Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2024/July

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← June 2024 · July 2024 · August 2024 → · (current)

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دوقلو

according to some persian sources, its from turkic, if so the source would be *doghuly which doesnt have counterparts in turkic languages as i know, so maybe the native persian compound form is more possible. Ryungja (talk) 09:03, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Probably borrowed from some derivative of doğulmaq. Vahag (talk) 10:49, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi, do you think the combination of Persian (do "two") and Azeri (oğulu" "son"), forming "two sons" and since there is no gender in Persian the word coming to mean twin? Or is that stretching it too far? CaesarVafadar (talk) 08:09, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

μόνος

μόνος currently says "From Proto-Hellenic *mónwos, from Proto-Indo-European *mey- (“small”)." Semantically, I guess "small" > "only" is possible, but how is the form *mónwos supposed to be derived from *mey-? Nothing matches but the initial consonant. At Reconstruction_talk:Proto-Indo-European/mey-, I see the following comments: "Most sources that I have consulted consider *mey- and *men- separate, unrelated roots. This list mixes the reflexes of the two. --Vahag (talk) 11:04, 27 December 2015 (UTC) True. Words in men-, man-, mon- or mun- (such as *muniwō) cannot possibly belong here. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:31, 21 October 2016 (UTC)" Urszag (talk) 06:41, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Our entry RC:Proto-Indo-European/men- lists three distinct roots, but there is probably a fourth that means 'small, isolated' and is the source of both Ancient Greek μόνος (mónos) and Old Armenian մանր (manr, “small”), not to mention several other words currently listed at *mey- (“small”). —Mahāgaja · talk 06:47, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I see that Pokorny 1959 and Beekes 2010 both assign this word to a root *men- 'small'. I've updated μόνος, Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/men-, and Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/mey- accordingly, but will hold off on fixing all of the mislabeled derived words until there's been a bit more time for anyone to make a case for why *mey- might be correct or *men- wrong.--Urszag (talk) 07:57, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

кӱчык

This Eastern Mari word appears to be a borrowing from a Turkic language, from Proto-Turkic *kičüg. The etymology is empty however, and I can't seem to find anything on the Internet to confirm it. Akhaeron (talk) 10:00, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Thigmocoma

The protist Thigmocoma is the type genus of the family Thigmocomidae. But apart from the prefix thigma-, "to touch", I don't understand the suffix -coma. What is your opinion? Gerardgiraud (talk) 11:31, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Could it be κόμη (kómē, “hair”)? Do thigmocomas have little hairlike feelers on them? —Mahāgaja · talk 12:23, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

It's not obvious si here : Thigmocoma Gerardgiraud (talk) 18:44, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

No, but I notice there's a related genus called Thigmotricha, which looks like it uses the other Ancient Greek word for 'hair', θρίξ (thríx) (genitive τριχός (trikhós)). —Mahāgaja · talk 19:21, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

You're right. I will manage with that. Thanks for help. Gerardgiraud (talk) 09:17, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

margr

In the Etymology of margr, it states <<Either an independent word from Proto-Germanic *margaz related to mor and merja, […] >> - what do mor and merja refer to ? Leasnam (talk) 14:16, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Maybe a sloppy typo for more and meira ... (?) Wakuran (talk) 20:11, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Alas, User:Myndfrea has not made any edits since 2015, and would likely not respond to queries. Wakuran (talk) 21:55, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

It is an old hypothesis by Folk & Torp (1910, Norwegisch-dänisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, p. 695) to link margr to mor (“dust”) and merja (“to crush”), which isn't very likely. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 13:40, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

happer

Origin of French word? 90.241.192.210 15:47, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

The origin of a word is stated under the heading 'Etymology'. Exarchus (talk) 18:19, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

what was its latin ancestor? 90.241.192.210 17:04, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Not every word in Old French comes from Latin. In this case, the similarity to Ancient Greek ἁρπάζω (harpázō) is suggestive, but there are also similar Germanic words and "ap" as a representation of jaws snapping shut is also quite plausible. Chuck Entz (talk) 17:47, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

The Old French happer is tied to Old French happe (“crampon, hook”). Though happe is often explained as being derived from the verb, it bears a striking resemblance to Old High German happa (“bill-hook, scythe”). Leasnam (talk) 23:34, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

trammel

According to Ernest Weekley (1921) An etymological dictionary of modern English many of the senses of trammel are a completely different word with separate etymology (from germanic tram meaning "beam" or similar, nothing to do with nets). Weekley elaborated on this at some length in the Transactions of the Philological Society, 1907, pp. 385–388, citing several other sources (there he also disputes the "three mesh" etymology of the drag-net sense). Cf. also the 1926 OED. Would it be worth modifying the entry to split the word in two, add more etymological details, linking sources, etc.? I'm a Wikipedian largely unfamiliar with Wiktionary formatting, conventions, sourcing, etc. Jacobolus (talk) 22:01, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

@Jacobolus: Do you have more recent sources discussing the etymology? It doesn't seem like any other major dictionary connects trammel to tram. Ioaxxere (talk) 05:55, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

@Ioaxxere I don’t think recency is particularly relevant here; the etymology given in most modern dictionaries of tri- (three) + macula (mesh) was, as far as I can tell, speculation invented in the 18th–19th century sometime. (Cf. Skeat.) Sources from recent decades that I have found have not seriously investigated or addressed the etymology of the word trammel. You might say they are, themselves, trammeled by laziness and historical inertia.

The main source for the basic etymology of the word is the appearance of trammel (a type of fishing net) in Salic law (Late Latin, originating in the early 6th century, various extant manuscripts from the 8th–9th century). You can see in Kern (1880) (cf. the glossarial index) what a variety of spellings there were in various manuscripts: "tremacle, tremale, tremagilum, tramacula, trimacle, trammacle, trimacla, trimagle, tremagle, tremagolum, tremachlum, tremaclum, trechlum, tremula, tremalicum, tramagula, tremacula". As Kern says in the notes, "§ 146. Tremacle, etc., in § 20, is a diminutive, more or less Latinized. The Frank. word must have differed but slightly, if at all, from the Drenthian (N. Saxon) treemke (for tremike, tramike), a trammel. Both the English and Drenthian word point to a simplex trami or tramia."

The Century Dictionary (1895), points out: “In defs. 5, 6, 7 the sense suggests a connection with tram¹, a bar or beam, but they are appar. particular uses of trammel in the sense of ‘shackle.’ Cf. tram³.

The 1926 OED just says that the etymology is obscure and "some of [the senses] may perhaps be different words".

I find Weekley pretty convincing and don’t believe the Century's “appar.”. There’s nothing obvious connecting the senses of pot-hook (concretely, a vertically hanging wooden or metal bar with holes or notches in it to allow height adjustment), shaft with metal points attached for drawing circles or ellipses, beam used for truing mill spindles, etc. to fishing nets or horse shackles, and the speculation in various dictionaries that the ellipse-drawing tool was named after the horse shackle because they involve restricted movement seems at the least highly speculative. The metaphorical senses of 'trammel' were all quite close to the literal sense of a trammel binding the legs of horses to change their gait until long after the sense of an elliptic compass was in use.

A simple clog ("entrave") made from a log.

Weekley's claim that the horse shackle's name may originate in tram ("beam") seems at least plausible, since other similar words such as entraves (from Latin trabs, "beam") and clog arose the same way.

Weekley's speculation about the mentions of trammels in the Lex Salica (Late Latin) being a word of Germanic origin for stake-net derived from tram which was Latinized and adopted into Latin/Romance languages is certainly not proven anywhere, but it doesn’t seem inherently less plausible than the "standard" speculation printed in most dictionaries.

The German word trämel means pole or stick, alongside a variety of other "tram"-like words in various Germanic languages, all meaning log, beam, timber, shaft, or the like (cf. Adelung (1793), scan or text; Ihre (1769); Fritschen (1716); Jamieson (1808)).

A bit of an aside: after hunting up many example uses c. 1600, the claim in most dictionaries that the archaic sense about hair is a kind of net is clearly abject nonsense based on a bad misreading of one quotation from Spenser's Faerie Queene. The "trammels of her hair" etc. refers to the hair itself, in plaits, braids, curls, or similar. The OED (since at least 1926) fortunately gets this one right, explaining it is “sometimes erroneously explained as a net”. It's not entirely obvious what the etymology is for this sense since it’s not super obviously related to large fishing/fowling nets. Jacobolus (talk) 14:17, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

@Jacobolus: Interesting. tram +‎ -el, literally “a little beam” is a pretty good match semantically for "trammels of her hair" (thanks for fixing the definition, by the way). However, it doesn't seem like there's any evidence that the Latin term was borrowed from Germanic, so this might be a case of two etymological origins merging into one. Also, what do you mean by Drenthian? Ioaxxere (talk) 18:23, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Wait, why would 'beam' make sense semantically in relation to hair? I just mean there are a lot of quotations such as:

1592, Thomas Lodge, “Anthenors item, to all young Gentlemen”, in Euphues Shadow‎^[2]:

Like wanton bird exempt from fowlers charme,
I soard aloft but looking from aboue.
I saw on earth a Fowler heauenly faire,
That made hir nets the trammels of hir haire.

1597, Christopher Marlowe, “translation of Ovid’s Elegia XIV”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)‎^[3]:

They troubled haires, alas, endur’d great losse.
How patiently hot Irons they did take
In crooked trannels crispy curles to make.
I cryed tis sinne, tis sinne, these haires to burne

1597, Richard Johnson, chapter 3, in The second Part of the famous History of the seauen Champions of Christendome‎^[4], London, pages D3–D4:

they left my Father fast bound unto the trée, and like egregious vipers tooke me by the tramells of my golden haire, and dragd me like a silly Lambe vnto this slaughtering place, intending to satisfie their lustes with the flower of my chastitie. [...] This being said, they bound mee with the tramells of myne owne haire to this Orenge trée,

1609, anonymous author, The Famous & renowned History of Morindos a King of Spaine‎^[5], page B2:

even the imbrodered vestures beset with goldsmiths workmanship, so gorgeously beautifiing her bodie, were fiered, and the golden tramels of her haire, burnd from her head:

1615, Richard Niccols, Waltham’s Complaint‎^[6]:

A vale of mist her silver brow did hide,
The golden trammels of her hair were tied
In fillets of black clouds, and with sad look
She, mourner-like, to Heaven her journey took.

1633, John Day, “v.1”, in The ile of gulls‎^[7]:

FArewell bright Sunne, thou lightner of all eyes,
Thou fall’st to give a brighter beame to rise.
Each tree and shrub weare trammells of thy haire,
But these are wiers for none but Kings to weare,

1636, William Sampson, “iii.1”, in The vow breaker‎^[8]:

His knotty curles, like to Apollo’s tramells
Neatly are display’d;

1647, Robert Baron, Erotopaignion, or, The Cyprian academy‎^[9], page 66:

he thē thrust his glittering sword into his left side & having enloosed his helmet (intending to crop him shorter by the head) espyed golden tramells of faire haire, falling downe upon her shoulders, which witnessed that it was the beautious Arbella,

Which collectively make it clear that a "net" is not involved (except sometimes as a pun, as in the first example).

"doesn't seem like there's any evidence that the Latin term was borrowed from Germanic" – As I understand Kern, the range of spellings of this word supports a Latinized Old Frankish word (similar to a related Old Saxon word and related to the English trammel) rather than a word of Latin origin. I am by no means on expert on Late Latin or word transmission between Latin and Germanic languages. I wonder if there's some expert on these topics around Wiktionary who we could consult. Jacobolus (talk) 18:45, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

@Jacobolus: Well, a hair is pretty much just a thin and flexible beam, isn't it? Anyway, I don't know enough about Late Latin to comment about it but I know that @Nicodene contributes in this area. Unfortunately tremaculum is a redlink at the moment. Ioaxxere (talk) 22:23, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I would be quite surprised if people directly took a word for shaft or pole, diminutive of a word for beam or log, and used it to refer to plaits or tresses of hair based on some resemblance to a shaft per se, but who knows. I really don't have any idea how trammel got to mean hair plaits or funeral wrapping (a rare mid 16th century meaning), which also don't seem directly relevant to either horse shackles or fishing nets. I think the best we can do is say that the etymology of these senses is unknown. Jacobolus (talk) 23:13, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

As for Drenthian, Drenthe is part of the Netherlands, where the word treemke is still used for this type of net (or at least was in 1911). Jacobolus (talk) 20:49, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm planning to replace the etymology of trammel with something like the following (with supporting sources linked from footnotes).

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The oldest extant written example of a relative of this word, from a passage describing the fine for stealing fishing nets, can be found in Salic Law, the legal code of the Frankish kingdom, written in Late Latin and originating in the 6th century, with extant manuscripts from the 8th–10th century. A wide variety of spellings were used in the various manuscripts: tremacle, tremaclem, tremaclum, tremachlum, tremacula, tremaculam, tremagle, tremaglem, tremagolum, tremagilo, tremagilum, tremalicum, tremale, tremalem, tremallum, tremula, tremulam, trechlum, trammacle, trammaclem, tramacula, tramaculam, tramagula, tramagulam, trimacle, trimagle, trimacla, trimaclam.

End view of a three-layer trammel net used for ocean fishing

Many dictionaries have taken this to be a compound of Latin tri- (“three”) + macula (“mesh”), because such nets have two or three layers, with fish pushing a slack layer with fine mesh through a taut layer with a coarse mesh, and take the English word to be a borrowed descendant via Old French. Some have instead taken it to be trans- (“across” or “through”) + macula, an origin implied by some modern cognates.

The word may have later become conflated with or influenced by descendants of Latin tragula (“drag net”) from traho (“to pull”), cf. Old French trainer (“to pull”).

Cognates for trammel in Romance languages include Spanish trasmallo, Portuguese trasmalho, French trémail, Gascon tramail, Italian tramaglio, Lombard tremagg, Venetian tramagio. Old French spellings for trammel nets or drag nets included traine, trainne, trayne, traynne, traisne, trahine, trahyne, trane, traineau, trainel, trainiel, traisnel, traynel, trainnelle, tramaire, tramail, tremail.

In Medieval Latin, spellings included tramela, tramale, tramallum, tramailum, tramallium, tramalya, tramare, tramarica, and in Anglo–Latin tramale, tramellum. Middle English spellings included trameyle, tramayll, tramayle, trameile, tramale, tramely, tramaly, trameli, tramali, tramell, tramel, tramale. Early Modern English spellings included tramel, trammel, tramell, trammell. Middle Scots spellings included tramalt and trameld.

Linguist Hendrik Kern instead took Late Latin tremacle, etc., to be a Latinized Frankish word, cognate with the Dutch Low Saxon treemke, making English trammel a cognate rather than a descendant, diminutive of a Germanic simplex such as trami or tramia. Philologist Ernest Weekley agreed, arguing that the word was probably diminutive of the Germanic tram (“log” or “beam”), because the earliest such nets were stretched across rivers and fixed to the banks using wooden poles or stakes.

The English word tram descends or was borrowed from a descendant of this Germanic simplex, and cognates include Scots tram, Norwegian tram, Low German traam, Old High German tram, Old Swedish tråm, Old Danish drom, with a range of meanings including “log”, “beam”, “timber”, “wheelbarrow shaft”, “ladder rung”, “step of a chair”, etc. It is found as thrams (“beam”) in the Gothic Bible, perhaps related to Ancient Greek θράμβη (thrámbē, “beam”) from which Latin trabs descends. The German diminutive trämel means “lever”, “pole”, “cudgel”, “small beam”, or “small tree”, and German trämelnetz is a trammel net.

The fowling net may have been named by the similarity of its shape to the fishing trammel, or because it had a pole at each end. The sense of caught, entangled, or intercepted arose by analogy to the fishing or fowling net.

The sense related to hair has sometimes erroneously been defined as a type of hair net, but quotations clearly imply plaits, braids, or curls of hair. Its etymology is unknown, but perhaps had some relation to nets, or to French tramer (“to weave”) and trame (“weft”) from Latin trāma (“weft”).

A simple clog or entrave made from a log

The sense of a horse shackle seems to accompany the senses related to nets across languages, but its origin is obscure. Weekley proposed it originated also as a diminutive of Germanic tram, as early animal shackles were made from a log or beam. A 16th century statute from northern Italy has Medieval Latin tramaiolus meaning a staff about a dog's neck used as a shackle. Words such as English clog, Spanish trabas, and French entrave (from Latin trabs, “beam”), which also describe such devices, have such an origin.

The etymology of other senses seems unrelated to fishing nets, and probably has separate origins. The senses of beam compass and adjustable pot hook (made from a wooden beam with holes or notches) probably arose from a diminutive of tram meaning “shaft”, “rod”, or “pole”.

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This seems longer and a bit different style from most Wiktionary etymology sections, but it doesn't seem possible to compress the same information into a paragraph or two. I could alternately try to split it into 2 or 3 different etymology sections, but it's not entirely obvious where it could/should be split, and it may be clearer all together. Is something like this allowed / reasonable? Are there any changes I should try to make? Jacobolus (talk) 05:22, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Some changes I'd do to shorten the etym:

1. Replace para. 1 with something like "From (Late) Latin". The rest of the paragraph could go in the Latin entry, with something like "For more details on this stage of the word, see tramell#Latin" (or what the main form of the entry is).

2. Move the list of cognates to the end, as per Wikt custom, and delete the alternate spellings of the non-English words.

3. If the other senses of trammel are not etymologically related to the net sense, make a new etym section and move the etym explanation to that section. CitationsFreak (talk) 07:06, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

The problems are (1) It's not from Late Latin. That's only a particular hypothesis most commonly presented in dictionaries but probably based on folk etymology and likely to be wrong; however, from what I can tell we don't have enough information to solidly reject it. (Disclaimer: I am not any kind of expert on linguistics, Frankish, Late Latin, Old French, etc.) (1a) Any spelling we pick for a Latin entry is going to be quite arbitrary, because this word was written using a very wide variety of spellings in various Salic Law manuscripts, and then spelled yet other ways in later medieval Latin examples. (2) At least some of the range of spellings is important context for theories about the English etymology, since there may be distinct words here getting blended together or influencing each-other. Trying to compress them down to a single spelling is misleading to readers. (3) The other senses probably have multiple distinct origins but there seem to be some relations between senses which I'm not sure there's enough remaining evidence to work out precisely, and the exact origins of most senses is hypothetical. The presentation in other dictionaries is to lump these together but then (sometimes) include a note describing the difficulty. –jacobolus (t, wp) 18:30, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

1. I was intending to write "From Latin". That was an error on my part. However, since you are (essentially) saying that the first instance of a relative of the word is found in Latin, I feel that "From Latin" isn't wrong.

1a. Yes, I know which exact spelling of the Latin word is arbitrary, but using the main entry for the term isn't.

2. We generally don't list alt-spellings for terms other than the one defined.

3. By "evidence", do you mean stuff in dicts, or quotation evidence? The hair sense definitely is splittable, in my eyes at least. CitationsFreak (talk) 20:14, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

@CitationsFreak I'm not trying to say that, essentially or otherwise. I just don't know how to clearly say: There are 2 theories (A) more common but less plausible, this was a Late Latin word constructed from some Latin parts, (B) this was an English word of Germanic origin with cognates in other Germanic languages whose Frankish cognate was Latinized. –jacobolus (t, wp) 20:20, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

There's a hair sense and also a sense about wrapping dead bodies for a funeral (examples from the mid 16th century). It's not clear to me if these are related to each-other and whether they were based on the sense of nets, or based on something about threads, or had some separate origin altogether.

The sense of a horse shackle/hobble seems plausibly based on wooden beam/shaft/etc. but the actual devices on horses that I have seem clear evidence about being called 'trammels' were made of ropes, so I'm not 100% sold on this explanation. There seem to be some similar words for both nets and horse shackles in multiple languages over wide geographic area, but I don't have a super clear sense of the precise meanings of very old examples.

Many senses likely come from something about wooden beams/poles/shafts, but evidence is spotty and later dictionaries have (in my opinion probably incorrectly) speculated that e.g. the elliptic compass was named based on a horse shackle metaphor.

What the OED does, as an example, is lump them all together but with a disclaimer note which I would paraphrase as "it's complicated and who really knows". –jacobolus (t, wp) 20:28, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Oh. Then I would suggest moving the fifth paragraph closer to the first. I completely missed that paragraph.

Also, I'm also not sure what to do about the senses. If you feel that they should be merged, or split, do whatever you wanna do. CitationsFreak (talk) 20:44, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

I think split is probably more conceptually pure, but may make it harder for readers to understand the confusion about etymology. I'd be satisfied with either way. –jacobolus (t, wp) 20:56, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Same here. I don't care either way. CitationsFreak (talk) 20:57, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Another question: Is there a good place for an entry / discussion of the topic of «some pre-English germanic language probably had a word something like tram since descendants show up across many Germanic languages but we (or I at least) don't have an exact idea of what it sounded like, and I can't find specific references about proto-Germanic versions of this word»? –jacobolus (t, wp) 21:01, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Probably WT:ES. CitationsFreak (talk) 21:03, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Isn't that a link to where we are now?

I mean, is there a way such a thing is usually expressed in Wiktionary entries? Some can probably go in the etymology section of tram, but I wonder if some other language section of tram or another word could use extra elaboration.

Some sources: Ludwig 1716, Ihre 1769, Adelung 1773, Jamieson 1808, Skeat 1882.

–jacobolus (t, wp) 21:18, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Hawaiian mele ('to be yellow'), meli

The explanation at meli might be perfectly correct, but there's also this from Witzel's "Early Loan Words in Western Central Asia":

(hinting at a distant link with Proto-Indo-European *mélit:) "Note even beyond this area, in Polynesia, Samoan meli, Hawaiian mele, meli; mele, melemele 'yellow', Maori miere; Tongan melie 'sweetness, sweet, delicious', Rarotongan meli 'honey', Mangareva mere 'honey'. This must be old and cannot just be an introduction from French miel (in New Zealand, Hawaii?) as we have Haw. mele-mele 'a star name': Melemele and Polapola, 'the twin stars', the former male, the latter female; at any rate, this is already Proto-Nuclear Polynesian (Samoan, Futunan etc.) *melemele; cf. also Haw. Melemele 'a mythical land'. -- For the spread of the word, note the role of cire perdue with its inherent use of bee's wax, see Andrew Sherratt, elsewhere in this volume: Patterns of Growth: Nodes and Networks in the Ancient World."

How credible is this analysis? Exarchus (talk) 10:05, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

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Not all that much. The time depth involved makes the likelihood of modern reflexes that similar via inheritance unlikely. Note that there are terms related to sweetness going back all the way to Proto-Austronesian that contain "m" followed by a front vowel, but reflexes like Malay manis show easily such patterns get lost over time. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:04, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the Polynesian Lexicon Project reconstructs a term *malie ("sweet-tasting, delicious"), of which Tongan melie would be a descendant. Another term *mele is reconstructed as a star name.

Anyway, I guess Hawaiian mele(mele) "yellow" is then a development from the borrowed meli "honey"? Exarchus (talk) 20:35, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

If it's a wanderwort, I'd expect reflexes in other Asian language families. Indo-European and Polynesian languages are very distant from each other. Wakuran (talk) 12:10, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Chuck's right. It's bad etymologizing that doesn't take into account how sound change operates in Polynesian languages. I didn't know that Witzel is capable of producing such BS. Meli, *malie and *mele can't be related—vowels don't just "disappear" or change at random in Polynesian languages, especially in the penult and final syllables. Nor should we assume that meli wasn't anything else but a learned borrowing at a time when most probably the first Bible translators didn't bring honey with them in order to show them what this obscure thing mentioned in the Bible actually is.

Want more linguistic fantasies about honey and bees? In the Enna' dialect of Buginese, 'bee' is hani! Maybe they got it from English-speaking sailors? Or is it just from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *wani, with the perfectly regular sound change *w > h... :) –Austronesier (talk) 18:08, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier "I didn't know that Witzel is capable of producing such BS." It was all in a footnote, I suspect it was an excursus outside his expertise.

I gave a tentative etymology at mele, feel free to improve. Exarchus (talk) 18:35, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

In the published version of the paper[10], Witzel is more careful in his wording about these wild speculations after having consulted Ross Clark, an actual expert in Oceanic languages.

As for melemele 'yellow', I'll do a little more digging. As of now, I think the connection to the Nuclear Polynesian name for Antares with its M-class color is the most likely solution. –Austronesier (talk) 19:25, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

So Mele Kalikimaka actually means "yellow Christmas"? —Mahāgaja · talk 06:19, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

mele also happens to mean "to be merry" (and now I'm wondering whether this might be influenced by English instead of just coming from the sense "chant, song") Exarchus (talk) 07:38, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Pookie

A little topical— I can’t really scrounge up anything convincing about where it comes from. There’s one well-circulated, quite questionable source that claims it originates from German, but that seems pretty unsubstantial. It certainly rose in popularity during the mid-ish 20th century, but there’s still no obvious etymon. To me, it seems kind of reminiscent of the pooka but the term doesn’t seem particularly, or even originally, British. CanadianRosbif (talk) 16:59, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Are you talking about the pet name, or something else? For pets, English already has the similar pooch/ poochie. Wakuran (talk) 17:26, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

gatvė

Where does the supposed -vė suffix come from? Could it be linked to the ending of erdvė? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 20:37, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/upó

Unsourced and derivationally problematic. -saph 🍏 13:30, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Dasyprocta

Back in December, I posted about the group of insects called Epiprocta. Much to my amusement, you all discovered its etymology came from "on top of the anus". So when I was learning about groups of rodents and saw Dasyprocta (the Agoutis), I was interested if this might also be using the same proct = anus etymology.

After searching for the prefix dasy-, I learn that means hairy! Is the etymology of this group really hairy anus or is this just a coincidence? Why would they choose this name for the agoutis? Thanks again Pithon314 (talk) 02:39, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

@Pithon314: The original description spells it out in Ancient Greek and Latin. Confirmed. Further down it says "Corpus pilis duriusculis versus anum longioribus tectum", which provides further explanation. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:41, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz That's so funny! Thank you for confirming that! This fact now lives in my mind rent-free :D --Pithon314 (talk) 17:01, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Aconaemys

I have another rodent group question: Aconaemys (Andean rock rats). In this one, I believe the "mys" is Ancient Greek μῦς (mûs, "mouse") like other groups of rodents such as Dipodomys. Does anyone have insight into the "Aconae" part? Thanks again, Pithon314 (talk) 20:57, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

ἀκόνη is vaguely related to rocks, although dictionaries say it means specifically "whetstone", which seems an odd fit. Lewis and Short simply defines Latin aconae as "pointed stones".--Urszag (talk) 22:20, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

sowie

Origin of German word? I don't think that so+wie makes a lot of sense to the meaning of this word. 90.241.192.210 19:17, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Of course it does. "Sowie" literally means "so as", or perhaps if this is clearer in English: "as much as". Accordingly you can say Er liest Bücher sowie Zeitungen (literally, "He reads books as much as newspapers"). It's actually quite the same as English "as well as" or French "autant que". 84.63.31.91 19:38, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

philosopher's stone

The etymology section claims that this is a "malapropism of philosophers' stone", which is in turn a direct translation of the Latin phrase. This was added in this diff. Could we verify this claim? Even if this were true, IMO it's not so much a "malapropism" rather than a simple misspelling. Wyverald (talk) 21:27, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

It's definitely not a malapropism as that requires some kind of inappropriate or even absurd use of words. This is obviously not the case here. It makes absolutely no different whether we attribute the stone to "the philosophers" (as a group) or "the philosopher" (as such), in same way that it's "miller's knot" or "shoemaker's end". I would simply call it a "variant" or at most an "alteration" (for the latter, strictly, we must first prove that "philosophers' stone" is in fact the older form in English). 84.63.31.91 22:11, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

As philosophōrum is in the genitive plural case, a direct translation would correctly be "philosophers' stone", so yes, it is most likely the older form. Wakuran (talk) 01:06, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

The correct term is "misconstruction". Theknightwho (talk) 15:35, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm obviously aware of that; otherwise I wouldn't have suggested calling it an "alteration" in the first place. But such reasoning is meaningless. The only way to prove that "philosophers' stone" is the older form is by looking at the oldest English attestations. In fact, to my own surprise, Ngrams shows a strong dominance of "philosopher's stone", which grows ever stronger the further back one goes! (Of course, I can't be sure whether Ngrams is able to distinguish these properly.) 84.63.31.91 15:46, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

aburahaye

When adding my English entry (aburahaye), I couldn't find the Japanese term for"haye" to complete the etymology. I know for a fact that "abura" of the word meant "oil," but I couldn't seem to find out what the "haye" meant. Any suggestions? Couscousous (talk) 22:54, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

There are only a handful of Google hits for the word, so it's unclear exactly which species the word refers to. I am also not sure on whether the ending should be read as [heɪ] or [hɑjɛ] (which have implications for which Japanese word that was borrowed). An initial guess is that it could be a mangling of goi, the compound form of koi. Wakuran (talk) 01:17, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Managed to find the species now. According to this dictionary, it seems to be'Sarcocheilichthys variegatus variegatus'. The Japanese article mentions Japanese article サクラバエ (sakurabae) and ヤナギバエ (yangibae), bae could be a compound form of hae, which apparently in zoological matters could refer to a carp or small fish. There are entries on the Japanese Wiktionary for hae and haya. Wakuran (talk) 01:38, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Google Translate implied the words could refer to sharks, so perhaps they ultimately have been borrowed from German Hai or Dutch haai (?...) Wakuran (talk) 01:42, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Found a kanji, so the last guess might be inaccurate. 鮠 Wakuran (talk) 01:56, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

For future reference, most Japanese plants and animals are referred to in katakana, so you would search on Google for "アブラハヤ". The first hit I checked gives the name in kanji as 油鮠, which confirms Japanese 鮠 as the correct second part. Ignore the part about "carp" in our entry, since a dace is a type of minnow. Of course, carp, goldfish and minnows are all in the same family, so it's not that far off. The English name at the same site is "downstream fatminnow", with fat=Japanese 油 (abura) and minnow=Japanese 鮠 (haya). They may have just calqued the Japanese name. Judging by Google Translate, "由来・語源 表面がぬめぬめして油がついたような感触だから。長崎県東彼杵郡での呼び名の「アブラハエ」の「ハエ」を「ハヤ」に転訛して田中茂穂が命名したものではないか？　本種はタカハヤとの混称が多く、比較的よく使われた呼び名を元にしたのだと思う。" from the same website discusses the etymology- something about the skin feeling oily, and changing another, older name with "hae" meaning "fly" to "haya" and possibly influenced by the name of another fish. It also gives the name of the person who coined it, 田中茂穂 (Shigeho Tanaka). Chuck Entz (talk) 05:51, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Whilst trying to make some worth in this gigantic discussion, I realized that maybe Iit should be checked for verification as the only results on Google Books were dictionaries. Couscousous (talk) 09:08, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

So, it would likely be pronounced as [hɑjɛ]? Could it have been a confusion from 'haya' or an attempt of indicating the separate pronunciation of a and e in 'hae'? Wakuran (talk) 10:05, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

The Japanese Wikipedia page on ハヤ (haya) states these fish are also called ハエ (hae) or ハヨ (hayo). The katakana character エ historically represented the syllable ye and takes the place for that syllable in the traditional katakana table, so I can imagine someone mechanically transcribing it as ye. There are Google hits for "aburahae", while "aburahaye" is only found in a supplement of the Century Dictionary.^[11]  --Lambiam 00:34, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

@Lambiam That's true, but English had essentially no contact with Japanese until long after the distinction between ye and e stopped being recognised. It feels more plausible that y was inserted epenthetically in English to prevent ae from being read as a diphthong. Theknightwho (talk) 01:36, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

When has avoiding two original syllables being read as one ever been pursued? English maize /meɪz/ < Spanish maíz /maˈis/; English Ukraine /juːˈkɹeɪn/ < Polish Ukraina /uk.raˈi.na/; English aero- /ˈɛəɹ.ə/ or /ɛəˈɹəʊ/ < Ancient Greek ἀέρο- /a.é.ro/.  --Lambiam 07:43, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

aero- isn't a good example, as English learnedisms derived from Ancient Greek ᾱ̓ήρ (āḗr) were originally pronounced /eɪˈɪə̯ɹ-/, /ˈeɪ.əɹ-/ (see aerial; the archaic nonstandard form aerioplane is also worth mentioning in this connection); the modern pronunciation is due to synizesis similar to that seen in idea and theater, supported by analogy with the more popular air. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 18:13, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Disregarding the old Japanese distinction between e and ye, syllables starting with "e" seem to have potentially had a non-phonemically distinctive phonetic glide at the time when Romanization of Japanese first was taking place (or had had one recently enough that it had become conventional to indicate it): compare Yedo, yen, Inouye. "Ye"-spellings like this are supposed to have occurred in the first and second versions of Hepburn's dictionary. But whether this is a plausible explanation for this word depends how old "aburahaye" is. We'll need to see what examples turn up as a result of the RFV.--Urszag (talk) 19:19, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Elymi

I am exploring the possiblity that Elymi derives from Proto-Indo-European *h₁élem (“mountain elm”), thus "Elm People". The Elymi spoke some kind of Indo-European language, and the Mountain Elm grows in Sicily. 24.108.18.81 01:48, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

If millet grew on Sicily, it may have come from Ancient Greek ἔλυμος.  --Lambiam 07:16, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

goofy goober

The earliest given citation is in a novelization of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie; the book was released in September 2004 and the movie in November 2004. However, another book is given as a citation that dates to October 2004; it seems unlikely to me that the second citation, which was not written by someone involved with SpongeBob or the movie, was referencing a book made for children about a film connected to a children's TV show. It is possible that later citations may have been influenced by SpongeBob, but this one citation casts doubt on SpongeBob coining it. I suppose this could just be an alliterative SOP, unless WT:LIGHTBULB or WT:IDIOM#Empty space test ("goofy" and "goober" both refer to silliness) apply. -BRAINULATOR9 (TALK) 04:12, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Wow, that's interesting. Now that I think about it, it seems unlikely that the creators of the movie would have come up with the term. It makes sense that they were just forcing the pun by making Spongebob and Patrick dress up as peanuts. The October '04 source confirms this. Aryan180 (talk) 15:44, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Proto-Germanic *krampō

German Krampf, Old High German kramph don't belong here at all, but are from a strong variant *krampaz. But even for the rest I have trouble with the feminine gender. Old High German krampho, Old Saxon krampo are both clearly from a weak masculine *krampô. Middle Dutch crampe is given with both genders, but the fact that it became feminine in Middle Dutch and MLG means nothing because that's what commonly happened to inanimate weak masculines in these languages. Accordingly, there is absolutely no evidence for a feminine in West Germanic. The only remaining support would be Gothic 𐌺𐍂𐌰𐌼𐍀𐌰 (krampa). But is that even attested? I can't find it any sources. 84.63.31.91 06:57, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

The Gothic is weak Masculine. I created the entry as a strong feminine because that's how it is presented in Koebler, despite the fact that all descendants are weak masculine. I haven't a clue why it's reconstructed this way. I'll move it. Leasnam (talk) 01:34, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Moved to Proto-Germanic *krampô. Leasnam (talk) 01:42, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

How are انار and رُمَّان related ?

"From Middle Persian [script needed] (ʾnʾl /⁠anār⁠/). Probably ultimately related to the pomegranate terms under Arabic رُمَّان (rummān)."

Is there any source or an explanation on how rummān and anār⁠ related ? "Probably" is not adequate enough without any source/explanation in my opinion.

I would delete that they are related if there is source/explanation but since it was added some years ago I'm a bit hesitant. If there is a source/explanation I would like to know it and to also to add it. Appreciate any help possible, Cheers. CaesarVafadar (talk) 07:52, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

@CaesarVafadar: Have you seen the other potential cognates in the table of the Arabic section? The remark is more about them. After all it literally says “the pomegranate terms under rummān”. The two terms themselves are separated by several millennia.

Other than that, liquid metathesis is common in languages across the world.

You don’t have anything more helpful to write in the etymology, do you? Fay Freak (talk) 08:06, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I did look at the Arabic section. I just wanted something more academic in suggestion that source of انار is from the same place as رُمَّان or an explanation how they could be related.

From what I know of sound changes of Proto-Iranian to Old Persian/Old Iranian to Middle Persian/Middle Iranian, there is no sound change that explain this and there is no cognate of انار in Avestan. But I can only read English so my sources are kinda limited. I know there are some good sources in German, French and possible Russian. I guess multiple metathesis' could explain it, I know "R" likes to change position in Iranic languages.

Since we don't know origin of رُمَّان and origin of انار, I personally think, it's too much of a stretch to say they are related. We have to establish some sort of commonality, and like I said there are no sound change that could get us near a common word. I guess they Could be related. I'm not apposed to it.

If I could reword, I would change it to "From Middle Persian [script needed] (ʾnʾl /⁠anār⁠/), of uncertain origin. Perhaps ultimately related to the pomegranate terms of the same origin of Arabic رُمَّان (rummān)."

But when I'm not certain I don't like to add/delete/change etymologies.

Thanks for your response by the way, I didn't consider metathesis. CaesarVafadar (talk) 08:44, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

@CaesarVafadar: Your proposed wording is totally okay. Myself I just changed “probably” to “arguably” since you voice your concerns so nicely.

Is there really nothing to add on the Iranian end? Something more in Middle Iranian or Old Iranian could lead us farther later. Even adding the exotic languages at the Arabic page took a while. Fay Freak (talk) 08:53, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Only things I could find are the Avestan word for 'pomegranate tree' /urvaram/ or /haδānaēpata/. I kinda doubt the accuracy of the second word though.

There also Sogdian n'r'kh, pronounced /nārāk(a)/ or (anār-āka) but I can't access the source of it. The place I found the word from says the source is "A Compendious Sogdian Dictionary" by Raham Asha. Author hasn't finished the book so I haven't bought it yet.

I don't have any book in Bactrian and I couldn't find anything pomegranate related in Pahlavi/Parthian.

I did find a article in "parsi.wiki" which seemed pretty in depth but no source was sited so I ignored it. CaesarVafadar (talk) 11:53, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Irish scraiste

Can anyone help me find a plausible etymology for Irish scraiste (“loafer, sluggard”)? DIL doesn't suggest one. Irish /ʃtʲ/ often reflects /tʃ/ or /dʒ/ in loanwords from (Middle) English or French/Anglo-Norman (e.g. paiste from patch or páiste from Old French page (“pageboy”)), so scraiste could come from something like scratch or "scradge", but I'm not finding anything with feasible semantics. Our entry for scratch doesn't give anything, nor can I find anything likely-looking at the University of Michigan Middle English Dictionary. Does anyone happen to know of a word in older or dialectal English that means "lazy person" or the like and looks like it could be the ancestor of scraiste? —Mahāgaja · talk 10:57, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

If it helps (and you may know more than me about whether this source is reliable or not), Séamas Moylan, The Language of Kilkenny: Lexicon, Semantics, Structures (1996), mentions a second sense (in Hiberno-English rather than Irish, apparently?): page 230: SCRAISTE [...] n. 1. “A lazy, slothful man” (S-D). 2. A stingy, miserly person; gen in phr. a mean oul scraiste (KM). [Din. id. “sluggard, tramp, vagrant "; Ó Dón. id. "loafer, layabout." S.a. CNÍOPAIRE]. (CNÍOPAIRE, referred to above, is on page 73: CNÍOPAIRE n. "A miser" (S-D). [Din., Ó Dón. id. S.a. PIOSGUIRT, SCRAISTE, SCRIOS, […] ]) Given the reference to old scraiste above, I considered Old Scratch, but even "devil"-"miser" would be quite a semantic jump. AFAICT the EDD doesn't have any dialectal senses of scratch, cratch-that-often-becomes-scratch, or scradge that look plausible. It has scratcher "money-grubber" (as a run-in under scratch "scrap together, save; earn a scanty livelihood") which could plausible connect to "miser". - -sche (discuss) 20:57, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/boudi

RFV of the etymology. {{R:EDPC}} doesn't actually suggest any Indo-European origin of the word. Is the suggested connection with the Baltic words listed published anywhere? A new editor also keeps trying to push an utterly ridiculous connection with Phoenician and Proto-Semitic, which doesn't bear thinking about. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:13, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

@Siprum: Please stop adding this unsourced and frankly ridiculous Semitic etymology to RC:Proto-Celtic/boudi, and especially please stop pretending it's sourced to Matasović, when he says nothing of the sort. He doesn't even mention the halfway plausible Indo-European etymologies listed; I don't know where they come from either. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:16, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

If you can't conceive of the possibility of the language of the Phoenicians in the Iberian peninsula mixing with the proto-Celtic languages there, and with that mixture often being mediated by trade, in which "profit" is a completely reasonable word to posit as a borrowing from the culture bringing the mercantile to the culture benefitting from having nice neighbors who sell them saffron...

... then you don't know know enough about history to be saying anything out here. Siprum (talk) 23:44, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

@Siprum That's all very well, but why are you falsifying sources? Theknightwho (talk) 01:32, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

That was accidental. Apologies. I was unfamiliar with the layout. Siprum (talk) 01:34, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

But the Insular Celtic languages were never spoken in the Iberian peninsula, so the word has to have already been in Proto-Celtic before Celtic speakers spread into Iberia. Also, it's phonologically implausible that something with the consonants *b-ṣ-ʕ would become boudi; they have nothing in common but the initial b. —Mahāgaja · talk 06:26, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

See all of the earliest Celtic inscriptions and realize that the script is derived from Phoenician. Asserting anything prior to this is proto-Celtic speculation. As contact at the earliest attestation of Celtic is proven, it should be considered that that contact would be mediated by trade, and a word for profit would be completely plausible as a borrowing. Siprum (talk) 16:29, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

America and NZ write in a Phoenician-derived script (Latin alphabet), does that mean the ancient Phoenicians visited America and New Zealand? Obviously not. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 17:41, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Just saying, but didn't Phoenicia have trade links with Cornwall for their tin? Exarchus (talk) 08:38, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

All etymologies at the proto-language level should be sourced, period. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 06:16, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

@Victar Outright restoring an etymology we have yet to source from anywhere is not a good idea either. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 17:06, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Requiring all etymologies to be sourced or deleted has absolutely never been a policy of the project, but, of course, having everything sourced is the goal. --{{victar|talk}} 17:17, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I stand corrected re:sourcing etyms generally, but I did not feel that the Baltic connection in particular was plausible without sourcing from a previous scholar. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 05:33, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

In all the hubbub, the only etymology with a source got removed so I re-added it. The etymological dictionary for Proto-Germanic also gives this at *bautan-: "Mir. búailid ‘to beat, strike’ (a denominal verb from an instrumental formation *bʰou-dʰlo-?)" and further: "the original root-final consonant cannot be identified as *d, but only as *t or *dʰ"

It seems to make a lot of sense that Old Irish búaid and Middle Irish búailid (see buail) are related. Exarchus (talk) 10:21, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

The EDPG says búailid might be related to *bautaną, but it doesn't mention búaid at all. Of course it's conceivable that búailid and búaid could be from the same root (especially if the original meaning of *boudi is 'victory' rather than 'profit'), but neither EDPG nor EDPC makes that leap. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:48, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

It does seem more plausible to me than the link to the Baltic terms. This (old) dictionary reconstructs a root *boud for the Irish verb buail. I'll see if I can find something more recent. Exarchus (talk) 13:12, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

MacBain is definitely unreliable for connections outside of Celtic, and even he doesn't explicitly connect buaidh and buail. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:02, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

A quote from https://www.academia.edu/58408337/Celtic_Etymology: "Celtic etymological lexicography has been lagging behind that of most other European language families and it still exhibits many glaring gaps."

Maybe this is one of them...

(Btw, some people here, ahem, are actually mentioned in the article... Celtic etymology must be in a sorry state if one feels the need to talk about Wiktionary.) Exarchus (talk) 14:42, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

@Mahagaja I'm actually still confused about Matasovic's wording, why does he say German Beute etc. could come from "the same root *bʰewd-"? The same root as for Celtic? If he thinks a Germanic word for 'booty' can come from *bʰewd-, then why not the Celtic word? Exarchus (talk) 21:58, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, I interpreted "Germanic forms ... could also be inherited from the same root" to mean all the Germanic forms could come from the same root, but you're right, it could also mean that the Germanic and Celtic words could all be inherited from the same root. His wording is ambiguous. Nevertheless, the fact that all the Germanic words appear to have been borrowed directly or indirectly from a Frankish or Old Dutch word makes it unlikely to be an inherited Proto-Germanic word. —Mahāgaja · talk 06:35, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

So what do we do? There don't seem to be many attempts to connect *boudi- to PIE, or to some hypothetical non-IE source, which surprises me given that Boudica is well-known. Pokorny gives "*bhoudhi- 'Sieg'?", which without connection to a verbal root isn't very illuminating. And Matasovic might simply intend it to come from *bʰewd- as he isn't claiming that this root for some reason doesn't occur in Celtic (see *bibud-).

Given that the current proposed etymology seems to be simply original research (btw, LIV is against connecting the Baltic and Iranian forms), I would a fortiori also mention *bʰewd-. Exarchus (talk) 08:34, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

It seems pretty clear to me what Matasović means. He is saying that if the Germanic terms are not borrowed then they share a root with Celtic, *bʰewd-, which would be limited to the "northwest IE" dialects (meaning just Celtic and Germanic in this case). But he does not pin this root down as the same as *bʰewd- (“to strike”), which is probably intentional considering (1) it has been seen (since Pokorny and earlier) as a variant of *bʰewt- (Old Irish fo·botha (“he threatened”), Latin *fūt- (“to strike, push”)), which is phonetically unsound or at least points to contamination from onomatopoeia, and (2) it is full of words of uncertain kinship due to a combination of semantic and phonetic problems (cf. Old Armenian բութ (butʻ), and see more at Pokorny), not even to mention the unclear borrowing situation like we saw with *boudi; it looks bad for a dictionary to pseudo-concretely attach etyma to such a sloppy cognate set, especially one that hasn't seen much improvement after two centuries of research.
Anyway, I've added the *bʰewd- etymology to the Proto-Celtic entry, being careful not to mince Matasović's words. — Ganjabarah (talk) 04:42, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Proto-Germanic *faluz (“terrible, cruel”)

Current etymology gives: "From Proto-Indo-European *pol- (“to pour, flow, float, fly, swim, flee”)."

I'm not sure which root is actually intended here, and it also doesn't seem to make much sense to me. The supposedly related *fēlaz simply gives the etymology as unknown. Exarchus (talk) 09:47, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

What is actually the source for *faluz and *fēlaz? Could it be an outdated reconstruction given that etymonline.com suggests Old French as source for English fell (“cruel”)? I can't find it in Kroonen's Proto-Germanic dictionary either.

Also relevant: Icelandic fæla Exarchus (talk) 15:13, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

It's a good idea to ping the person that added the etymology. Also, never use etymonline.com. @Leasnam --{{victar|talk}} 01:38, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't recall where that came from. I've updated the etymology at *faluz. Leasnam (talk) 02:34, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

@Leasnam I think a lot on that reconstruction page is debatable. For Dutch fel, dictionaries simply give 'borrowing from Old French fel' without mentioning Old Dutch. Then the Old French term is said to come from Late Latin fello (not *felus), which is of disputed origin, currently given as coming from *falljō, but the main hypothesis of TLFi rather gives *fillo, related to Dutch villen. Exarchus (talk) 07:24, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm getting the impression that the only forms hinting at the possible existence of Proto-West Germanic *falu are the Old English compounds wælfel (“bloodthirsty”), ealfelo (“evil, baleful”), ælfæle (“very dire”).

Apparently the first attestation of Old High German fello (mentioned at Proto-West Germanic *falljō) is the same Latin text where it's supposedly the ancestor of... Exarchus (talk) 11:57, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

So as you can see, I added a bunch of notes to the *faluz/*falu entries, feel free to comment, but I think these reconstructions are very shaky.

For *fēlaz there is at least Köbler's reconstruction, though with short 'e'. Exarchus (talk) 18:04, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Another question I have: what's the source for Old Frisian 'fal'? Because I can't find it in the 'Old Frisian Etymological Dictionary', and the etymology for modern West Frisian 'fel' is given as "Nederlands fel, Oudfrans fel". Exarchus (talk) 08:41, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

To answer the Frisian question: it is mentioned in the 1840 Richthofen dictionary, but also with the question whether it comes from Middle Dutch 'fel' / Old French 'fel'.

The word seems to be a hapax in Old Frisian, in a text from 1404, making a borrowing very likely. Exarchus (talk) 09:16, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

German post-liquid voicing

At dulden we read "The second -d- is due to voicing after a liquid (as seen in some other words)." That's unhelpfully vague. Can we link some of these parallel examples? 4pq1injbok (talk) 13:11, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Melde (“saltbush”)? And even Geld. Could be that the author didn’t went o mention many forms due to their having fallen out of or never belonging to the standard but Upper German dialects. Fay Freak (talk) 13:44, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I think your examples had a similar -d- already in Proto-Germanic, so they might not be very good comparisons. Wakuran (talk) 17:18, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

@Wakuran: This is irrelevant, because all such cases presuppose /d/ in Proto-Germanic, since Proto-Germanic /d/ → /t/ and /t/ → /t͡s/, /s/ in High German due to the Second Germanic sound shift, so we only have /t/ from /d/ later becoming /d/ for dialectal reasons. Fay Freak (talk) 17:38, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Words with unexpected -ld- include dulden, Geld (already mentioned), moreover mild, Schild and maybe one or two others. Revoicing happened generally in /nd/, that's why we have hardly any inherited words with /nt/ in modern German (cf. e.g. OHG bintan > MHG binden). In the case of /ld/ the same voicing was restricted to Central German, as far as these dialects underwent the shift /d/ > /t/ at all (which most of West Central German did not). Citing Paul's Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik (25th ed., 2007, page 51): "ahd. /ld/ und /lt/ waren thür.-omd. in /ld/ zusammengefallen, daher werden sie - bei sonst sauberer Trennung von /d/ und /t/ - wie von den Thüringern auch von Hessen wie Herbort v. Fritzlar ohne Einschränkung miteinander gereimt." So words like dulden, Geld, mild, Schild were standardized in a Central German form, whereas the regular words are in line with Upper German (like alt, kalt, gelten, halten etc. etc.). >> Another reminder that Standard German is not a Central German dialect (as too often claimed), but a compromise lect with Central as well as Upper German features. 84.63.31.91 18:14, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

hoor (Dutch)

Self explainitory at this point. 90.241.192.210 17:06, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Not a bad question actually, I added the etymology Exarchus (talk) 20:43, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

By the way, to be really accurate, all Dutch verb forms like 'hoor', 'roep' etc. should have the 2nd person singular added in case of inversion ('roep je?'). Exarchus (talk) 20:58, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

âm ỉ

From âm + ỉ. Âm is another Nom reading of ấm (萻, 𤋾). Ỉ means small. Could someone verify this? EimarGD (talk) 12:01, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

the et in etwas

I would like to know more about this prefix that currently does not have a article. 90.241.192.210 12:25, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

From what I can find out, it seems related to German je and English aught, originally meaning ever, similar to Dutch iets, ietwat. Wakuran (talk) 13:14, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Dutch iets comes from the partitive genitive of Middle Dutch iet, also responsible for the first component of ietwat. Its etymology, from Old Dutch *iowiht, from io (“ever”) + *wiht << Proto-Germanic *wihtą (“thing”), does not align with "Old High German edde (edde = some)" from the Etymology section of etwas. I think that {{cog|nl|ietwat}} in that section is a misstatement. I don't know whether the claimed cognateness with Icelandic eitt has a sound base.  --Lambiam 21:52, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

There might be a connection with West Flemish 'eetwat, entwat' Exarchus (talk) 09:41, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

This et is also found in German etlich and etwa. As an annotation to Kluge states, "The origin of this pronominal ëte, ëtes, ëttes, ëddes, ‘any,’ is quite obscure."  --Lambiam 22:02, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

It's found in OHG as edde-, eddes-. Further origin obscure. Perhaps from Proto-Germanic *aþja-, perhaps related to the first element of Gothic 𐌰𐌸𐌸𐌰𐌽 (aþþan), but this is only a guess. Leasnam (talk) 18:20, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

matschen

Origin? 90.241.192.210 17:38, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

As others have told you before, take a look at the "Etymology" section. If you have specific questions about the origin, feel free to ask them. DJ K-Çel (contribs ~ talk) 20:35, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Proto West Germanic ancestor? 90.241.192.210 09:59, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

There are similar Germanic words going back to Proto-West Germanic or Proto-Germanic such as mud, mash and mush, but this might be a later, imitative coinage. Wakuran (talk) 10:27, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Aargou

RFV of the etymology.

From Old High German Aaregau (“Aargau”), compound of [German] Aare +‎ Gau.

It looks like "Old High German Aaregau" is really modern German, and not the same as whatever Alemannic German Aargou is inherited from.

After looking further, it seems that the etymology was copied whole from German Aargau, with {{inh|de|goh|Aaregau||Aargau}} changed to {{inh|gsw|goh|Aaregau||Aargau}}. The etymology at Aargau is less wrong, but the part about inheritance as a whole word from Old High German directly contradicts the part about compounding of modern German parts (from what I can tell, the OHG ancestor of German Gau, at least, had a quite different spelling from its German descendant).

The German etymology was added by an editor known for getting things mixed up and the Alemannic German entry was added by an editor known for masses of assembly-line-style edits with poor attention to detail.

Please fix both entries. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:45, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I found a possible reference: "Ar-, Är-gäu" under Gäu] in the Schweizerisches Idiotikon. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:59, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Ånnsjön

Ånnsjön is a lake in Jamtland, and is probably called after Ånn - the largest village at its coast. But the Wikipedia gives a weird explanation of the Ånn name itself, as it comes from a male personal name. Furthermore, Norwegian WP gives a South Sami name for the lake - Ånne, but i can't find it nowhere. Does anybody has any thoughts about the lake's etymology? May it be of Sami origin? Or is it from some little-known Jamtish word? Tollef Salemann (talk) 23:15, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

onne (/unnə/) is South Sami for 'small' (found also elsewhere in Sami, e.g. North unni — though lack of expected *nn > dn in these suggests it is not inherited from Proto-Samic), which could very well be a modifier in toponyms. Wringing an å- directly from this seems difficult; in some different morphological formations in SSami, an *a-umlaut *u > o (å) would be expected, but this would also not give a form Ånne. And then is the lake particularly small at all? --Tropylium (talk) 12:52, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Nah, not so small compared to others lakes in the area. Tollef Salemann (talk) 13:59, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Granta

I've seen two untrustworthy (IMO) sources which claim Granta, as in the river which passes through Grantchester on its way to the Great Ouse, is Brittonic for muddy river. Any thoughts? -- two millennia later, its upper section is generally renowned for being crystal clear, but that was above what was the head of navigation before it was canalised. Lower down, through Cambridge (the Cam was originally the Granta until a backformation after Grantebrycge had mutated to Cambridge) it's muddier, and below Magdalene Bridge aka Great Bridge, where the Roman Duralipons was (I assume the pons means they built a bridge there, at what was the head of navigation) it has a very muddy section, but IIRC even further down, towards the Great Ouse, it's clear again. Having said that, the local clay is extremely claggy, much more so IMO than near London, so anyone would remember the banks of the Granta as muddy. --Enginear 01:04, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

drutta

Origin? 90.241.192.210 15:02, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

There are some similar Swedish words dråsa and drösa, which I guess possibly might be related. Wakuran (talk) 17:27, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

There are also similar variants of dratta and tratta. SAOB only mentions tratta, with the etymology given as "imitative". [12] Wakuran (talk) 21:55, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Old Norse ancestor? 2A0D:3344:12C:9410:6085:C890:4E94:EC06 07:31, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Probably too recent for that. Dråsa has a possible ancestor in Old Norse *drjósa / Proto-Germanic *dreusaną. Wakuran (talk) 10:19, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Old Norse has the similar word detta, but it seems unclear if there's a connection. Wakuran (talk) 10:25, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Ք

Origin of letter? 90.241.192.210 15:20, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Hello? 90.241.192.210 10:29, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Where did this letter come from??? 90.241.192.210 11:17, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

You may have more luck hitting up some place like w:History of the Armenian alphabet, we don't normally deal much here with the graphic derivation of writing systems. --Tropylium (talk) 12:58, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I still couldn't find anything, is it related to Latin Q? 90.241.192.210 18:30, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Try asking w:Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language. - -sche (discuss) 18:57, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Scholars are still debating the origin of the Armenian script, but a relation to Q seems unlikely, unless both would be derived from Phoenician 𐤒 (qōp) in some way. Wakuran (talk) 19:05, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

That was what I was meaning. 90.241.192.210 11:05, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

will you respond 90.241.192.210 16:52, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

NO, WE DON'T KNOW. Vahag (talk) 17:51, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

No one knows. There are only hypotheses, from what I can make out. Wakuran (talk) 19:21, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

where do you think it came from 90.241.192.210 17:40, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

where do you think it came from Vahag (talk) 18:12, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Hello? will you respond Vahag (talk) 18:13, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

There are some theories of the script's origina listed at Wikipedia [13], but generally, it just seems to be more or less qualified guesses. Wakuran (talk) 19:25, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

bouillotte

The etymology of the English entry is poorly formatted, I think the implication is that the word for the card game is directly borrowed from the same word in French with the same meaning, namely a card game resembling poker. We only have hot water bottle as the meaning for the French entry though. Anyway, why did the word for a hot water bottle get used for the name of a card game in the first place? Overlordnat1 (talk) 18:39, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

French dictionary gives this for the card game: "Peut-être dér. de bouillir* en raison de la rapidité du maniement des cartes dans ce jeu" Exarchus (talk) 18:49, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

lieutenant

Etymology says: From Middle French lieutenant, from lieu (“place”) + tenant (“holding”). Doublet of locum tenens.

I'd always assumed (with absolutely no evidence) that the word came over at the Norman Conquest in 1066, therefore from Old Norman, and that that language did at the time use the u as a consonant, explaining the UK pronunciation as levtenant (only Anglicising the -ant). Was I wrong? --Enginear 01:10, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I've updated the etymology at lieutenant. Middle English shows various forms, including levetenaunt, lefetenaunte, luffe tenand, liefteneaunt, and even as leuȝtenaunt, so perhaps the f/v developed from an earlier w or an earlier ȝ (cf. laughter, draught, etc.). Leasnam (talk) 02:12, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. If I hadn't found engineering so time-consumingly interesting, I think I would have made linguistics a hobby if not a profession. Apart from introducing me to Anglo-Norman, via the etymology of draught you've introduced me to dragan, with its meanings drag and draw, thus explaining where the gh in draught comes fromǃ Very interesting. Triviaː I think friend and lieutenant are the only common words where ie is pronounced /ɛ/, although the unstressed ie in words formed from participles of compounds of facio and some others, do have an /ə/ rather than, say, an /ɪ/. ̴̴So thanks again. ̴̴̴̴̴ --Enginear 02:59, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

płaz

Etymology with no reference. The notion of the word being borrowed from Czech doesn't make much sense, since Old Polish had its native płazić/płazać, from which a deverbal płaz could be derived, as sources cited in Further Reading suggest. JimiY☽ru 09:01, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I've added {{rfv-etym}} to the page. I can check later but the whole page needs a clean-up, which is something I can't get to right now, as I'm finalizing some steps for a major Polish dialectology I've been working on. Perhaps someone else can volunteer. Vininn126 (talk) 09:05, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

dungeon

There's some back-and-forth happening in the edit history. It may be in vain to hope anyone else knowledgeable can weigh in, besides the four Romance and Germanic editors who've already edited the etymology in the last four months, but I want to raise it here in case anyone else can. The dispute is over whether dungeon is

• partly from Old French donjon (“main tower inside a fortress, castle residence”) and partly from Old English dung (“a subterranean chamber; prison; dungeon”), or
• purely from donjon, "likely with semantic input" (and apparently also orthographic influence) from dung.

(Only recentish relevantish discussion I've spotted is Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2022/February#*dominiō.) M-W, Dictionary.com and Etymonline have short etymologies which only mention the Romance derivation, and in fairness / complete disclosure of what I found, M-W explains how the semantic evolution might've happened without needing the Germanic word ("Part of the [donjon] tower usually included an underground room, the dungeon, usually used for prisoners."), though the fact that both the semantics and the spelling of the Germanic word line up is noticeable. I have not searched specialized Germanic or Romance etymology resources yet, and have no stance on what is right (am just reporting what I have found so far). - -sche (discuss) 22:47, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Middle English dongoun is probably from Anglo-Norman donjun, and probably partially also from Middle English dong. Continental Old French donjon was an inner residence or bower (usually the main tower), the most secure and fortified place in a fortress or castle, where a king kept his family in the event of an attack. It was the place where the royal family made its last stand if the castle were overrun by an enemy. Old French Donjons were not used to keep prisoners and they were not below ground. This was also usually the case in Anglo-Norman, a dunjun/dongon was the king's secret residence, but there are very rare occurrences where the term dungun/dongoun is used to mean a place to keep prisoners, either above or below ground. The shift from "King's private residence chambers" to "place where prisoners are kept" seems strange, as kings do not customarily throw their enemies or criminals into their personal residences where their wives and children live - quite the opposite. These rare instances in Anglo-Norman seem to reveal possible influence from [Old~Middle] English or some other Germanic language. Lastly, as the current etymology at dungeon states, Old English dung became Middle English donge and then Middle English dongoun over time, possibly due to "Frenchification" of the word (in a manner similar to what some sources claim caused humble lunch to morph into fancy, high-class luncheon). In summary, I feel the current state of the Etymology at dungeon short-changes the Old English input, which seems to be the only sense that survives to this day, and causes the current etymology to be partially incorrect. Leasnam (talk) 06:10, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Concerning "Part of the [donjon] tower usually included an underground room, the dungeon, usually used for prisoners.", I thought it was a cellar used for the storage of ice ! Despite this, I find it strange that if this were the case that only in English and sometimes in Anglo-Norman that this cellar comes to be referred to as "donjon" (“dungeon”). Leasnam (talk) 17:29, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

The evidence paints a pretty good picture of what happened. The English referred to what we would today call a "dungeon" as a dung in Anglo-Saxon times. This was until there was exposure to the Old French word donjon, which referred to the main tower in a fortress. The ultimate result, over time, was a conflation of the two in Middle English. Senses of the Middle English word like "an abyss," "an abyssal prison, such as Hell or the world," and "a whirlpool or vortex," distinctly reflect senses of the more straightforward Middle English descendant of Old English dung, donge/dunge/dung. Tharthan (talk) 20:17, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

dominion

while this is up, can we say dominion is a doublet of dungeon? We list the OF word dominion as deriving from L dominium, but there's clearly a suffix in the OF word that we dont specify. Might it be that same -ionem suffix that appears in dungeon? Thanks, —Soap— 06:43, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Personally, I'm not 100% convinced that Old French donjon is completely from hypothetical *dominiōnem. First of all, the suffix -iōnem makes no sense, as it was used to form diminutives, and attached to *dominiō (the nominative form) would properly mean "masterling", "lordling", not "grand tower". I believe donjon is primarily from Frankish *dungijō, a variant of *dungijā (“secure place, vault, sanctuary, bower”) and was assimilated in Vulgar Latin to words for "home" (domus) or "lord" (dominus) due to early folk etymology, hence the spellings and forms with -m(n). The fact that this term appears so late (12th c.) and only in France and nowhere else in the Roman world does a lot to put doubt on a purely Romance origin. Leasnam (talk) 11:38, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Documented since the 1040’s, not “12th c.”, and the absence of any feminine form in Romance is fatal to this theory, as we’ve already discussed. If you continue to disagree, I invite you to think of any example of a Frankish feminine noun with -a that was borrowed into Romance only to appear as masculine and never once as feminine. That’s in addition to the fact that, apparently, no West Germanic evidence exists on which to reconstruct a Frankish form to begin with.

-ionem is hardly a “diminutive” in the parallel Gallo-Romance formations like *summionem (“peak”). If anything it seems to be functioning as an augmentative, in effect a palatal counterpart to */-'on/ < -ōnem. Nicodene (talk) 15:27, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Old French donjon is attested from circa 1160. That's 12th century. Middle Latin domnione is attested in the 11th century, in writings from the abbey of Mouzon, Frankish territory, raided by Vikings. Why do you feel gender misalignment causes all germanic theories to be <<fatal>> ? Leasnam (talk) 17:21, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Are there any other examples of *-ionem = 'augmentative suffix' other than hypothetical *summionem, which may have simply meant "little top" ? Peaks are not necessarily aggrandised simply because they are high up. Peaks and summits can be diminutive. Furthermore, according to your augmentative theory, *dominionem should mean "big lord", but that makes no sense. To me this really looks like a blended word in Vulgar Latin with a masculine gender due to association with dominus. Yet if -*ionem means "high" then *dungiōnem would certainly mean "high cellar"/"lofty bower" and would pass the gender test. Those cleveren Äbte und Äbtissinnen! Leasnam (talk) 17:47, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Old French donjon is attested from circa 1160. That's 12th century.

Medieval Latin domnione (abbreviated by the MLW to dom-ne; the original quote reads milites ocius conscenso domnione; all the other forms you mention are similarly abbreviated) proves that the word existed since at the very least the 1040's - that is, before Old French even entered its literary period. So much for “late”.

Yes, I realised I was reading it incorrectly earlier, and I began updating my edits when I saw that you were also answering, so a conflict :) 1040-1050 is late, for Latin. That was my point. This term is a coinage, by non-native Latin speakers. At least one slightly later variant is dungionum which requires explanation. Leasnam (talk) 22:09, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

1040-1050 is late, for Latin

It's borrowed, clearly, from the Romance form, at a time when the Romance of Northern France was hardly ever written as such. Nobody is imagining Julius Caesar speaking of building domniones to subdue the Gauls.

At least one slightly later variant is dungionum which requires explanation

What needs explaining? The Romance forms vary between /(m)ɲ/ and /nd͡ʒ/, and so do the forms that made it into (still overwhelmingly Latin) writing. Nicodene (talk) 23:13, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Why do you feel gender misalignment causes all germanic theories to be <<fatal>>?

If you feel otherwise, it should be trivial for you to find a real-life example of what you are assuming.

Well, it's not a hard necessity in my book that the genders match up. Old French rime f immediately comes to mind, but I have also read explanations for this difference in gender, so I'll keep looking. Leasnam (talk) 22:31, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

There is a reason I specified a Frankish (or, really, any Germanic) feminine noun ending in -a, which is also the characteristic feminine ending in Romance. It is really difficult to imagine how a borrowing in this case could not only become masculine but also exclusively such, without any attestation at all of a feminine form. I went through forty examples the last time this discussion came up - I think asking for (even) one counterexample is more than fair. Nicodene (talk) 23:16, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

@Nicodene I think I may have found a good one (--I found some others, but they were sparsely attested in West Germanic, like guile f vs. Old Frisian wigila m), but Old French jauge is feminine and comes from *galgō m. Leasnam (talk) 02:01, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Neither of these are examples of a Germanic feminine noun ending in a yielding an exclusively masculine Romance noun. I don't know how to make this any clearer. Nicodene (talk) 02:05, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, no Germanic or West Germanic feminine noun will ever end in -a, only in -u or -ā, so I'll just assume the latter. Leasnam (talk) 02:14, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Original -u works just as well; cf. the borrowings from *breku, *klinku, *krukkju, *skallju, and so on (taken from the previous discussion). Nicodene (talk) 02:22, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

@Nicodene, would you consider Frankish *saipā f > Old French savon m (via Latin saponem) to be valid ?Leasnam (talk) 15:31, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

@Leasnam It's certainly the closest we've come so far. It doesn't quite fit chronologically, since Latin sāpō is already attested in the writings of Pliny (first century AD). That would make it a borrowing from Proto-Germanic, and if the entry *saipǭ is correct to give the final vowel as */õː/, the adaptation into Latin with /-oː/ (and oblique stem /-oːn/) is straightforward. Nicodene (talk) 21:00, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

@Nicodene, Similar to the above, but from PWGmc: Old French orgoil m from Frankish *uʀgōllju (via reconstructed VL). Leasnam (talk) 00:56, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

(This one came up previously.) The most relevant problem for our purposes here is that feminine outcomes are in fact attested, as in “la orgoile”. As for the entry *uʀgōllju, it seems a bit odd that, of the four sources cited there, not one gives the reconstruction with a final -u. I'm not sure what the reasoning was here as that's outside my area of knowledge. Nicodene (talk) 01:54, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

It might have something to do with the adjective, *uʀgōlī (“proud”) being more the focus. Forms with -u are substantivised forms of the adjective. Leasnam (talk) 02:52, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

@Nicodene, Frankish *hlanku f > Old French flanc m (?) Leasnam (talk) 03:39, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

That's one of the words that I listed in the previous discussion. Flanche (f.) is attested. Per Von Wartburg, a masculine was formed by analogy with the pair brace :: bras < Latin bracchia, bracchium. Nicodene (talk) 03:46, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Are there any other examples of *-ionem 'augmentative suffix' other than hypothetical *summionem, which may have simply meant "little top" ? Peaks are not necessarily aggrandised simply because they are high up. Peaks and summits can be diminutive.

The entry *dominionem, that you yourself have linked, also cites *pinnionem (< Latin pinna) whence French pignon, Italian pignone. I don't see anything diminutive in that, nor in *summionem (“peak”) < Latin summum (“top”).

*pinnionem is also hypothetical. I was actually asking for non-reconstructed examples. Leasnam (talk) 22:39, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Category:Latin terms suffixed with -io (animate noun)

Category:Latin terms suffixed with -io (inanimate noun)

Nicodene (talk) 23:27, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Those categories look sparse, was the suffix not very productive in Latin or is it just that we do not have entries created for them ? Leasnam (talk) 13:30, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

It really wasn't a wildly productive ending. Very much attested, though, and in origin at least probably a variation on -onem, which was (and remained) far more productive going into Romance. Nicodene (talk) 23:02, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

hypothetical *summionem

*summionem is a Gallo-Romance reconstruction based straightforwardly on Gallo-Romance descendants. Meanwhile “Frankish *dungijō, a variant of *dungijā” is based on wishful thinking.

*dungijō is not based on anything, because it doesn't exist, which is why we don't have an entry for it. However, it could exist because among the family members of Proto-Germanic *dung- there are both masculine and feminine forms, and confusion easily arises over time which gender is which. That's all I was implying. Leasnam (talk) 22:31, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

My point is that it's strange to insist so emphatically on "hypothetical" whilst yourself supporting a hypothetical alternative, and one with no comparable evidential basis at that. Nicodene (talk) 23:27, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not insisting, I'm just pointing out that you're using 2 hypothetical reconstructions to support a third. Leasnam (talk) 23:43, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

-io(nem) is well-attested as such. Nicodene (talk) 01:19, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Furthermore, according to your augmentative theory, *dominionem should mean "big lord", but that makes no sense

It doesn't really matter whether it was or was not an augmentative in particular. What matters here is that such a productive suffix did in fact exist in Gallo-Romance. (The Old French reflex of *pinnionem is, by the way, attested in the sense of “mountain-top”.)

Humans are capable of anthropomorphization, and there is one structure in a castle that clearly dominates the others.

This is also wishful. There must be some meaning where dom-/dung-/[?] + -ionem means "tower, fortified high place". The first element is still in doubt. Leasnam (talk) 22:31, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

It is also possible, as you have noticed, to attempt an explanation rooted in domus.

Yes, as "big house" actually makes sense; however a donjon isn't really a big house, is it ?

Even less is it a subterranean prison, yet here we are. Nicodene (talk) 23:27, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

It's only "subterranean prison" in Old English :) Elsewhere it's cellar, vault, quarters, etc. Leasnam (talk) 23:50, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Nicodene (talk) 21:54, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Also, *dungionem is possible given the region and influences on Latin at that time. If *pinnionem "mountain-top, gable" and *summionem "summit, peak" both come to signify "high, elevated" objects, then it's possible by analogy that *dominionem could be formed along the same lines. But again, is it "high house", "high lord", or "high cellar/vault" ? I assume that *pinnionem and *summionem are older formations, since pinn- and summ- no longer carried any meaning in people's minds in the 11th century, or did they ? Leasnam (talk) 22:39, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

As it happens Old French had both som~son “peak” < sŭmmum and penne “height; peak” < pĭnna.

I don't see a reason to suspect that the forms grouped under *pinnionem and *summionem are from an earlier era than the forms grouped under *dominionem. Nicodene (talk) 00:17, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, one, pignon is quite different, isn't it ? somjon and sonjon show a change of ion to jon where pignon keeps it a "y" sound. The first vowel is also different in that it remains i and not e as in penne. We should expect *penjon or something to that effect, no ? Leasnam (talk) 14:00, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

[mnj] and [mj] yield [nd͡ʒ] (> [ʒ]) in Standard French (cf. the below, or for instance the etyma of challenge and vintage) while [nnj] and [nj] yield [ɲ] (cf. Bretagne or oignon). Labials show some interesting behaviours in relation to palatalization, some information on which is available here.

The outcome /i/ in pignon is probably due to the following palatal. Variants without raising are attested as well (paignon, peignon). Nicodene (talk) 14:26, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

dungeon

• It's clear the Middle English word is from the Anglo-Norman, which appears to be a merger of the continental Old French donjon and the Middle/Old English term. I've simplified and updated the etymology to one that hopefully everyone can be happy with. Leasnam (talk) 13:58, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

  The form dungeon is borrowed from French and has exactly the pronunciation and spelling that one would expect (cf. truncheon for a close parallel). An inheritance of the Old/Middle English word would be a homophone for dung, which is not even close. Semantic influence seems likely, what with the “prison under a keep” sense found specifically in Anglo-Norman, but the fact remains that dung contributed nothing to the form dungeon. Nicodene (talk) 15:07, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

That's not completely true. It's unknown how Middle English dunge was actually pronounced, it could be /duŋɡ(ə)/ or /dund͡ʒ(ə)/. The Old English dung was a consonant stem, which means that the ur-form had in its oblique singular and plural nom/acc forms an "i" which in addition to triggering i-mutation would also cause palatisation leading to a pronunciation of /dynd͡ʒ/ for dyng (ding). We don't show this in our tables at dung but probably should. Leasnam (talk) 15:57, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Are there examples of Modern English /-nd͡ʒ/ < Old English /-nɡ/, whatever the spelling in Middle English?

Yes, several. senġ, menġ, denġ, the singular imperatives of senġan (“to singe”), menġan (“to mingle”), denġan (“to dinge”) are some. Also, many assert that Old English þinġ was palatalised, based on alternative spellings in Old English (e.g. þinċġ; cf. also hrinċġ a form for *hrinġ, hring (“ring”)) and spellings in Middle English, but has since been normalised to /þing/. Leasnam (talk) 23:14, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Of these singe does, at least, amount to an example of "Modern English /-nd͡ʒ/ < Old English /-nɡ/". So it can happen, albeit still far less commonly than /-ŋ/ < /-nɡ/. Nicodene (talk) 00:00, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

It only happens when PGmc /ŋɡ/ comes before /i/ or /j/, which in the case of dynġ it does. Leasnam (talk) 01:24, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

If you're really going to try to argue that the normal outcome of Old English dung would not in fact be dung (like the exact homograph) I don't know what to tell you at this point. Nicodene (talk) 01:46, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Again, no one is trying to argue that dungeon comes from dung. I've made it clear that I am satisfied with the current etymology at dungeon that acknowledges partial derivation from the Old English dung.

When I say "in the case of dynġ it does" - I am simply stating a fact relating to i-mutation and palatisation. How you go from my stating that fact to "If you're really going to try to argue that the normal outcome..." is baffling to me.

But since you want it I will humour you: you yourself take a handful of words to demonstrate how [term] + -ionem leads to other words. Good. No issue there. I am simply pointing out that in English this also takes place, where we have a [term] + -ing that gets Frenchified and produces another. Examples: wolver > wolvering > wolverine; lunch > lunching > luncheon; smidge > smidging > smidgeon, and so forth. But if I mention this you're going to think I'm suggesting that Middle English dunge /dund͡ʒ/ > *dunging /'dund͡ʒiŋ/ > dungeon. Of course I'm being facetious at this point. Leasnam (talk) 13:05, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

That's actually quite funny.

Regarding dungionum, it seems you may have answered the question yourself, as it's gone now, but perhaps the following can still be of some use: [mnj] > *[md͡ʒ] > [nd͡ʒ] (normal), as in somniare > Old Fr. songier ≈[sunˈd͡ʒjeːɾ], alongside various other Gallo-Romance outcomes, including a rather conservative Old Occitan somnhar ≈[somˈɲaɾ]. Nicodene (talk) 14:05, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Whatever the case may be, the form dungeon, in that spelling and pronunciation, is exactly what we would expect of a borrowing from Old French, and the form is not explicable otherwise.

No doubt the Anglo-Norman term was a part of English dungeon's developement, and clearly the larger part. The spelling is certainly Frenchified. I don't believe anyone right now is advocating for a full-on Old English inheritance for this word (?) Leasnam (talk) 23:00, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

One can't Frenchify what's already French to begin with, both in spelling and pronunciation. The scenario, as you have it, amounts to a borrowed word swallowing up a somewhat similar native one and remaining entirely unaffected in form (but affected in meaning). Nicodene (talk) 00:00, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

->Yes you can. We took lingerie (already a French term) and "frenchified" it further in its pronunciation to make it sound (to us) more stereotypically French, as though it were lingeré. Never underestimate the English. Leasnam (talk) 14:10, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Sense 3 of [donğoun] is the Frenchified form of earlier [donğe]. The Old English word was Frenchified then assumed to be a variant of dongoun. Leasnam (talk) 01:18, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

? Sense 3 of donğoun is the English-semantified version of donğoun itself. The form existed beforehand and didn't change at all. Nicodene (talk) 01:22, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Nah Leasnam (talk) 01:26, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

In summary, the Old English word prevailed, even though it acquired a French spelling due to a fortnight of passionate hedonistic debauchery. Today a dungeon (despite its spelling) only means a dung, and donjon has largely been replaced by keep.

Re: keep, this needs correction as well. The sense alluded to above is from cȳpe (“basket”) hrm, okay perhaps not Leasnam (talk) 01:38, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Frankly I shouldn't even dignify "nah" of all things with a response, but I will. No, it is not a matter of just “spelling” and your constant repetition of that is baffling. It is the entire form, both spelling and pronunciation, that comes straightforwardly from French and cannot even remotely be explained from the Old English form that you cite. Nicodene (talk) 01:46, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

And even in the semantic realm dungeon is clearly associated with castles, unlike prison, jail, cell, and so on. Nicodene (talk) 01:57, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

@Nicodene, Thank you for all your helpful input. I have gleaned much from our discussion (as always).

Chumash (as in the Californian tribe)

We say that the tribe's name derives from "Ineseño čʰumaš ('the Island Chumash people')". This makes no sense to me. I checked Wikipedia, but it says two something weird. The peoples name derives from "bead maker" or "seashell people" in a (presumably Chumashian) language. The language comes from a term meaning "Santa Cruz Islander". I am not sure which etym is right, if any of them are. CitationsFreak (talk) 08:31, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

"Our Mother Tongues" (a website devoted to Native American languages) cites "many elders" as giving the bead/seashell etym. I'll see if I can find the original source for this, although I am unsure if it's needed in the case. CitationsFreak (talk) 08:44, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

First of all, it's simply wrong to talk about the Chumash as a "tribe", because Southern California peoples before European contact identified with their local groups such as villages or groups of villages and had no collective leadership or identity. They were, of course, aware of the differences in language with neighbors to the north and east, but internally, there was no cohesion. After the Spanish came, the Chumash, like most of the Southern California indigenous peoples, were referred to by the name of the mission in their area. Even today, linguists and anthropologists refer to the "Barbareño Chumash", "Ineseño Chumash", "Obispeño Chumash", "Purismeño" and "Ventureño Chumash". Those away from missions are referred to by geography as "Inland Chumash", "Island or Cruzeño Chumash", etc.

The reason I brought that up is because my understanding is that there was no endonym for the people as a whole. There was definitely a distinct and well-developed culture, especially since the people to the east and south spoke Uto-Aztecan languages and probably had their origins from somewhere else- but not a collective identity. Anthropologists tended to divide everyone up by language, and the US Government used those divisions. The local peoples had to follow the US Government because their lives were under US Government control and the US Government set everything up according to its own classifications. If they wanted to own land and have any autonomy, they had to do it on US Government terms.

As I understand it from years of reading lots of ethnographic accounts, "Chumash" was originally the name of a single village on one of the islands, which was first generalized to the Island Chumash people, then the people as a whole. Since the Island Chumash traveled quite a bit along the coast, I can see how Europeans might have asked visiting islanders who they were, and they would naturally receive the reply, "Chumash", referring to the village. I suspect that the "bead/seashell" etymology is folk etymology, or perhaps alluding to the origins of the village name. I'll have to dig up some sources. Chuck Entz (talk) 17:42, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

According to the Wishtoyo Chumash foundation, "Chumash" referred to the people living on Santa Cruz Island (the area with the most amoutn of Chumash), and later evolved to encompass everyone in this tribal group. The San Buenaventura mission, quoting the Santa Ynez band of Chumash, says that the elders say it means "seashell people" or "bead makers". Britannica Kids (but not the main site, interestingly) claims it derives from "shell-bead-money maker", and the National Parks Service claims it derives from "makers of shell-bead money", from the way the Santa Cruz band used shells to make money. I feel that this etym is the right one from where the Barbareño term came from, as it is just a combination of the two etyms that the elders claim.

As such, I believe the sequence of events is (Barbareño) "maker of shell-money" > "Santa Cruz Islander" > (English) "member of this tribe-group", which lines up with what you said. CitationsFreak (talk) 02:35, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Possibly relevant: Ventureño dictionary entry for "tšumaš" and search for "money", which links to ałtšum, which in turn links to tšum. Interestingly, there's no trace of the village name here. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:54, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I would also like to point out that the "tš" in "tšumaš" has also been written as "č". (I'm also not sure if this is the specific lang that gave us this word, or if Inezeño has a similar word.) CitationsFreak (talk) 07:21, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Victor Golla writes this in Californian Indian Languages (University of California Press, 2011): ""Chumash is from Central Chumash čʰumaš 'islander', specifically an inhabitant of the Channel islands (called mi-čʰumaš 'islander place')". The term was chosen by J.W.Powell for the entire group with this rationale: "Chumash...the name of the Santa Rosa islanders a term widely known among the Indians of this family" (cited by Golla).

As for the deeper etymology, is -aš something found elsewhere in Chumashan morphology or word-formation? Or is čʰumaš ~ ałtšum more of a syllable-jumbling folk etymology? –Austronesier (talk) 11:30, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

nuf (Dutch)

Origin? 90.241.192.210 10:30, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Dutch Wiktionary states it to be from Low German, from a word meaning "conceited woman". Wakuran (talk) 11:21, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

proto west germanic ancestor? 90.241.192.210 12:03, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Probably newer than that. Wakuran (talk) 17:07, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

where did the low german term come from then 90.241.192.210 18:06, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

I'd guess that we don't really know. Proto-Language ancestors are rarely constructed from single terms. It might have come from some older word, it might have changed its meaning for unknown reasons, it might have been a spontaneous coinage. I guess its attestations really are too late for much to be said with certainty. Wakuran (talk) 18:30, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Where do you think it came from? 90.241.192.210 11:15, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Etymologiebank.nl quotes several etymological works that state that the original sense is “nose”, cognate to German Low German Nüff, which we list as a descendant of Proto-Germanic *nabją.  --Lambiam 17:33, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

glitschig

already obvious what i want 90.241.192.210 10:56, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

There's some info at glitch. Wakuran (talk) 11:24, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, it's from glitschen (“to slip, slide”), which is not a terribly common verb in contemporary German, although glitschig is quite common, as apparently is the Yiddish cognate גליטשן (glitshn). Glitschen is some sort of frequentative/intensive derivative of gleiten (“to glide”). —Mahāgaja · talk 17:55, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Lurch

Origin? 90.241.192.210 10:59, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Is this the German word? The Addams Family character is named after the verb lurch, I believe. Wakuran (talk) 11:33, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

yes 90.241.192.210 12:03, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Will you respond? 90.241.192.210 11:17, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Kluge hypothesizes a possible relation with Old Norse lurkr (“cudgel”) (whence also Swedish lurk (“boor”)), said to be derived from Old Irish lorg (“rod”), from Proto-Celtic *lorgā. If correct, the path to Low German remains unclear.  --Lambiam 17:15, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

any relationship with english lurch 90.241.192.210 18:19, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Seems unlikely, considering no lemma for lurch lists any similar semantics or etymology. Wakuran (talk) 18:50, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

where did proto celtic lorgā come from 90.241.192.210 16:42, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

We don’t necessarily know such things three millennia later. Fay Freak (talk) 20:15, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

What are its possible non Celtic cognates 90.241.192.210 20:47, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Do the two senses given: Amphibian and Penis belong to the same etymology ? The Low German Lork means "naughty child, rascal, scoundrel, villain" and also "toad" (also used as an insult for women); but the "Penis" sense, is that an extension of the "toad" or "rascal" sense or from somewhere else ? Leasnam (talk) 21:14, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

@Leasnam: The meaning “naughty child …” or a similar term of abuse is more widely known a meaning of Lurch than that of the amphibian, which city-kids rarely see. I know since I went to schools in a German city. For "Du Lurch" I even see an Austrian hit from last year, so official dictionaries shamefully lose against us in documenting sex, drugs, and profanity again. And now somebody from the UK asks us about this school slang, we might imagine the delicacy of the matter. It also meaning “penis” corresponds to the same development of Lümmel. Fay Freak (talk) 21:50, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I wanted the proto indo European root for lorgā 90.241.192.210 10:03, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

There might not be one. There are plenty of Proto-Celtic with no clear non-Celtic cognates. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:57, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Proto-Celtic *lorgā is worth an entry, anyway, so I've gone ahead and created it, see further there. DJ K-Çel (contribs ~ talk) 13:56, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Could anyone clarify what "inadequate adaptation to the phonetics of standard German" means? I've stuck {{rfclarify}} on this because it's not clear to me at all! Arafsymudwr (talk) 19:46, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Romanian diminutive -eag

we have a rare, redlinked diminutive -eag. is it from -eg? if so i think it would be worth creating a page just for the etymology. ro.wikt has it redlinked too. thanks, —Soap— 06:14, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Yarmouth and Old English ear

Old English ēar (“sea; earth”) says Yarmouth is a descendant, but Yarmouth says it descends from the names of the rivers Yar and Yare, which entry says it's from Celtic. What is correct? (Wikipedia suggests the origin of Yar(e) is not certain.) - -sche (discuss) 17:09, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

ponghee

Is this seemingly obsolete(?) word (is another spelling more common in modern works?) from or related to Burmese ဘုန်းကြီး (bhun:kri:) /pʰóʊɴd͡ʑí/? If not, any ideas what it would come from? Pinging some people who speak or edit Burmese, @Cepyita, Hintha, RichardW57m, if any of you have ideas. - -sche (discuss) 18:24, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Modern colloquial spelling is typically "Phongyi" partially based on Burmese orthography. "Ponghee" is obviously an anglicized approximation of the Burmese pronunciation of ဘုန်းကြီး. Many anglicized spelling of Burmese words during the 18th century are sound-based, thus, very different from modern forms. Cepyita (talk) 14:06, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your help, and thanks to Mahagaja for updating the entries. - -sche (discuss) 06:40, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

毛 (Japanese, 10^-3)

It is currently stated that this term is from Middle Chinese 毛. However, the sense of "10^-3" is not found in the Chinese entry, and I think the Japanese entry is more likely a kan'yōon of 毫, similar to 耗 in 消耗 (shōmō). Are there any quotes in Classical Chinese using 毛 in the sense of "10^-3"? OosakaNoOusama (talk) 22:18, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

prangos

Our entry had said this came from the plant's native name in a language of Afghanistan, but the (old) references I can find suggest it's Tibetan. Any ideas? - -sche (discuss) 02:44, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

@-sche I tracked down the original description of the genus, which explains where the name came from. The problem is that it's hard to identify the place names mentioned (I'm guessing that "Droz" may be Dras, in Ladakh), and doesn't specify the language. The story is that William Moorcroft was on an expedition through Kashmir, northern India and Tibet in the early 1820's when he encountered Prangos pabularia, which he considered to have great potential for feeding to livestock. He sent seed and specimens to John Lindley, who wrote the paper I linked to above. This generated a good deal of interest among British botanists and agriculturalists for a few decades, so more than one source described the plant as "famous", and another mentioned that the Kashmiris only knew it as something that Europeans were intensely interested in. I found a Kashimiri translation, फित्रासाल्यून् (phitrāsālyūn), but it looks suspiciously like a second-hand transliteration of Ancient Greek πετροσέλινον (petrosélinon, “parsley”). Chuck Entz (talk) 14:43, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Latin lanienus

@Urszag, Nicodene: Two questions:

• why is the length of the a different than that of the base word lanius?
• where does the long ē of the suffix come from?

PUC – 17:15, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm guessing the long "a" is just an error (not the only one in Lewis and Short). The suffix is explained by some as a dissimilation of -iī- to -iē- (I don't know the complete bibliography); Fay 1907 makes the (unconvincing, in my opinion) alternative suggestion that laniēna and laniēnus could be contracted compounds from lanie- + vēna / lanie- + vēnus.--Urszag (talk) 17:39, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Lewis and Short also has, “Hence, subst.: lānĭēna , ae, f.”. Gaffiot has “lănĭēna”.  --Lambiam 00:09, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Belarusian турак

Like I said in my edit description, I'm pretty proud of what I came up with in terms of etymology, which see the entry for what I wrote. My only concern is that Proto-Slavic might have been too early for Ottoman Turkish to have made an impact. I'm not that clued up with historical linguistics and language contact in that area, but there definitely seems to have been a pattern across West and East Slavic with this word. Could East Slavic have borrowed the word from Polish? And even if that did happen, how do we explain the use of the diminutive suffix in Czech and Slovak, and especially Slovene? Since the rest of South Slavic seems to have gotten the common root turčin for the masculine word. On the other hand Slovene also seems to have inherited(?) the South Slavic feminine form Turkinja (although cf. Czech Turkyně, Slovak Turkyňa), where conversely Polish and East Slavic went with turč- for the feminine form. Really not sure, but some (possibly late) Proto-Slavic stuff is the best I could come up with, especially since the back-formation seems to match up with the Ottoman Turkish term. What do we think? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 00:58, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

The Proto-Slavic period ends around the 6th century CE, roughly eight centuries before Ottoman Turkish begins, so this theory is rather problematic; it would be a back-in-time-formation.  --Lambiam 20:00, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

That's fair enough, but I guess the question now is how did all these East and West Slavic languages (and Slovene) end up with *tur- + diminutive suffix if not for some proto- common Slavic thing? Is Middle Slavic a thing? Again, not great at historical linguistics here, and the plural form matches up with the Ottoman Turkish term. Maybe the Ottoman Turkish term was actually inherited from some earlier Turkic term? No clue. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 23:32, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

English Gozo

"Ultimately from Maltese Għawdex", with no elaboration on medial stages. @Kc_kennylau suggested a back-formation from Italian Gozzitano via English Gozitan or Italian Gozo/Gozzo, either way a back-formation ultimately from Maltese Għawdxi. -saph668 (user—talk—contribs) 23:54, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

A back-formation is when an element that appears to be an affix gets removed, like the -or of editor to form edit or the -s(e) of pease to form pea. There's nothing that looks like an affix in Għawdxi, Gozzitano or Gozitan that's been removed to form Gozo, so whatever this is, it isn't a back-formation. —Mahāgaja · talk 06:37, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

-itan -saph668 (user—talk—contribs) 16:30, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

But Gozitan really is just Gozo + -itan, isn't it? (Or rather, Gozzitano really is Goz(z)o + -itano.) Otherwise where did the -itan come from? It didn't come from Għawdxi. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:34, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Estonian pull

Etymology 3. Some dictionaries consider this to be etymology 1 ("bull") with semantic development, some claim it to be a separate sound-symbolic term. Possible folk-etymology?

Also Etymology 5. Is the same as Etymology 2, but with different (original) declension. Etymology 2 has a non-etymological declension. Joonas07 (talk) 17:47, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Hmmm, I saw the sense "bubble", and thought about Latin bulla, and wondered whether there could be an Indo-European connection. But then, internationally, there appears to be many similar-looking words for "bubble" with unclear connections, anyway. Wakuran (talk) 21:56, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Etym. 2 + 5 seems to me to be likely from Finnic *pullas and so also with an ultimate Indo-European source, though one unrelated to the Latin.

Etym. 3 has perhaps some parallels to the root *pul- 'noise' that has been proposed for (e.g.) pulm (“wedding”), Finnish pulma (“problem”) and pula (“trouble”), but there is no particularly regular morphology for getting to *pulli(-). --Tropylium (talk) 15:37, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Etym.2+5 are pretty confidently from Proto-Finnic *pullo, but there might be a connection to that root.

Etym.3 I don't think there's an explanation as to where the -m went (or how it was appended if the original root was *pul-). Many Finnic terms are sound symbolic, but I'm trying to figure out if Etymology 3 developed semantically from Etymology 1, or did they develop separately. Joonas07 (talk) 16:17, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Born, Raised, And Transferred

We have an "Etymology 4" for brat, said to be a noun whose sense is

(military) Acronym of Born, Raised, And Transferred.

Isn't that actually a backronym for Etymology 1, sense 1.2:

(slang) A child (at any age) of an active member of the military or the diplomatic service.

?  --Lambiam 23:59, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

This is clearly a false etymology, and at most should be mentioned as such under etymology 1. The oldest examples I can find of "born, raised, and transferred" are from a 2011 book, and examples of "army brat" and "military brat" can be found from the early 1940s if not before. Jacobolus (talk) 00:10, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Maybe the senses of "garment" and "apron" should be moved to a separate section, though. I'm not sure about he sense of "turbot, flatfish". Wakuran (talk) 01:08, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

This non-sense has now been removed, resolving the issue.  --Lambiam 20:35, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Malay kachi

In Sealang Library Malay Dictionary, it cites Wilkinson's An Abridged Malay-English Dictionary (romanised) (1926) for kachi ("wolfram; tungsten") and claims it to be a borrowing from Chinese. My question is which word it's referring to and from which Chinese dialect. Jeluang Terluang (talk) 17:51, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

*peyh₂-

@Victar I would like to see justification for selecting h2 as the laryngeal for this root. From a quick look, I have a hard time spotting a reflex that needs the laryngeal to be h2. Neither Byrd nor Kroonen justify the h2 either despite reconstructing it, either. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 22:39, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Why are you asking? --{{victar|talk}} 23:08, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I had mixed up Skiulinamo (who changed the laryngeal) and Sokkjo (your alt). — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 23:59, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

*angustiz

Proto-Germanic. The etymology section says "From *anguz", but Burgundaz observes on the talk page that the stem of that word is *angu-: this doesn't explain where the /s/ comes from. Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂enǵʰ- places it all the way back back at a Proto-Indo-European *h₂enǵʰ-us-t-, supposedly also the ancestor of Latin angustus, but Wagenvoort 1980, Sihler 1995:62, and De Vaan 2008 all disagree with that, and instead derive the Latin word from *h₂enǵʰ-os-tos. Urszag (talk) 08:34, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Pfeifer says that the Germanic word has an "st-suffix" and expressly adds that the building type of Latin angustus et al. is different ("eine andere Bildungsweise zeigen..."). 84.63.31.91 10:50, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Tontonia (protist)

Tontonia is the type genus of the family Tontoniidae. I don't know the etymology, maybe it's an eponym? Gerardgiraud (talk) 14:46, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Emmanuel Fauré-Fremiet was French, and tonton is French for uncle, old man. Maybe there is some kind of connection? Wakuran (talk) 15:14, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Here is the original description. I only skimmed through it and my French isn't that good, but it doesn't seem to mention the origin of the name. It does mention that the sample containing it was collected on the yacht of "M. le professeur Henneguy", so perhaps it's a reference to him, as a childlike affectionate nickname for a respected superior. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:21, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Skimming through it, myself, I saw Tintinnoidiens and Tintinnus referenced several times, so possibly, it might have been some kind of French pun... Wakuran (talk) 16:01, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

You're right @Chuck Entz since L-F. Henneguy was the father-in-law of E. Fauré-Fremiet. Instead of calling him my "father-in-law" perhaps he called him familiarly "Uncle" (in french "Tonton"), hence the genus name Tontonia. Thanks for help. Gerardgiraud (talk) 18:43, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Baʻl

RFV of the etymology.

Unadapted borrowing from Proto-Semitic *baʿl-

Yes, the word goes back to Proto-Semitic, but as a proper noun referring to a god it seems to be NW Semitic. The quotes in the entry are all translating/discussing NW Semitic texts. The etymology was obviously added by someone who has no idea of the time depths involved. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:05, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

The real etymology is like “upcorrecting” or “re-Semitizing” the previous Baal, not straight up any particular Semitic to English, but English based on previous English spiced with learning in historical linguistics. I don’t know how to phrase it in a non-esoteric fashion right now. We have the concept of unadapted and adapted borrowings but not so much ununadaption. Fay Freak (talk) 19:11, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps something more like a hypercorrection. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:24, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Not in so far as we define it as “nonstandard” language. The prefix “hyper-” presupposes a baseline correctness level that is overstepped by a form, when this one decidedly reflects standards from a specialized field, representing a language group’s phonemes unambiguously, being met. Like an Ethiopist writes about things “in Təgrəñña” “influenced by Gəʿəz”. We have falsely shunned away in the past to create such spellings, and less specialized literature devising general linguistic theories to print them and label them correspondingly. Though we don’t even need to verbalize anything about the alternative form’s etymology. Even the teenagers don’t ask us about this. Fay Freak (talk) 20:08, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

When I said "more like", I didn't mean to imply it was hypercorrection. The idea was that both involve making something seem more "educated" by substituting something that isn't technically correct, but looks like it should be. In this case it looks like using Proto-Semitic orthography for a NW Semitic name. I say it "looks like" because I don't know much about the orthography used for NW Semitic Chuck Entz (talk) 20:55, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Ancient Greek ἀκόνιτον

Derived by the ancients from ᾰ̓κόνῑτος (akónītos, “without dust, without struggle”), therefore "invincible", because of its deadly effect. Semantically, this is hardly possible.

I have no idea how that derivation is suppsed to be relevant to the meanings "leopard's bane" or "wolf's bane", or why we give an explanation ("therefore...") which we then call "hardly possible", since we don't attribute it to anyone. Does anyone fancy giving this etymology another go? Theknightwho (talk) 10:40, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Cuz this is the exact wording of Beekes copied without expending a hindthought, found to that point also in Frisk and I have not checked who else, enough by Beekes to arbitrarily claim Pre-Greek origin. We should have linked κώνειον (kṓneion, “hemlock”) similar claims are made about, of course everything from a dark substrate spoken by swamp-dwellers. Equally vaguely I have connected to Old Armenian կնիւն (kniwn, “sedge, rush”) growing in similar places. It could be a Semitic ending variation, as the one shown at հարսանիթէ (harsanitʻē) or صِيصِيَة (ṣīṣiya). “Probable” (Beekes) is an exaggeration in either case. We reach the Greek Dark Ages.

We should create and cite that adjective first, possibly needing quotes, then decide whether the plant-name belongs to it or just takes {{unknown}}. Fay Freak (talk) 11:23, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

@Samubert96 I know this was 5 years ago, but please do not plagiarise. Fay Freak is right to point out that you've simply copied Beekes' etymology from his Etymological Dictionary of Greek (vol. 1, p. 54 in the edition I'm looking at). Theknightwho (talk) 11:45, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I probably forgot to cite Beekes in the references. As you can see, I always try to cite the sources, especially for the etymology section, but in this specific case I just forgot to add Beekes in the list of references. Samubert96 (talk) 11:58, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

@Samubert96 If you're quoting something word-for-word, you can't just list it in the reference section; it has to be clear that it's a quote. Theknightwho (talk) 12:15, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

It is something stupid. Start at antiphthora, antithora, anthora, antora (DMLBS only anthora and antora), anchora, ancora, the purported antidote. It is hardly called so because it is good for disorders of the θώραξ (thṓrax, “thorax”), as Cyclopaedia believed s.v. aconite, or θορή (thorḗ, “sperm”), which I post for the jibe, but from φθορά (phthorá, “destruction, death, passing out of existence; loss, damage; seduction ~ rape; miscarriage; abortion; etc.”).

Due to but medieval semieducation this Greek word reached Northwestern Italy again as as simplex, and we see the buttercup as Jewish Babylonian Aramaic טורא and taxonomic Ranunculus thora, Ranunculus pthora, Ranunculus pseudothora, Ranunculus pseudo-thora – Löw, Immanuel (1924) Die Flora der Juden‎^[14] (in German), volume 3, Wien und Leipzig: R. Löwit, page 125 CAL.

This phthora, thora, hardly as such used in Greek, is Ranunculus bulbosus, identified by John Martyn per pp. 213–214 of his 1749 edition and commentary of the English edition of Virgil’s Bucolica already, though long later in medical sources given as a synonym of napellus (“Aconitum napellus”).

In Iberia meanwhile it is bitter apple (Citrullus colocynthis), Mozarabic طوره (ṭwrh /⁠tura ~ tuwera⁠/) → Spanish tuera; Beltrán, Rafael (2021) “La «tuera» como fruto amargo de sufrimiento amoroso”, in Revista de Cancioneros Impresos y Manuscritos‎^[15], volume 10, page 101 fn. 2 of 100-140.

In analogy to this Romance development of a term meaning “destruction” designating sister-plants of wolfsbanes within the same family, we see how a derivative of a word meaning “going into dust i.e. combat”, κονίω (koníō, “to roll into the dust, to sprinkle or cover with dust, to prepare for combat”) can mean this wolfsbane with alpha privativum ἀ- (a-). The derivation from this verb is given explicitly by Bailly 2024 s.v. ἀκόνιτος, var. ἀκονίατος (akoníatos), ἀκώνητος (akṓnētos).

Aconitum has too many reinvented synonyms and parasynonyms, on superstitious backgrounds, for any to actually go back to “Pre-Greek” or even beyond the Greek Dark Ages, as seen in Dioskurides s.v. ἀκόνιτον ἕτερον Aconitum napellus and ἀκόνιτον Aconitum anthora, and also βατράχιον Ranunculus where Martyn got his information about Sardinian Ranunculus palustris syn. Ranunculus bulbosus from. Like bikh is neither Proto-Indo-Iranian. And see all modern European languages. Apparently academics need likelihoods to be retaught, for our new readers I remark again that there are many times more substratum claims in Beekes than statistically possible.

I read in Löw, Immanuel (1881) Aramæische Pflanzennamen‎^[16] (in German), Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, page 175 about ἀκόνιτον (akóniton, “monkshood”) indeed being confused with κώνειον (kṓneion, “hemlock”) also within names of supposed antidotes; Löw refers to Lagarde, Paul de (1866) Gesammelte Abhandlungen (in German), Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, pages 175–176 and we may further substantiate this confusion. I leave it to more frequent Greek editors to make their favourite grammatical links. What causes the length variation, there are people to tell. The roots and meanings are without reasonable doubt. Fay Freak (talk) 17:53, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

To elaborate a little: plants in the genus contain an extremely potent neurotoxin, possibly the most lethal known at the time. The name wolfsbane seems to refer to ancient use as an arrow poison against wolves. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:38, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

This of course makes the association with death stronger, even though it is mythological, for who and when hunted wolves with arrows? I have looked a bit into hunting wolves, Russians have no remorse to do so as a sport even with various outmoded methods they list, while in the US like five states and exceptions allow it, but doing it with bows is one of the last things one would try, though of course one poison something else than an arrow shot by a man seeking out a wolf.

Hunting rather than trapping wolves doesn’t match their agility, unless with training known only later from the Mongols shooting from horses—who apparently did not use these archery skills for wolf-hunting—, on the other hand is too dangerous. It’s rather that speakers prepended a singular animal associated with, you guess it, dastard death. There even was a fear to touch the plant, let alone make arrow poison to go hunt regularly with it, though for drugmixers and murderers other norms apply.

I assume here that they did not bother much with wolfs dying from licking any of the plants, or pet wolves aka dogs; sometimes plants are named after domesticated animals being decimated by them. Fay Freak (talk) 21:42, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

@Suryaratha03: A heads up to this enquiry given your RFC. My version was terser and unwound by Djkcel (talk • contribs), but the issue is that we need a few circumstantials to substantiate the identity of a word attested as “effortless” and the name of wolfsbane: the argument, not a mere claim you would have expected in the etymology, which would raise this question. Fay Freak (talk) 18:48, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Spillett

Oxford's family name dictionary basically went "lmao no idea", so I asked Chatgpt(it's good if you can get the signal from the noise):

If it is to be believed it seems that we are missing a sense for spille or spile for basically "spindle"/"peg"/"pin"/"rod" and that the name could be an occupational name.

another suggestion is that it's a geographical name from Spilsby or Spital

The final one it spat out was being a descriptive name from the norse spjall.

Hopefully those more knowledgeable will be able to sus out the truth of the situation. Akaibu (talk) 20:22, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

ChatGPT (famously) makes shit up all the time - why would we use it as the basis for anything, especially when we can't verify it?

Large language models are not crystal balls or magic. Theknightwho (talk) 21:55, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the above, let's not use ChatGPT as the basis for anything on this website. There's enough cleanup we have to do. AG202 (talk) 22:55, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

With a proper corpus, I guess AI should work fairly well for finding credible etymological hypotheses. The comparative method was basically modeled on analyzing patterns and finding logical correspondences, similarly to how AI operates. But ChatGPT is likely not the tool for such endeavors. Wakuran (talk) 21:26, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

tutuşmak

It's related to tutmak. I have no idea where the "ignite" meaning comes from though. I tried but couldn't find a corresponding ottoman turkish word. Zbutie3.14 (talk) 16:38, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi! Nişanyan, Sevan (2002–) “tutuş-”, in Nişanyan Sözlük says it's from tut- + -uş. As to the meaning of "to ignite" he says "tütüş- or tütüz-(to ignite, to release smoke) is often seen in early Old Anatolian Turkish. The second meaning may have originated through contamination from this word". Hope this helps! Kakaeater (talk) 15:10, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I found it in ottoman turkish, it's توتوشماك Zbutie3.14 (talk) 01:14, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

geraten (German)

from ge- (perfective prefix) and raten (advice,guess). So, the result of a guess, a completed guess, that is true: so, turn out, succeed. 62.240.135.32 16:40, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Seems as if ge- was an independent prefix in Old High German and Gothic. Wakuran (talk) 16:54, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Updated etymology Leasnam (talk) 03:26, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Tilbe

We have entered a discussion with @Blueskies006 about the etymology of this word. There is no discussion over the proto-Turkic etymon but the proto-Turkic page says that the word was borrowed from Tatar which I could find no source over, while @Blueskies006 removed this etymology he also added another etymology without a source as well. If anyone could find a source over this word it would be awesome. Thanks in advance! Kakaeater (talk) 15:04, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

The proposed etyma, whether a borrowing from Tatar or arriving through some other route from Proto-Turkic *tēlbe, mean “mad”, “crazy”. It appears unlikely to me, on purely semantic a priori grounds, that either is the actual etymon of this female given name.  --Lambiam 23:23, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

This German website (not necessarily reliable) states that the name also occurs in Persian and means “wise one”, “thoughtful one”, “idol”. However, Persian تیلبه (tilbe) is not found on any Wiktionary and occurs on the Persian Wikipedia only as the surname of Turkish singer Yıldız Tilbe or the name of the character Tilbe in the Turkish TV series Destan.  --Lambiam 11:06, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Preiselbeere

I could not find any info on bruslica (I looked it up and all I got were a bunch of results in Serbo-Croatian about drills or something, perhaps it meant brusnica? 90.241.192.210 20:38, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

The Upper Sorbian descendant of *brusьnica had a variant bruslica. The source for this is Christian Traugott Pfuhl’s 1866 Upper-Sorbian–German dictionary p. 53a. Fay Freak (talk) 20:52, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

{{R:de:Kluge}} does give Upper Sorbian bruslica with -l- as the source and connects it with Proto-Slavic *brusiti (“to shake off, whet”). Nevertheless, all the Slavic words, including Upper Sorbian brusnica have an -n-, not an -l-. The entry in Grimm's dictionary gets the Slavic -n- right and provides a bunch of dialectal German forms, some of which also have -n- rather than -l-. I think bruslica might be simply a mistake on Kluge's part. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:01, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Will you make an entry on PIE bʰrowḱ-? I want to know if there are any non Balto-Slavic cognates. 90.241.192.210 10:09, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

will someone respond? 90.241.192.210 17:36, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？？ 90.241.192.210 10:35, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Sometimes no response is also a response. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:40, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Well, has there been any proposals linking the root to external families? I guess that if a root is only found in the Baltic and Slavic languages, there's a high likelihood it is a latter coinage than PIE. Wakuran (talk) 18:14, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

is it distantly related to Latin Brassica? 90.241.192.210 18:26, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

I guess not. Latin brassica has an unknown etymology in itself, and the semantics don't match up, without an explanation. Wakuran (talk) 22:25, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

i mean they both refer to edible plants 148.252.128.253 14:03, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Can you create a article on bʰrowḱ-? 84.70.32.172 18:41, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

daegn

This is a Walloon word, which is still doesn't have etymology. Not possibly it came from Celtic, cognate with Welsh "ddaear", deriving from PIE "dhéǵhōm". Am I right here? Or maybe someone has better suggestions or sources? 2003:C2:9749:DCD4:98DD:F4DC:C6EA:DCB6 20:20, 31 July 2024 (UTC)