Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium

Wiktionary > Discussion rooms > Etymology scriptorium

WT:ES redirects here. For help with edit summaries, see Help:Edit summary. For information about Spanish entries on Wiktionary, see Wiktionary:About Spanish.

Click here to start a new Etymology scriptorium discussion.

Wiktionary discussion rooms (edit) see also: requests

Information desk start a new discussion | this month | archives Newcomers’ questions, minor problems, specific requests for information or assistance.

Tea room start a new discussion | this month | archives Questions and discussions about specific words.

Etymology scriptorium start a new discussion | this month | archives Questions and discussions about etymology—the historical development of words.

Beer parlour start a new discussion | this month | archives General policy discussions and proposals, requests for permissions and major announcements.

Grease pit start a new discussion | this month | archives Technical questions, requests and discussions.

All Wiktionary: namespace discussions 1 2 3 4 5 – All discussion pages 1 2 3 4 5

Etymology scriptorium

Welcome to the Etymology scriptorium. This is the place to cogitate on etymological aspects of the Wiktionary entries.

Etymology scriptorium archives edit
2025 January February March April May June July August September October November December 2024 January February March April May June July August September October November December
Earlier years 2023 January February March April May June July August September October November December 2022 January February March April May June July August September October November December 2021 January February March April May June July August September October November December 2020 January February March April May June July August September October November December 2019 January February March April May June July August September October November December 2018 January February March April May June July August September October November December 2017 January February March April May June July August September October November December 2016 January February March April May June July August September October November December 2015 January February March April May June July August September October November December 2014 January February March April May June July August September October November December 2013 January February March April May June July August September October November December 2012 February March April May June July August September October November December 2011 January March April May June July October November December 2010 February March April May June August September October November December 2009 February March August

January 2025

inverno

Can a Vulgar Latin *hinbernum ~ *himbernum really yield these forms with /v/? Wouldn't, for example, the Italian outcome of such a form be *imberno rather than inverno? 92.73.31.113 03:46, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

The form belongs to a later period in which original intervocalic ‘b’ had long ago turned to a fricative.

The problem here is that you’ve tried to interpret *hinbernum through the (anachronistic) prism of Classical Latin sound-to-spelling correspondences. Nicodene (talk) 05:50, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Is there any evidence for a separate *hīnbernum form? I would have assumed that an assimilated *hīmbernum form would have gained ground fairly quickly. Wakuran (talk) 12:23, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

I imagine that the nasal simply remained dependent on the following fricative for its place of articulation.

For instance *[imβɛ́rnu] initially, then in places where [β] turned to [v], the [m] followed suit automatically (yielding [ɱ], which can be phonemically recategorized as /n/).

Traditional Latin spelling varies quite a bit in such cases. One author’s imbutus is another’s inbutus, though both probably said it with [m]. The ⟨n⟩ spelling is likely for morphological reasons (the prefix being in-, which generally does have [n]).

Nicodene (talk) 04:54, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

@Nicodene Sorry for coming back to this so late. I think you're missing the point. I never doubted that /inβɛ́rnu/ could yield the contemporary results. The point is that this approach requires that the phoneme is no longer /b/, but rather /β~v/, and therefore we cannot reconstruct it as **hinbernum, but only as *hinβernum or *hinvernum. The anachronism is not in my thinking, but in the reconstruction. 2.201.0.70 02:45, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

The reconstruction does have a fricative. The reason it is spelt with ⟨b⟩ is that the attested Latin word is, and there is a long-standing tradition (for better or for worse) of following standard Latin spellings as far as possible for Proto-Romance (or reconstructed ‘Vulgar Latin’). Nicodene (talk) 07:00, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

In terms of purely phonological sound changes, Latin "b" is not expected to become a fricative after /n/ because in that case it is not intervocalic: compare columbus > Italian colombo. We could assume that the [n] was inserted after the phonemic split between /b/ and /v/, but it still seems unlikely to me that a pronunciation with /nv/ would arise as a purely phonetic variant within an unprefixed word. The only place where we normally see /nv/ is across a morpheme boundary in prefixed words such as e.g. enviar from inviare (presumably, the analogy of the related unprefixed forms caused the preservation or restoration of [v] in this context). So the use of pronunciations with [nv] in descendants of hībernum looks like it could be analogically motivated, if there was some plausible reason for an analogical change to this word. No obvious explanation of how analogy affected this word comes to mind, but word-initial [in] could be interpreted as the Latin prepositional prefix or negative prefix, whereas [ver] could I guess be interpreted as related to the name of the following month ("entering into spring"?); or I guess maybe the [v] could have been kept by analogy to the form [iverno] itself if the n-less pronunciation survived for a while alongside the one with (analogically?) inserted /n/.--Urszag (talk) 15:01, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Here are a few references that attribute the /n/ in this word to analogy with prefixes ending in /n/: Grandgent 1904, Bunker 1913, Espinosa 1909.--Urszag (talk) 15:12, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

I was not making any of the points you appear to be arguing against.

I myself pointed out that [b] > [β] occurred intervocalically, which implies the *n of *hinbernum must post-date that sound-change.

It seems you took my *[imβɛ́rnu] for a phonemic transcription. Actually I had in mind */inβɛ́rnu/ with the (allophonic) rule of coda nasal assimilation that I describe immediately afterwards.

As for where the /n/ came from, analogy with in- was in fact what I had in mind, but this is slightly complicated by the difference in vowels. One might have expected outcomes like *envierno, etc.

Nicodene (talk) 15:39, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm not trying to argue with anyone in particular here. Let's try to build a consensus. I wanted to mention analogy since it seems like a relevant factor that wasn't previously discussed. I realize that my comment wasn't a particularly direct response to the question raised. To address 2.201.0.70's point, I would agree that a spelling *hinvernum (or *invernum?) seems like a more natural representation of a reconstructed form with some pronunciation like */inβɛ́rnu/ or [imβɛ́rnu]. I don't think I agree that a principle of using "b" as an etymological spelling for Vulgar Latin [β] when it is descended from Latin /b/ ought to take precedence, given the apparent morphological reinterpretation of this word and the position of [β] here in a context where it wouldn't regularly have evolved from /b/. I'm also not sure how accurate it really is to reconstruct a unitary Vulgar Latin/Proto-Romance form at all. Latin /in/ was not regularly lengthened before /w/, but the use of the quality /i/ rather than /e/ in languages such as Spanish suggests influence from forms with a long vowel.--Urszag (talk) 16:00, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

That is the spelling used in the etymological dictionaries. If you like it can be replaced by a phonemic transcription.

There is no need to invoke lengthening when hibernum has the long ī already.

Infernum ‘hell’, also with long ī, is the best candidate for analogical influence that I can think of, for the first *n of *hinbernum. There may even be a sort of hot-cold ‘polarity’ to it.

Nicodene (talk) 16:22, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! I agree "it's an established convention used in scholarly sources" is a good reason to use the spelling "hinbernum". How established is it? I'm not familiar with the literature and couldn't spot any relevant in-line citations to sources that use this spelling in our entries. I checked the von Wartburg entry for hībĕrnus and it seems to use the wording "Die formen mit i > in-" rather than presenting a reconstructed form of the entire word. Is that a possible approach we could take? (E.g. rather than saying "from Vulgar Latin *hīmbernum, a modification of Latin hībernum (tempus)" we could say something like "from Latin hībernum (tempus); the development of the unstressed first syllable to in- is also seen in other Romance languages and may have been caused by analogy with the preposition in").--Urszag (talk) 16:36, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Now that I try to track down <hinbernum>, I cannot seem to find it either. Perhaps it was the initiative of some Wiktionary editor.

Also interesting to note that */inβɛ́rnu/ and /infɛ́rnu/ differ solely by one (fairly similar) consonant.

Romance outcomes with the ‘extra *n*’ are widespread enough to suggest an early development, the scenario where one would usually make a reconstruction.

We could try spelling the reconstruction as *invernum, if that helps. This would be inclined strongly towards the “blended with infernum” theory. Nicodene (talk) 16:56, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

In that case, replacing *hinbernum/*himbernum with *invernum sounds good to me.--Urszag (talk) 17:42, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Sorry to ruin your party but the nasal in hiems and bimus is etymological and the dating of "Vulgar Latin" is contested, heavily I would say. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 21:40, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Could you clarify what you're suggesting? While hībernus is derived from a root that originally contained *m, I'm not aware of any evidence of that original nasal surviving into historical Latin in this adjective. If you're instead implying that the /m/ in hiems and bimus was analogically introduced back into hibernus, I don't see how that would account for the forms that are pronounced with /nv/ as opposed to /mb/ or /m/.--Urszag (talk) 22:01, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Oh nothing. What I did mean to say was that I mostly agree with the above analysis. I spell English *VCC automatically and have to correct for exceptions like academy that are not prefixed. I do not invent random folk etymologies, except when I do I assume the mistake must be inherited, not my fault. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 03:15, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

@Nicodene Let me throw in something entirely from left field: is it possible that there was a stage where hibernum lost the h and the b became indistinguishable from "v", which had become a fricative? I can imagine someone looking at *iverno and reanalyzing it as in- ("not") + verano ("spring or summer"). Does this work with the timing of the sound changes? Semantically, "winter" and "not spring/summer" look like a halfway decent match. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:07, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

is it possible that there was a stage where hibernum lost the h and the b became indistinguishable from "v", which had become a fricative

This is almost certainly what happened, yes.

I can imagine someone looking at *iverno and reanalyzing it as in- ("not") + verano ("spring or summer").

In principle it is conceivable. In practice in- (“not”) did not survive into Romance as a productive prefix, and it is not easy even to find it ‘fossilized’ in inherited words. The only case that immediately comes to mind is the descendants of inimicus (“enemy”).

Nicodene (talk) 09:22, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

æne#Old English

@Leasnam Any ideas what is triggering i-umlaut in this word? — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 18:32, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Not sure, but it's a pattern seen in many terms related to ān (“one”): āniġ ~ ǣniġ; ānlīċ ~ ǣnlīċ; āninga ~ ǣninga; ānes ~ ǣnes; ānlīepe ~ ǣnlīepe; ānwintre ~ ǣnwintre; etc. Leasnam (talk) 18:49, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Probably the same sound change first seen in Proto-Norse ᛗᛁᚾᛁᚾᛟ (minino), also Old English Wēden. It seems like -an- had a tendency to become -in- in certain words in northern Germanic (Proto-Norse and English). This new vowel caused i-umlaut in OE but not in ON, which was more resistant (cf. Proto-Germanic *hugiz > Old Norse hugr, Old English hyge). So ǣne < *aininō < *ainanō. ᛙᛆᚱᛐᛁᚿᛌᛆᛌ ᛭ Proto-Norsing ᛭ Ask me anything 18:22, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

kecap#Sundanese

Is it possible that the Sundanese kecap ("word") might be related to Indonesian ucap ("to say")? Or maybe with kecap ("tongue smacking") via semantic difference? The latter seems a little far-fetched, though. Udaradingin (talk) 02:05, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

boo (marijuana)

Could the plant be named after the boojum, which was thus named by Godfrey Sykes in the early 20th century? One might see a superficial resemblance between the two plants, especially when "under the influence". And the Boojum is from Baja California, not far from stoner territory. 24.108.0.44 02:20, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Boojum tree? Would it have been widely known, even among stoners? Wakuran (talk) 03:07, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Oh yes, they would go rambling in their VW campers or dirt bikes. Don't you remember w:The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers? 24.108.0.44 03:32, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

ghingheri

^{ghingheri in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana} says it is just onomatopoeical.

^{Pianigiani, Ottorino (1907) “ghinghero”, in Vocabolario etimologico della lingua italiana (in Italian), Rome: Albrighi & Segati} has a more convoluted origin.

As far as I understand (it uses terms that aren't very clear to me):

• guindolo (“winder of silk”) => ghindolo in Tuscan dialect
• it corrupted standard Italian agghindare (“to dress up”) into agghingare in Tuscan dialect.
• A ghinghero is like a nice/fine piece of clothing, from agghingare.
• in ghingheri also used in Italian means "in fine clothes"

Emanuele6 (talk) 01:33, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

eshk

Etymology 1 does not have a source and *aisk- definitely doesn't look right. -saph (user—talk—contribs) 18:30, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Derksen gives Proto-Indo-European *h₂eydʰ- for Lithuanian aiškus, though without mentioning Albanian. Exarchus (talk) 21:51, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

This looks much like ultimately derived from Arabic عِشْق (ʕišq). The Turkish form that should have mediated the borrowing is irregular (aşk), but then I don't know much about what happened in detail to borrowings from Turkish into Albanian. –Austronesier (talk) 19:02, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Glaringly. The Albanian word is another demonstration of the Ottoman Turkish vowel, which varied in this word: there are lots of transcriptions eşk for Ottoman of all eras on Google Books. Nişanyan’s claim that it was ışk until the 18th century is too undifferentiated; this spelling seems least likely and possibly artificial since it in living speech it would conflict with native Turkish ışık ‘light’, though confusion or contamination is also possible.

Etymology 2 also got removed by me, it is obviously a Slavic borrowing, and anyway is an alternative form of another entry where we have both the Slavic and the less likely native etymology in this order. Fay Freak (talk) 13:24, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

cassumunar

Ety guessed as Hindi. What's their word for the plant? Also, would b interesting to see the other local names for it, and see if any resemble 90.174.3.200 19:04, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

If I had to guess, I would say it's from some Dravidian language's name for wild turmeric, such as Tamil கஸ்தூரிமஞ்சள் (kastūrimañcaḷ), or Malayalam കസ്തൂരിമഞ്ഞൾ (kastūrimaññaḷ)(in the derived terms at Malayalam മഞ്ഞൾ (maññaḷ)- see also കസ്തൂരിമഞ്ഞൾ on the Malayalam Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^ml

Trying to reach a consensus on a specific use of -ate (verbal suffix)

See user talk:J3133 § on -ate. I have remade quite entirely the -ate page and categorized most of the lemmas that are part of it over the past few months and realize now how I should have brought up this talk earlier. This concerns the suffixation (here according to my views; otherwise the borrowing...) of Latin verbs with the verbal suffix -ate. Among other uses (if not uses, appearances) of it are through: inheritance through Middle English; anglicizing of Romance verbs; suffixation of a non-Latin verbal stem (in other words: in any other circumstance involving suffixation); back-formation; etc. . The gist of it is, whether we ought to analyze, as many other dictionaries do, verbs such as masturbate (the fortuitous verb which made me raise the point to @J3133) as directly borrowed from Latin perfect passive participles (masturbātus → masturbate) or as derivatives from the verbal root or "participial stems" (see the above talk for more) (masturb(or) + -ate → masturbate). I have followed the latter in my hundreds of edits and I will change the ones concerned according to consensus if needed. My explanation is to be read at the dicussion linked above, it might be a little convoluted, I can always try rewriting it. Saumache (talk) 12:25, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

I realized that what I have said is flawed, especially through the authority of other verbs such as protect (1435) or applause which are early English borrowings, and borrowed directly from Latin participal stem, that in masturbate -ate is here not a suffix but reanalyzable as one. I guess the term "borrowing" just sounds off to me in this case, since we borrow a participle/adjective as a verb. I do maintain that the phrasings

• from masturbatus + -ate
• from masturbat- + -ate

are wrong and misleading. I would prefer such phrasing for any verb (even protect/applause) taken from Latin perfect passive participle: "derived/borrowed from Latin... (masturbātus/masturbāt-, the second as in the OED, accouting for the loss of inflectional endings), perfect passive participle of... (see { {af/m|en|-ate|id1=verb|pos1=verb-forming suffix}} for more/on how verbs have been derived from Latin participles)". Which is actually a phrasing I have used... (irradiate, create,...). And maybe accordingly, making the Etymology section at -ate (verb) more general or adding it to a "further etymology" section would be nice (I know the page may look a little scrappy). Thus, (still according to my volage self) verbs like masturbate are borrowings but can be reanalyzed as having been suffixed (contrary to protect and applause), hence the categorization.

Some specific verbs derived from Latin verbs are still to be analyzed as: root + -ate. e.g. ambiate since the Latin verb which it is derived from is of the 4th conjugation and by borrowing would give English ambit. The case is true for any non first conjugation Latin verb-derived English verb showing final -ate (except collate and other suppletives for obvious reasons). Such a case may even make me think the all thing over again, but I guess it simply is a matter of when lived and who was the word-coiner. Bref, I should stop trying to make language a perfect generative formula. Saumache (talk) 16:14, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

@Saumache: yikes, could you please summarize this? Thanks. (Pinging @J3133 for information.) — Sgconlaw (talk) 23:14, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

I'll try my best...

I was arguing against the wording of most dictionaries concerning the etymology of verbs in -ate derived from Latin 1st conjugation verb through their perfect passive participle which began at the end of the 16th century (e.g., cultivate (1588, Latin cultivo, cultivare, cultivavi, cultivatus), illuminate, and so on).

Dictionaries use something like: "borrowed from cultivatus, perfect passive participle of cultivo (see/compare -ate (verb-forming suffix))". My explanation is long and hard to sum up but the idea is that I thought (I have changed my mind) it more as: "derived from cultiv(o) + -ate (verb-forming suffix)".

I realized the duality where early "borrowings" from Latin participles of the 16-17th century may as well be analized as such in following earlier Middle English verbs such as desolate (enm desolaten) or create (enm createn) or modernly as suffixed with -ate as I held it to be.

My explanation served essencially to assert -ate as a full-fledged suffix when verbs such as cultivate, which do not originate from or are contemporaenous with an heteronymous adjective/past participle (see generate, communicate), started to be used.

In conclusion, these verbs (cultivate, illuminate, ...) paved the way for the Modern English suffix -ate and are reanalyzable as using it but are indeed borrowings (and so are reanalyzable create, desolate, ... though not of the same kind).

This being said (please, may it be clear), later verbs such as deflate (late 19th century) are maybe to be analyzed as: "From Latin deflo + -ate" instead of "Borrowed from Latin deflatus". Since, at this stage, -ate was already a full-fledged suffix. Same thing for horrors like ambiate which, if following protect or delete should have yielded English ambit (because Latin ambio, ambire, ambivi, ambitus).

Whence my proposition of wording: "Borrowed from cultivātus, perfect passive participle of cultivō (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) for more)". Another plea of mine is to stop using the following: "From Latin reverberatus + -ate" (or "reverberat- + -ate"). I should not have to explain the latter...

Thus, I have a lot of pages to edit back (if consensus is made; and in changing my mind I basically endorsed J3133's wording), but not that much since my dum self followed the new pattern I am about to follow on several past pages... Saumache (talk) 13:13, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Just realized it is not even close to being summarized... Saumache (talk) 17:38, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Ehm, no. English deflate (verb) is from Latin *dēflāre, English cultivate (verb) is from theoretical Latin *cultīvāre (it was later borrowed from European languages, originally Old French coutiver, not Roman, its ancestors unattested), be it from actual Medieval Latin cultīvāre or not.

There is no point in using the first person singular present citation form outside the Latin header, the necessary form is indirectly mentioned with presupposed grammar knowledge at the reader’s side, which also (hopefully) encompasses that the studied languages assimilates vocabularies of certain borrowing sources with recurring regularity, the source languages possibly requiring distinct citation forms and their internal morphology carried forward in the lexical descendant language.

Who said rules of one language aren’t valid in the other for but the foreign words of the first? → Talk:inlapidate. Ultimately it is also a signal-to-noise ratio readability question, as seen in the well-covered Romance languages inheriting terms from Latin.

Example: مُلُوخِيَّة (mulūḵiyya) was from Ancient Greek μολόχιον (molókhion, “mallow”) (its plural), I wrote, and I did not even link the citation form of the form in question. Fay Freak (talk) 16:28, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

we

Geordie use of "we" to mean "us" is presently in its own separate ety section (though "West Country, archaic" use meaning "us" is in the main section), but with no actual etymological information. Is it really the case that the Geordie usage has a different etymology from the regular "we"? It seems far-fetched to me. Mihia (talk) 21:25, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Semantic suppletion?

What is it called when an old word is inherited from an ancestor as usual, but its meaning is supplanted by another word that is spelt the same from a different language? Is it still just a semantic loan? E.g. Pannonian Rusyn завод (zavod, “institute”), from Old Slovak závod (“competition”), but supplanted semantically by Serbo-Croatian завод / zavod (“institute”). To be clear, the Serbo-Croatian word and the Old Slovak words are cognates, since Serbo-Croatian (apparently) borrowed it from Czech. But the Serbo-Croatian term has grown to have an entirely different meaning, and it's this meaning that has entered modern Pannonian Rusyn. So would we still say that the Pannonian Rusyn term is a semantic loan from Serbo-Croatian? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 20:00, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

@Insaneguy1083: Yes, a privative semantic loan instead of a cumulative semantic loan. Taking over the terminology from assumption of debt here. For certainly loans are used to redeem other loans, including those owed to one’s parents? We are just a bank that manages humanity’s word-stocks. Fay Freak (talk) 13:33, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

You see this a lot in modern Greek, where words are inherited from Ancient Greek but may have modern meanings that are semantic loans from modern languages. For example δίοδος (díodos) has the inherited meaning "passage, way through" as well as the modern meaning "diode", which is a semantic loan of the English word (the modern sense having been coined in English by William Henry Eccles in 1919). —Mahāgaja · talk 17:57, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

kadaiwa

RFV of the etymology.

The author seems to just be throwing words around now. How did Taíno manage to have a loanword from Old Tupi? The ones in North Brazil are more plausible if we consider the “Tupí” mentioned is Língua geral amazônica, but I suspect they are actually from Nheengatu. Trooper57 (talk) 21:56, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

風 / 风

Please clean up the glyph origin of 風. There are 2 conflicting origins being presented. Duchuyfootball (talk) 00:51, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Schlei (river)

w:Schleswig is named after the w:Schlei, which originally denoted the inmost part of the inlet. We are told that this is from Danish slæ (water plants), but I have checked Dansk Ordbog and can find no evidence of it. More likely it comes from Danish sløv, Old Danish sliø, sluggish, torpid. Can anyone find any evidence of slæ meaning water plants? 24.108.0.44 20:21, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

It might be archaic, obsolete or dialectal by now. I believe Dansk Ordbog only lists current or literary vocabulary. I found an old dictionary listing slæe (note the spelling) meaning algae or seaweed, though. [1] Wakuran (talk) 00:00, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Great stuff! Will you create an article slæe, or shall I? 24.108.0.44 06:46, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

You can do it. Go ahead! Wakuran (talk) 13:48, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

As I interpret the dictionary, slæe gendered common means "algae" and slæe gendered neuter means "seaweed". Probably still variants of the same word, though, akin to Spanish having "barca" for a smaller boat, and "barco" for a bigger boat. Wakuran (talk) 16:48, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

slæe is up, please feel free to make changes you feel desirable. 24.108.0.44 21:09, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Featherstonehaugh

I thought we had a discussion for this already but I dont see it. I read somewhere that it may be that a member of the Featherstonehaugh family, whose name was quite a mouthful, married a member of the Fanshaw family at some point, and the married couple took the spelling of one name and the pronunciation of the other. It assumes that by this point the pronunciation of Featherstonehaugh was already quite slurred but still at least three syllables and without an /ʃ/. Since after all Fanshaw is a name in its own right, not just a simplied form of Featherstonehaugh. I think I may have read this on Quora but right now I cant find that either. Does that sound familiar to anyone? —Soap— 21:40, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Poor answers being deleted by responsible admins on Q&A sites definitely sounds familiar. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 01:25, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

They weren’t poor answers and the admin didn’t delete them, the comments expressing this theory were made by Nick Nicholas and Keili Torborough in the thread entitled ‘How did the surname “Featherstonhaugh” get its completely unintuitive pronunciation?’ which Quora won’t let me link to here. Apparently Longman’s Pronunciation Dictionary lists 4 pronunciations: Featherstonhaw/Feestonhay/Festonhaw/Fanshaw while we have only ‘Fanshaw’ and ‘Feerstonhaw’ listed (so there are potentially 5 possible pronunciations, assuming neither we nor Longmans are mistaken). This article[2] is interesting too, apparently there are many more ways to say 'Marylebone' and 'Cirencester' than you might think and it's rare to hear people with the surname 'Featherstonehaugh' actually call themselves 'Fanshaw'. Overlordnat1 (talk) 08:43, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

hmm, thanks. that's probably what i read. i must have put the "let's get married, honey ♥♥♥♥!" part together in my head. I couldnt find that exact discussion last night either, but for now at least the links seem to work, and they do seem familiar: [3] [4]. i dont think marriage is likely. —Soap— 13:50, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Is Featherstonehaugh particularly unique in this regard? My impression is that there are a lot of unintuitive pronunciations for traditional and rural English place and personal names. Maybe a combination of rural English dialects and Celtic influence or something. Wakuran (talk) 14:11, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

-i (demonym sense)

Surely not all demonyms ending in -i originate in the Arabic nisba? Surely most of the Indo-Iranian-speaking demonyms in this style instead have Persian ـی or Hindi -ई (-ī) or some cognate thereof. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 03:02, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

It's indeed rather a conflation of suffixes, but both the Persian and Hindi suffix are somewhat conflated with Arabic nisba themselves. (And Hindi is conflated with the Persian suffix) Exarchus (talk) 14:21, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

@Exarchus: I have since modified the etymology accordingly. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 17:32, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Etymology of "dụm" in "dành dụm"

I guess the etymology of "dụm" in "dành dụm" (to save up) has somewhat relation to "đùm", meaning to cover, to wrap. Yang Deming (talk) 06:01, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Quite sure it doesn’t. It looks like a reduplicant, as Agamemenon proposed. MuDavid 栘𩿠 (talk) 01:27, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

питам

@Chernorizets @Kiril kovachev @IYI681

The entry for the Bulgarian imperfective verb питам defines the perfective form as попитам, is this correct?

• The references do not mention a perfective form.
• The entry for попитам defines попитвам as the imperfective, not питам.

SimonWikt (talk) 15:28, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

You also asked this question last November in the Tea room. If you can't get an answer there, you are less likely to find an authoritative answer here.

Is it conceivable that two Bulgarian imperfective verbs, like in this case питам (pitam) and попитвам (popitvam), share the perfective? Този потребител не разбира българския език, but in Ancient Greek identical forms deriving from different verbs are uncomfortably common. Here, at least, the meaning is the same.  --Lambiam 00:23, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

@Lambiam My mistake, did not mean to post it here.

SimonWikt (talk) 01:08, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

@SimonWikt In a way, I think you could say it's correct, because the по- prefix indicates the perfective aspect, so a perfective way of saying питам (pitam) is попитам (popitam). Unfortunately, I don't know much better than that — I don't know whether we should formally call попитам (popitam) a/the perfective for the purposes of Wiktionary.

This case is different from some other verbs, like отивам (otivam) and отида (otida), where the perfective counterpart has the same form as the imperfective, barring the final part: there's no *пита (*pita) or something like that, so I understand the difficulty you're having. That's probably why the references don't identify any real perfective form, because there isn't one that isn't just a derivative word with a different structure.

Sadly, while I'm sure there's an etymological reason for these differences, I don't actually know what that is in this case, so I'm not qualified to say :')

As for the second bullet point, I'd say that's correct as it is, i.e. попитвам should be considered the imperfective of попитам. In this light, it seems reasonable to not formally consider питам's perfective to be попитам, since we expect the perfective and imperfective forms to be symmetrical and also mean the same thing, but I'd argue the imperfective попитвам actually means something slightly different to питам - but I don't want to say what at risk of saying something incorrect :) by my intuition though, the по- suffix means something faintly like "to try to do", "to do a little bit", so "попитвам" may mean something less decisive than "питам"; like "I (try to) ask" vs "I ask". But that's to be taken entirely with a grain of salt.

In conclusion, I suppose in some way the article is currently right, but maybe I'm just getting a bit confused. Ultimately, it depends on what function the "perfective" label is meant to serve in the headword line, i.e. whether it should give a lexically similar and synonymous perfective word (probably not possible in this case), or just any perfective word with the closest possible meaning. The second one appears to be what that entry does right now. I think in a way that's fine, because there's no real other way to perfectively say питам, so that's helpful to readers to know how to say it!

Sorry for my rather inchoate points; I hope there was some shred of worth in there somewhere, though... :) Kiril kovachev (talk・contribs) 02:08, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

@SimonWikt there are cases in Bulgarian when two verbs are treated as belonging to the same aspect pair, even if prefixes are involved - a Bulgarian grammar I have gives as examples правя-направя, чета-прочета, деля-разделя and бележа-отбележа. The criterion there is that the verbs are close enough in meaning that the real practical difference between them is the aspect.

As for питам-попитам, I could go either way, but if I were writing that entry from scratch, I probably wouldn't list попитам as the perfective counterpart. For example, "I want to ask him something" is commonly rendered as "искам нещо да го питам", which uses the imperfective verb with a "perfective meaning". It would also be correct to say "искам нещо да го попитам", but it's not grammatically required. Compare that to "I want to read the book", where you have to use "прочета", otherwise the meaning changes - "искам да прочета книгата". Chernorizets (talk) 07:53, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

@Kiril kovachev, @Chernorizets Thank you both for your replies. Would it make sense in this instance to remove попитам from the headword definition and put a comment in a Usage Notes section?

Thanks, SimonWikt (talk) 08:03, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

@SimonWikt you could if that would solve a problem. It is true that попитвам/попитам is the correct aspect pair per dictionaries. Chernorizets (talk) 07:28, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Ὀδησσός ~ ὁδός

Ὀδησσός was the name of two Greek colonies on the Black Sea, Odessa is probably named after one of them. ὁδός (hodós, “threshold”) seems like a good etymology, since the colonies were a doorway to the country beyond. We are told that w:Μάρπησσα derives from μάρπτω, so the grammatical pattern is established. Thoughts? 24.108.0.44 01:34, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

The difference in breathings makes the connection IMO unlikely.  --Lambiam 11:46, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

The fact that both settlements are outside the area where Greek was an indigenous language makes me suspect a non-Greek origin. It probably comes from some pre-Indo-European language once spoken on the western shore of the Black Sea. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:08, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Nebela

Nebela is an amoeba, type genus of the family Nebelidae. I have not been able to read the paper by Leidy, Joseph. 1874. Notice on some Rhizopods. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 26: 155-157, to know its etymology. Gerardgiraud (talk) 08:16, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Obviously from German Nebel (“fog”), referring to its apperarance. 24.108.0.44 02:33, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I find it rather unlikely that an American paleontologist would pick a German word seemingly at random instead of choosing a Greek or Latin. Nebel is an actual German surname, however, although I couldn't find any obvious inspiration when checking out German Wikipedia. Wakuran (talk) 02:50, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

@Gerardgiraud: the referenced paper doesn't say, but on page 145 of Fresh-water rhizopods of North America, Leady gives the etymology under the name of the genus: "Greek, nebel, a bottle". The usual dictionaries don't have any such word, but there are at least a couple of occurences in the Septuagint Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures of the phrase "καὶ νεβελ οἴνου (kaì nebel oínou)" that the King James Version translates as "and a bottle of wine". This is used to render the original Hebrew phrase "וְנֵבֶל יַ֔יִן (w'nebel yayin)" (though we don't have that sense at נבל). I guess the dictionaries view "νεβελ" as transliterated Hebrew, not Ancient Greek. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:19, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

The fact that νεβελ has no written accent is a good indicator that it was not considered a Greek word, not even a loanword into Greek. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:00, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Did the Septuagint originally contain accents, or were they added later? If they were added later, their absence could mean that later scribes were unfamilar with the word and did not know how to pronounce it. BTW, the NKJV has "a skin of wine".^[5]  --Lambiam 10:56, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Surely someone can find a Hebrew dictionary with this word in it? Its existence seems dubious at best. 24.108.0.44 02:46, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

I did come across נָפַח (nafákh, nāp̄aḥ, “to blow”), which might refer to the manufacture. 24.108.0.44 02:55, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Its existence isn't in question. From the Biblia Hebraica Stutgartensis module and the LXX Rahlfs module on my computer:

1. I Samuel 1:24:

   ‏וַתַּעֲלֵ֨הוּ עִמָּ֜הּ כַּאֲשֶׁ֣ר גְּמָלַ֗תּוּ בְּפָרִ֤ים שְׁלֹשָׁה֙ וְאֵיפָ֨ה אַחַ֥ת קֶ֙מַח֙ וְנֵ֣בֶל יַ֔יִן

   καὶ ἀνέβη μετ̓ αὐτοῦ εἰς Σηλωμ ἐν μόσχῳ τριετίζοντι καὶ ἄρτοις καὶ οιφι σεμιδάλεως καὶ νεβελ οἴνου καὶ εἰσῆλθεν εἰς οἶκον κυρίου ἐν Σηλωμ

2. I Samuel 10:3:

   ‏וְחָלַפְתָּ֨ מִשָּׁ֜ם וָהָ֗לְאָה וּבָ֙אתָ֙ עַד־אֵל֣וֹן תָּב֔וֹר וּמְצָא֤וּךָ שָּׁם֙ שְׁלֹשָׁ֣ה אֲנָשִׁ֔ים עֹלִ֥ים אֶל־הָאֱלֹהִ֖ים בֵּֽית־אֵ֑ל אֶחָ֞ד נֹשֵׂ֣א ׀ שְׁלֹשָׁ֣ה גְדָיִ֗ים וְאֶחָד֙ נֹשֵׂ֗א שְׁלֹ֙שֶׁת֙ כִּכְּר֣וֹת לֶ֔חֶם וְאֶחָ֥ד נֹשֵׂ֖א נֵֽבֶל־יָֽיִן׃

   καὶ ἀπελεύσει ἐκεῖθεν καὶ ἐπέκεινα ἥξεις ἕως τῆς δρυὸς Θαβωρ καὶ εὑρήσεις ἐκεῖ τρεῖς ἄνδρας ἀναβαίνοντας πρὸς τὸν θεὸν εἰς Βαιθηλ, ἕνα αἴροντα τρία αἰγίδια καὶ ἕνα αἴροντα τρία ἀγγεῖα ἄρτων καὶ ἕνα αἴροντα ἀσκὸν οἴνου·

3. I Samuel 25:18:

   וַתְּמַהֵ֣ר אֲבוֹגַיִל [אֲבִיגַ֡יִל] וַתִּקַּח֩ מָאתַ֨יִם לֶ֜חֶם וּשְׁנַ֣יִם נִבְלֵי־יַ֗יִן וְחָמֵ֨שׁ צֹ֤אן עֲשׂוּוֹת [עֲשׂוּיֹת֙] וְחָמֵ֤שׁ סְאִים֙ קָלִ֔י וּמֵאָ֥ה צִמֻּקִ֖ים וּמָאתַ֣יִם דְּבֵלִ֑ים וַתָּ֖שֶׂם עַל־הַחֲמֹרִֽים׃

   καὶ ἔσπευσεν Αβιγαια καὶ ἔλαβεν διακοσίους ἄρτους καὶ δύο ἀγγεῖα οἴνου καὶ πέντε πρόβατα πεποιημένα καὶ πέντε οιφι ἀλφίτου καὶ γομορ ἓν σταφίδος καὶ διακοσίας παλάθας καὶ ἔθετο ἐπὶ τοὺς ὄνους

4. II Samuel 16:1

   וְדָוִ֗ד עָבַ֤ר מְעַט֙ מֵֽהָרֹ֔אשׁ וְהִנֵּ֥ה צִיבָ֛א נַ֥עַר מְפִי־בֹ֖שֶׁת לִקְרָאת֑וֹ וְצֶ֨מֶד חֲמֹרִ֜ים חֲבֻשִׁ֗ים וַעֲלֵיהֶם֩ מָאתַ֨יִם לֶ֜חֶם וּמֵאָ֧ה צִמּוּקִ֛ים וּמֵ֥אָה קַ֖יִץ וְנֵ֥בֶל יָֽיִן

   καὶ Δαυιδ παρῆλθεν βραχύ τι ἀπὸ τῆς Ροως, καὶ ἰδοὺ Σιβα τὸ παιδάριον Μεμφιβοσθε εἰς ἀπαντὴν αὐτοῦ καὶ ζεῦγος ὄνων ἐπισεσαγμένων, καὶ ἐπ̓ αὐτοῖς διακόσιοι ἄρτοι καὶ ἑκατὸν σταφίδες καὶ ἑκατὸν φοίνικες καὶ νεβελ οἴνου.

5. Hosea 3:2:

   וָאֶכְּרֶ֣הָ לִּ֔י בַּחֲמִשָּׁ֥ה עָשָׂ֖ר כָּ֑סֶף וְחֹ֥מֶר שְׂעֹרִ֖ים וְ{לֵ֥תֶךְ שְׂעֹרִֽים}

   καὶ ἐμισθωσάμην ἐμαυτῷ πεντεκαίδεκα ἀργυρίου καὶ γομορ κριθῶν καὶ νεβελ οἴνου

The above shows the rather loose correspondence between the Hebrew and the Greek: all indications are that the Septuagint was translated from a different Hebrew text that no longer exists, and the translator(s) probably chose different words to translate the same or similar words in different parts of the Hebrew.

For instance, in the I Samuel 10:3 passage Hebrew נֵֽבֶל is translated with Ancient Greek ἀσκὸν (askòn), but in I Samuel 25:18 with Ancient Greek ἀγγεῖα (angeîa), and in Hosea 3:2, Ancient Greek νεβελ οἴνου (nebel oínou, “nebel of wine”) is used where the Hebrew has an unrelated phrase, Hebrew לֵ֥תֶךְ שְׂעֹרִֽים (“lethek of barley”). These are the kind of inconsistencies that biblical scholars have been studying and debating for centuries- but they would all agree that these words are definitely attested. Ancient Greek νεβελ (nebel) only occurs three times: one of those times not as a direct translation of anything and the others corresponding exactly to Hebrew נִבְלֵ. That suggests that the lost Hebrew text the Septuagint came from had Hebrew נִבְלֵ in the Hosea 3:2 passage and that both times the Greek was an attempt to render the Hebrew. Hebrew נִבְלֵ actually occurs 10 times and is translated various ways in the Greek, but I don't think it would be worth the space to include all of them. Suffice it to say that both the Hebrew and the Greek (Koine, to be precise) are attested. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:25, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Good sleuthing work! What do you think of my suggestion re: נָפַח? 24.108.0.44 05:51, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

admortization

RFV of the etymology: "From Latin admortizatio." z in Latin? - saph ^_^^⠀talk⠀ 13:59, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

The z itself isn't that weird, and even a verb admortizo wouldn't be especially remarkable (see Category:Latin terms suffixed with -izo), but I'm not sure how often Latin verbs in -izo form nouns in -izatio. The only three we have entries for are baptizatio, evangelizatio, and globalizatio. The first of those is in Ambrose (Late Latin) but seems to be extremely rare compared to baptisma. The third is obviously Modern Latin. The second has no quotations or references. At any rate admortization, like amortization, probably got its -ation added in English or possibly French rather than in Latin. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:55, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Latin didn’t cease to be used in Classical times. Nicodene (talk) 12:32, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm not denying that, I just didn't know Latin ever had z at this stage. Removed the RFV. - saph ^_^^⠀talk⠀ 13:40, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

odpocząć: od + począć or od + poczywać?

odpocząć#Etymology mentions od + począć (to begin), which seems more contrived than od + poczywać (to rest, precisely what odpocząć means). Is the etymology entry really correct? Uukgoblin (talk) 14:14, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

No. Updated. Vininn126 (talk) 14:17, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Doesn't the form need further explanation though? PUC – 19:18, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Which form? Vininn126 (talk) 19:20, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

odpocząć from *počiti PUC – 20:15, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps you are right - this is based on what WSJP has. I can try to look into other sources later. Vininn126 (talk) 20:33, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I believe that it doesn't directly go back as far as Proto-Slavic, as it's actually part of the earliest attested written usage of Old Polish. The Old Polish form surely does come from Proto-Slavic, however. Although I'm fascinated by Proto-language etymologies, I feel far too incompetent to edit them. Uukgoblin (talk) 22:52, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes, odpoczywać it is an Old Polish term. However, each morpheme is important in derivation. Our coverage of Old Polish is not complete yet. Intend to add a lot of Old Polish in the near future, as @Benwing2 and I were working on an import of data. Vininn126 (talk) 22:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Sorry for the late response and my apologies that this import has fallen down the priority list ... so many things to do ... Benwing2 (talk) 22:24, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

scutter

Ó Dónaill's Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla (Irish English Dictionary, 1977) includes this entry for "sciodar"

sciodar, m. (gs. -air). 1. (a) Broken sour milk, dregs. (b) Thin porridge. (c) Weak tea. 2. ~ (buinní), scour, diarrhoea. 3. F: (Of person) Scuttler; contemptible, worthless, person. https://www.teanglann.ie/ga/fgb/sciodar

Dinneen's 1904 Foclóir Gaeḋhilge agus Béarla has a similar entry, with "purge" being a euphemism for diarrhoea Sciodar, m., purge; milk sour and broken. https://archive.org/details/b2486285x/page/608/mode/2up 108.52.189.28 23:16, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I've updated the entry by splitting the etymologies. Leasnam (talk) 04:27, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

On bazuca being a doublet of buzina in Portuguese

I get that the first word comes from English bazooka, which comes bazoo, from Dutch bazuin, from Latin būcina, from which Portuguese buzina is derived. But doesn't the -ka at the English word indicate a kind of suffix or excrescent syllable? If so, would it still be considered a doublet, since it's not a form of Latin būcina directly, as buzina is? I think they're just related rather than doublets. (I'm a bit confused). OweOwnAwe (talk) 00:32, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I think doublets just have to share a similar root, originally. They could be derived in very different way. -ka is not a regular suffix in English, and might just be a fanciful innovation. Bazooka might be a blend of bassoon or bazoo and hookah (inspired by its shape), for all I know. Wakuran (talk) 02:42, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

My understanding is that Wiktionary and Wikipedia’s usage of doublet and cognate is more specific, and require that the words derive from an exact same origin word with no unrelated morphemes — for example, our glossary entry for doublet specifies that terms sharing PIE roots do not qualify. Also look at the definition for cognate, if considering doublets as a special case of it. Polomo47 (talk) 05:40, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

There is a strict sense and broader senses. Morphemes may be also by clipped away (as is assumed to have happened with the /n/) or bear, if added, little meaning, consider interfixes, and diminutive affixes in general. It might be disproportionate to hold to the strict definition of doublets then, such that identity of words justifying the notion of duplication is well defensible. Fay Freak (talk) 11:37, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

The definition of doublet at Wikipedia is inaccurate, as I pointed out a while ago. Exarchus (talk) 17:15, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Somewhere on my to-do list was to go through all Bengali doublets, where the standards for assigning them as such are often way too loose. A random example: ছা (cha), ছানা (chana) and ছাওয়াল (chaōẇal) are given as doublets because they all came Prakrit 𑀙𑀸𑀯 (chāva), with different (or no) suffixes added. Those should simply be given as related terms, right? An even better example are the doublets given at ঝাল (jhal) [which has been cleaned up by now, turns out none of the 7 'doublets' are even related].

The original question about bazuca/buzina is probably debatable, as -ka is not a regular English suffix. Exarchus (talk) 18:02, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Oh, I wasn't aware. But what you pointed out appears to align exactly with my impression (which I did also get from reading the article? maybe it's just the examples that are wrong?) Polomo47 (talk) 06:39, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Macedonian вожд

Displaced inherited Old East Slavic? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 15:44, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Probably a mindless copypaste from the Russian entry. Removed. PUC – 14:35, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/dʰwer-

What's the point of having this 'root' entry when there is the root noun *dʰwṓr? Why not simply move all the derived terms at *dʰwer- to *dʰwṓr? Exarchus (talk) 15:49, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

well, i notice some of the descendant terms on *dʰwṓr are derived from the root, not from the fully formed stem. is this normal? if anything i'd wonder if we should move some of the *dʰwṓr descendants to dʰwer-. but i think we need to keep both pages because the ones without underlying -s arent derived from a form with -s. —Soap— 17:59, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

For some languages, such as Latin, the nominative singular is simply used as the citation form of a noun, without any implication that terms noted to be derived from e.g. urbs are supposed to be derived from that specific form of the noun. Other languages, such as Sanskrit, use the stem as the citation form of the noun. Wiktionary:About Proto-Indo-European says to lemmatize PIE nouns at the nominative singular, but I see no guidance there about when it is or isn't appropriate to reconstruct both a root and a noun entry.--Urszag (talk) 18:06, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Which descendants at *dʰwṓr do you mean actually? Some are from the weak stem *dʰur-. At least {{R:ine:NIL|page=130ff.}} doesn't reconstruct *dʰwer- for anything. Exarchus (talk) 18:49, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Neapolitan word for pizza

it is pizz' a word for Neapolitan pizza and uccello for 'cat' ,tavola for plank and then casa as in house. is this true Knites (talk) 13:39, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Uccello should mean 'bird'. Otherwise, I have trouble understanding your question. Wakuran (talk) 15:25, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

i've found it on anythingtranslate.com is this accurate? Knites (talk) 08:58, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

There are a lot of translation tools there, and it's unclear on how proof-checked they are. The Neapolitan ones I tested seemed to have "uccello" (or "uccelino") meaning "bird", and "gatto" meaning "cat", though. Wakuran (talk) 13:55, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Apulia

The Latin lemma says it possibly comes from PIE for water, but i can't find that claim in the source cited. The Portuguese lemma Apúlia says it comes from Ancient Greek Ἰαπυγία. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Apuli seems to indicate that this regional name is just from an Ancient Greek transcription of the name of the people of that region. --Espoo (talk) 20:57, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

It seems reasonable that Apulia and Ἰαπυγία are from the same source, though possibly with different suffixes. And Proto-Indo-European *h₂ep- (“water”) is a reasonable source. 24.108.0.44 17:56, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

It's not particularly likely that Ἰᾱπυγίᾱ (Iāpugíā) comes from *h₂ep-, though, partly because of the initial ι and partly because of the first long ᾱ. —Mahāgaja · talk 18:00, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Persian زغال and other Iranian terms at Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/ǵwelH-

Rfv for etymology as the phonetical development seems completely fantastical. I'm not sure the mentioned Avestan term 𐬯𐬐𐬀𐬭 (skar, “charcoal”) actually exists. Persian etymology added by @Word dewd544 in 2016. Exarchus (talk) 23:30, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

@Exarchus: It is already cited, Nourai 2011. Doesn’t mean we need to believe it, I encourage other etymologization. Fay Freak (talk) 13:58, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

OK, but isn't that a completely amateurish source? It basically seems to suggest that *ǵwelH- is an adaptation of *dʰegʷʰ-.

I'm afraid all this stuff will need to be scrutinised. Exarchus (talk) 14:30, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

The etymology for at least some of the forms is discussed at {{R:bal:Korn|page=124}} with further references, if anyone wants to dive. Yes, Nourai is amateurish, should not have been used on Wiktionary so much. Vahag (talk) 15:47, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

@Exarchus@Fay Freak@Vahagn Petrosyan Hasandust says it's probably from *uz-kāra from the root *kar- (to burn) and cognates with German Herd. He references Eilers "Herd und Feuerstatte in Iran" page 307, although I do not have access to this source. Kamran.nef (talk) 20:13, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

The source given by Vahag also mentions that hypothesis, but prefers (based on Pashto and Sogdian cognates) the link with Avestan 𐬯𐬐𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌𐬌𐬀 (skaⁱriia) (as also here). Exarchus (talk) 20:55, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Proto-Semitic *napaḫ- ~ Naphtha

Did you notice my interest in נָפַח (nafákh, nāp̄aḥ, “to blow”)? This is because I am interested in the etymology of naphtha. I have consulted the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary to trace it back to 𒉌𒆳𒊏 (/⁠napṭu⁠/, “petroleum”) , from the verb 𒈾𒁀𒂅 (na-ba-ṭu /⁠napâṭu, nabâṭu⁠/, “to be(come) bright, to shine; to flare up, to blaze”), and now I find that נָפַח derives from Proto-Semitic *napaḫ-. Might not this be the origin? The semantics would be blow>blow up>blaze>naphtha. It seems to fit. 24.108.0.44 03:27, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Persian سپار (“plough”)

Rfv for etymology. Added at English spade by @Ariamihr in 2017. Exarchus (talk) 11:45, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

@Exarchus: I have removed it and added references. There is lots of material for a Proto-Iranian and Proto-Indo-Aryan reconstruction, before which no Indo-European relation needs to be made. Fay Freak (talk) 14:29, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

miss

• (card games) In the game of three-card loo, an extra hand, dealt on the table, which may be substituted for the hand dealt to a player.

This is under the "mistress" ety, which at first I thought was "obviously wrong", since in fact it meant that you "miss" or "skip" your own hand and take the substitute hand. Now I feel less sure. I haven't been able find any info about this. Sometimes it is capitalised. Any ideas? Mihia (talk) 13:27, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

I mean, it's blatantly sexist terminology, in that case, but the idea of having an "extra missus" on the side doesn't sound like blatantly improbable reasoning by me. But it might need proper sourcing, anyway. Wakuran (talk) 18:43, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

The 1933 OED entertains both theories, miss = “lack” and miss = “mistress”.^[6] A synonym for the sense of “extra hand in card games” is widow,^[7] which fits with the sexist theory. But this dictionary also writes, (Perh. a different word) [than miss = “mistress”].  --Lambiam 20:03, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Actually, the "widow" thing has given me another idea. I wouldn't call this "sexist" -- I think of it as referring to the "widow" being bereft, like the hand of cards is initially "bereft", or "solitary", without someone to play it. Similarly, the "Miss" hand could be thought of as "unpartnered" ("unmarried"). Mihia (talk) 21:30, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Also, since, according to Wikipedia, the game came to England from France, or possibly Holland or Germany, it would be useful to know what the "miss" is/was called in these other countries. Unfortunately, the rules of "Mouche", which Wikipedia says was the original French game, do not mention this spare hand at all, as far as I can see. Mihia (talk) 10:42, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

please, learn yourself some French. mis is past tense of mettre, basically "dealt". The conjugation mostly goes back to Latin mitto and may not be unexpected in Anglo-Norman-French. However, German Miete, from the same PIE root, apparently, is closer to the meaning of stack-raiding as defined in the game of w:Ombre. maître d' or maid further complicate the picture as far as diminution. mistress (compare maîtresse) may be secondary. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 22:38, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

φῆλος

Rfv for etymology added by new user @GatlingGunz. Exarchus (talk) 09:51, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Apparently this is mentioned at Proto-Slavic *zъlъ, but still without source (neither Vasmer or Derksen mention it). Exarchus (talk) 13:24, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Since you did not have the courtesy to ask me directly, I will, as a matter of principle, not reply. You are welcome to challenge me for sources, although I recommend you first look at my remark on Beekes and ask yourself how many of the cited authors you're familiar with. I can already answer that for myself given what is inferable about your command of the pertinent sources.

That is an observation extending not only to Beekes and Greek/Pre-Greek, but also Vedic, I'd wager, actually. You should also revisit Sanskrit kapola and consider that the important thing is that you, who clearly have never known what Mayrhofer/Witzel/Masica/Pinnow, or even Turner think, should refrain from contemptuously antagonizing, well, *anyone*, let alone me. I'll go so far as to bet that you've never even heard of at least one or two of the abovementioned scholars on Vedic (god forbid I do this with the commentary on Beekes).

I presently dislike you, and, more relevantly, consider, with ample, albeit indirect, justification you of limited competence. I recommend you fix that.

GatlingGunz (talk) 14:07, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I pinged you in the above message and assumed that would be courteous enough. Exarchus (talk) 14:46, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I would be willing to grant that, even noting that you could not have, without brazenly defying what is at minimum convention, posted here *without* tagging me, with the ping being incidental. That is, were it not for your "the idea is" comment on my comment on Beekes. I am not, unlike some of Wiktionary's editors (not necessarily referring to you), an implacably intransigent asshat. GatlingGunz (talk) 14:52, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

You have been making several edits that I think most would consider to be dubious (or wild speculation), like here (pre-proto-Germanic kʷ -> p ?) or here (Skt. 'diṣṭa' from PIE *deḱ-?). Or simply dropping Sanskrit terms somewhere without source or explanation why the currently given etymology is wrong. This simply does not give a good impression. Although some of your edits are interesting, like καστόριον maybe being a borrowing from Sanskrit (it would still be interesting to know the date of the first Pali and Ardhamagadhi Prakrit attestations). Exarchus (talk) 15:16, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

...you think pre-proto-Germanic kʷ -> p is "dubious" and "wild speculation"? You must be joking. Like, what the f***. I think virtually anyone competent would now ask you to self-revert and be silent. I cannot even pretend to care what impression you have; your errors are so basic that they astound. You really should self-revert and fundamentally consider that you may have zero idea what you're talking about.

GatlingGunz (talk) 15:29, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

OK, proto-Germanic kʷ -> p is not impossible, but it's irregular and something that needs to be explained, as at Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/fedwōr: "The consonant change was probably caused by the influence of the *p- in the word for "five", *pénkʷe." Exarchus (talk) 15:48, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Good grief. I cite three separate and extremely well-known lemmas exhibiting a sound change you described as "complete nonsense", and you not only fail to notice two of them, but continue to adopt a now obviously ridiculous posture of competence?

I should not have to teach you about one of the most notorious irregularities in pre-Proto-Germanic; I sure as hell am not going to tolerate you attempting to lecture me on things you literally just discovered, courtesy of me, let alone you trying to refer me to lemmas I just directed you to. We can add pre-proto-Germanic to Greek/pre-Greek and Vedic as IE topics you are demonstrably clueless about. You really need to at minimum adopt a posture of humility, as opposed to the condescension that has now blown up in your face in multiple places, some of which you yourself have noticed even without my compulsion, judging by your edits. GatlingGunz (talk) 15:54, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I still think your suggestion of *lībaną coming from *leykʷ- is "wild speculation" as Kroonen describes the change kʷ > p as "a sporadic change of PIE *kw to Pre-Gm. *p after resonants in words starting with a labial". If you can't find a reference for your suggestion, I don't think it should be kept. Exarchus (talk) 16:28, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Can you explain why I, or anyone else, should care what you think, at this point? GatlingGunz (talk) 16:29, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

You still haven't given a reference for comparing अर्ध (ardha) to Latin ordo.

I also would like to see a source for this (वृश्यति (vṛśyáti) from *wreyḱ- ?). Exarchus (talk) 16:07, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I actually can't even find Skt. 'vṛśyáti' Exarchus (talk) 16:10, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I do not feel the need to indulge you; you are both incompetent and obviously intransigently so. Any other established user is welcome to politely ask me for either sources or explanations. You, however, need to start by openly conceding you are out of your depth. Nobody is going to be confused on this point; you’re like a toddler who thinks *runned is the past tense of run, and presumes to demand sources otherwise. You might be accustomed to bullying people and surviving. I’m afraid I only tolerate competent bullies. GatlingGunz (talk) 16:11, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Another dubious suggestion of yours appears to be this: Proto-Indo-Iranian *yáćas as possibly from *déḱos?

And how do you want to derive Latin sciō from *keyt-? Exarchus (talk) 16:43, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I tire of repeating myself. Before I defend etymologies that aren’t even mine, and that any competent scholar would know, yet again, why should I, or anyone else, even bother to entertain a demonstrably and incorrigibly incompetent editor, who is undeterred by multiple incidents of inadertently curbstomping himself? GatlingGunz (talk) 16:48, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

This is a discussion forum, not an insult-and-belittle-anyone-who-dares-to-question-your-omniscience forum. Exarchus may be the poorest excuse for a scholar that ever crawled out of the slime, but you have yet to present any evidence that they're wrong on the original points they made. The {{rfv-etym}} template that links here says "Can this etymology be sourced?". That's what you should be answering. You may not be aware of basic Wiki etiquette, so I'm just warning you at this point- as Jack Webb used to say on TV: "just the facts". Chuck Entz (talk) 16:45, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I have presented evidence that said editor is wildly wrong/not in command of the scholarship s/he is preoccupied with in multiple contexts. Most recently, said editor has been compelled to discovered that kw -> p in pre-proto-Germanic is not “complete nonsense”, but a well-known, if unconditioned, shift, with ample scholarship on the matter. I am happy to entertain, and even conform, to your standards, so long as you rein him/her in, first. But, before that, you *will* examine my comments on Beekes, and/or my edits at Skt. kapola, among others, and revise your own belitting tone. My own authority, infallible or otherwise, is far from what is at stake, yet. GatlingGunz (talk) 16:51, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

But you haven't presented evidence that they're wrong on the matters at hand. That would be the easiest way to shut them up. If you can't do that, you shouldn't be here. Put up or shut up. Chuck Entz (talk) 17:08, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Ross, Rachel, stop fighting. I have added sources to φῆλος (phêlos). --Vahag (talk) 17:09, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

@Vahagn Petrosyan: Thank you! Now we can get somewhere. Chuck Entz (talk) 17:18, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, that's a source, I now belatedly see that Pokorny also gives it at p.490. But Chantraine and Frisk (and Beekes) don't mention Sanskrit ह्वृ (hvṛ) and are skeptical about the link with Latin fallō. The latter isn't linked to ह्वृ (hvṛ) by LIV nor De Vaan.

I think this (about एव (éva, “way, course”)) is another example of an outdated etymology given by user GatlingGunz without reference. The comparison with Latin aevum is still mentioned as a possibility by {{R:sa:Wackernagel|page=867|vol=II.2}} (as originally from Bartholomae 1920), but Mayrhofer and Lubotsky clearly prefer derivation from the root इ (i, “to go”). Exarchus (talk) 18:12, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

"Old norse" is not Old norse

Many pages of words in old swedish refer to old norse as the parent language (ex. kasta). This is not correct as "Old norse" on wiktionary is actually old west norse which is contemporary with old swedish. I feel as if something should be done about this. Timmypirater (talk) 20:15, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Old West Norse and Old East Norse are considered as dialects, but Old West Norse is better attested, I believe. Wakuran (talk) 22:40, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

@Mårtensås For visibility. Also, this is more an issue for Wiktionary:Language treatment requests. Vininn126 (talk) 09:45, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

This problem has been known about for a long time, and also applies for Old Danish and Old Gutnish, which are likewise listed as descendants of Old Norse. We currently group Scandinavian dialects during the period 700–1500 in the following way:

• All writing from Iceland, in Latin and Runic script, throughout the period is covered as Old Norse, sometimes specified as Old West Norse
• All writing from Norway, in Latin and Runic script, up until ~1325 is covered as Old Norse, sometimes specified as Old West Norse. After that it should fall under Middle Norwegian, but that header is almost unused.
• All writing from Sweden, Denmark, and Gotland (which had its own distinct dialect) up until ~1150 is covered as Old Norse, sometimes specified as Old East Norse.
• All Latin-script writing and all Runic inscriptions from after ~1150 from Sweden, Denmark, and Gotland fall under Old Swedish, Old Danish, and Old Gutnish, respectively.

Our unmarked Old Norse is based on Norwegian-Icelandic, as you have noticed. The orthography is conventional, and not very conservative. It does not even reflect the oldest preserved Icelandic sources, which for instance distinguish the vowels e : ę, á : ǫ́.

One solution might be to merge all medieval Scandinavian, which was essentially one language (and viewed as such by its native speakers), under "Old Norse". This is very difficult for several reasons:

• Lexicographically these varieties are treated in separate works. For instance the Dictionary of Old Norse Prose only deals with the language from Norway and Iceland, and there are likewise dictionaries for Old Swedish and Old Danish. Gutnish is typically grouped with Swedish, although that makes little sense linguistically.
• The normalised orthographies (to the extent that such even exist outside of Old Norwegian-Icelandic) diverge substantially. For instance, Old Swedish tælghia and Old Norse telgja reflect the same word with the same pronunciation, but the former is based on Swedish manuscripts, while the latter is based on a mix of Icelandic manuscript spelling (where we'd find telgia) and modern convention (the letter -j-, which did not exist during the period). In order to merge them under one header we'd have to give preference to one norm, certainly the Norwegian-Icelandic, and mark the other spellings as regional manuscript spellings. This is not entirely unreasonable but would require a ton of work.
• It becomes more difficult with dialectal differences. The case tælghia ~ telgja is fairly simple, but what about a word like Old Norse þjófr, Old Swedish þiuver? f and v here probably represent the same sound, a voiced bilabial or labiodental fricative, but in Sweden it was customary to write it with the letter u or v (normalized to v), while it was typically written f on Iceland. The difference between -iu- and -jó- (< Proto-Norse -eu-) is a proper dialectal difference. The vowel -e- in Old Swedish is an epenthetic vowel, probably a schwa, and its spelling varies depending on the preceding vowel. It is not found in all Old Swedish manuscripts (B 45, B 193 have word forms like takr), but it is in most. Now if we move in the direction of older manuscripts and the norm for Old Norse, we get the two word forms Old Norse þjófr and Old Swedish þiufr. They would still need separate entries, but we do get a level of consistency. Of course no existing Old Swedish dictionary would have þiufr as the lemma form, so we're in practice creating a new orthography only used on Wiktionary. I'm not opposed to that, but the usability is questionable.
• Dialectal differences are even more pronounced in the morphology, especially the conjugation of verbs. While all varieties have the same inflections, the endings might vary slightly. In the case of þjófr, þiufr this is not such a big problem since the Norwegian-Icelandic entry and the Swedish entry will have their own pages, but what about a word where the lemma form is the same for all varieties, like taka? In practice we'd need three conjugation templates on this page, which would become very unwieldy.

Another solution could be to populate "Old Norse" with "Old East Norse" forms and list these as ancestral to Swedish and Danish (but what about Gutnish?). This has already been done at very small scale but I am not very happy with the result. Again, since "Old East Norse" in theory only covers the stage of the language written with runes, any Latin script orthography that is not a direct transliteration of the runes (which is not preferable) must neccessarily be somewhat hypothetical. I prefer an orthography that approaches the Norwegian-Icelandic standard without compromising on distinctions that were demonstrably made in the language, but as you can glean from the above discussion that is huge work. Other questions arise here, like how we should handle terms that are not attested in runes. Do we mark these as reconstructed, even when the "Old East Norse" entry is clearly just a normalized spelling of a word preserved in Old Swedish or Danish? It seems absurd.

TLDR: It's a huge hassle and nobody has bothered to do it. ᛙᛆᚱᛐᛁᚿᛌᛆᛌ ᛭ Proto-Norsing ᛭ Ask me anything 02:26, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

carmen

Rfv for etymology. I had removed the suggestion of Latin carmen (“song”) being derived from Proto-Indo-European *ḱens- because this doesn't seem to be taken seriously anymore (not by De Vaan and not by Ernout/Meillet). I think the Latin a makes such a derivation (from the zero grade) difficult. Already Pokorny (p.525) gives carmen as from earlier *canmen. Exarchus (talk) 19:08, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Can anyone give good references discussing the question of rhotacism of -s- to -r- in Latin before a consonant (as opposed to between vowels)? I know there are several etymologies that depend on *-sw- > *-rw- (e.g. Minerva). But for the nasals, I'm not sure how many examples there are, and there seem to be counterexamples showing a lengthened vowel instead (although often the forms with a lengthened vowel go back to *-Csm-/-Csn- rather than *-Vsm-/-Vsn-). We attribute the -rn- in diurnus to rhotacism of -sn-, but De Vaan attributes it instead to analogy with nocturnus, which he suggests might come by syncope of *noctū-rino-. Cases with a long vowel + -m- or -n- include prīmus from *priismos, cōmis from *komsmis, cānus from *kasnos; possibly some formations in *-no- or *-na- such as verbēna, egēnus, bīnus, pulvīnus, prūna, aēnus.--Urszag (talk) 20:10, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

FWIW, for *-sw- > *-rw-, De Vaan refers to Rix 1981 (Rapporti onomastici fra il panteon etrusco e quello romano. In: Gli Etruschi e Roma). Sihler doesn't seem to mention some regular non-intervocalic rhotacism, he does give (p.213): "Unexpectedly, medial *-sg- > L -rg- in L mergo 'dip', mergus 'gull'". Exarchus (talk) 11:49, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/lībaną

I've now found a source that indeed derives this (or at least *bilībaną), from *leykʷ-, being Gernot Schmidt's "Studien zum germanischen Adverb" (1962), mentioned in Lehmann's Gothic Etymological Dictionary, p.69. So yes, I was too quick in dismissing this out of hand, but is this something that should be kept, or does no one take this seriously anymore? (at least not Ringe, Kroonen, Orel, LIV, Kluge or Mallory & Adams) Exarchus (talk) 20:24, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I guess Proto-Germanic *wulfaz also is a famous example of the sound shift. Wakuran (talk) 12:01, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

"Vor-urgerm. *-léi̯pe/o- setzt ein in anderen idg. Sprachen nicht bezeugtes vollstufiges themat. Präs. fort" ({{R:goh:EWA|bilîban}}, thematic full grade without cognates). Kroonen's argument about δάφνη asks for semantic stringency, "a maximally stringent approach is paramount to the study of non-inherented comparanda." (Sub-Indo-European 2004:12-13) This does not hold for IE as it seems when EWA argues completely different senses based on *leyp-, that should raise semantic concerns in the wods of Kroonen's. At lebara (“liver”) they still note Benveniste (cp. linquo) and Kluge²⁵ (cp. iecur) impossible phonologically. The conception of EWA is closer to Wiki's unlimited space compared to those single volume works, arguably in favor to keep. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 11:42, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

I took the liberty to add a link to *librō where the connection is made and have removed the RfE tag, after I did a little digging.

There is another problem where root extension of *(s)ley- in *leyp- and liver (and *lew- in *luftuz) is a theoretic assumption which does not have consensus because *-p and *-kw for that matter are unexplained. The 2016 conference papers in Historische Sprachforschung / Historical Linguistics vol. 131 (2018 [2021]) do not mention these but many similar forms, e.g. Katsiaryna Ackermann p. 106. Nikolai N. Kazanski p. 206f. For Tocharian B lip- (“remain”) Douglas Adams reconstructs *leyp- + *-r̥: Tocharian B l(y)ipär* nearly an isogloss. However, there is *lewH-: Tocharian B li-, “otherwise only seen in Skr. lī́yate ‘disappear, vanish’”. ({{R:txb:DTB|602-603}}) *lewh₃- is also mentioned in the conference papers and the laryngeal is often left undetermined. If one accepts Laryngeal metathesis of semivowels, e.g. Kocharov and Shatskov p. 221, it opens up too many possibilities.

By the way to correct my mistake: Kroonen and friends' "Sub-Indo-European" is of course published 2024. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 10:26, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

δέω ("to lack, need, require")

Rfv for linking this with Sanskrit दस् (das) (which is now taken to be a variant of जस् (jas) by LIV and Lubotsky). Exarchus (talk) 20:45, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Here's a very old source: Fick (1867). Doesn't mention the Greek variant δεύω. Exarchus (talk) 21:54, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Sanskrit दिष्ट (diṣṭá) from *deḱ-

I still think this etymology doesn't make sense, but here we go: rfv. The translation given by Lubotsky is actually "shown (direction)". Exarchus (talk) 21:07, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Sanskrit अर्ध (ardhá) from *h₂er-

Rfv for linking अर्ध (ardha) with Latin ordō. Exarchus (talk) 21:43, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

It turns out that Skt. 'ardha' has been compared by Monier-Williams with Latin ōrdō (and German Ort) in the Skt. sense of "place, region", which has the accentuation 'árdha'.

Which means I'll simply remove it if no more recent source shows up. Exarchus (talk) 18:07, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Latin scio

Rfv for comparison of sciō with Sanskrit चि (ci, “to observe”) (which comes from *kʷey-) and चित् (cit) (which comes from either *kʷeyt-, *keyt-, or from both). Exarchus (talk) 21:49, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

tartan (etymology 2): Arabic word needed

For tartan (etymology 2; "a type of one-masted vessel with a lateen sail and a foresail, used in the Mediterranean"), can someone supply the Arabic word transcribed as tarīdah ("type of fast ship") referred to in the etymology? (The OED says there is insufficient evidence that it is the source of the English word.) — Sgconlaw (talk) 22:37, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

The Spanish Wiktionary gives, in their entry tarida, the etymon طريد. Uses of this word on the Arabic Wikipedia appear to mean “outcast”, “fugitive”. I can find no indication that it is also used to refer to a vessel.  --Lambiam 23:47, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Another source gives the form ﻁﺮﻳﺩﺓ, with a tāʾ marbūṭah, supported by quotations.^[8] It is said there to be, specifically, Egyptian Arabic. Pianigiani also states that the term is Egyptian Arabic.^[9] In standard Arabic it appears to mean “game (quarry)”.^[10]  --Lambiam 09:07, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

@Lambiam: thanks! Please update the etymology as you think best. — Sgconlaw (talk) 18:58, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Skt. अधि (ádhi) and स्मत् (smát) from *me

Rfv for deriving अधि (ádhi) and स्मत् (smát) from *me.
Regarding अधि (ádhi), Mayrhofer is fairly inconclusive.
About स्मत् (smát), KEWA mentions p.94 of this article (from 1943), linking स्मत् (smát) to both μετά (metá) and *sem-, through some s-mobile variation. Mayrhofer himself simply says it belongs to सम् (sám). Exarchus (talk) 10:45, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Skt. वृश्यति (vṛśyati) from PIE *wreyḱ-

Rfv. I was misled by Monier-Williams giving 'vṛśati' in thinking 'vṛśyáti' didn't even exist (although it's still only mentioned by Pāṇini) but Apte does give the correct class 4 verb. If someone has really proposed to derive a Skt. form without 'i' or 'e' from *wreyḱ-, I'm curious to know who. Exarchus (talk) 13:31, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Skt. इज्जल (ijjala) from PIE *h₂eyǵ- ("oak")

Rfv. I can well imagine there's a source for this, but Mayrhofer gives this as variant of निचुल (nicula) (also genus Barringtonia). Exarchus (talk) 13:52, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

λύθρον

Rfv for comparison with Sanskrit रुधिर (rúdhira, “blood, gore”). This was originally added by @Advocata. If the homonymy of "blood" and "red" in Sanskrit would be coincidental, that would be pretty remarkable. Exarchus (talk) 14:14, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

FWIW, the usual sources don't translate रुधिर as having the specific meaning "gore". The accent for the meaning "blood" is given by Monier-Williams as 'rúdhira', and also in KEWA, but more recent sources (EWA and Lubotsky) give 'rudhirá' also for this sense, indicating (AVP+), so apparently the relatively recently discovered Atharvaveda-Paippalāda indicates that the original accent (also for "blood") was 'rudhirá'. So the accent isn't an argument for connecting this to Greek λύθρον. Exarchus (talk) 15:52, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Here is an old (1884) source comparing λύθρον and रुधिर (rudhira). But it sees λύθρον as variant of ἐρυθρός (eruthrós) and doesn't etymologically separate the meanings "red" and "blood" in Sanskrit. In any case, pushing this as the only etymology while all sources I've looked at (Frisk, Chantraine, Pokorny, LIV,...) say something else is close to vandalism. Exarchus (talk) 22:10, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

λαγχάνω

Rfv for comparison with Sanskrit लङ्घति (laṅghati) ("to leap over, to mount"). Doesn't seem convincing semantically and Mayrhofer says लङ्घ् (laṅgh) is a variant of रंह् (raṃh, “to hasten, run”) (from *h₁lengʷʰ-). Very remarkably, the same GatlingGunz who added लङ्घति (laṅghati) at λαγχάνω (lankhánō) (supposedly from *lengʰ-) has also added it at *h₁lengʷʰ-. Exarchus (talk) 17:38, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

You didn't learn your lesson earlier? I'm not sure which part of your interactions with me thus far has encouraged you in the conviction that (i) I am incompetent and/or detached from the scholarship, or (ii) that you are competent and, well, even vaguely aware of it. I still can't get over your attempts to sneer because you had never heard of one of the most infamous irregular sound shifts in the history of Germanic. Today you can go look up what homophones are. At this rate, you'll drag yourself, kicking and screaming to an undergraduate command of any of these topics in a few years. I again invite you to apologize and approach me with a modicum of humility. Your current approach hasn't really, as you put it, left a good impression. GatlingGunz (talk) 14:57, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't care if you're right or wrong. You're being a dick. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 15:04, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

If you're simply adding लङ्घति without translation on two different pages, it is simply unclear which meaning is intended in case of homonyms. This rfv is simply asking for sources to compare λαγχάνω with लङ्घति, in whatever sense. Exarchus (talk) 15:07, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

λαγχάνω (lankhánō) can't possibly come from *h₁lengʷʰ-, because initial *h₁l- became ἐλ- in Ancient Greek, as shown by the actual descendants of this root, ἐλαχύς (elakhús), ἐλάσσων (elássōn), and ἐλαφρός (elaphrós). These words also remind us that syllabic *n̥ in the zero grade *h₁ln̥gʷʰ- becomes α, not αν. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:17, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

That's not GatlingGunz's point. Exarchus (talk) 15:23, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

The idea is (apparently) that λαγχάνω and a specific sense of लङ्घति (we aren't told which one) come from *lengʰ-, and then लङ्घति in another sense (I assume the main one "to leap over") is a variant of रंहति, coming from *h₁lengʷʰ-. The latter point is not controversial. Exarchus (talk) 15:57, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

It is clear that I should have refrained from making claims about Proto-Germanic (where, as you can verify, I barely edit anything). If you want to claim that I'm incompetent regarding Sanskrit, there are enough rfv's opened by now where you can make your point. Exarchus (talk) 15:29, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Calm down and cut the personal attacks, this really doesn't fly on a collaborative project. In the future please respond to the objections raised, don't just insult the one raising them. If Exarchus' concerns are trivial in your eyes, they should be trivial to refute while sticking to the linguistics instead of resorting to ad hominems. I've blocked you for 3 days. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 17:07, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

The newbie's source for connecting λαγχάνω (lankhánō) and लङ्घति (laṅghati) is Zupitza, Ernst (1896) Die germanischen Gutturale [The Germanic Gutterals] (Schriften zur germanischen Philologie; 8) (in German), Berlin: Weidmann, →ISBN, page 179. Zupitza's view is criticized here. --Vahag (talk) 20:07, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

But we are now to believe that the लङ्घति (laṅghati) mentioned at λαγχάνω (lankhánō) is simply a homophone (of undisclosed meaning) of the लङ्घति (laṅghati) mentioned at *h₁lengʷʰ- as variant of रंहति (ráṃhati) (as also given by Zupitza).

Monier-Williams lists a ton of meanings for लङ्घ् (laṅgh), but it's still not obvious to me which one is supposed to be cognate with λαγχάνω (lankhánō). If this is to be taken seriously, that is. Exarchus (talk) 20:42, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

πέρθω

Rfv for comparison with Sanskrit प्रधन (pradhana, “tearing, bursting; battle; spoils taken in battle; prize of martial victory”), Latin perdo, English fordo. Those are all analysed as prefixed terms, so is this amateur etymology or is there really a reference? Note that πέρθω shows ablaut (πραθεῖν, πορθέω). Exarchus (talk) 17:56, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Mentioning this simply as a curiosity, but Valpy's Etymological Dictionary Of Latin (1828) gives (as one hypothesis) Latin 'perdo' as coming from Greek πέρθω. Exarchus (talk) 19:46, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

timeo

Rfv for link with Sanskrit तिम्यति (timyati, “to be quiet; to become quiet”). As it happens, there's already another rfv for derivation from Proto-Indo-European *temH- (“dark”). Exarchus (talk) 22:56, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

An old source for this comparison is Indo-European Ax: Axi: Axu (p.56) from 1905.

What Kuiper says about तिम्यति (timyati) (although this is said about the sense "to be wet") seems relevant: "Since the rules for the PIE. root structure exclude a root *teim-, while a possible root-extension *ty-em- is not supported by any evidence, timyati is likely to be a borrowing from an indigenous language." (though the point about *tyem- having to come from a root-extension might be outdated) Exarchus (talk) 16:02, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

By the way, a source for the link with *temH- is Walde - Hoffmann. Exarchus (talk) 23:34, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₁énos

'From the adverb *h₁é (“and, then”) +‎ *-nós.'

First, the development from 'and' or 'then' to 'that' doesn't make sense semantically per se - *h₁é would at least need to have originally meant something like 'away, further' etc. Second, Kapović in the Routledge handbook of PIE reconstructs it with the second or third laryngeal, but not with the first one. Beekes gives the second laryngeal.--62.73.72.3 11:31, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

De Vaan gives (at enim, p.190): *h₁e-no-, from *h₁e, *h₁i "this" (whence is, ea, id). So apparently another *h₁é than the augment. Exarchus (talk) 20:20, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Skt. तर्क (tarká) from *telkʷ-

Rfv to derive तर्क (tarká) (and associated terms) from *telkʷ-. Mayrhofer, Lubotsky, LIV and Pokorny derive it from *terkʷ-. Apparently GatlingGunz wants to insist that 'tarkyate' is "parallel to Latin 3rd conjugation", while it is indicated by Whitney as a passive to तर्कयति (tarkayati). Exarchus (talk) 15:22, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

A source is Mallory & Adams' Encyclopedia of Indo-European culture: "Perhaps we should add OInd tarka- 'presumption, conjecture', tarkáyati 'guesses, reasons about, intends' but these are more usually, and probably rightly, taken as specialized semantic uses of *terkʷ 'wind'." Not mentioned in their later 'Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European ...'

Other source: Walde (1930).

But none of them compares loquor with Skt. 'tarkyate', for good reasons I'd think.

Thieme says तर्क (tarká) is "sicherlich" (p.80) from *terkʷ-. Exarchus (talk) 12:24, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-West Germanic/jāradag, OE geardagas, NE yearday

I'm not convinced the Old English form is a true cognate to forms like Dutch jaardag. This reconstruction page is derived from "year" + "day" and defined as "an anniversary day, yearday". But the Old English plural noun geardagas, marked as a descendant, is not defined as "anniversaries": it instead means things along the lines of "days of yore" or "days of one's years", and the first element seems therefore to be ġeāra /ˈjɑː.rɑ/ "yore" rather than ġēar /jæ͜ɑːr/ "year".

The presence of [jɑː] in ġeāra seems to be the result of the change seen sometimes in West Saxon of *æː (from PG *ē) to [ɑː] before a single consonant + back vowel, which I learned about in December.

There are some Old English textbooks that spell it as "ġeārdagum", e.g. Fulk 2014 p. 220, Robinson 2012 p. 366. Wiktionary currently gives different pronunciations for the first syllable of geardagum and geardagas, which doesn't make sense to me.

As for the alleged modern English descendant yearday The Oxford English Dictionary entry for this word says "In senses 2 and 3 apparently independently re-formed": sense 2 is the "anniversary" sense and sense 3 is the " days of the year" sense. The only other sense is sense 1, "A person's life or lifetime", but this is in fact marked obsolete and given a note "Only in Old English", so the entry in fact doesn't actually show any line of descent between Old and Modern English. Urszag (talk) 20:14, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Old Norse also has the same construction in í árdaga (“in days of yore”), from árdagr; however it doesn't appear to use the genitive plural of ár to my knowledge. Could it be possible that Proto-Germanic *jēradagaz might have meant both "day of yore" as well as "anniversary"; and the anniversay sense was simply not recorded in Old English ? Or, perhaps the term for "anniversary" developed later (?) Leasnam (talk) 01:11, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

I just noticed re-noticed Old High German jārtaga means "days of [one's] life" which appears to preserve the Proto-Germanic meaning seen in árdaga and ġeārdagum. Thanks for bringing this up. I'll rework the entry... Leasnam (talk) 01:23, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

@Urszag, I created a new derived related term *jārō dag (on the page) to house the Old English and Old Hiigh German terms which mean "days of yore, days of life". They are both dead-ends, since the Middle English and Middle High German ȝereday and jārtac (respectively) mean "day of the year, anniversary, New Year's Day, etc.". I figured since there was a derived related PWGmc *jāras dag, there could also be a similar term based on the genitive plural. Does this make better sense ? Leasnam (talk) 02:35, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Rotovegas

The blend part is correct, but the reason is speculative. Could equally be ironic (cf. Ashvegas). Cameron.coombe (talk) 03:05, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

bazuna and bazúna

Kashubian bazuna and Slovincian bazúna are listed as derived from Modern Standard German Posaune, but initially I'd find the Middle Low German basune more likely, similar to the Mainland Scandinavian words. Wakuran (talk) 11:51, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

This is possible as the instrument has been known about in Poland since the 16th century. Vininn126 (talk) 11:58, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

calx

Rfv for comparison of Latin calx ("limestone, chalk") with Sanskrit कर्कर (karkara, “limestone, bone”). The existence of Greek χάλιξ (khálix, “pebble”) is a possible counter-argument and Mayrhofer gives the Sanskrit as from the homonym adjective "hard" and as possibly from Dravidian. Exarchus (talk) 13:09, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

But KEWA refers कर्कर (karkara, “stone”) to शर्करा (śárkarā) and there Latin calx is indeed mentioned. But the actual text at that lemma seems to suggest that the equation कर्कर (karkara) ~ शर्करा (śárkarā) is an opinion of Kuiper's and Mayrhofer doesn't deem it likely.

A source mentioned in KEWA for calx ~ शर्करा (śárkarā) is Walde (1906).

I further want to add that Ernout & Meillet also give calx as either borrowed from χάλιξ (khálix) (indicating Latin calicāre) or of substrate origin.

Beekes at χάλιξ also mentions (referencing Furnée) Sumerian kalga ("limestone") and Babylonian kalakku, but Chantraine appears to debunk this, saying these terms don't exist in the supposed meanings.Exarchus (talk) 13:42, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

I am reading Gudea Statue C in translation[11] where "clay pit" probably corresponds to ka-al-ka. Click on it shows the ePSD2 glossing kalak "trench" and Akkadian (Old Babylonian) kalakku.

The context of Gudea laying a brick sounds like we are talking about building material.

However, I am looking at Sumerian sua (“a stone, red sandstone”), Akkadian sû for example and can not make sense of the sound changes and spelling alternations, omitted for the sake of brevity. Note good @Vahagn quotes Sumerian excavation, trench, store-cellar (kalak) for քաղաք (kʻałakʻ), where the corresponding Greek chi is to be believed. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 00:21, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Chantraine has 𒆗 KAL (in French fort (“strong”)) where KAL.GA is a suffixed adjective. The source has IM.KAL.LA. The AHw and CAD read kalû (mimated kalûm), “... the chemical nature of the substance remains uncertain. [...] Quite likely any earth or ore of a specific yellow color (regardless of its chemical composition) was called kalû.” ({{R:akk:CAD}} vol. 8 [1971], p. 95). EBL has the text with translation and glossary: “You pound kalû-paste, (and) he drinks it in cedar oil and beer.”[12] Bácskay 2021 has further references: Scurlock 2014 is nearly identical. Böck 2010 skips the line. Scheyhing 2007 leaves the heterogramm untranslated. Panayotov in Le Journal des Médecines Cunéiformes 41 (2023) refer us to the Nineveh Medical Project where texts like this one are being edited, but the glossary is still empty[13]. As a loanword from Sumerian it would probably correspond to IM.KAL (kali)[14] where im seems to be the determiner for clays, different from stone, but the word is spelled in many different ways and attestation is Post Babylonian. Bezoar in Sanskrit गोरोचना “orpiment” (w:Gorochana) matches EBL’s glossary. As for KAL.GA / KALAG, Wikipedia discusses the nominalizing suffix /-a/: “Some stems appear to require the suffix always: e.g. 𒆗𒂵 kalag-ga "mighty” (w:Sumerian_language#grammar). Küchler 1904’s interpretation with a note from the editor, taken on by Weidner 1913 as Chantraine has it, is absent from the dictionaries and commentaries.

Following CAD I would think that Küchler 1909 cannot be completely wrong, but you would want Akkadian to match Greek. The books duely warn that this is difficult material even for the specialist, that I am not. I could resolve the sigle (K 61) after several attempts going through the Brittish Museum website to CDLI and EBL. By the way, I am amused looking for mul in the Gudea Stela that I found it again under foundation[15]. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 01:35, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/*snígʷʰs

This page was moved from *snéygʷʰs to **snígʷʰs because the descendants only show zero-grade. It should in any case be moved because of the redundant * in the title, but where should it go? Root nouns with only zero-grade aren't commonly reconstructed for PIE (though let me know if someone does reconstruct them) and {{R:ine:NIL|page=623}} (note 2) mentions Matasovic reconstructing an original paradigm with nom.sg. *snōygʷʰ-s, gen.sg. *snigʷʰ-os. De Vaan (at ningit) reconstructs *sn(e)igʷʰ- [m.] (I'm not sure the masculine gender isn't simply a typo). Exarchus (talk) 17:31, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Are Romanian 'țintă' (aim) and 'cent' (cent) doublets (ultimately from Latin centum)?

The former comes from Proto-Slavic / Old Church Slavonic, while the latter comes from English.

On the subject of Latin 'centum', is Aromanian 'tsentu' really inherited from Latin (if it even exists at all)? First of all, this Latin etymon is considered to be "panromanic, excluding Romanian", and if it were inherited, the normal result would have been ' tsintu'. Ilinca2000 (talk) 23:02, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

That is stretching the definition of doublet a fair bit.

I cannot find any credible documentation of an Aromanian word for ‘hundred’ that is not sută (spelt in various ways). Nicodene (talk) 00:55, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, I would delete the page for Aromanian 'tsentu' and 'tsendu' since it doesn't seem to exist. Ilinca2000 (talk) 11:38, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Proto-Germanic/kundijaną

RFV of the etymology. The semantics are certainly attractive, but a PIE root starting with *(s)k producing a Germanic form with initial *k, rather than either *h via Grimm's law or *sk with the s-mobile, would be very anomalous. Of the two references cited, Orel derives it from Proto-Germanic *kundiz (though I don't understand the semantic development here), while Kroonen states no etymology is accepted but does provide his own conjecture of derivation from Proto-Indo-European *gʷeyh₃- (though he gives this root with only the velar and the laryngeal, rather than having a *y as well), comparing Old Norse kveikja (“to light”) from Proto-Germanic *kwaikwjaną, a factive from Proto-Germanic *kwikwaz (from that same PIE root) for the semantic development. In any case, neither of them mention anything about a Proto-Indo-European *(s)kand- root (or similar), nor do they connect it with any of the extra-Germanic words that Wiktionary also ascribes to that root (Latin candeo, Sanskrit चन्द्र (candrá), etc.) Klisz (talk) 23:50, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

I had figured it was an early borrowing from Latin candeo or Latin candela, but it might be less probable. Wakuran (talk) 00:01, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Certainly that makes semantic sense, but phonetically the a versus *u is hard to justify (if we say they're cognate rather than borrowings, as the Proto-Indo-European *(s)kand- idea does, you could have the Germanic form be in the zero-grade, though then you have the aforementioned consonant difficulties, as well as needing to assume the existence of such a thing as a PIE a-grade for Latin). Klisz (talk) 19:05, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

The entry might include a phrasing like "A connection to PIE *(s)kand- is tempting, but difficult to fit phonologically."... Wakuran (talk) 21:55, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Tłʼízí

the etymology for tłʼízí, which means goat in Navajo, is missing. What is it's etymology? 38.43.32.97 23:54, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Hmm, the Na-Dene languages seem to be overall fairly well attested, as Native American languages go. Then, I guess goats were only brought to knowledge to the tribe together with European colonization in the 15th century, so it's probably a relatively recent coinage. Wakuran (talk) 00:18, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

That doesn't follow at all. Words can change meaning over time. The Navajo word for horse, łį́į́ʼ, is apparently inherited from Proto-Athabaskan, but it originally meant 'pet' and more specifically 'dog'. The word for 'goat' could also be an ancient word that originally meant something else, e.g. the mountain goat, which while not a true goat is similar in appearance and would have been familiar to indigenous Americans long before European colonization. The mountain goat is now called tsétah tłʼízí (literally “goat among the rocks”), but it could easily have been called just tłʼízí 600 years ago. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:36, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

ok. thanks! 38.43.32.97 05:26, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

hippotaur

I think it's Greek "hippo-" (horse) and "taur" (bull). 2601:240:8002:E690:ADB0:271E:EB04:722E 10:05, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Yup. Etymology added. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:39, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

avouer

This remark urgently needs an explanation: "The modern form is expected as in louer (from locāre). However, the Old French conjugation shows an unexpected vocalism, which may be due either to early levelling or to Latinate influence." How exactly is the conjugation of avoer different from that of loer? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 10:25, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

The editor tried - I think - to say that Old French forms have been influenced by juridical usage of Medieval Latin (and so loer), and, instead of giving the expected dyphtongized forms (avuee, luee / vocalism which is seen in aveu, veux, neuf) from the Latin tonic accentuated advócāre gave avoer, avouer.

See:

"Le lat. advôcäre, propr. « appeler auprès, invoquer, implorer », convient mieux au sens d’avouer et est appuyé par celui d’avoué (tous deux propres au fr. septentrional) et par l'emploi de advocare en lat. médiéval. Le traitement de la voyelle tonique à, qui aurait dû donner ue en à. fr. (par conséquent on devrait avoir auuee et non avoe, avoue), est dû à une réfection très ancienne des formes accentuées, d’après les formes inaccentuées avoer, avouer, etc., appuyées par le subst. avoué," Oscar Bloch

"Le vocalisme des formes médiév. fait difficulté, les textes ayant, au lieu des formes attendues advocat, *avuee etc. des formes comme avoe, avoue, aveue, qui supposent des formes latines avec o accentué fermé (cf. l'évolution normale pour le verbe (jur.) lo(u)er (lieu, luee) < lŏcare) le fait que les formes non diphtonguées l'emportent nettement sur les formes diphtonguées laisse supposer une influence précoce du lat. médiév. jur., et prob. du subst. avo(u)é." TLFi Saumache (talk) 12:24, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

@Saumache: Thank you. But according to the TLFi quotation (if I understand it correctly) loer, unlike avoer, does have diphthongised forms after all. Then the conjugation given at loer (Etymology 2, 'to rent') is incorrect – or at least incomplete.

Etymologically, loer 'to rent' should have diphthongised forms indeed, but loer (< Early Old French *loðer) 'to laud, praise' should have not – what I suspect is going on here is that avoer was influenced by loer 'to laud, praise' in this respect, especially if loer 'to rent', or at least its diphthongised forms, only occurs rarely in Old French texts. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:08, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke: lieu and luee/lüee are not paradigmatic of loer, these are inherited from Latin locus. The point is, the inherited form from essentially the same root and under same phonological settings diphtongized when, borrowed locāre paradigm derivatives did not (under Medieval Latin pressures).

Hence louer and avouer being quite parallel in their development and so derivatives/cognates aveu (not inherited, deverbal from tonic diphtongized forms now lost), lieu (lõcum> *luou>lueu/lüeu>lieu). Saumache (talk) 16:37, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Latin vacerra

[This] and [that one] (which gives baculum too) believes it of Etruscan origins, more spurious and old is [this], which gives baculum as cognate. Saumache (talk) 11:33, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

kéler

The word means "jar" in Sundanese. Found an Indonesian cognate keler ("cask"). By this cognate, is it possible that both came from Dutch kelder (“cellar”)? Udaradingin (talk) 02:06, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

λίθος

RFV of the etymology, specifically of: *Beekes argues for a Pre-Greek origin, noting that words for "stone" are often taken from a substrate language.* - Where does Beekes say this? In the *Etymological Dictionary of Greek* his only comment on the etymology is the single word "Unexplained.", and he marks the entry with "⮘?⮚" rather than "PG". Klisz (talk) 18:57, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Someone used the leaked draft version of Beekes available for example here. The published version is different. Vahag (talk) 19:12, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

keogram

Keoeeit + -gram? 2601:240:8002:E690:945D:B418:6CA9:ED35 00:33, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

skivvy / skivvies

— 2601:240:8002:E690:945D:B418:6CA9:ED35 04:14, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

{{R:Online Etymology Dictionary}} says it's {{unknown}}. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:54, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

English so

Are we sure that so comes from swa? My understanding is that OE *wā becomes /u/ in modern English. (examples: hwa > who; twa > two). The disappearance of 'w' seems to be irregular as well

The other germanic languages' reflexes of *swa don't appear to be regular. We would expect Old High German form to be *swa as well judging from lemmas like *swanaz or *swēbaz.

Since so is allegedly derived from *swé, perhaps most of the West Germanic descendants of *swa come from the Indo-European forms without the medial -w- RubixLang (talk) 16:55, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

The loss of the w-sound is parallelled by Middle English sword (/swɔrd/, /swoːrd/) > sword (/sɔ(ɹ)d/); plus we have copious written records showing the evolution of swā to swa, sa, swo, suo, so . Leasnam (talk) 17:12, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

This is a inexact parallel; the loss of /w/ in sword is due to the Early Modern English loss of postconsonantal /w/ before /uː/ in Early Modern English /swuːrd/ (< Middle English /swoːrd/); though sword had other pronunciations (/swɒrd/, /swʊrd/, alongside /swɛːrd/, /swɛrd/ <swerd, sweard>), /s(w)uːrd/ is the only form attested by Early Modern orthoepists with the relevant loss /w/. The modern standard pronunciation of sword shows subsequent lowering of /uː/ to /ɔː/ (later Wells' GOAT/FORCE vowel) before preconsonantal /r/, like in afford, board (more etymologically <boord>), course, court, form, hoard (c.f. board), mourn and source.

Contrarily, so has no /w/ because it was irregularly elided early under reduced stress, meaning that it could neither occur in the spelling or induce the raising of ME /wɔː/ (< Old English /wɑː/) to /woː/ (> ModE /(w)uː/) seen in analogous words such as ooze (with dialectal loss of initial /w/), swoop (with /w/ restored from sweep), two, who, whom, whose, and womb < late OE wāse, swāpan, twā, hwā, hwām, *hwās (analogically for earlier hwæs), and wāmb (regularly for earlier wămb). This raising exceptionally fails in woe (OE wā), though EModE orthoepic testimony of pronunciations such as /hwɔːz/ whose and /wɔːm/ womb besides expected /huːz/, /wuːm/ means that such failure was once more widespread. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 09:20, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

ἵππος

Problems with this word are frequently mentioned in the literature. Still everyone agrees it is inherited from PIE. Only a contrarian would believe that it could be borrowed. The entry reflects all of these points leaving a hot mess. I propose to sweep it under the rug, move the discussion to Proto-Hellenic and add sources as needed, pending discussion. As it stands it makes no sense. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 21:27, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Ach, you expect all sound-changes to be absolutely regular, as if tribespeople had the same outlook as Latin grammarians. You have to allow for a little irregularity and chaos. 24.108.0.44 23:50, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Not my point at all. If the change is unknown, I do not expect a source to magically appear, but I remember there is one. The PIE entry concludes: "In that case, the original paradigm would have been *h₁éḱ-u-s, *h₁éḱ-u-m, *h₁ḱ-u-és, from the stem *h₁eḱ-u- (“swift”)." This is sourced with De Vaan, only the Greek entry is misleading and I missed it. Höfler criticized this theory to offer a simpler solution in 2024[16], which is missing in the PIE entry, leaving the Greek vowel raising unexplained once more. Meanwhile the geminate pp is not unexplained[17] and nobody seriously speaks of borrowing. Bozzone 2013 (the article I remembered and couldn't find) in an unfortunate choice of words says that it is a pre-Greek development, yet derives a solid PIE reconstruction following Vine and de Vaan who cited somebody else for a different claim tl;dr. Meier-Brügger 9th ed. assumes it spread from Mycenaean and does not call it borrowing sensu stricto, though we actually might. Perhaps the most interesting claim by Bozzone is the addoption of heta from Phoenician heth rather than he, an often raised question in the literature, due to affrication in the onset correlated with the high vowel. Thoughts? Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 09:55, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Many Proto Athabaskan words are missing.

Even though some are in the lemmas page, they appear as red links in Navajo, Dogrib, Apache etc., in the etymology section of the word's page. Why is that? 38.43.32.97 05:29, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Likely due to few editors have any deeper knowledge about the matter. Wakuran (talk) 12:51, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Could've the navajo word tłʼízí (goat), be derived from the root -TŁʼIS (to compact, to harden)?

Could've the navajo word tłʼízí (goat), be derived from the root -TŁʼIS (to compact, to harden) with the nominalizer -í? In the sense that a goat's horns are hard to the touch or when they butt you the impact feels hard? -TŁʼIS + -í. 38.43.32.97 05:49, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

polować#Polish

The Etymology section of polować (Polish: to hunt) claims (without source) that it is derived from pole (field) + -ować but it seems to me much more likely that it is related to Proto-Slavic lovъ (hunt) > Polish łów (supported by Polish polowanie: hunt) 212.92.82.183 17:47, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

No, because why is there softening in the ł? And it is sourced in WSJP. Vininn126 (talk) 18:06, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

takbo

Perhaps related to Chinese 步 (bù). 2405:8D40:404E:783D:181E:DD64:EEE3:6D12 14:24, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Clavius

Could someone please check my edits here? I didn't know whether to provide an inline citation or just put the citation in References, but then it looks like it's a citation for meaning, not for the etymology. It also created this ugly line between References and English. Finally, I don't know if I've used the right templates. Cameron.coombe (talk) 04:44, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Juba dance

— 2601:240:8002:E690:6C7A:ADA0:ED76:55CD 06:04, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Arguably, it shouldn't be capitalized, rather placed under juba dance, and we already have an entry for juba. Wakuran (talk) 12:46, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia says it ultimately comes from giouba, a word from a central or western African language. The term "Juba" (or "Jube") was used as a name for an enslaved person who had dancing/musical talent. CitationsFreak (talk) 02:06, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Sundanese poé

Meaning "day, daytime". By prior knowledge, I assume the latter part (poé) might derive from the word *we as seen in Old Javanese we. What perplexed me is the "po" part at the start. Could it came from the same source as the "po" in "Pohaci"? Perhaps it came from *pwah-wwe? Udaradingin (talk) 15:11, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

@Udaradingin According to w:Bernd Nothofer, Sundanese poé goes back to *pa-waRi which also gave Javanese pé 'to dry in the sun'. Forms going back to *pa-waRi with the meaning 'to dry in the sun' are not uncommon in Indonesia, e.g. Pamona poai, Andio puai. So what we have in Sundanese is the derived form *pa-waRi > poé, but which has shifted its meaning from a derived verb back to denoting the noun root. –Austronesier (talk) 20:04, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Ah, that makes sense, considering that poé is also a Sundanese verb meaning 'to dry in the sun'. I assumed that poé might come from Old Sundanese pwah ("title for women, milk", as seen in Coolsma) + *we (from *waRi), because the sun was conceived as a deity during pre-Hindu-Buddhist influence (compare srangéngé from OJ saṅ hyaṅ we).

By the way, can you provide the source from w:Bernd Nothofer? I'd like to put it in the etymology section. Udaradingin (talk) 04:50, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

@Udaradingin It's his book The Reconstruction of Proto-Malayo-Javanic, available here[18]. Next to the ACD, this is the only published work that systematically explores the etymology of Sundanese words (Indic loans excluded), so it will be very useful for you.

It's a revised version of his PhD thesis under Isodore Dyen, so its scope reflects the state of the art of Dyen's lexicostatstical classification of the Austronesian languages at that time. Today, no one believes that "Malayo-Javanic" is a valid clade, but Nothofer's cognate sets and reconstructions are still very useful, one just had to keep in mind that they reflect Proto-something-else; many found their way into Blust's ACD as PMP and PWMP reconstructions, but many were not included by Blust because of their limited scope. Check e.g. his cognate set for Jv wudel, Ml/Sd bujal, which clearly reflects *buzəl with a non-trivial correspondence between Jv and Ml (Sd is borrowed), but it is unclear to what intermediate proto-language *buzəl belongs if Proto-Malayo-Javanic is not valid. Another one is Ml peram, Sd peuyeum, OJv pöm which clearly go back to *pəRəm with cognates in the Batak languages, but again, not found in the ACD. In such cases, you can only list Nothofer's cognate set in the etymology section (and of course other cognates that you're aware of) and also mention his Proto-Malayo-Javanic reconstruction maybe in a footnote.

Also, Nothofer was forced to work with Dyen's ultra-neogrammatical method of assigning every correspondence set to a proto-phoneme without considering intra-group borrowing, which e.g. resulted in three(!) different *R-phonemes (*R₁ is PMP *R, while the other two are spurious and actually reflect Malay and Javanese borrowings into Sundanese). As a rule, *R₁, *B, *D, *z correspond to the genuine proto-phonemes *R, *b, *d, *z, while *R₂, *R₃, *b, *d, *j indicate that the whole set (or parts of it) involves borrowing (mostly with Malay or Javanese as source). –Austronesier (talk) 10:40, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

@Austronesier Fascinating! Thank you so, so much for the information. Considering that research on Sundanese etymology is pretty niche, I think this would be a great source for researching it. Personally, I've never heard of PMJ, and looking at these reconstructions such as *buzəl, *pəRəm, and *pa-waRi, it seems that it would be incredibly useful in tracking native (non-Indic, non-Javanese(?)) Sundanese word's origin.

P.S. I also found out that palay comes from *lapaR (through metathesis), with the *aR > -ay patterns being in line with Nothofer's work (it's in his work). Thanks again! Udaradingin (talk) 11:44, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

scambling

(Noun sense) — 2601:240:8002:E690:49BD:4B8C:1979:B74A 05:43, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

scamble

— 2601:240:8002:E690:49BD:4B8C:1979:B74A 05:45, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

scumbling

— 2601:240:8002:E690:49BD:4B8C:1979:B74A 05:46, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Swedish has the adjective skum meaning "dim". I wonder if there might be some connection. Wakuran (talk) 12:07, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

モンスター娘

Possibly coined by Okayado? 67.209.130.41 08:28, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

I would assume it's older. Feels like a pretty straightforward combination. The alliteration might help, as well. Wakuran (talk) 12:31, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Try looking up several monster girl-related tags on pixiv (e.g. 人魚, 単眼, ラミア, etc). Someone else may have coined that term before Crab-kun did.

Regards, 67.209.130.71 22:29, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

andá

Why is the imperative affirmative voseo form of ir, andá? Is andá in any way related to the verb andar? 38.43.32.97 19:23, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, the verb for to go tends to have a messy origin in all Romance languages, with many different verbs and forms having merged with one another. Wakuran (talk) 22:33, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

lol thanks. 38.43.32.97 18:11, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

There seems to be a tendency toward suppletion in very basic words in many languages, as part of a tendency toward irregular inflection:

• English has be/is/was, etc.; go/went, etc.; good/better/best, etc.
• Spanish has ser/fue, etc. ; bueno/mejor, etc., in addition to ir/va/fue/andá, etc.

Similar examples can be found in German, French, and many other European languages (much of the irregularity in Spanish goes all the way back to Latin). My best guess is that the irregularity has something to do with these words being among the first taught to children, and thus less likely to get regularized by children guessing to fill in gaps in what they've learned. I'm not sure about how suppletion figures in. The suppletion tends to come from semantically similar terms with distinctions in usage that might not make sense to young children, so it's possible that they just get muddled together in the early learning process. It's been almost 50 years since my only class in child language acquisition, so others may be able to elaborate on or correct my understanding. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:11, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

February 2025

Could've the navajo word tłʼízí (goat), be derived from the root -TŁʼIS (to compact, to harden)?

Could've the navajo word tłʼízí (goat), be derived from the root -TŁʼIS (to compact, to harden) with the nominalizer -í? In the sense that a goat's horns are hard to the touch or when they butt you the impact feels hard? -TŁʼIS + -í. 38.43.32.97 18:15, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

You just asked this last month. It's doubtful you would get any better responses this time. Wakuran (talk) 21:57, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Ok 2600:387:15:1716:0:0:0:9 23:49, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

But, is it plausible? The s turns into z whenever there are two front vowels surrounding it in Navajo. 2600:387:15:1716:0:0:0:9 23:50, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Maybe. I just put this question out there so I could update the page for that word. 38.43.32.97 01:42, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Suvla

Bay in Turkey made famous in WW1. Greek σούβλα (soúvla) means skewer, which might refer to the Gallipoli Peninsula - long, thin and pointed. w:Suvla doesn't seem to mean anything in Turkish, so a Byzantine origin seems reasonable. 24.108.0.44 01:01, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Kerdipole

could this be Sanskrit कृति (kṛti) + पालि (pāli) 203.30.15.177 05:21, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

You'd have to look at how other known Sanskrit loanwords came out, though the second part of your derivation looks pretty random to me. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:48, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

I have been looking, this one is not so clear as the other names which Adams provides something like a BHS transliteration, and I'm not an expert in Kuchean or Sanskrit lemmas, hence the question. This is the best I could find but if anyone has a less "random" suggestion I'd like to hear it. Griffon77 (talk) 06:43, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

union suit

Is this so named because it's a union of a shirt and pants into one garment? - -sche (discuss) 08:39, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

I’ve only VHO the phrase ‘union suit’ but I suspect so. In any case, I have added it to Thesaurus:one-piece suit Overlordnat1 (talk) 11:17, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

What does VHO mean? Neither we nor Wikipedia has an entry for it. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:21, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

It stands for ‘vaguely heard of’, it’s part of the Times crossword blog jargon (it’s used along with NHO (not heard of) at the following website[19]). Overlordnat1 (talk) 14:49, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

अचकन (ackan)

What's the etymology for this word? Thank you. Duchuyfootball (talk) 14:54, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Latin ustulō sēmustulō

<< uro, ustus ; to burn lightly, singe, ...From a diminutive pp participle (*ustulus) ?; see acutulus, argutulus, pressulus. If so, likely through analogy with aemulor, postulo, modulor and co, though I have not yet found any other verb which shows 'diminutive' meaning with said suffixed ending but *praeustulo (praeuro?), of the same cru, see *prustulo brustolare, brûler. Saumache (talk) 16:26, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Where does the Hawaiian word "Ke" or Maori word "Te" Come from?

Is the word originated from the english word "The" or It's not from English? วัศย์รุจ ปริญญาวุฒิชัย (talk) 04:42, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

The sound changes that produced Samoan le and Hawaiian ke would have taken some time, so they aren't from English (the ancestor can be reconstructed to Proto-Polynesian, which means it's been around since before modern English existed). The Polynesian languages have very small consonant inventories and very simple syllable structures, so coincidental resemblance with other languages is even more likely than usual. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:26, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

How do you think this word in Proto-Polynesian looks like?

It might be "*te", or it's not? วัศย์รุจ ปริญญาวุฒิชัย (talk) 05:00, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

See the POLLEX entry. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:04, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Greek names beginning Ἀγησί-

If Ἡγησῐπῠ́λη • (Hēgēsĭpŭ́lē) is from ἥγησῐς (hḗgēsĭs, “command”) +‎ πῠ́λη (pŭ́lē, “gate”). then aren't all the names beginning Ἀγησί 'Agesi- (e.g. Ἀγησίλαος (Agēsílaos)/Ᾱ̔γησῐ́λᾱος (Hāgēsĭ́lāos), Ᾱ̔γησῐ́λᾱς (Hāgēsĭ́lās) —Doric /Ἡγησῐ́λεως (Hēgēsĭ́leōs) Attic) logically linked to ἥγησῐς (hḗgēsĭs, “command”) instead of ἄγω (ágō, “to lead”) as well? There doesn't seem to be any connection between ago and 'agesi- except a tenuous connection through hegesis. 203.30.15.177 20:09, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, especially if that initial alpha is definitely long, it's far more likely to be from ἡγέομαι (hēgéomai) than from ἄγω (ágō). —Mahāgaja · talk 20:15, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Tapchan

Is Turkestanian Tapchan related to Russian топчан (topčan) and Ukrainian тапчан (tapčan)? Tollef Salemann (talk) 20:32, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Probably, especially if they mean the same thing, but there's no language called "Turkestanian". Do you mean Turkmen? Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, and Uyghur are also Turkic languages spoken in the area vaguely called Turkestan. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:35, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

I mean tapchan used in countries of southern Turkestan according to Wikipedia (I haven’t seen it in real life). Not everywhere they call it tapchan maybe, but the English word for it given in Wikipedia is tapchan. Tollef Salemann (talk) 12:12, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

They are not the same thing, but you can sit or sleep on them. Tollef Salemann (talk) 12:13, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Tapchan seems to certainly be Uzbek/Tajik, тўпчон/tupchon may be a southern Uzbek dialect variant according to chat gpt, but it can't provide sources. https://ctild.indiana.edu/Main/Uzbek-EnglishDictionary is the only reliable online reference I can find. Griffon77 (talk) 13:32, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Can't find it on Google, but I'm sure that there should be some dialectal variations. Tajik is not related to Uzbek, but they share many words, and they surely have dialects. Tollef Salemann (talk) 18:04, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Tajik and Uzbek were a diglossia spoken in the same area. Shared words like tapchan are going to vary by region, not whether the user is a primary Tajik or Uzbek speaker. BTW the CTILD dictionary defines it as an earthen platform, not wooden. Griffon77 (talk) 05:45, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Read the source I added to learn the origin. Vahag (talk) 10:22, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Thank you very much for such source! It was very helpful!

MLK

brain#translations has Ugaritic 𐎎𐎍𐎋 (mlk) added by @Rudi Laschenkohl in diff.

The entry does not say so. The words for brain or marrow with Semitic cognates are 𐎎𐎈 (mḥ) and 𐎎𐎎𐎓 (mmʿ) ({{R:uga:DUL-3}}). Militarev & Kogan ({{R:sem-pro:SED}} Vol. 1, Anatomy of man and animals) do not have it.

@Rudi has ben called to attention before. I RfE this because it looks like it would be from *malk "king" and I imagine it could be a metaphor or a transparent construction from something else. I am not sure we do RfV for translations. Perhaps it should be speedied. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 20:33, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Tagus, river of gorges

Indecision on this, and none of the present suggestions very convincing. But a source shared with Welsh tagu (“choke”) (referring to the gorges present on much of the river), ie Proto-Celtic *taketi is very possible, more so than the one deriving it from the same root as stagnum (which is difficult semantically, and related Celtic words are borrowed from Latin) or Greek ταγός (tagós, “chief”), which has no Celtic cognates. Tagus, River of Gorges...thoughts? 24.108.0.44 03:54, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Δείναρχος (Deínarkhos)

The listing says from Ancient Greek δεινός (deinós, “terrible; mighty, powerful”), but the accented ί suggests it might be rather Ancient Greek δεῖνος (deînos, “drinking cup”), analogous with Sanskrit पात्र (pātra, “drinking bowl, patera”) as a name element Griffon77 (talk) 06:38, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Not really. Accent in Ancient Greek compounds is not correlated with the accent of the individual words that make up the compound. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:32, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

πειθός (peithós)

According to the entry under Proto-Indo-European *bʰeydʰ- this is a derivative of the stem with *-ós e-grade adjective suffix, but the entry for Ancient Greek πειθός (peithós) says its an Alternative form of πιθανός (pithanós), with a different etymology. Proto-Indo-European *bʰeydʰ- also gives a different range of meanings for πειθός (peithós). Now I know there are a LOT of these inconsistencies around (there are more in the derivatives of this stem alone), but shouldn't there be some agreement between them? Should this be fixed with something like (from Proto-Hellenic *peitʰós from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeydʰ- +‎ Proto-Indo-European *-ós e-grade adjective), or left alone? Griffon77 (talk) 14:50, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Saying something is an alt form of something else doesn't mean they necessarily have the same etymology. These forms are both from *bʰeydʰ-, but one is an e-grade noun with no suffix and the other is a suffixed zero-grade form. If you prefer, we could call πειθός (peithós) a {{synonym of}} rather than an {{alt form of}}, but I don't think it's a big deal to leave it as is. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:59, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

should the etymology and different range of meaning be added while leaving the "alt form" then? Griffon77 (talk) 09:32, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Ancient Greek proper nouns ending -φᾰ́νης

Shouldn't these be referred to φᾱνός (phānós) +‎ -ης (-ēs) which "forms third-declension proper nouns" rather than -φανής (-phanḗs), as the accent is on the alpha rather than the epsilon? Griffon77 (talk) 16:45, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Since they have a short alpha, they're unlikely to be from φᾱνός (phānós). I'd say we should move the entry from -φανής (-phanḗs) to -φανης (-phanēs) and give a usage note explaining that proper nouns using this combining form are paroxytones while adjectives are oxytones. —Mahāgaja · talk 18:20, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

a usage note on Ancient Greek -φανής (-phanḗs) would be sufficient, and less work. Griffon77 (talk) 05:55, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

/kælæb/kælæv/ or /kalb/?

/kælæb/kælæv/ or /kalb/ for the biblical pronunciation of כלב? There were some people edit warring over this, so, who's right? or are they both and they are both dialectal pronunciations? this warring also has been happening with a lot of nouns that start with kaph lamedh/kaph bet. See כבש, which has had it's biblical pronunciation changed repeatedly to /kavʃ/ by IP users that share my IP. 38.43.32.97 22:00, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Certainly /kælæv/ in its last centuries before dying out. I mean we have copious transcription content of proper nouns and the like. In the Septuagint time it started. We already discussed it few times. User talk:Terra-Rywko § Hebrew Pronunciation four years ago, there we have it. I am honestly annoyed that we constantly beginn from zero with people equating biblical Hebrew with earliest attested, pre-Mosaic pronunciation. Even though, as a realist, I also prefer Imperial Latin to so-called Classical Latin, this Torahist larp is patently off the wall more than just a preference. Fay Freak (talk) 22:37, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

do like they do for ancient Greek and show a pronunciation progression from Pre-Mosaic to Biblical, Mishnaic and Rabbinic so everyone is satisfied. There's probably a comparable liturgical Cyrenaic/Egyptian dialect represented by the proper nouns in the Septuagint. To be really thorough you can throw in the 1st century Jerusalem area dialect as in some inscriptions and dead sea scrolls. Griffon77 (talk) 05:18, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Is proto turkic Proto-Turkic *yaŋïl- the causative of Proto-Turkic *yan-?

I noticed that turkish yanılmak is yanmak + the causative suffix

see Proto-Turkic *-l Zbutie3.14 (talk) 00:14, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

The causative of yanmak is yandırmak. The suffix -ıl suggests a passive sense (abartmak → abartılmak; boşaltmak → boşaltılmak; canlanmak → canlanılmak; ...) But, since yanmak has only intransitive senses, it has no passive. In fact, it may be viewed itself as a passive, namely of yakmak. Note also the difference between the nasal consonants in Proto-Turkic *yan- and *yaŋïl-.  --Lambiam 20:24, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Neisse~Nysa~Naissus

The river Neisse seems always to have had a sibilant as its second consonant, both in German (Neisse) and Polish (Nysa). An interesting possibility is offered by Niš, formerly Naissus. w:Niš#Name tells us that this derives from *Nāviskos, from *Nāvia ("trough valley"). Compare Proto-Celtic *nāwā (“boat,vessel”); the Neisse source at w:Nová Ves nad Nisou is in Bohemia, which was the territory of the Celtic w:Boii, so a Celtic origin is possible. Semantics: vessel can apply to landforms, as with Naissus. Neisse=trough...? 24.108.0.44 23:24, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Anna Oczko's discussion of Toponymic unity of the Carpathian region (Folia Linguistica 2024; 58(3): 729–750) does not mention Celtic and no Neisse. There is Italo-Celtic through the Romanian language. There is one example with the preposition na still visible, "Na grapě," and Slavic *izvorъ "mountain stream", "water spring" is one of the two most common hydrographic terms under discussion. If Na might be from **neh₂- from the u-stem *neh₂u-? Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 02:38, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

The Carpathian region is nowhere near where we are taliking about, and neither is the Romaanian language. We are talking (in modern terms) about Czech Republic and Silesia (SW Poland). The Celtic Boii tribe inhabited some of this area in ancient times, and left traces in place names eg Bohemia. 24.108.0.44 06:19, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Μαυρίκιος (Mauríkios)

this listing has a circular etymology Ancient Greek Μαυρίκιος (Mauríkios)>>Latin Mauricius>>Μαυρίκιος (Mauríkios). the related listing Mauritius (alt form of Mauricius) apparently needs to broken up into two language sections with separate etymologies. Griffon77 (talk) 04:21, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

It actually derives from the Roman name Maurus, from Greek, from ἀμαυρός (dark). The first one I can find is Saint Maurus of Parentium (3rd century). 24.108.0.44 06:35, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Μενέσαιχμος (Menésaikhmos)

a variant of Μέναιχμος (Ménaikhmos)? Griffon77 (talk) 05:33, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

The harvestman ‘spider’

Harvestmen or harvest spiders are a type of arachnid, popularly called “daddy long-legs”, but reportedly also “shepherd spiders” among many other names in English. The reason for their association with harvesting farmers is not obvious and has generated a plethora of speculation, making its way into the literature where there seems to be little consensus. Whatever the explanation, it has to make sense in the context of the many European languages which also name harvestmen in a similar way; I have already listed some of these at harvestman. So, I am not just concerned with the English word here. In addition to those, note also:

• The taxonym Opiliones for the biological order to which harvestmen belong, from Latin ōpiliō (“shepherd”). At first I thought English shepherd spider was a calque of this (compare Portuguese opilião, Spanish opilión, etc.: New Latin borrowings), but, since English naturalist Martin Lister coined the word (it wasn't an original meaning of the Latin word), the New Latin was calqued from English. That begs the question: where did shepherd spider come from? Based on similar cases below, I'm forced to assume that it's an extension of older harvestman after the latter had become semantically opaque. This also fits with shepherd spider containing the additional qualifier of spider. However, it is paralleled by Dutch koewachter (literally “cowherd”).
• The taxonym Laniatores (a sub-order of Opiliones), from Latin laniātor (“butcher”); why was it named this? Probably another calque—was German the source?
• Swedish lockespindel (literally “lock-spider?”)

I'm unsure if the latter two are even relevant, but the above have ended up being some of the most mysterious parts of all this.

Explanations for the semantics of the English word have included:

• The scythe-like shape of their legs

  I find this the simplest, most intuitive and most reasonable explanation, and it fits best with the semantics for the greatest number of languages. Russian коси-ножка (kosi-nožka) (= the stem of косить (kositʹ, “to mow, cut”) + ножка (nožka, “little leg”)) appears to be a verifying example of the meronymy, and Hungarian kaszás-pók (“scyther-spider”) also at least comes close. The Slavic languages fairly consistently derive the name from *kosà (“scythe”), though more often indirectly as deverbal agent nouns via *kosìti (“to mow, reap”, etc.). German Schneider (literally “cutter”), Swiss German Zimmermann (literally “carpenter”) (coined by analogy with the former?), Welsh teiliwr (literally “tailor”) and Hebrew קוצר (kotsér, literally “shortener; (by extension) reaper”) all corroborate the notion that the central theme is the act of cutting, if not a sharp cutting edge. (Interestingly, Schneider can also mean “tailor”, like the Welsh.) It is just slightly perplexing that more languages don't call harvestmen spiders “scythe-leg” or *“scythe-spider” as you would therefore expect—just “scyther”, or more generically “reaper”, “harvester”, “haymaker”; Dutch apparently takes it to even greater abstraction with “hay-wagon”, for which I know of no explanation. The overwhelming trend is to refer to them by an agent noun for someone who cuts as part of their profession.

• The observation that they appear during the harvest season

  This is at least superficially supported by Spanish agostero, from agosto (“August”), and Irish Pilib an fhómhair (literally “Philip of the harvest/autumn”). Some sources say this explanation is unlikely because there's no particular reason to encounter the creatures more during this time of year, but this on its own doesn't rule it out. Maybe they're attracted to piles of harvested grain crops and fresh hay (which would provide a humid temporary shelter and hiding spot in which to catch prey), or they feed on other insects which are attracted to the hay (such as detritivores; note that harvestmen are themselves detritivores and will eat fungi, which would thrive in a damp hay pile, as well as dead insects which might have been living on the stalks). This or a number of other factors might make them seem to appear suddenly around harvest time in an agricultural setting, but I admit it's a stretch given the better option above.

  However, we might expect different names if this etymology is correct: why aren't there more languages that unambiguously name them directly after a word for “harvest” or “harvest season” rather than “harvester” (often etymologically unrelated, as we saw with the latter in Slavic ⇐ “scythe”), such as from Proto-Slavic *(j)esenь or Latin autumnus? It thus makes more sense to presume agostero is based on semantic extension of an earlier word meaning “harvester”, like segador, and that the Irish is calqued from English.

• An alleged superstition that killing harvestmen leads to a bad harvest (see Opiliones § Etymology on Wikipedia.Wikipedia )

  The existence of such a belief is hard to verify, and, even if did exist, was probably too regional to explain the wide-ranging semantic equivalents (Wikipedia just says “in England”—not a good sign). Also, it doesn't really explain the name; they're not called *“harvest-bringer” or anything that would imply they're the lifeblood of a good harvest, nor are they *“famine-bringer” or anything of the sort with negative/ominous connotation.

• An association with the “Grim Reaper”

  Probably even less likely than the above, considering that they do no harm to humans and are not otherwise associated with death; and they're not called “grim reaper” or even “reaper” in English.

• That they exhibit a kind of “harvesting” behavior with prey insects

  Not supported by either semantics (insects are not like crops) or ethology (they aren't known to do anything like this).

• Resemblance to stilt-walkers, which sometimes included shepherds who would use stilts to expand their field of vision (mentioned on Wikipedia at the end of the lead section of Opiliones (edit: moved to § Etymology))

  For a brief moment this seemed surprisingly promising, as this practice really did exist in southwestern France. But it does not appear that the stilt technique used to be any more widespread than the Landes region or its immediate vicinity, and it's about shepherds, not harvesters. Plus, if stilts used to be a commonplace sight, why not *“stilt-leg” or *“stilt-spider”? Finally, the obvious (and far more widespread, better historically attested) user of stilts is a performer, not a farmer.

Anyway, I hope something will come out of posing the problem here, though I might not have left much to say… but if you have any good etymological sources, or answers to my questions at the top, that would be greatly appreciated and justify this silly post. Maybe someone finds this useful someday. A Reddit thread from the Pandemic era generated some discussion and a handful of comparanda but has been otherwise disappointingly unfruitful. I'm somewhat surprised it hasn't been discussed on Wiktionary before. And I'm annoyed that dictionaries haven't reached a consensus (nor has Wikipedia internally). Surely it can't be such a mystery, when so many languages do it! — Ganjabarah (talk) 07:22, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Edit: In hindsight, the superstition about killing harvestmen is pretty clearly based on the word itself. And it may have originated as a joke or folk etymology. — Ganjabarah (talk) 07:54, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

After you figure this one out, maybe you could turn your attention to the question why ladybugs/ladybirds have names associated with the holy or divine in so many languages. Most European languages as well as Japanese name them something associated with God or the Virgin Mary, Hebrew and Yiddish name them after Moses, Korean names them after shamans, etc. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:46, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Oh yeah, that's bugged me for a while… pun unintended. I think the “harvestman” question is solved and it was just a matter of seeing past the pervasive folk etymologies—but there are other words for this arachnid that are much more opaque and interesting, some of them with a similar religious overtone. I'm finding that many words for critters have Biblical names, but I'm guessing it's just because those are the most common names (e.g. English naming lots of plants and animals “John” (more often “Jack”) or “Joe”; Irish doing the same with Pilib (“Philip”)). It could be that the Holy Mary ladybug was originally just a townsfolk-level “Mary”, but that people couldn't help but generate a superstitious narrative given the spiritual importance of the name; I'm not sure. But yes, that is a good suggestion. :) — Ganjabarah (talk) 09:02, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Edit 2: I think I had an epiphany about shepherd spider: it could be confusion with the imagery of a shepherd's crook, which can be similar in shape to a scythe. (See here for the scythe shape on a harvestman's legs.) So the semantic development could just have been from one type of “farmer holding a long stick with an inward-curving end” to another. — Ganjabarah (talk) 09:29, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Same goes for Dutch koewachter (“cowherd”), though it's getting harder to make my case. These semantic shifts must have happened centuries ago. — Ganjabarah (talk) 10:01, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

I recall an explanation that "lockespindel" isn't derived from "(hair)lock" (Swedish has lock and hårlock), but that it was an old nickname for the Devil. I can see if I can find a good source. Wakuran (talk) 11:45, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

In that case, I guess there could also be a connection to the Swedish verb "locka" ("lure, tempt"). Wakuran (talk) 11:51, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Looking it up, it was Loki, not the Devil. Loki's name is obscure, itself, but it might refer to knots and tangles. Wakuran (talk) 00:31, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Very interesting, thank you! That would surely explain it—they look like a tangle of hair. — Ganjabarah (talk) 22:29, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Loki is just one of the theories. Loki Lockaramm, having a spider skin (ramm), flying on its webs (which harvest spiders do not have), made out of magical formulas of fire offering. See more at Sophus Bugge (1909) Danske studier and also Axel Olrik (1908) Loke i nyere folkeoverlevering. Also by Hans Jacob Wille in his travel book from Seljord. Also see Riccardo Ginevra (2018) Old Norse Brokkr, connecting Loki to the fire. Loki having a flying costume is also attested in Norwegian songs from 1800-s, without connection to spiders. Tollef Salemann (talk) 08:16, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

The Etymology as it is now gives undue weight to one random folk etymology out of many. The many supporting examples are if anything not enough to support the claim. You have completely missed the obvious cognate Old Armenian սարդ (sard, “spider”), Proto-Indo-European *ḱer- (“to plait, weave”). Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 06:49, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Undue weight how? What I have shown is that, based on evidence from other languages, it's the only explanation that is not just a folk etymology. I have found no support whatsoever for another explanation, but if you have, please let me know!

Old Armenian սարդ (sard) is not an etymological cognate with any of the words above. What are you proposing? — Ganjabarah (talk) 22:14, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

By that messure the Armenian word has no "etymological cognates". The remaining evidence is circumstantial. It's not just one but multiple folk etymologies to distract rather than to explain. These names are passed among children, the folk beliefs tag on and they try to fill gaps: woodchuck is a good example. I simply do not see an argument, no logic because harvest does not simply mean scythe, no proof of a common origin, no sources. "Cutter" just doesn't cut it. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 02:01, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

What? Name one cognate of the Armenian word that is relevant to this discussion. You're being ridiculous; there's no other Germanic evidence that the "harvest" in "harvestman" is a corruption of some other, much older word and coincidentally got changed due to folk-etymology. It's extremely obvious that "harvest" is just the same English word as in "harvest spider", chosen for the same semantic reasons as in the semantic relatives (etymological non-cognates) I mentioned. Semantics do matter, especially in a case like this where obviously there's no reconstructible PIE term and innovative new names are frequently made to replace older ones. A root *ḱer- “spider” that somehow narrowed specifically to a word for harvestman arachnids in English—magically without leaving a trace in the history of English or Germanic—doesn't even make sense on its own, because harvestmen don't make webs. That's enough shoehorning in of bad ideas from you. — Ganjabarah (talk) 05:43, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Agree to disagree. Setting it straight would need more space. To point out all the flaws in your argumentation is hopeless if you add only more nonsense in response, like you keep calling it a spider despite the claim that it does not spin webs–would have to be a spinach harvester. I'm not even mad, that's a mazing. Fifofunn-išmell (talk) 06:00, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

A minor etymological addition – not directly about the Opiliones. The common German term for “tailor”, Schneider, is not alone in literally meaning “cutter”: the etymon of English tailor, Old French taillour, also literally means “cutter”.  --Lambiam 19:55, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

I am aware of that, thank you; that's why the Welsh example (a word borrowed/calqued from English tailor with the suffix changed to -wr) is given as evidence for “cutter”. — Ganjabarah (talk) 22:15, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Regarding Zhengzhang's Reconstruction of 葻、齔 and 掮

I was playing around with OC pronunciation and came across a few character whoses pronunciations are "weird". Today, I had a chance to check the reconstruction in Zhengzhang Shangfang's 上古音系 and I found out two characters that seemed to have a typo on Wiktionary:

葻：*b·uːm > *b·ruːm

齔：*spʰrins? > *spʰrinsʔ

And there is one that, although is written in the book, I don't think belongs to the reconstructed pronunciation.

掮：*ɡren* > *ɡren

Would anyone mind confirming if the pronunciation should be revised for me? Much appreciated. 140.114.123.101 11:41, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Cruz in Iberian Romance languages

The Spanish and Portuguese word for cross is "cruz" and they come from Latin crucem. However, /ŭ/ generally yields /o/ when stressed while /ū/ remains /u/. Was there a Vulgar Latin variant crūcem? Wikipediæ philosophia (talk) 21:49, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

There are sporadic exceptions to the lowering of Latin -ŭ- in Western Romance languages. Sometimes a phonetic conditioning factor can be identified, such as a following palatal sound, but sometimes it's unclear why it failed to lower. The absence of this sound change does not by itself provide strong support for reconstructing a long-vowel variant in Latin.--Urszag (talk) 21:59, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

However, I'm not familiar with the history of this particular word. There might be other evidence that points towards the development of a long vowel. After doing a quick search, I found that Herbert Sauren interprets "crouce" in an inscription he dates to around 100 AD (in what seems to be a Paleohispanic language) as evidence for a pronunciation with long ū. Others may be able to answer your question.--Urszag (talk) 22:09, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

I don't know how significant it is (given that it doesn't indicate the quality of the vowel, which is what is important for explaining the Spanish/Portuguese forms), but a search in PedeCerto turns up a couple of examples of crūc- having long scansion in epigraphic poetry, namely "CE CLE 00770, Ī́nsēgnḗm gĕnĕtū́m crūcḗs mūnī́mĕnĕ sḗptum" and "CE CLE 00770, 7[Prǣ́]fīxū́mst crūcḗs, Chr(īst)ī́quĕ uŏcā́uĕtŏr hḗres." Most Christian Latin authors in that corpus observe the vowel's short Classical Latin quantity, which again may not have much significance, since that is the convention for poetry written in hexameter/pentameter. This book says the long scansion crūcem can also be found in hymns attributed to Ambrose, but the wording used implies it is just one example of the general tendency to scan CL short vowels as longs in stressed syllables.--Urszag (talk) 22:18, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

FWIW, the Germanic and Slavic borrowings listed at crux also seem to have been borrowed from a crūc- form. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:19, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, but this is not very significant. The Germanic vowel probably reflects the later pronunciation of Latin with lengthened open syllables. That it cannot be a very early borrowing is already shown by the affrication. The oldest Germanic word for the Christian Cross was that in "gallows". (You may be aware of this, but I just want to obviate misinterpretation.) 2.201.0.109 16:02, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

заняття - Questionable origin

The citation for the origin only describes its borrowing from Russian as self-evident, but the combining form -йняти is a common feature throughout slavic languages, and a cognate of this word is in common usage in Poland with the same specific usage (zajęciach), whereas the Russian counterpart is a collective noun.

I've only recently started feeling comfortable editing Ukrainian entries, I don't think my doubt alone is enough to justify changing this on my own. Could someone with more linguistics experience weigh in?

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%8F%D1%82%D1%82%D1%8F Proudlyuseless (talk) 17:54, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Both are anyway calques of French occupation, maybe through Polish. Tollef Salemann (talk) 19:05, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

That would be my guess. Proudlyuseless (talk) 21:23, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Calque or semantic loan? Voltaigne (talk) 09:19, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Oh, I get it now: it is probably because заняття is directly from Russian, while зайняття is from Ukrainian зайнятий (zajnjatyj). Tollef Salemann (talk) 07:17, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

The Ukrainian combining form -йняти yields зайня́ти, whence the verbal noun зайняття́, which generically denotes the act of occupying or taking up a space, position, etc.

The infinitive form заняти is not regarded as having currency in modern Ukrainian (it's absent from both editions of Словник української мови), although it seems to be well attested in prior centuries (see examples at Hrynchyshyn, D. H., editor (2003), “зайняти, заняти, занят, занѧти”, in Словник української мови XVI – 1-ї пол. XVII ст. [Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language of 16ᵗʰ – 1ˢᵗ half of 17ᵗʰ c.] (in Ukrainian), numbers 10 (загонъ – затрачаючїй), Lviv: KIUS, →ISBN, page 44).

Given that:

• зайняття́ exists as a clearly natively-derived verbal noun of зайня́ти (formed in like manner as вийняття́, прийняття́, сприйня́ття́),
• заняти is not reckoned to be part of the modern language (unlike, say, поня́ти which is given in [СУМ] as a dated alt form of пойня́ти),
• and that the meaning of заня́ття is limited to senses that relate to 'an activity which occupies a person's time and attention'

this all probably pointed in Melnychuk's mind to the latter having been borrowed into the language to serve this semantic function.

Incidentally, this seems to raise an analogous question about поня́ття (“concept, conception, idea”), cf. Russian поня́тие, but Melnychuk doesn't appear to have addressed this directly. Voltaigne (talk) 10:05, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

P.S. another relevant consideration is the syllable stress. In відняття́, зняття́, підняття́ and розняття́ (derived from відня́ти, зня́ти, підня́ти and розня́ти respectively), the stress falls on the final syllable. By contrast, in заня́ття and поня́ття the standard stress is on the penultimate syllable (according to the 20-volume СУМ), which is suggestive of influence from Russian -ня́тие. Voltaigne (talk) 14:41, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

The Russian meaning was incorrect, you can definitely say занятие in the singular for a class: "проводить занятие", "быть на занятии" etc. Thadh (talk) 10:43, 14 February 2025 (UTC)