis) before the dawn of Arabic astronomy. The alleged carnival of misunderstandings and mistranslations related on Wikipedia leaves more than a few puzzling aspects. (1) How would a scholar misread an Arabic name that can be transliterated as urnis as representing the name Erysimon? Disregarding all vowels, the distance between RNS and RSMN is considerable. (2) Neither L&S nor Gaffiot have an entry for ireo or terms of which this could be a case form, like ireus ore ireum. (3) What has Iris got to do with it? The nearest we can get with the Latin name is the prepositional phrase ab Ire, “from Ire”. This is not a plausible name for a star.  --Lambiam 17:44, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Here we find the genesis of the theory, which I do not find convincing in its entirety – although the only truly relevant step is that from ab ireo to albireo.  --Lambiam 18:00, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

I find the idea that minqāru d-dajāja has been corrupted to a(l)bireo even harder to follow, unless we are missing and misrepresenting some intermediate steps, like that someone misread several Arabic letters. Were (a-l-) بـ and (a-l-) د confused? or even (a-l-) دَ and يـ? But it is less obvious how جاجة or دجاجة would be misread as anything like ireo. Is there a more persuasive etymology out there? The idea that an Arabic rendering of urnis has been misread directly as *ireus without involving Erysimon at all seems concievable, I can see how nūn and yāʾ could be mixed up. - -sche (discuss) 19:21, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Did you read the theory as presented in Untersuchungen über den Ursprung und die Bedeutung der Sternnamen, linked to above?  --Lambiam 11:32, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

يحيى

In diff someone changed the etymology to add "but this has been disputed". Do we have any sources on who supports the given etymology, who disputes it, and why? On the talk page, it is claimed that this spelling is also found in pre-Quranic-era Mandaeic script. - -sche (discuss) 06:29, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

If a view is against Islamist beliefs of the Qurʾān being error-free, it is always “disputed”. This in itself is an expected slant which makes such claims liable to removal as irrelevant; the more as we already restrict that some scholars have claimed, presupposing that others have at least doubted the same.

It is true though that this or similar names have been seen in pre-Islamic inscriptions, e.g Mission archéologique en Arabie II p. 228 Nr. 370.

But be reminded that a personal name can also be of multiple origins, such that later use may be due to grounds that originally were not there. Fay Freak (talk) 19:51, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I wondered if that was the only ground for "dispute".
Is the Mandaeic script form as ambiguous (able to be either the etymologically expected ~yuḥannā or this ~yaḥyā) as the Arabic? If not, if Mandaeic can only be ~yaḥyā, it might suggest that either the Arabic use is not a misreading of ~yuḥannā after all, or that the misreading has been influenced by ~yaḥyā already being a name, no? - -sche (discuss) 22:31, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

I raised the issue initially and no the Mandaean is clearly "Ye alef hah ye alef" essentially but with the resources Fay Freak pointed me to last time it's pretty clear that the Mandaean spelling post-dates the Arabic spelling of this kind though. Since then I've just been wondering if we should put a Alef khanjaria onto the alef al-maqsura for full vocalisation and about phono-semantic matching discussed by al-Jallad on page 126 of https://www.academia.edu/73883276/Al_Jallad_2021_The_Pre_Islamic_Divine_Name_ʿsy_and_the_Background_of_the_Qurʾānic_Jesus_with_Ali_al_Manaser where he just lists off pre-Islamic uses of Yahya and explains it pretty well with phono-semantic matching, using the resources Fay also provided and some extra inscriptions. This seems to me like the most solid etymology but after my step into the Fettnäpfchen falsely accusing folks of vandalism I won't take the initiative on this.--Bari' bin Farangi (talk) 21:48, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Legend on Didinium file

This image Didinium nasutum taken from a Russian publication of 1896 allowed me to illustrate the page of Didiniidae. I tried to translate the legends: from here: but I stumble on the letter "a" (at the bottom of the picture) marked порошица?? What does this Russian word mean since the google translator gives, in French, "poudre" (powder), which does not make sense in this contect? Thanks for your help. Gerardgiraud (talk) 19:55, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

It can mean powder (in the sense of snow), see the second definition and usage example at ru:порошица. But it can also mean a kind of excretory hole (= anal pore). I note that we define "anal pore" quite broadly, but Wikipedia defines it as something specific to certain micro-organisms, which also matches what ru.wiktionary says about the Russian word. 70.172.194.25 20:13, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Tracing the Italian common noun paparazzo farther back than Fellini's film

Discussion moved from Wiktionary talk:Etymology scriptorium/2022/December.

That the Italian common noun paparazzo is an immediate reflex of the family name of one of the characters in Fellini's La Dolce Vita seems to be undisputed. Not so the question of how the character came to be so named.

The most detailed discussion of the matter in English is David L. Gold's "English paparazzo < Italian paparazzo = Commonization of the Label Name Paparazzo in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita < ?" on pages 257-266 of his Studies in Etymology and Etiology (With Emphasis on Germanic, Jewish, Romance, and Slavic Languages).S. Valkemirer (talk) 23:06, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

@S. Valkemirer: the Etymology scriptorium pages are where we post discussions. The talk pages are only for discussions about the Etymology scriptorium pages. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:59, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

From Sergio Raffaelli, "Paparazzo da cognome a nome comune", in Lingua nostra, volume 22, page 26:

Paparazzo è il cognome (non il nome o soprannome) di un fotografo che nel film La dolce vita di Federico Fellini appare in vari episodi da solo o con altri colleghi. È noto che il regista costruisce i personaggi tenendo presente spesso l'attore, di cui talvolta adotta anche il nome anagrafico. In questo caso però coniò il termine indipendentemente dalla scelta dell'interprete. Egli sperò fino all'ultimo momento di affidare la parte di fotografo all'attore francese Jean-Paul Belmondo, che avrebbe parlato il romanesco tipico di Via Veneto, come si può constatare da un brano della sceneggiatura provvisoria pubblicata nel volume La dolce vita, a cura di Tullio Kezich, Bologna, Cappelli, 1960, pp. 201–202. Quando poi Fellini dové ricorrere — e la scelta si rivelò felicissima — a Walter Santesso di Vigonza (Padova), adottò il dialetto padovano: che sembra d'altronde attagliarsi meglio al cognome, di fisionomia settentrionale, e veneta in particolare (non mi risulta però effettivamente documentato accanto ai comuni Paparone, Paparella, Paparusso ecc.) che vanno connessi con pappare o con pàparo, che significa in padovano 'labbro' (piuttosto che con pàpero, che si presenta nella forma pàvaro, -ero).

Unfortunately the text is not very legible in the preview on Google Books, so I made some guesses. 70.172.194.25 00:25, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Paparone, Paparella, Paparusso... I recall that even Paperino is mentioned in another scene in the movie. Wakuran (talk) 01:21, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Etymonline claims:

1961, from Italian Paparazzo (plural paparazzi) surname of the freelance photographer in Federico Fellini's 1959 film "La Dolce Vita." The surname itself is of no special significance in the film; it is said to be a common one in Calabria, and Fellini is said to have borrowed it from a travel book, "By the Ionian Sea," in which occurs the name of hotel owner Coriolano Paparazzo.

Wakuran (talk) 01:32, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Well, I don't see anything for Paparazzo on Cognomix.it, which is usually a pretty good reference. Similar story for Paparazzi, which only barely registers. Removing the -azzo, Paparo does seem to be popular in Campania, Calabria, and Sicily (but also to a lesser extent in the central/northern regions; not sure how much of that is due to recent internal migration vs. autochthonous usage). If it's named after one specific person (Coriolano Paparazzo) that's interesting, I wonder where that theory originally came from. Did Fellini say that himself, or is it a guess (like the different theory above about a northern Italian dialectal origin)? 70.172.194.25 03:33, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Fellini once said the name came from an opera libretto.^[7] The name Coriolano Paparazzo is mentioned in the travel book By the Ionian Sea by George Gissing,^[8] published in English in 1901 and in an Italian translation in 1957. It is conceivable Fellini got the name from the book and misremembered its origin later; he could not have foreseen how the term would get a life by its own, so at the time its provenance was not something memorable. In fact, Fellini’s co-scenarist Ennio Flaiano is reported to have written they got the name by opening Gissing’s book at random,^[9] so unless disproven, this would appear to be the leading theory.  --Lambiam 10:13, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, so now the question is where a Calabrian surname "Paparazzo" would have come from. Maybe something related to papero, which is the most obvious root, or the Sicilian equivalent? I can also find websites claiming that the shorter surname "Paparo" is related to a Greek name (with specific reference to Crotone, the city mentioned in By the Ionian Sea), and Greek influence is possible in Southern Italy. But those are just random guesses. 70.172.194.25 10:51, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Could this name be in any way related to the paparazzi di mare, which is an obscure term for a species of edible clams (Mactra stultorum)? Bogdan (talk) 10:33, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Just like aquila di mare implies that there are also aquile that are not di mare, and the common name lupo di mare teaches us that there are also landlubber lupi, so paparazzi di mare makes me surmise they are maritime analogues of land-dwelling paparazzi, perhaps a clam-shaped fungus.  --Lambiam 22:17, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

blanket

Does the etymology of this term have anything to do with the name of Mr. Thomas Blanket? Wikipedia seems to think so. 70.172.194.25 22:46, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

WP seems to be in the minority there. Major dictionaries instead go with the one we already have. DJ K-Çel (contribs ~ talk) 03:17, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

FWIW, that etymology was added by one w:User:Dbgoodman in this set of edits from December 2009, replacing the previous derivation from French blanc. His edit listed three sources:

• http://www.cuddledown.com/product/articles/buying-guides/bedding+guide.do

Cuddledown is a US bedding company. The page above is no longer around, but I did find it in the Internet Archive:

• https://web.archive.org/web/20120618220220/http://www.cuddledown.com/product/articles/buying-guides/bedding+guide.do

All this has to say about the derivation of the word "blanket" is this entry in their user glossary:

Blanket

A bed cover named for Thomas Blanquette, a French weaver who lived in England during the 14th century. Blankets can be woven or knit in a wide range of natural and synthetic fibers or a combination of both.

No source is given, making this basically unusable for our purposes.

• http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B06E4D71330E132A25757C2A9659C946097D6CF

This does appear to return a page from a 1901 edition of the New York Times, highlighting a short article on the left of the page entitled (I think) "Origin of Blanket" -- but the resolution is so bad that nothing much is legible. I do not have an NYT subscription, and cannot follow this lead any further.

• http://www.jstor.org/pss/1787694

Factors in the Development of the Cotswold Woollen Industry, R. P. Beckinsale, "The Geographical Journal", Vol. 90, No. 4 (October 1937), pp. 349-362 (14 pages).

This mentions "Thomas Blanket" on page 350 (second page of the JSTOR scanned article), just in the sentence:

A few years later [after 1315], Thomas Blanket was employing foreigners at Bristol.

I've only scanned the article, but this appears to be the one and only mention of any "Thomas Blanket". This confirms that someone of that name existed, but it says nothing to indicate that his surname is the source of the English common noun blanket.

The current state of the "Blanket" article at WP lists two sources, the NYT and JSTOR articles listed above.

If anyone can check the NYT, that seems like the only potentially usable lead. My suspicion is that this will turn up schmotz as well, and that the WP article is just wrong about this. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 19:13, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

The term is attested in this sense in Middle English in 1303^[10] which is not incompatible with a weaver who flourished c. 1315, but is concurrently used for a kind of woolen cloth, often white or undyed, the sense of French blanchet. The latter is attested in Old French in that sense, with the spelling blanket, as early as 1278,^[11] making an England-based 14th-century eponym somewhat unlikely.  --Lambiam 22:01, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

FWIW, this theory is old; Planché's 1876 Cyclopaedia of Costume, though preferring the French derivation, mentions that "According to some glossarists, blanket took its name from one Thomas Blanket, who first set up a loom at Bristol in 1340." But given the early attestations of the French word, it seems more likely that any Thomas Blanket who made blankets acquired his surname from his trade, like Walker, Fuller, Smith, etc. (Compare blunket, btw.) - -sche (discuss) 22:47, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Auelkhan (Әуелхан)

I think the surname in Kazakh could be Әуелханов (Äuelxanov) / Әуелханова (Äuelxanova). I've also found the patronymic forms Әуелханұлы m (Äuelxanūly), Әуелханқызы f (Äuelxanqyzy). I assume all are derived from a given name Әуелхан (Äuelxan)? And is the etymology "first khan" accurate?

@Almanbet Janışev should be able to check this. 70.172.194.25 23:44, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it means first khan Almanbet Janışev (talk) 07:13, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Dunning-Kruger effect

According to Wikipedia:List of citogenesis incidents, this term was coined on Wikipedia in May 2006, only subsequently being picked up by scientific literature (though the phenomenon had been known earlier). Is this true, or are there earlier examples of the term? If it was coined by/on Wikipedia, that'd be nice to note in the etymology. - -sche (discuss) 20:09, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

According to the history of the "Dunning-Kruger effect" page, the page was created in July 2005 with the title "Dunning-Kruger Syndrome". The page was retitled "Dunning-Kruger effect" on 26 May 2006.

Digging through the archives of the Talk page, the first mention of "effect" is from a post on 18 June 2008 in the phrasing "Kruger Dunning effect".

There is also another thread on that page, Title constitutes original research from 24 May 2008, which mentions that "I haven't seen it called that ['Dunning-Kruger effect'] in the literature."

HTH, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:27, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

So we should write, “coined by Wikipedia user Vaughan in 2006”.  --Lambiam 13:00, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Seems he hasn't made any edits since 2016. Otherwise, I guess we could contact him. Wakuran (talk) 23:50, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

The editor’s identity in real life is Vaughan Bell, according to Talk:Vaughan Bell#Comments from the subject. (Possibly out of date) contact information is easy to find.^[12]  --Lambiam 06:54, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Ah, anyone willing to give it a shot? Wakuran (talk) 23:32, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

What would be the point of contacting him? To ask for his permission to name him as the coiner?  --Lambiam 09:27, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Confirmation from the horse's mouth that he coined it, or information from where he got the term, I thought. Although if the Wikipedia article is the main source for the spread, it might be unnecessary. Wakuran (talk) 13:00, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Albanian gjelbër: when does Vulgar Latin ends and Romanian starts?

The Albanian word gjelbër was borrowed from Balkan Romance, but can it be said to be Romanian, or was it still Vulgar Latin?

Latin galbinus turned into (Proto-)Romanian galben, which had a dialectal form galbăr (no asterisk since this rhotacism was still found in the wild in some mountain villages in Transylvania as late as 20th century), which was likely the form borrowed into Albanian. Bogdan (talk) 21:16, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Orel 1998, cited on the entry for gjelbër, mentions a variant form gjelbën, without the rhotacism. It appears that this is not an isolated case.

Other borrowings words showing /r/~/n/ variation, reflecting intervocalic Latin /n/, include armik, femër, frashër, gërshërë, kaltër, kërp, krishterë, mëri, mështekër, and pjepër.

Native words showing /r/~/n/ variation, reflecting intervocalic Proto-Albanian /n/, include arëz, dhelpër, dimër, emër, gjarpër, gjerë, gjilpërë, grurë, llërë, tërë, thëri, varfër, verë, and possibly zemër.

Judging by the above, it would seem that Gheg tends to retain older /-n-/ where Tosk rhotacizes it.

It also appears that rhotacism of /-n-/ is an internal Albanian phenomenon, although that does not mean that it could not have been reinforced or perhaps imported from Balkan Romance. If it can be demonstrated, say, that the Aromanian spoken in southern Albania (that is, in contact with Tosk) has this rhotacism, it would support the idea of a contact phenomenon.

Incidentally, it is curious that gjelbër shows initial /ɟ/ for Latin /g(a)/, unlike gargull < galgulus (but like gjel < gallus). Nicodene (talk) 15:18, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

wiggins

Does this originate from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as claimed in [13]? As of writing, the entry doesn't include an etymology or quotations. (I'll add the Buffy episode as a quote.) I also haven't checked whether it has been used in contexts unrelated to the show (the book says it "hasn't spread far"). 70.172.194.25 05:59, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

The same claim is found in the book Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon, “Wiggins is my favorite item of slayer slang, but it hasn't caught on outside of the Buffyverse.^[14] The author surmises that the most likely derivation is from the plural gerund wiggings, from a slang sense of the verb to wig. The word is apparently listed in the 2018 edition of The Routledge Dictionary of Modern American Slang and Unconventional English,^[15] but the crucial page was omitted from Google Books’ preview.  --Lambiam 06:41, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Found it on the Internet Archive: ‘Coined by the writers of the television series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” in 2001^[sic] and used outside the confines of the show with some degree of referencing.’^[16]  --Lambiam 07:13, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Added the etymology, thanks. 70.172.194.25 23:33, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Added to the etymology. This looks like a corruption of wiggings Leasnam (talk) 00:19, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Still, I cannot find any definition of the verb wig with a similar meaning, British or otherwise. The closest I can find is US slang term wig out. Wakuran (talk) 00:53, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Ah, it was Buffy who said it. I thought it was Rupert... Wakuran (talk) 00:56, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

@Wakuran, it's sense 3. I've updated it. I removed the second part, as that really belongs at wig out. Leasnam (talk) 01:12, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Kamburophrys

Hello. The protist Kamburophrys is the type genus of the family Kamburophryidae. Is the name derived from the Greek καμβα / kamba, canvas, and οφρύς / ophrýs, "eyelash; eyebrow"? I was unable to read the entire original Foissner & Oertel publication:hereThanks for your help. Gerardgiraud (talk) 09:58, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Foissner and Oertel say it's from a kambura 'hump' + ὀφρύς (ophrús, “eyelash, cilium, ciliate”). However, I can't find anything like kambura (or indeed any words beginning καμβ-) in my dictionaries of Classical-era Ancient Greek, so maybe it's a late word (e.g. Byzantine). —Mahāgaja · talk 10:50, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

But there is Turkish kambur (“hump”), which comes from καμπύλος (kampúlos, “bent, curved”). If they had asked me, I would have told them to name it "Campylophrys", but they didn't. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:55, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you very much @Mahagaja. There is an algae whose name has this same prefix Campylo, Campylomonas (literally "curved monad"), from the family of Campylomonadaceae. Gerardgiraud (talk) 12:45, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

I guess they based this on Modern Greek καμπούρα, pronounced/kamˈbu.ɾa/, borrowed back from Turkish.  --Lambiam 12:52, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

jockey

Can one of our Gaelic-language editors clean up the third paragraph, with its random respellings (YACH-ee-yuh), to use IPA? - -sche (discuss) 04:10, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

The easiest way to clean up that nonsense was to remove it. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:32, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Presumably, that given "Gaelic" word might be related to Irish each, although it might be etymologically wrong, anyway. Wakuran (talk) 11:07, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

If you look at the edit histories, it was copied from Wikipedia (with attribution), where the Gaelic part was added by an IP from Brittany May 9, 2013. They gave Dineen's Irish-English dictionary as reference. The part about each was added by an IP from Washington state in the US August 26, 2016. The rest of the etymology was added to Wikipedia by Fastifex March 17, 2006, giving Etymonline as reference. Nothing about the contributors that would inspire much confidance. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:55, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

The only thing Dinneen's dictionary can be used as a reference for is the existence of eachaidhe (in modern spelling, eachaí) and the fact that it means 'jockey'. Dinneen does not assert that eachaidhe is the source of jockey. Etymonline also never claims that eachaidhe is the source of jockey. I'm sure that hypothesis sprung completely from the imagination of the IP in Brittany. —Mahāgaja · talk 19:14, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Etymology of Persian سواد (savâd, ‘literacy’)

Hello, I was wondering if anyone has any extra information regarding the etymology of the Persian word سواد? I was under the impression that it was from the Arabic "سواد" (black), which is what is stated in the dehkhoda dictionary, but Dehkhoda does not always provide the most plausible etymologies. It is a little difficult to comprehend how the Arabic term for the color black would transform into "literacy" in Persian when there are perfectly good Persian words for black. I also came to realize that there is a Sanskrit term "Svādhyāya" (one's own reading, lesson) which sounds oddly similar to سواد so maybe it is not of Arabic origin? I understand that this is merely a hypothesis, which may or may not lead to something. It would be great if anyone can direct me to some sources that cover the etymology of this word, or perhaps any other "cognate." Thanks. User:Vahagn Petrosyan --MarkParker1221 (talk) 20:43, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't know the details, but the meaning "literacy" probably developed from the blackness of ink. --Vahag (talk) 21:29, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

@MarkParker1221: User talk:Fay Freak § سواد Fay Freak (talk) 22:08, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

That seems especially likely given that three archaic sense are "draft (early version of a written document), manuscript (hand-written document), copy (the result of copying)", which almost certainly refer to the blackness of ink. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:18, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

The blackness of ink theory seems the simplest and rather plausible, especially in light of the other writing-related senses present in the Persian word, as Mahāgaja mentioned. Fay Freak's alternative theory seems like quite a leap, even from the sense supposedly attested (in medieval Arabic, not Persian) "cultivated villages or lands about a city", to "wealthy", to "literate". 70.172.194.25 09:27, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

bobbery, 巴閉, and बाप रे

In A Glossary of Reference on Subject Connected with The Far East, Herbert Giles mentions the following:

BOBBERY. From the Cantonese 吧蔽. Commonly used in pidgin-English; e.g. "What for you bobbery my?"i.e., scold or abuse.

The term bobbery is a corruption of the Hindi Bāp re "O father!"

which suggests that bobbery#Etymology 1 is from Cantonese 吧蔽 (now written as 巴閉) via Chinese Pidgin English.

However, the tones in Cantonese and Taishanese are identically in the tone height but not the tone numbers, suggesting that the word is not native in Cantonese (otherwise the tone numbers would be identical), instead it is borrowed after the split of Cantonese/Taishanese (perhaps 18th-19th century). Most Chinese sources instead suggest that 巴閉 is from Hindi Bāp re, which may or may not be referencing Giles (most of them don't give clear references).

So, how should these words be related? Which is the origin? Are the two etymologies of English bobbery related? – Wpi31 (talk) 10:09, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

lay an anchor to the windward

What is the logic behind the idiom lay an anchor to the windward? I mean, why would a sailor decide to literally lay an anchor to the windward? Flackofnubs (talk) 15:27, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

An anchor from the bow with the watercraft facing the wind mill keep the craft more or less where it is until the wind shifts. If the anchor is leeward or in any other direction, the ship will be blown to a different position. After the change in position, the anchor will be windward, though the craft may be damaged or have caused damage in its movement. In flowing water the anchor should be upstream for similar reasons. DCDuring (talk) 15:39, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Etymology of Gothic 𐌻𐌹𐍄𐌴𐌹𐌽𐍃: Related to 𐌻𐌹𐍄𐌰?

The etymology section of Gothic 𐌻𐌹𐍄𐌴𐌹𐌽𐍃 liteins “intercessory prayer” relates it to an unattested verb *𐌻𐌹𐍄𐌾𐌰𐌽 *litjan, isolated from 𐌼𐌹𐌸𐌻𐌹𐍄𐌾𐌰𐌽 miþlitjan, “to dissemble or feign together with others” and related to 𐌻𐌹𐍄𐌰 lita “hypocrisy, insincerity, feigning.” Now, someone from the 21st Century would be right at home linking these two concepts together, but I find it very unlikely that someone from the First Millennium would make this kind of association. Who exactly makes this hypothesis originally, and why not link it to Ancient Greek λιτή litḗ “prayer, entreaty” or λιτανεύω litaneúō “pray, entreat,” from whence λιτανεία litaneía “procession of supplication, litany,” instead? --Wtrmute (talk) 18:28, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

@Wtrmute: Agreed, the semantics are too far apart. I adjusted the relevant entries. The exact route of derivation is unclear (why -eins, a deverbal suffix implying a Gothic base verb? A partial calque?), but Lehmann also mentions the possible Ancient Greek connection. Found some 19th century sources linking it to lita/*litjan, but the idea seems to have little support today — Mnemosientje (t · c) 12:40, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

flöten and fluiten

Like Flöte, flöten (playing the flute) in German should be derived from Old French fleute, just like Dutch fluiten (whistling). --2A02:3102:44D2:0:A045:19AE:5EDF:86A 16:02, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

I think in both cases the verb was inherited from older versions of the language (Middle High German, Middle Dutch), most likely as a new verb formed with -en from an ancestor of the noun for a flute, borrowed from Old French, or else modelled after an Old French verb formed from that noun. In either case, the derivation is indirect. Our etymology for Dutch fluiten currently states it comes from Middle Dutch floyten. The verb can be seen used here in a 15th-century chronicle.  --Lambiam 12:42, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

fragen

I'm not able to find how German fragen derived from Proto-Indo-European *preḱ- (“to ask”). Is fragen cognate with Italian pregare? Espoo (talk) 19:34, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Seems as if the noun Frage is older than the verb, with the verb derived from it. For your second question, it does seem like that. (Spanish preguntar might possibly have another source, though.) Wakuran (talk) 23:32, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

It would be good if Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/preḱ- linked to Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/frēgō; at the moment, it doesn't. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:28, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

According to https://www.dwds.de/wb/fragen, the verb fragen comes from the noun Frage (and the noun exists and existed only in de and nl), and the noun Frage comes from the same verb as Old English friġnan (“to ask, inquire, learn”), which according to our entry comes from Proto-West Germanic *fregnan, so the following part of our etymology of fragen is not only confusing and misleading but also incorrect: "which is indirectly derived from Proto-West Germanic *frāgēn. --Espoo (talk) 09:22, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Well, DWDS says the verb comes from the noun, but it doesn't say that that happened in the modern German period. Old High German frāgēn, -frāgōn is attested, so the denominal derivation must have happened no later than OHG. Our entry for Proto-West Germanic *frāgēn shows that other West Germanic languages also have this denominal verb, so it seems likely that it's actually the PWG verb that comes from the PWG noun. At the same time, though, the original verb *fregnan continued to exist. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:39, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Also, DWDS's claim that the noun Frage/vraag exists only in German and Dutch is true only if you consider Low German and Frisian to be dialects of German and Dutch, which we don't. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:41, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Also Swedish fråga, as an old Middle Low German borrowing (both the noun and the verb). Danish and Norwegian would use spørsmål and spørge/ spørre instead, whereas Swedish spörsmål and spörja are pretty archaic and rare. (Spörsmål might be used in Swedish with the meaning of "serious issue", I think.) Wakuran (talk) 13:19, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Berber etymologies

Looking to expand on the Tarifit section as well as other Berber languages. Among berber languages currently {{inh}} is used with Proto-berber as the parent languages e.g. agellid (“king”) from Proto-Berber *a-gəllid. This approach may not always work as Proto-Berber is quite scarce when it comes to reconstructions. Also Berber words tend to be organised by their consonantal root system. So I'm looking to instead have a set up similar to Arabic: agellid (“king”) from the root GLD (or gld or g-l-d). How should I approach this? — AjellidnArif (talk) 10:38, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

swaffelen

This entry is still without an etymology. I truly wonder if we cannot do better. It is a slang term from the mid-to-late aughties. The oldest non-durable attestation that I have found is from 2007, although I did not look very much admittedly. I personally heard it for the first time in 2008. It being a slang term, we will likely never find the original context of coining. So a valid surface analysis is as much as we can reasonably expect (and be expected) to offer.

The sw- element is clearly a devoiced counterpart of zw-, which exists in some regiolects from the northern half of the Netherlands (every indication is that this word originated in the Netherlands) and perhaps also some immigrant lects. This reflects the Germanic anlaut sw- that has a semantic field of swinging motion. In particular the verbs zwaaien and zwiepen are morphologically topical. A shortening of /aː/ and a fricatisation of /p/ give us the needed root. Finally, -elen is a frequentative suffix. I think all these things amount to a reasonably accurate etymology, not withstanding a lingering element of speculation. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 19:57, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Well, zwepen appears pretty similar in form and meaning, initially. Wakuran (talk) 21:05, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

It is rather similar in form, I am less convinced of the similarity in meaning. I would not say zwepen in the way that an English speaker could use whip when speaking of flopping about a male member, but I must admit to having no personal experience with that on either end... ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 22:46, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Here the term is given as being from 2002, unfortunately without a supporting citation. The article refers to dialectal zwaffelen, found in the WNT.^[17]  --Lambiam 13:38, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

As a curiosity, I managed to find this Swaffle Party Game [18], which is another indication of the practice's notority. (As -en is a Dutch infinitive ending, it would make sense somewhat to anglicize it as swaffle / swaffling.) It's mentioned that even women can play it, as the players apparenly would use substitues instead of their actual lullen. Wakuran (talk) 15:19, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

I am somewhat sceptical of that 'early' date, although it is of course not impossible. I wonder if that dating is based on an unsubstantiated report. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 22:46, 4 January 2023 (UTC)