Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2015/October

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← September 2015 · October 2015 · November 2015 → · (current)

---

Is Crimean Gothic descended from Gothic?

Regarding diff, is Crimean Gothic descended from Wulfilan Gothic? I thought it was a separate East Germanic language. Pinging @Ivadon as the one who made the edit in question. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:13, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

It is currently described in Wikipedia as a Gothic dialect, although this had been changed a couple of times. At least my source supports that claim. --Ivadon (talk) 20:31, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

φέρω - suppletive forms

Can the source of the 2-3 suppleted roots of this word can be found? I ran into this on WP while searching for suppleted words in IE languages. I haven't really studied ancient/proto- languages unlike many of you (I use pure lookup to get etymologies), but this sort of word origin stuff interests me. Hillcrest98 (talk) 23:42, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

camera obscura

I tried to use the proper formatting for the etymology here but stuffed up, could someone fix it please? Thanks. ---> Tooironic (talk) 13:39, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Angr fixed it (see his edit for how to do it). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:47, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

But make sure that my change is really what you want. I wasn't sure what fix you were going for. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:56, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Pretty much, yes. Does the term originate from Latin or New Latin? ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:42, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

As a phrase meaning "dark room", I'm sure it goes back to Classical Rome. As a device for seeing an image projected on a surface, I believe it only goes back to the Renaissance (the concept behind the device goes much farther- but apparently not with that name). Chuck Entz (talk) 02:41, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

rob Peter to pay Paul

RFV of the etymology.

Tagged mistakenly as an {{rfe}} by an IP, who posted an explanation on the talk page. It does, indeed, look like a folk etymology/guess of the type that tends to float around from one general interest book to another and here and there on the web without much grounding in actual etymological research. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:40, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

It seems that etymology has been floating around for some 350 years, but the phrase existed before then. See www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/rob-peter-to-pay-paul.html. —Pengo (talk) 23:02, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

adoxography

Would someone kindly check the etymology? I'm not sure if I got it right, or why the category "English twice-borrowed terms" is appearing. Thanks. Smuconlaw (talk) 20:37, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Fixed (after a couple of absent-minded missteps). You missed out on some of the details in the Ancient Greek, which is understandable if you're not familiar with the language or with the references available.

The categorization problem is due to using {{etyl|en}}: although it does display Wiktionary's name for the language referred to by a given code, the main purpose for {{etyl}} is to add the right derivational categories, based on the language codes given.

Simply leaving out the second parameter leads it to assume a second parameter of "en", since English is the default at English Wiktionary There's no good reason to categorize an English entry as derived from English unless it's a borrowing of a non-English term that has an English term in its history, so it calls it a "twice-borrowed term"- borrowed into another language, and later borrowed back. To avoid categorization, you just use "-" for the second parameter. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:56, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi, @Chuck Entz and @Angr. I know nothing about Latin or Greek, and had just copied the etymology from other entries in the dictionary, so thanks for fixing it. Just wondering, though: does ádoxos mean only "unexpected, unlikely", or does it also have the sense of "dishonourable, ignoble"? I noticed that one of the senses of dóxa is "honour, glory", and World Wide Words suggests that this is the relevant meaning of ádoxos, that is, writing about ignoble (rather than unexpected) things. (See also the 2008 quotation.) Smuconlaw (talk) 08:03, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

It can also mean 'disreputable; ignoble'. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:06, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. Can I leave it to one of you to update the entry? Also (although this isn't etymology related), is the pronunciation of the word likely to be "ay-dock-SAW-gruh-fee" or "uh-DOCK-so-GRUH-fee"? Smuconlaw (talk) 09:23, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

I've never heard the word pronounced, but my instinct says it should have same stress pattern as photography, i.e. main stress on the "sog". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:26, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

That's what I figured too. Smuconlaw (talk) 11:06, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure any of the existing entries needed to be updated, though an ἄδοξος (ádoxos) entry should definitely reflect the "ignoble" sense, since it seems to be the primary one. δόξα (dóxa) shows a common semantic progression: from opinion to good opinion to outstanding opinion/glory. You can see traces of this kind of progression in fame/defame and esteem/estimate. The other meaning of δόξα (dóxa) can been seen in paradox, from παράδοξος (parádoxos), which Liddle & Scott consider ἄδοξος (ádoxos) to be a synonym of, in this sense. There may be a better way to show it in the etymology, but this term definitely descended from the rare "unexpected" sense, not from the more common "ignoble" one. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:14, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

You're the expert, so I've adjusted the etymology as you suggest. Thanks! Smuconlaw (talk) 18:49, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Actually, Angr's the expert, if anyone here, but I figured he just didn't have the time to get up to speed on the issues I had been looking at for a while. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:29, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, thanks very much to both of you. By the way, ἄδοξος is red-linked but I notice that άδοξος ("inglorious, without fame, without glory, without pride") exists. Is this the same word? Smuconlaw (talk) 22:28, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Sort of. It's the (modern) Greek descendant of the Ancient Greek word. Ancient Greek has a diacritic that modern Greek doesn't use, otherwise they would have been spelled the same and ended up on the same page. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:46, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. How does one tell whether a word is derived from Ancient or modern Greek, actually? Smuconlaw (talk) 10:30, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

It's very rare for anything not specific to modern Greece to be derived from modern Greek. Scientific, technical, religious and similar terms are all from Ancient Greek. I've seen a couple of phobia names that were derived from modern Greek, but that's about it. The reason is that Ancient Greek is part of the history of European civilization and, until recently, was among the subjects an educated person was often taught, but modern Greek is just one of the many languages spoken in Europe, so most non-Greeks don't speak it. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:09, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

pringoso

Are there any possibly related words in Latin, or in other Romance languages? DTLHS (talk) 23:16, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

The obvious one is Latin pingue, which has a noun sense meaning"fat, grease" (not covered in our entry, but it can be seen in the Lewis & Short entry for pinguis). For instance, the plant genus Pingicula got its name because the leaves look oily or greasy. Of course, that would require an explanation for that "r", and why it didn't come out more like pingüe. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:57, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

The adjective pringoso is from the noun pringue (“grease”), itself probably deverbative from pringar (“to dip in grease”). Beyond that the etymology is unclear. Latin pendō (“to hang”) has been suggested as the etymon, via Vulgar Latin *pendicāre. --Vahag (talk) 08:50, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Tucci

Anybody know the etymology of this Italian surname? This says "one who made sausage and cut up meat. but has no source. This looks more authoritative but I'm not sure I get what it's saying, it seems to say its original form, Tuccio, is a use of the diminutive -ito but of course it doesn't have -ito in it. Does it mean to imply it was originally Tuccito? So it was the diminutive of a hypothetical given name Tucc? WurdSnatcher (talk)

Tucci is "patronymic or plural form of Tuccio" and Tuccio is "from a short form of any of various personal names ending with the hypocoristic suffix -(t)uccio, for example Albertuccio, Robertuccio". Source: Hanks, Patrick, editor (2003), “Tucci”, in Dictionary of American Family Names, volume 3, New York City: Oxford University Press, →ISBN.. --Vahag (talk) 06:06, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Ah, interesting, thanks! WurdSnatcher (talk)

Sinograph interpretations redivivus

Hello all. Etymology Scriptorium readers who frequented the Beer Parlour back in 2013 may recall two threads that year dealing with Sinograph etymologies, here and at much greater length here.

I had visited the parlour with the intent of creating uniformity for and expanding the breadth of material of mine that was being used in Wiktionary's Sinograph etymologies. Several editors were welcoming and offered constructive suggestions, but they were outnumbered by others who revealed themselves as unaware of important relevant research, assumed bad faith, treated the newbie as a suspect on trial, pressed arguments tainted with rhetorical artifice and logical fallacies, and conjured policy out of thin air to suit the purpose at hand. It was not, I daresay, the Beer Parlour's finest moment.

Now, two years on, I find that the state of the etymology section of the Sinograph entries makes a mockery of the stated objections to my contributions. Interested parties may wish to peruse the earlier discussion and familiarize themselves with these objections in the editors' own words and to review the pertinent section of Wiktionary: References.

Many of the interpretations in the etymology section of Sinograph entries are, as it happens, unattributed. That does not necessarily make the interpretations inadmissible, for as stated in W:R above: "When there is a single source for etymology, or the etymology is widely accepted (so that author's name doesn't matter) it is not necessary to mention the author of the etymology."

However, neither of these exemptions apply to the interpretations in question because 1) There are multiple sources of etymology for Sinographs and 2) No compelling case can be made that interpretations such as those for 真 染 or 因 (as retrieved in mid-October 2015) qualify as widely accepted.

Moreover, even in cases when attributions are provided, these are often to sites that are of contestable value as reliable sources. To take but several examples, 炭 goes to yellowbridge.com, 且 報 辛 不 可 亡 乙 to hanziyuan.com (in Mandarin to begin with, and all in any case currently redirecting to a "This domain may be for sale" page), and 失 異 民 岡 玉 者 奇 不 夕 眔 身 犬 幸 to Richard Sears' Chinese Etymology. (The sources upon which Sears relies for his reproductions of ancient forms make him an acceptable handy online reference for the graphic aspects of the characters, but nothing about his academic background qualifies him as an authority on interpretations of Sinographs.)

In short, I find that the Sinograph entries are riddled with interpretations that fail to meet Wiktionary's standards for inclusion, and I call this situation to the attention of scriptorium readers for consideration and input. Also, I urge those editors who went on the record against inclusion of my contributions to square that opposition with the silence they afford the problematic interpretations noted above. Thank you. Lawrence J. Howell (talk) 03:30, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Maybe there are problems with our current etymologies (I'm not qualified to say), but that's an argument for improving our etymologies, not for giving up and letting you do them. Whatever may be said about their current state, the very clear consensus was that your approach would be worse. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:57, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Hello again, Chuck, and thank you for your reply.

Please reread my post. Nowhere did I propose that Wiktionary give up on the etymologies and allow me to do them. What I did was to alert the community to a certain issue: The etymology sections of many of the Sinograph entries contain interpretations that fail the requirements set forth in Wiktionary: References. That should be a matter of general concern for the community and of particular concern for the contributors who edit the Sinograph entries, and I am urging input here from all parties. Simultaneously, I am asking to be apprised of the rationale according to which certain interpretations judged not to conform to Wiktionary standards (namely, mine) are excluded while other non-conforming interpretations gain inclusion.

As for the consensus you mention, I have a very different take on what ultimately was demonstrated by the earlier debate. For the moment, however, let's focus on the issue at hand. Lawrence J. Howell (talk) 00:58, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

"rationale ": Simple: the other ones haven't been judged and scrutinized. Yours have. Is this a good thing? In my opinion, no. But at the moment that's how it is. —suzukaze (t・c) 01:08, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

A week later. Nobody has attempted to rationalize continued inclusion of interpretations failing to conform to Wiktionary standards. Nobody has argued in favor of loosening the standards. Nobody has moved to bring those interpretations into conformity with standards or, alternately, to excise them. The Herculean efforts of Editor Nobody in this connection are duly noted.

My initial foray into Wiktionary provoked a number of editors tone deaf to the phonesthemic tendencies in Old Chinese identified by Axel Schuessler, Marjorie Chan and Gilbert Roy into making intemperate comments. This followup visit has produced silence and inaction. Tin ears and inertia certainly create a daunting environment for editors keen on improving the dictionary.

I'll swing by again in a few years and, providing the editorial climate has changed enough to permit it, make two types of improvements, outlined below. I heartily encourage contributors who perceive the merits of the blueprint to get started without me.

The first improvement is with respect to the Sinographs that are now categorized as 會意文字 ("ideogrammic compounds," "compound ideographs" inter alia).

For decades, informed students of the Sinographs have known of major analytical weaknesses in the traditional 六書 liùshū categories, one category of which is the alleged 會意 characters. However, it wasn't until two years ago that this knowledge began percolating into general awareness. The sea change was launched on 22 June 2013, with this landmark edit. Ever since, en.wikipedia has been enlightening those interested in Sinographs that, "Many characters formerly classed as compound ideographs are now believed to have been mistakenly identified."

Unfortunately, Wiktionary's treatment of these alleged 會意 characters suggests that word has yet to reach editors working on Sinograph entries. Contributors miscategorize obvious phono-semantic compounds (導 便 形 健 房 港 字 客 ...), merrily continue decomposing compound ideographs as though their present-day forms actually correspond to the thought processes according to which the characters were originally devised (設 "Ideogrammic compound (會意): 言 + 殳 – speech and acts"), and are nescient of the palaeography that enables us to identify the now-disappeared phono-semantic elements in these supposed 會意 characters.

I will improve the entries for these characters by properly categorizing them as phono-semantic compounds and interpreting them according to the particular ancient form(s) bearing most directly on the meanings the characters convey at present.

The second improvement will be to add meaningful interpretative data to the etymology sections of entries already correctly categorized as phono-semantic compounds (at present, the totality of the etymology section of the entry for 暮 is "莫 + 日").

This situation can, should and will be ameliorated by presenting exegetical material drawn from reliable and accessible English-language references sources such as Chinese Writing (the Mattos/Norman translation of Qiu Xigui's 文字學概要) and Schuessler's ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese.

The utility of Wiktionary for its users will increase exponentially, as can be illustrated by the following scenario. Users learn that Schuessler, in his entry for 莫暮, suggests a relation to the notions "dark, cover." Then they wonder about the function of 莫 in other derivative characters (募 墓 模 幕 寞 摸 漠 獏 慕 膜 蟇 謨 鏌 驀). The more astute among them ponder then conclude, "Meanings of the derivative characters tell me the conceptual influence isn't 'dark, cover': It's 'concealed.' Now it all makes sense. Man, I remember back when all Wiktionary gave us for 暮 was 莫 + 日. The dictionary is so much better now." Arrivederci. Lawrence J. Howell (talk) 02:07, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

stap (Crimean Gothic)

I have a source that claims it to be a loanword from “magyar. czáp”, which I guess should mean csáp, but the listed definition is not appropriate. Is there maybe something missing?

In search for other possible etymons I found Slovak cap, Romanian țap and notably Albanian cjap, which gave me the hint to a possible Scythian origin and to sheep.

While that is my personal research, since there are quite a few Crimean Gothic words of ultimately Iranian origin, a link to Scythian *čapi would be strikingly accurate except for the sex of the animal—unless we can find more information about czáp or csáp and its own etymology.

The question is now whether the Crimean Gothic term might be directly derived from one of the mentioned languages or if it is inherited from Proto-Germanic *skēpą, and if we should make mention of one of these theories. — Ivadon (talk) 13:31, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

tangram

Need someone who knows Greek to check the Greek part of the etymology. Thanks. ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:48, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

While you're at it, please check zoetrope as well. ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:54, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I've fixed them. Neither are from Greek, but instead from Ancient Greek, but the suffixes are not used with their strict original meaning, but instead as English suffixes. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:37, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Many thanks! ---> Tooironic (talk) 16:03, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Proto-Slavic second palatalization

Anyone know why we reconstruct *cěsarjь, *cьrky but simultaneously *gvězda, *květъ? Surely these have to be from two different stages of Proto-Slavic, with the second regressive palatalization changing *kěsarjь > *cěsarjь and *kьrky > *cьrky but (except in West Slavic) *gvězda > *dzvězda and *květъ > *cvětъ. I note that Dirksen does the same as us in his etymological dictionary but gives no rationale; is this simply a convention of some kind, or is the second palatalization theorized to have occurred separately (later) before v? Kortlandt has it applying universally but simply being later reversed before v in West Slavic, which seems to indicate the former. —Vorziblix (talk) 12:18, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia, the Old Novgorod dialect lacks the second palatalization even in root-initial position (where it's unlikely to have been undone by analogy), suggesting that the second palatalization was not complete in Proto-Slavic. If that's so, we should move *cěsarjь to *kěsarjь and *cьrky to *kьrky (apparently attested as кьркы (kĭrky) in Old Novgorodian), and keep *gvězda and *květъ where they are. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:26, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

The real solution would be to move *cěsarjь to *ḱěsarjь, *cьrky to *ḱьrky, *gvězda to *ǵvězda, and *květъ to *ḱvětъ. That is the only solution that does justice to every descendant of Proto-Slavic. --WikiTiki89 15:13, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary to put palatalisation marks on those letters as the palatalization was implied by the following front vowel anyway. That said, since we've now voted to become pedantic about sourcing reconstructions, it's going to be hard to source these alternative forms. It appears that our new-fangled policy disallows us from renaming these pages. Yay. —CodeCat 15:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

There is nothing preventing us from changing spelling conventions if we source a different spelling. We need the palatalisation marks because of the progressive palatalization, which was not completely predictable as far as I can tell, but since its result merged with the result of the second palatalization, we should treat them the same way. --WikiTiki89 19:36, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, and we already use palatalization marks for the result of the progressive and second regressive palatalizations acting on h > ś: thus we have *vьśь vs. *vьsь. With our current notation the progressive palatalization is indeed unpredictable; see e.g. *-ikъ, where in the inflected forms -ikomъ, -ikoma, -ikomь, -iku, and -ika the k might be expected to palatalize but does not. This is apparently because the progressive palatalization failed to take place after old diphthongal ei > ẹ > i but did take place after i derived from other sources. Since we reconstruct a later stage of Proto-Slavic when ẹ had already merged with i, we can’t predict the palatalization from the forms we give.

The new reconstruction sourcing policy isn’t a problem, as it states: »Allowing appendix pages on reconstructed protoforms (e.g., *h₂ŕ̥tḱos) only if they have references to sources (scholarly work) that... b. provide evidence that supports the form (e.g., sound changes that would create it)«, and references for the sound changes involved are plentiful. —Vorziblix (talk) 22:54, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but we do not indicate the result of the progressive and second regressive palatalization on k and g, which seems like it would be a good idea. Anyway, ḱ, ǵ, and x́ make more sense to me than ć, dź, and ś. --WikiTiki89 00:44, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

If the issue is merely notational, then can't we just keep things as they are? *c merely denotes the archiphoneme that appears as k in Old Novgorod and c in the rest of Slavic. Just like we use *ť to denote the archiphoneme that becomes c in West Slavic, č in East Slavic, and variously č, ć, ḱ or št in South Slavic. —CodeCat 23:04, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Do *c and *dz ever come from anywhere other than the progressive and second regressive palatalizations? If not, then indeed there is no problem, but then *gvězda should be moved to *dzvězda and *květъ to *cvětъ with the simple rules *cv > *kv and *dzv > *gv in West Slavic. I also wish there was a single letter we could use for *dz... --WikiTiki89 00:44, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

A later *c and *dz arise from *ť, *ď and other sources as PSl disintegrates, but we needn’t be concerned with them, as our reconstructed forms are earlier; just using *c, *dz, *ś would work well as far as I know. Actually, looking over Wiktionary:About Proto-Slavic, that seems to have been Ivan’s intention: *c and *dz are listed as »palatal alveolar«. For *dz, the literature traditionally uses *ʒ as a single letter. —Vorziblix (talk) 01:02, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Ok, so you agree with moving *gvězda to *dzvězda and *květъ to *cvětъ? --WikiTiki89 15:13, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't agree with it. It's highly improbable that the West Slavic forms are derived from forms with alveolar affricates that turned into velar stops in West Slavic; rather, they stayed velar stops in West Slavic and never got affricated in the first place. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:48, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't matter what they were, the question is just how should we write them. It is entirely possible that they were [kʲ], [gʲ], and [xʲ], or [c], [ɟ], and [ç]. --WikiTiki89 15:59, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you are getting the idea from that these are alveolar affricates. We've been discussing the very point of how to represent phonemes. —CodeCat 15:52, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

WT:ASLA calls them "palatal alveolar consonants", and it's disingenuous to pretend we can use the symbols c dz for a Slavic language and have readers interpret them any way other than [t͡s d͡z]. If the problem with using k g is that there's no progressive palatalization after the i that comes from an older diphthong, then we can write that vowel as i₂ (as some authors already do, so that's not an invention of ours) to distinguish it from the i < ī that does trigger progressive palatalization. Or, if absolutely necessary, ḱ ǵ (as well as x́ rather than ś, cf. Old Novgorodian вьхо (vĭxo, “all”)), but using c dz is simply misleading, no matter how much we tell ourselves that they're purely algebraic symbols with no phonological interpretation. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:25, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

There are other issues with ignoring the progressive palatalization as well. The consonants that were affected by it in turn fronted the vowels that followed them. So there's a three-stage process: *vĭxo > *vĭśo > *vĭśe. Since there is no progressive palatalization in Old Novgorod, there can't be any fronting either. Does Old Novgorod display fronting after *j? That is, is there a distinction between hard and soft inflections? —CodeCat 16:31, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't know. All I know about Old Novgorodian is what's in the Wikipedia article. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:43, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

On the other hand, c and dz are the accepted symbols used by most lexicographers of Proto-Slavic. --WikiTiki89 17:44, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Except before v, where most lexicographers of Proto-Slavic use k g. Following most lexicographers means keeping the status quo. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:17, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

You're right, but then we're back to square one. --WikiTiki89 02:43, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Precisely. So if we feel we do have to deviate from the majority of lexicographers in order to make correct predictions, then in my opinion we should follow the principle of least astonishment and use the symbols k g x (or at least ḱ ǵ x́) to indicate sounds that uncontroversially come from PBSl. k g x and that remain k g x in Old Novgorodian and, before v, in West Slavic. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:01, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Civilocity

The exact definition of civilocity is literally, behaving in the dwelling. Civilocity is derived from the Latin term civilis and the Medieval Latin term civitat in the early of the 21st century AD to improve the political systems existing in some American city-states, notably Washington, DC

kachakbar

How is this written in Dari Persian? And what exactly does that etymon mean? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:10, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Compare Persian قاچاقچی (qâčâqči) DTLHS (talk) 23:14, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

aislacionista

The RAE calls this a calque from English isolationist. Is it still a calque if just the pronunciation is copied? DTLHS (talk) 16:07, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

It’s not a case of the pronunciation being copied, it’s aislar + -ción + -ista. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 16:09, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Right, thanks. DTLHS (talk) 16:13, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

It's not unusual for a language to pick a calque that's phonologically reminiscent of the source word. Irish has several examples; the one that stands out in my mind most is teilifíseán, which is morphologically teili- (“tele-”) + fís (“vision”) + -án (diminutive), but it was clearly picked for the similarity of sound (it sounds roughly like "telly-fee-shawn") to English television; there would be no other reason to use such a rare and archaic word as fís for the "vision" part instead of one of the usual words like radharc or amharc, nor for using teili- instead of the native fad-. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:36, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

That would fall under w:Phono-semantic matching. —CodeCat 16:40, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Mencius

I made the assumption that, like Confucius, Mencius orginates from Latin, but someone schooled in the language might want to run a check on this. ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:01, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

dhampir

Can we reference the first part of the Albanian etymology? Given that the second part is referenced and plausible, the second part seems like a folk etymology. - -sche (discuss) 00:15, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Cornish

Requirement for Urgent Corrections on some edits on Talk Pages, to correspond with *Dr. Ken George KESVA Breton orientated Unified Cornish Dictionary.

My due apologies for presenting some Cornish synonyms without tracing their etymologies first. This message is urgent for both Users and Administrators, hence this edit here. I shall correct them as quickly as I can; since the more changes made even on the Talk Pages, the more the Users' confidence is undermined! However, am determined that all my etymologies on the Talk Pages shall present true and reliable origins; or where this is not possible, due to uncertainty - to downgrade such connections by code accordingly. Andrew H. Gray 12:47, 20 October 2015 (UTC)Andrew

To all Administrator Etymologists

Please be free to add any comments or corrections to the contributions on the Talk Pages; and comments on my Talk Page as to any misgivings you may have regarding the need for any unbiased number code that you might feel needs to be changed! Andrew H. Gray 10:22, 29 October 2015 (UTC)Andrew

Krieg

A PGM *krīgaz as added by @Leasnam would not produce a southern/MHG /kriəg/, nor an Old High German chrēg that Duden mentions, nor a modern northern /kriːg/. But I don't remember where I got *krē²gaz and whether that source was trustworthy. Korn [kʰʊ̃ːæ̯̃n] (talk) 13:11, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Dutch does have ī though: krijgen. —CodeCat 13:16, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

A loanword from Low German, perhaps? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:37, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

The only Proto-Germanic forms I've found mentioned or hinted at so far are:

• 1979, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur (edited by Helmut de Boor, Ingeborg Schröbler), page 20:

  [...] Lüdtke (1957, 171) notes that OHG ia often corresponds to ī in the more northerly dialects: he compares Goth. skeirs, OE scīr, OS skīr ›clear‹ with OHG skēri, skiaro, OE wīr with OHG wiara ›(gold) wire‹, and Dutch krijg ›war‹ < *krīg with OHG chrēg ›obstinance‹, NHG Krieg ›war‹. Thus ē₂ is apparently primarily a southern development of _ēXi, while ī is dominant in the North. This accords perfectly with the fact that Xi only occasionally appears as e in the North, while in Old High German, e is more common than i before low vowels (see Connolly 1977, s 51).

and

• Edgar Charles Polomé, Diachronic stratification of the Germanic vocabulary, in Methodology in Transition:

  The terms of the Frankish administrative nomenclature do not spread over the whole Germanic territory, [...]. This does not apply to words like Old Franconian *werra 'war' [...] which spread far and wide into the western Romance languages [...] whereas the same concept is expressed by new coinages elsewhere in Germanic: [...] *krē₂g- (OHG krieg) — originally 'obduracy, stubbornness, stress, strain'.

- -sche (discuss) 14:48, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

What's _ēXi? Korn [kʰʊ̃ːæ̯̃n] (talk) 13:17, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

The -ī- in Dutch krijgen is not from Low German. There are two forms of this word in continental West Germanic: one with -ī- and one with -ia-. In Central Franconian, Ripuarian has forms going back to -ī-, while Moselle Franconian has forms going back to -ie-. Kolmiel (talk) 22:40, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Rheme, rhematic

Would someone knowledgeable please create the etymologies for rheme and rhematic? They appear to be related to ῥῆμα (see "Talk:rheme"), and may be modelled upon theme and thematic: see the 2007 quotation in rhematic. Smuconlaw (talk) 18:43, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Done. They're from two full-fledged Ancient Greek words, though the meanings are different. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:00, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! Smuconlaw (talk) 19:05, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

iron

I tried to ask this on another discussion forum but deriving it as is right now is a piece of trouble.

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/282139/etymology-of-iron-semantic-change

Right now Wiktionary derives it from *h₁ésh₂r̥.

OED suggests either *h₁ésh₂r̥, *ish₂ros, or *áyos; but it states all of them pose unexplained phonological problems, and that some people resolve it as by calling it a non-IE borrowing.

Etymonline supports *ish₂ros.

Hillcrest98 (talk) 16:42, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Polish loch

I was under the impression that German Loch came from PGmc *luką, but what is currently there seems very plausible. Is there a different word Loch in German that I am missing, or is this the same one meaning "hole, cavity"? Leasnam (talk) 19:23, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't think it's plausible at all. The semantics "site, situation, camp" > "hole" are not obvious, nor is the sound change g > h in High German. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:13, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

That's what I was thinking, the modern outcome of *lōgą is Lug, but I wanted to make sure there wasn't a different word. I'll fix it. Leasnam (talk) 00:45, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

All dialects of Central German pronounce word-final g as [x]. And so do even the Upper German ones of northern Bavaria. So phonetically it does indeed make perfect sense. -- But since phonetics isn't everything, you two are probably right to derive it from Loch. Kolmiel (talk) 22:55, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

한글, 조선글 - hangeul

Native Korean sources say that the first part is Sino-Korean - 韓 for the South Korean 한글 (han'geul) and 朝鮮 for the North Korean form 조선글 (joseon'geul) but the 글 part is a native Korean word. So, both terms are a blend. Some users claim that 글 is now written out using a hanja character 㐎 (specifically designed for this purpose?). I don't see any reliable sources confirming that claim. Wikipedia's Hangul now uses made up 韓㐎 and 朝鮮㐎, which are only used, well in Wikipedia. Total Google hits for "韓㐎" is 236, no Google books hits at all, except for Wikipedia. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 21:25, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

It has since been deleted by Atitarev. Hillcrest98 (talk) 14:01, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

masturbor

This page gives manus + stupro, while the page masturbate gives manus + turbo. --kc_kennylau (talk) 16:12, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Both are labeled as speculation, so they're not mutually exclusive. I don't have any decent references on Latin etymology, but, semantically, the stupro etymology looks much better, and the metathesis VprV -> VrpV with assimilation of voicing seems plausible. There's also turpo to throw into the mix- if nothing else, the semantic parallels with stupro suggest there's more here than meets the eye. Chuck Entz (talk) 17:02, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Etymology of Hungarian tó

@Martinus Poeta Juvenis and anyone else who knows their way around Hungarian etymology:  (U+F062) is not a valid Unicode character (I think it's in the user-defined range). What letter is it supposed to represent? It was added in this edit. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:29, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

dépriver

The Old French form is identical but for the accent. Was this really borrowed from English rather than inherited? - -sche (discuss) 06:21, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

CNRTL http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/d%C3%A9priver doesn't even list this as a French word Leasnam (talk) 14:41, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Cognates of hall and Saal (German)/salle (French)

I was looking at etymologies of English hall and German Saal (“large room”), thinking that they may be cognates. They seem to have diverging Proto-Indo-European roots: hall traces to *ḱel- (“to hide, conceal”) whereas Saal goes back to *sel- (“human settlement, village, dwelling”) (see also salle, which lists Saal as a cognate although the page for Saal doesn't list salle - maybe it should).

A curiosity to me is that Sanskrit शाला (śā́lā, “house, mansion, hall”) is listed as a cognate of hall and not Saal, whereas its meaning seems closer to Proto-Indo-European *sel- (“human settlement, village, dwelling”) than to Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- (“to hide, conceal”). Is this correct? If so, how do we know? A.tikuisis (talk) 18:40, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Languages undergo changes following certain rules, like one sound always changes into another. It's not predictable what the rules are, but by comparing words you think are related, you can find out. In the case of Sanskrit, there is a rule that a Proto-Indo-European *ḱ (not *k) becomes ś, while *s stays as it is (at least at the start of a word). This means that the Sanskrit word, starting with ś, can't have its origin in a word that started with *s, it must be *ḱ. For the Germanic languages, both *k and *ḱ become *h at the beginning of a word, while *s again stays as it is. —CodeCat 18:58, 29 October 2015 (UTC)