Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2020/August

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← July 2020 · August 2020 · September 2020 → · (current)

---

喉嚨

@Justinrleung, Frigoris, Suzukaze-c What exactly does the second syllable, 嚨, mean, and what is its etymology? Is it onomatopoeic? It's not used in isolation and appears only in compounds. There is another compound 嚨胡 in ancient texts, which also means "throat" and the 胡 presumably cognate with 喉 and just a dialectal pronunciation of 喉 at the time. Interestingly, Hokkien has 嚨喉 instead of 喉嚨, and in some Hakka dialects it's 喉嗹 instead. So what is the nature of 嚨 of 喉嚨? RcAlex36 (talk) 14:36, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

@RcAlex36: I've no idea. As you wrote 嚨胡 was in the Houhanshu; Hui Dong in his commentary to the commentaries simply mentions that 胡 (OC *ɡaː) and 喉 (OC *ɡoː) sounds similar here: 後漢書補註 五行志一.

Looking for something about 嚨, the STEDT has *lwam, with a note "... [t]his etymon, which never occurs as an initial syllable in a compound", in proto-Tibeto-Burman (with Achang (阿昌語) khɔm⁵⁵ lɔm³⁵, which to me sounds a bit like a cognate to 喉嚨, possibly borrowed from Sinitic or vice versa). There's also this page in STEDT with a caveat emptor preface, that lists (at the very end of page) Myanmar khroŋ, Yi ʔ-kroŋ² etc, which sounds suspiciously like the reconstruction of 籠 (OC *roːŋ, *roːŋʔ, *roŋ) (B-S reconstruction /*k.rˤoŋ/). But I don't know what to make of these.

Also the STEDT writes about "the frequently noted tendency of words meaning NECK / THROAT to have velar initials". If we may add, as pure fantasy, "followed by a lateral consonant", as in PGmc *kelǭ and comparandum words there, Ancient Greek γλωσσίς (glōssís), Latin gula, Arabic حلقوم (ḥulqūm), etc., and also 嚨? --Frigoris (talk) 19:48, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

@Frigoris: Thanks for your detailed reply! RcAlex36 (talk) 03:09, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

give up the ghost

Since German den Geist aufgeben, Swedish ge upp andan, Dutch de geest geven, Icelandic gefa upp öndina, Afrikaans die gees gee, French rendre l’âme, Italian rendere l'anima and Spanish entregar el alma are all relatively close parallels to the English, I wonder whether they are all calqued from a common source. Is there perhaps a Latin phrase that corresponds to this? The Dutch idiom seems to have often been used to render Biblical Hebrew גוע, so it does not look like a calque from Hebrew. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 16:39, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

@Lingo Bingo Dingo: This is very interesting. For Mark 15:37 I can find in the Tyndale bible "and gave vp the gooste". In Greek bibles it reads ἐκπνέω (ekpnéō), and the Vulgate Latin reads exspīrō, both meaning "expire = breathe out" and formed by the ex- prefix with a verb that means "to breathe". The Old English glosses translate that (idiomatically) to forþfēran, literally "go forward", figuratively "die". Wycliffe's Bible also had it as "diede" (= died). So probably the Wycliffe (late 14th century) and the Tyndale (16th century) could be used to roughly bracket the English phrase's dating.

It's interesting to read in the Wikipedia page Tyndale Bible that "When translating the New Testament, he referred to the third edition (1522) of Erasmus's Greek New Testament, often referred to as the Received Text. Tyndale also used Erasmus' Latin New Testament, as well as Luther's German version and the Vulgate. Scholars believe that Tyndale stayed away from using Wycliffe's Bible as a source because he did not want his English to reflect that which was used prior to the Renaissance." I've put up a link that points to the text with the mentioned versions. --Frigoris (talk) 13:15, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

@Frigoris Thank you, I am glad that you have found some concrete findings to discuss. The Latin and Greek terms exspīrō and ἐκπνέω seem like a close parallel to Hebrew גוע. As for the date of the English word, the English etymology gives Middle English and Old English examples (thanks @Leasnam) There is a similar Middle Dutch term: gaf den geest (not very clear context) and hevet den geest upgegeven (more similar to the English expression). The fact that it is also present in Spanish and Italian would suggest that it wasn't an innovation by Protestant translators either. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 17:03, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

It's used in translations of Medea (e.g. wikisource:Medea (Webster 1868): "at length the evil-fated man / ceased and gave up the ghost" and wikisource:Tragedies of Euripides (Way)/Medea: "at last refrained he, and gave up the ghost, / ill-starred") to render Euripides' "χρόνῳ δ’ ἀπέσβη καὶ μεθῆχ’ ὁ δύσμορος ψυχήν". It's a tolerably literal translation of the two Greek works I linked there, especially since using "ghost" to mean "soul" or "spirit" was formerly more common. I wouldn't expect Medea to have originated the expression, though; rather, its occurrence there suggests it might be found in other Greek works, potentially including religious ones. But given that aforementioned older use of "ghost" to mean "soul", I suspect it may have been independently come up with in multiple languages as a phrase that would have seemed literal/straightorward/SOP to a speaker who believed humans had souls that departed their bodies when they died. - -sche (discuss) 04:55, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Credit for "biology"

Who gets credit for the word biology or biologie? The weight of search results points to Lamarck coining French biologie in 1802. However, Trésor de la langue française informatisé[1] says "Empr. à l'all. Biologie, mot forgé en 1802 par le naturaliste G.R. Treviranus dans Biologie oder die Philosophie der lebenden Natur" ("Influenced by German Biologie, coined in 1802 by naturalist G.R. Treviranus in..."). Arguably French borrowed it from German. And the etymology given here for biology says it came from New Latin, not French or German. Any thoughts? Any sightings prior to 1802? Vox Sciurorum (talk) 19:59, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Depends on your demarcation. It is argued that the compositum was made independently by three, DWDS says, linking w:de:Roose, where the same is reported, more specificly in the "Grundzüge" (1797).

They all wrote, thought and perhaps too spoke Latin. The word had likely not entered general German--it is not in Grimm's DWB (1854-1863). The word and word-form is recognizable as loan, in German at least, I'd say. So the word was from New Latin, and the intermediary doesn't matter much. At least that's the easier stance. Therefore, independent coinage after as DWDS implies after a then current pattern doesn't even come into question, unless you want to credit all three, four, and who knows how many more. 109.41.3.25 06:49, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

chit-chat

Entomology: Let me try a guess... Perhaps it comes from adding 'chat' (talk, talking) to 'chit' (child, babe). IE: babies or babes conversing.

You might want to double-check the meaning of entomology. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:24, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

I've updated the etymology at chit-chat. Leasnam (talk) 02:17, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

onkikokka

The rfe-tag explanation probably speeks for itself. I couldn't find any occurence of the independent lemma "kokka" in Ingrian, but perhaps I didn't look hard enough. Thadh (talk) 20:13, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

kokka is 'hook', cognate to Fi. kokka (found all across Finnic, meaning varyingly 'hook', 'spike', 'peak', 'penis' etc.) but probably only at most indirectly related to either kuokka or koukku. --Tropylium (talk) 01:03, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Huh, neat. Didn't know that. Thanks! Although, on a side note, I find it strange that koukku (“hook”), that may be related to kuokka (“hoe”), not be related to kokka (“bow”), which comes from *kokka (“hook”). Would that be something that could be found out? Perhaps that would be proof of a germanic borrowing. Thadh (talk) 05:46, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

They might well be a bunch of different Germanic borrowings from the lineage of *hōkaz (I will readily buy this for *kokka and *kookka), but with no relationship to each other within Finnic at least; i.e. onkikokka can't be directly cognate to ongenkoukku. Some calquing could be involved, but by no necessity just within Finnic, terms to the effect of fishing hook are easily available in loads of languages. --Tropylium (talk) 17:01, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I see. Thanks a lot! Thadh (talk) 19:08, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

campiō

The Latin and Proto-West Germanic are listed as borrowing from the other. Ultimateria (talk) 04:44, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Not quite. The Latin verb is borrowed from the Germanic verb, which is a derivative of the Germanic noun, which is borrowed from the Latin noun. —Mahāgaja · talk 06:55, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I realize now the above comment isn't an answer to your point. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:41, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I've corrected the etymology at *kampijō. Leasnam (talk) 03:10, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

屋企

@Justinrleung, Frigoris, Suzukaze-c Since Hakka has 屋下 (vug5 ka1) for "home", wouldn't it be reasonable to assume Cantonese 屋企 (uk1 kei5-2) and the Hakka word are related? Interestingly, Yangjiang, Maoming and Gaozhou have 屋己 (with the second syllable having an unaspirated k-) instead of 屋企. Is the second syllable of 屋企 and 屋下 in Cantonese and Hakka just 下 from an earlier stratum? RcAlex36 (talk) 08:11, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

@RcAlex36: It's possible, but unclear to me. 企 (or 徛) is reasonable given a home is where one stands (or lives). I'm not sure why it's unaspirated in the western varieties. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 21:24, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: The kʰ- in 下 in Hakka may be a result of progressive assimilation (I did not realize until today). If similarly "企" and "己" in Cantonese are similarly results of progressive assimilation, the second syllable will have little to do with 企/徛 ("to stand"). Also, the tone change in the second syllable (if there is indeed a tone change) obscures its origin. RcAlex36 (talk) 12:50, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

@RcAlex36: /kʰ/ in 下 in Hakka is definitely progressive assimilation. It seems like I was probably wrong in assuming 企/徛 as the etymological character. If we look at Taishanese, 企 has the tone 55, which is not a changed tone. Unless Taishanese got this word by borrowing from other Cantonese varieties, this is a good indication of its tone being 陰上 rather than being a changed tone. Perhaps it's 起 - but this still doesn't explain why it's unaspirated in western varieties. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 18:10, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: If it's indeed 起, we can speculate that the change from 屋下 to 屋起 is due to taboo reasons (saw this theory on the Internet). RcAlex36 (talk) 10:23, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

@RcAlex36: Hmm, interesting, but it seems too speculative :) — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 10:24, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

anslaight

So, what's the deal with this?

We say that this derives Middle Dutch aenslag, yet we also say in onslaught’s entry that onslaught originated as an alteration of anslaight.

So... did native English speakers convert the parts of the clearly Dutch-originated word, some time after having borrowed it, into more or less its corresponding English cognates? Something akin what was (at least) attempted when Dutch oproer and Dutch verloren hoop were borrowed into English (as "uproar" and "forlorn hope" respectively)?

Or have onslaught and anslaight coexisted from the time of first borrowing of the Dutch word, one being something akin to a calque, whereas the other was merely a borrowing? Tharthan (talk) 06:00, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Rhyminreason

Could onslaught be archaic? tl;dr: I suppose it meant literally an incursion.

• anschlagen in German might as well be what Luther did with his thesis (struck it on to the door someplace), so that's an odd doublet. Whereas Anschlacht(?) does not exist as far as I can tell. We don't list either one as loan from Dutch. So I suppose Old Saxon would be another avenue to persue, but our coverage of slay and slaughter down the line leaves me uncertain, either way. Meanwhile, Anschlag might rather describe an assassination or other attack carried out in secret.
• Instead, compare perhaps slot (in either of the listed entries), which must be a disingenuous analogy as I was beforehand trying to compare *krewh₂- (“blood outside the body (as of a wound)”) which took various developments, e.g. Latin crudelis (“cruel”)), yet not crevice--from a different root, we say--and then Ger. krepieren (“to die in a cruel manner”) which is uncertain, I guess, possibly affirming a semantic relation to the other root if that can be confirmed. So it clicked for me like a slotmachine--jackpot--. I'm sorry, puns don't work in translation; I'm saying, I was surprised by the variety under slot, as I was chiefly thinking of cleavage, so to speak.
• Then also here, I guess: slit, Ger. Schlitz. Therefore see perhaps Schlitzer (“(Jack the) ripper”), also Schlucht (“cliff, canyon”) (uncertain, q.v.), formally matching schluchzen (“to cry, weep”)) (perhaps akin schlucken (“to swallow, gulp”), a continental West-Germanic isogloss?);
• See above Schlucht (viz schluft, cp. cliff), as well as Schacht (“shaft”), for a weird sound correspondance (perhaps under influence of Schachtel, Kasten, Kiste, viz case, casing). Compare perhaps Ger. schleifen "to raze to the ground (of castles)", "neuer Anschliff" (remodelling).

In between these, I think one can gleam the suggested conclusion:

• see also anschleichen ("to creep in, sneak on to", quite opposite to (an)Stürmen, einfallen, onslaught, etc..

It must be a rather old lexem, for the semantic field of tribal raiding to make sense (cp. raid from Berber?)--which was oh so important for cattle raiding, bride stealing Indo Europeans--and for them to deviate so far.

Alas, I cannot clear up the immediate philological question of attestation that could prove a calqued loan. I can only give hints. I'm saying, you have to be able to rule out that Dutch and English didn't get it from a common source. That might be myopic.

Meanwhile, I've gone for further comparisons, eg. anklagen "to wail; to sue", seeking a metaphoric sense in onslaught, or itself metaphoric Speerspitze "precursor, onslaught", that's all going a bit too far. 109.41.3.158 06:10, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

@Lambiam, Leasnam: Do you have any thoughts on this? I'm not exactly sure what basis the IP-identified contributor has for suggesting that it could possibly be inherited. I also find their notion that raid comes from Berber to be completely absurd. Tharthan (talk) 06:53, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

I would recommend not looking for a basis. This would appear to be Rhyminreason (talk • contribs • global account info • deleted contribs • nuke • abuse filter log • page moves • block • block log • active blocks), blocked for flooding this space with oceans of stream-of-consciousness verbiage notable for having neither rhyme nor reason, let alone a point. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:29, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Rhyminreason

You must have been aware, so I took your quiet as consent. Pressumably, I had constrained myself. If I can't anymore, then perhaps there was no need for restraint, on the off-chance that I am actually correct, *gasp*.

I meant that razzia, not raid, is down for Berber, or Arabic, anyway the Spanish peninsula (1). Looks like I made a mistake. The confusion is because I don't actually believe these were unrelated. Hence the added question-mark?

Reading my questions as statements of fact is disingenious. As I try to answer myself, if mihgt loose the topical question out of sight, while I'm barely equipped to begin with it. I think the phonetic correspondance was very much in question, with all that this involves. I think the pedantic response is unwarrented, you could just shoot me an e-mail. 109.41.0.149 15:45, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Both words have a final ‹t› that is hard to explain unless they have a common origin. One possible explanation I have looked at is that this was retained from a continental source, such as a Middle Dutch or early modern Dutch noun aenslacht as a variant of aenslag/aenslach. (The spelling aenslacht is reported for a Middle Dutch term, which however is apparently a univerbated adverbial phrase^[2] or adjective.^[3]) Almost all GBS hits are scannos or copies of scannos (e.g. of “aenslach/”, in which the solidus is read as a letter^[4]), but this one in Een schone ende ghenoechelijcke historie van Ioncker Ian and this one in an 18th-century edition of the Apology of William of Orange may be real; hard to tell. (Those reported for Cort verhael en̄ rechte verclaringe vande Entreprinſe are copied scannos; a facsimile edition has “Aenslach” in that sentence.)
Another explanation (if I may call it that) for the final ‹t› being shared is that anslaight and onslaught are variant spellings of the same word – whose orthography, if it first gained currency in oral form, must have been uncertain.  --Lambiam 11:38, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

If calquing is still on the table, cp. insult, assault. 109.41.0.149 16:07, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

@Lambiam Both mean "attack, assault", and the one from the Apology at least seems as real as can be (with my draft translation):

"ende na dat de voorschreven Coninck (de welcke meynde, alsoo wy een van de gecommitteerde waren tot de Vrede-handelinghe, ende dewijle dat ons soo groote saken vertrouwt ende ghecommuniceert waren, dat wy insghelijcks oock van desen aenslacht souden wetenschap draghen) ons verclaert hadde de hooft-somme van den raedt ende voornemen des Conincks van Spaegnien, metsgaders des Hertoghen van Alve;"
and after the aforementioned King [Henry IV of France] (who supposed, as were one of those committed to the peace negotiation and because such great matters were entrusted and communicated to us, that we alike would carry knowledge of this attack [Bartholomew's Night]) had explained to us the "main sum" [summary? outline?] of the view/plan and intention/resolution/opinion the of the King of Spain, and of the Duke of Alva as well [it is not clear to me whether this asserts foreknowlege of the massacre by the king or the duke, or only asserts their reaction] ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 09:18, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

My reservation is that the ‹t› may have been added erroneously while copying the text, like apparently happened in this document. There is also an aenslacht (next to a ‹t›-less aenslach) here. But wouldn’t aenslacht (like slacht, aandacht, (op)dracht and gracht) have been feminine before the gender unification? The forms van desen aenslacht and van den aenslacht require aenslacht to be masculine. I do not know the relationship between the 1581 text and the 1580 text, but I see now that the latter has several occurrences of aenslaghen and at least one of aenslach.  --Lambiam 12:26, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

It would, but the masculine and feminine genders would have been already unified in the Northern spoken language, and the push to distinguish masculine and feminine in the written language only began in earnest in the seventeenth century. Even then, use of the 'wrong' declension was hardly unseen either. I think the other argument, that there are multiple occurrences of aenslach and aenslaghen, is much stronger. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 17:05, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

syncytiotrophoblast

RFV of the etymology.

"syncytio-" as a prefix doesn't look right. This says it should be syncytium + trophoblast, but I don't know what is the right etymology template for that. Kritixilithos (talk) 16:40, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

{{affix|en|syncytium|-o-|trophoblast}} => syncytium +‎ -o- +‎ trophoblast gives the intended result. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 18:31, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! Edited into the entry, have a good day. Kritixilithos (talk) 10:59, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

章魚 (Chinese)

What is the etymology? What is 章 (zhāng) in 章魚／章鱼 (zhāngyú, “octopus”)? --Frigoris (talk) 19:31, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

octopus lists several translations. The first, eight claw fish, appears quite transparent, i.e. 八爪魚, 八爪鱼 (baat3 zaau2 jyu4). This claw, 爪 lists several synonyms, from which 掌 stands out as particularly similar in form and shape to 章, although the similarity might be deceptive. The difference to "seal; stamp; section" might be complete coincedence, or due to the ink and suction cups--coinkidink I say; cp. in the same sense calamari, as well as the translation 烏賊 (cuttlefish was discussed here before).

I also tried compare "elephant", e.g. xiang, but am far out my depths. 109.41.0.149 08:16, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

• As far as I can tell, 鱆／𫠒 (zhāng) is just an old word for "octopus". The rest is just the usual process of compounding to generate a disyllabic word, followed by lazily leaving off the fish radical on the first character, which was presumably rare outside that compound anyway and perfectly homophonous. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:10, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge: the problem is of course the derivation of 鱆／𫠒 (zhāng). How old? From which source/substrate? etc. --Frigoris (talk) 12:57, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

The answer here seems to suggest that 章 means "pattern", referring to the pattern of the suckers. The entry here seems to suggest that 章 instead means "to hide/cover", referring to the fact that it releases ink to escape. Neither seem to have sources to back this up though. Kalexchu (talk) 10:51, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

prophet

I'd like a citation on the Old English "propheta" mentioned in the etymology section. I only looked very briefly, but I couldn't find an instance of it. Tharthan (talk) 07:50, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Not listed in any of Bosworth-Toller, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, or Vocabularium Anglo-saxonicum. The Online Etymology Dictionary states: “The Latin word is glossed in Old English by witga”;^[5] (which we list in the forms wītiga, wītega as alternative forms – perhaps a misnomer here – of wita). This strongly suggests that prophet has no Old English cognate.  --Lambiam 15:59, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

As I suspected. This may be another instance of what we saw back with rosemary's etymology section some time ago.

@Leasnam: Do you know of any instance of an Old English "propheta"? Tharthan (talk) 20:36, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

I haven't been able to track down an OE propheta, no... Leasnam (talk) 04:43, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

All OE Bible manuscripts I've found use the wita form attested by Lambiam. For instance, Luke 2:36 refers to the prophetess Anna as ƿiteȝystre. And in the very first OE manuscript of Psalms, Latin 'profeta' is still translated as 'witga'. (see verse 9) NativeNames (talk) 17:57, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Spanish cártel from English??

Can this really be true?Jonteemil (talk) 21:58, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Of course it is. The entry even references a dictionary (the DRAE) which confirms it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:07, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

That's so unexpected.Jonteemil (talk) 22:25, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Turkic käväl

@Victar – The etymology section of caballus asks us to compare possibly Turkic käväl (at) (“swift (horse)”), referencing Beekes. I do not recognize käväl as being cognate to any Turkic term I know. (The Turkish term kaval exists but is a noun, referring to a shepherd’s flute, made of reed.) Beekes offers no clue as to the supposed meaning of käväl, said to be an epithet of at, which means “horse”. The question is now, is there a basis for the gloss “swift”?  --Lambiam 13:23, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

See the 11th century Karakhanid: kevel at = al-farasuʾl-rāyiʿuʾl-cawād (“a well-bred fast horse”). --{{victar|talk}} 22:31, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Finnic/pata

Could this be linked to Proto-Germanic *puttaz? Or perhaps some Pre-Germanic stem? I am not an expert in Proto-Finnic vowel change, but the two terms seem quite alike. Thadh (talk) 14:48, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

*pata at least is solidly Proto-Uralic. There has been a suggestion that *puttaz could be a loan from **puotā which would be expected as the early Sami reflex of the PU word, but there are no actual known Samic reflexes, leaving this entirely speculative. If it were a loanword in Germanic, to me it really looks more like a w:Nordwestblock cognate of *pod-o- (whence inherited PG *fatą plus Lith. puodas). This NWIE word has moreover sometimes been proposed as any of a deep Indo-Uralic cognate of *pata / an IE loan in PU / a Uralic loan in NWIE, which would then allow putting together a very indirect connection.

Kroonen in {{R:gem:EDPG}} s.v. *fata- moreover seems to think all of this is a red herring: he mentions a theory that the Germanic pot words are not even from PG but loans from Vulgar Latin *pottus (rather than vice versa) which would be a variant of pōtus. --Tropylium (talk) 16:45, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps we should reference the possibility of this relationship on either or both of the pages *pata and/or *fatą. Would you take the honour or should I do it? Thadh (talk) 19:08, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

root (out, up, away) weeds, prejudices, etc

The sense "take root" was present under booth ety 1 (*wrōts (“root”)) and ety 2 (*wrōtaną (“to dig out”)); I tentatively consolidated it under ety 1. I am now curious which of the two etymology sections the sense "pull up by the roots" should go under, as in the various citations at Citations:root#to_pull_up_by_the_roots and the citation "I will go root away the noisome weeds" which is currently under ety 2 (as part of a sense that also currently covers "the Lord rooted them out of their land […] and cast them into another land"). - -sche (discuss) 18:49, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

scrape, shrive

Are these technically doublets, or was (or were) even the Proto-Indo-European root (or roots) only related, not the same? If so, ought we to mention that in the etymology section? Or is the doublet status largely nullified due to the intense distance between the words, with the only shared etymon (potentially) being the Proto-Indo-European root? Tharthan (talk) 20:35, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

It isn't 100% certain that they're even from the same PIE root, so I wouldn't bother mentioning any potential relationship between them. —Mahāgaja · talk 18:05, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

truckle

@Leasnam, what's the source of Etymology 2? Seems like it's just borrowed from LG. --{{victar|talk}} 17:44, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

@Victar it's from here [[6]]. Look at truckle under the verb II. intrans. Leasnam (talk) 23:26, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Old French rogre (“aggressive”) < Old Norse hrókr (“excess”)

I can't find any evidence of the Norse word meaning "excess" or "exuberance," other than the source cited in this entry (TFLI). The two definitions given for hrókr are "rook (crow)" and "rook (chess)." Is it possibly tied to one of those meanings, or is there a third definition? DJ K-Çel (talk) 08:25, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

It's in the French resource ([[7]]). The Old Norse should be hrokr with a short vowel, and it means "heaped measure", related to hroki (“insolence, overbearing manners, arrogance”). I've updated the etymology. Leasnam (talk) 00:14, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

@Leasnam: thanks man! That's very helpful. DJ K-Çel (talk) 04:15, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

läätä

Seems strange that I couldn't find any other Finnic cognates for such a basic verb. Thadh (talk) 11:12, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

SSA gives Finnish läkättää as cognate, which is described as an onomatopoeic-descriptive verb meaning "to chatter, blabber, blather". — surjection ⟨??⟩ 22:18, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

But then is it Proto-Finnic onomatopoeia or parallel onomatopoeia? Thadh (talk) 07:31, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

The (somewhat abridged, I didn't include more than one word for each language) list of cognates given as Finnish läkättää, Ingrian läätä, Karelian läklätteä?, Veps läkätän (1p sg), Votic läkinä (noun), also comparing with Finnish lä­kis­tä and läkähtyä. I don't feel qualified enough to say for sure the extent which these go back to PF. — surjection ⟨??⟩ 10:42, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

@Rua, Tropylium, Maas555 as probably the most active editors of PF, what are your thoughts? Thadh (talk) 10:58, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

This cluster seems hard to work out in detail, but I'd wager on onomatopoetic √läk-. Phonologically they cannot go back to a single proto-form: Ingrian would suggest a stem *läkä-, but Finnish and Veps instead *läkkä- and Karelian *läklä-, with no way to derive these from each other by "normal" morphology. Worth noting is that the word for 'to speak' was to some extent used as a shibboleth or group identity marker between the various Finnic ethnic groups of Ingria (contrast Votic pajattaa, Estonian rääkima, Ingrian Finnish mostly haastaa), so it's conceivable that during the development of this situation, in Ingrian some secondary onomatopoetic verb was elevated as the main term for 'to speak'. --Tropylium (talk) 16:13, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

How do you propose on dealing with this entrywise? Thadh (talk) 19:08, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Spanish metiche and Georgian მეტიჩარა. Possible cognates or just a coincidence.

I want to know if there's any known etymology that would connect these two. I don't want to jump to conclusions and say they are exactly cognates, because cases like Mbabaram 'dog' and English 'dog' exist. It could be that Georgian at some point added the suffix -არ-ა (-ar-a), which is not so uncommon to do. Georgian has a lot of suffixes involving -r- and, especially, the vowel a. Though the difference is that metiche seems to be an adjective, while the Georgian one is most definitely a noun. I want to know your thoughts on this. Solarkoid (talk) 13:09, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

The Spanish is apparently from meter. Don't know the origin of the Georgian, but according to dictionaries it means ‘upstart’, ‘parvenu’, ‘выскочка’, not ‘busybody’. --Vahag (talk) 17:40, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, I've looked up the etymology for metiche in Spanish and it says it comes from Nahuatl. If it comes from meter as you say then there's a chance that they may be cognates, but if it's Nahuatl that makes it harder to believe. Anyhow, Georgian word is definitely not parvenu. If we look at the Wiktionary definition, it lists 1 of them. Second is not listed but can be found on this page: http://www.nplg.gov.ge/saskolo/index.php?a=term&d=45&t=4506 We if translate it: "არამკითხე მოამბე: - მეტიჩარა, a person who by their own volition meddles in other people's affairs" Which is most definitely close to that of 'metiche'. Solarkoid (talk) 21:15, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

The RAE entry here indicates that it's used primarily in Central America, FWIW. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:40, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Upon further poking, I see also synonym metido (← meter), and sites like this one (in Spanish) suggesting that the Nahua portion might be the suffix -i(n)che. Perhaps this is a bilingual coinage? Alternatively, might this be metido combined with a derivation of Latin suffix -itia? French has -iche, is there any cognate in Spanish? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:00, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Etymology of second definition of towhead

Towhead refers to persons but also islands. What does the ‘tow’ in ‘towhead’ mean when we refer to an island? See Talk:tow Geographyinitiative (talk) 12:02, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Towhead in the Jackson River at Hidden Valley

The use of the term in this sense for geographic features seems to be largely confined to the Mississippi River. Perhaps Mark Twain, or whoever coined this, was struck by the similarity of the unkempt, often yellowish vegetation, with the coif of a towheaded person.  --Lambiam 15:39, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

More likely it's due to areas of sand on the edges of the island either exposed by the current or deposited by it. Since the effect of the current is strongest on the upstream tip, the sand is more likely to be there. The yellowish sand would contrast with the greenery on the rest of the island. By the way: Mark Twain was a Mississippi riverboat captain before he was a writer. He used a lot of existing but poorly-attested local river-related terminology- I don't think he made any of it up himself. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:11, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

baaladí

This seems to me as a borrowing from Portuguese balde, but I don't see how that is topographically or historically possible. The other descendants don't seem to be particularly close to Afar-speaking territory either... Thadh (talk) 09:08, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

The Portuguese colonial campaigns were all over the place; see e.g. Ethiopian–Adal war, where they fought an ally of the Ottoman Empire. There were also Portuguese explorers and missionaries who could have introduced the term, such as Afonso de Paiva and António Fernandes. See also this webpage about the documentary The Oranges of Prester John. Next to the possibility of being a direct loan, it may also have been an indirect borrowing from, e.g., Baharna Arabic; for centuries Mogadishu and other Somalian ports were protectorates of the Omani Sultanate.  --Lambiam 11:18, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

The Omanis didn't speak Baharna Arabic, and they didn't leave any lexical traces whatsoever in Somali as far as I have read. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:13, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Also, the translations for our entry bucket list Amharic ባልዲ (baldi), which seems even more obviously a descendant.  --Lambiam 12:03, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

It's definitely ultimately from Portuguese by way of an Ethiosemitic language. I've added the etymology accordingly. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:13, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you both! Thadh (talk) 20:22, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

khalasi et al

I find these words interesting but the source language is unclear. Is it Arabic, Persian or something else?

Senses in various languages are a mixture of "sailor/seaman"; "a dock worker"; "person of a mixed race". Some entries are yet to be created and senses clarified/added.

Cognates/descendants from one source to be sorted:

• Arabic خِلَاسِيّ (ḵilāsiyy)
• Burmese ခလာသီ (hka.lasi, “sailor”)
• English khalasi (“an Indian worker at a port or dockyard...”)
• Indonesian kêlasi (“sailor”)
• Lao ກະລາສີ (ka lā sī, “sailor”)
• Malay kĕlasi (“sailor”)
• Persian خلاصی (xalâsi)
• Thai กะลาสี (gà-laa-sǐi, “sailor”)

Calling people who edited relevant entries or might know something: @Fay Freak, Octahedron80, Vahagn Petrosyan, Xbypass, Equinox. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:11, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Also pinging @Hintha, Mahagaja, ZxxZxxZ for Burmese/Persian terms. MED gives Burmese term as derived from Arabic, I'm not sure it's right. Can't find anything on the Persian word.--Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 02:13, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Official Thai dictionary said it is from Malay (kelasi there it is) and ultimately from Persian (I cannot spell it out).

กะลาสี
(๑) น. ลูกเรือ. (ม. กะลาสิ จากคำอิหร่าน ขะลาสิ).
(๒) ว. อย่างเครื่องแต่งกายกะลาสีสมัยโบราณหรือพลทหารเรือปัจจุบัน เช่น หมวกกะลาสี เงื่อนกะลาสี คอปกเสื้อกะลาสี. (ม. กะลาสิ จากคำอิหร่าน ขะลาสิ). 

In this entry, "Iranian word" refers to Persian. I do not know if above "خلاصی" is spelled correct? Or is it Old Persian? -Octahedron80 (talk) 03:12, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

@Octahedron80: Thanks. Yes, خلاصی (xalâsi) should be the right Persian spelling (even if it's dated or obsolete), IMO. We have an Indonesian entry kelasi. Malaysian spelling is the same. "kêlasi" (ID) and kĕlasi (MS) spellings with diacritics are just to indicate the pronunciation (not used in texts). --03:34, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

@Octahedron80: The Malay spelling can be looked up in http://sealang.net/malay/dictionary.htm Just enter "kelasi" in the "Malay" text field and click "Go!". --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 03:37, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Of course, there is also a Hindi/Urdu descendant ख़लासी (xalāsī, “a sailor, crew member. 2. tent-pitcher, porter”) or its nuqtaless form खलासी (khalāsī). The Urdu spelling is the same as Persian: خلاصی (xalāsī). @AryamanA. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 03:45, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

So we derive the English from this Hindi, and Indonesian kelasi from Persian خلاصی (xalâsi) and not Arabic خِلَاسِيّ (ḵilāsiyy). It is not discernible what Arabic خِلَاسِيّ (ḵilāsiyy) would have to do with these words as it means a mixed-race animal (also human and mushroom); I have checked its uses and there appears no indication of it meaning “sailor”. Who would call sailors after their ancestry? خَلَاص (ḵalāṣ) has several meanings from which it may be. Fay Freak (talk) 04:02, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

@Fay Freak: The inheritance tree is currently a mess, admittedly, so are a few definitions. That's why the topic here. You may be right and Arabic has nothing to do with this. It's mentioned in the Burmese Sealang dictionary (probably wrongly, there are much closer cognates) and the etymology of khalasi (not by me), though. I only changed a bit of formatting and transliteration (you sometimes forget to check the edit history, as I noticed :) --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 04:10, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

@Fay Freak: Also, I forgot - https://www.almaany.com/en/dict/ar-en/خلاسي/ has it, defines as "mulatto". Not sure if it helps but is close to what khalasi is described as. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 04:14, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

• @Atitarev: I believe I have figured it out, after checking Hobson-Jobson and perusing my Persian dictionary to follow up on their hunch. The Persian خلاصی (xalâsi) originally meant "deliverance" and has an obvious Arabic etymology, but was conflated with خلاشی (xalâši, “sailor”), leading to all the Indian and Southeast Asian descendants of this form. The original word has a straightforward native Persian etymology, from خلاشه (xalâša, “rudder”). I agree with Fay that the Arabic you listed is likely unrelated. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:16, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge: I think your theory is good. I found the words in John Richardson's dictionary. (BTW, I would transliterate خلاشه (xalâše), if we follow modern Iranian as default.) What is Hobson-Jobson and is it online? --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 04:37, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

See Hobson-Jobson. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:39, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge, Atitarev: Great work, will be adding the Hindi etymon. BTW, Hobson-Jobson is digitized and searchable at https://dsalsrv04.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/hobsonjobson/. —Aryaman^{A (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान)} 05:28, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge, AryamanA: Thank you. I'll fix some etymologies, will start the Burmese, where MED went wrong with Arabic. @AryamanA, are there any Hindustani descendants with "š", not "s" pronunciations? Perhaps South East Asian derived from Hindustani, not Persian but most are lacking "š", anyway, especially Malay/Indonesian. Does anyone know if Persian خلاصی (xalâsi) (with an "s") is valid for the sense "sailor"? --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:40, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I also think that the English term khalasi is most likely from Hindustani (just using one word for Hindi/Urdu). --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:43, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

@Atitarev: Entry made. Hindi appears to have evolved some new meanings of it, in regards to railroad workers, in modern times. I've found a quotation for one of them (as well as a 3-minute documentary, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDxB7O-bE0M). Curious if Southeast Asian etymons have anything similar. —Aryaman^{A (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान)} 05:54, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Hey guys. Sorry I'm on mobile. I've just created Persian خلاسی xalâsi "a person of mixed Black-White race", I think it is not semantically unrelated to "sailor" considering the demography of the Persian Gulf littoral. The etymologies in خلاشی xalâ$i and خلاصی xalâsi are not sourced. BTW, isn't English clashy also a borrowing and not an English corruption? It would indicate an (unattested?) alternative form for the Hindustani word [[خلاصی] xalâsi, i.e. *خلاشی *xalâ$i. --Z 20:18, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

@ZxxZxxZ: I have removed your rfv-etym's — all those serve to do is to start a discussion here, and the discussion already exists! For a source, see Hobson-Jobson. As for clashy, Anatoli mentioned that above to @AryamanA, but it seems he missed that question. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:42, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

@Atitarev, Metaknowedge: Oh whoops, my bad. There is a Marathi खलाशी (khalāśī) with lots of hits on Google Books as early as the 1800s. —Aryaman^{A (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान)} 21:59, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

But if everyone is that at the Persian Gulf littoral, nobody there would call a seaman that, as there is nothing distinctive in it. Otherwise nigger would also mean “seaman”, or similar. I think such a scenario of semantic development is unrealistic.

Form IV supposedly means (the hair) “became a mixture of black and white”, (herbage) “became a mixture of fresh and dry, or partly green and partly white” (apparently this form IV is obsolete, I cannot find web uses, but as the coordinate terms under mulatto show, the designations for race names tend to have rare or artificial etymologies). Maybe variant to خ ل ط (ḵ-l-ṭ), the normal root for mixing. {{R:xaa:ELA|II|page=426}} thinks about this root خ ل س (ḵ-l-s), which otherwise means “to steal away”, only cognates with Akkadian [script needed] (ḫalāšu, “to scrape off”), that the last radical is a “complément phonétique ou définisseur sémantique” of a bi-consonantic morpheme ḵ-l which basically means “to shake off, to remove” – visible in actually every Arabic root beginning with ḵ-l, خ ل ص (ḵ-l-ṣ) (“to be redeemed of”), خ ل ع (ḵ-l-ʕ) (“to pull off, to strip away”), خ ل ق (ḵ-l-q) (“creating” meaning to shake off like Adam Eva from his rib, or separating a work from one’s resources), خ ل و (ḵ-l-w) (basically meaning “to be free, devoid or secluded off”), خ ل ف (ḵ-l-f) (basically meaning “lagging behind”), خ ل خ ل (ḵ-l-ḵ-l), or خ ل ل (ḵ-l-l) itself –, so “to become a mixture of fresh and dry or green and white” is to be explained as from idea of losing freshness, having colour stolen away in chunks, so that in some places it is lost and in some retained, just like a pilferer would work. Fay Freak (talk) 22:05, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Video

RFV of the etymology.

مو#North Levantine Arabic

What's its etymology? Maybe of similar origin as مش? Kritixilithos (talk) 15:45, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I've added the etymology. فين أخاي (talk) 20:08, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Shouldn't the South Levantine and Tunisian entries at مش also be the same? Thadh (talk) 20:19, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

vecs, vacs

I am new to Baltic etymologies. My question is the following: is (Latgalian) vecs a derivative of vacs or are these two doublets? Thadh (talk) 20:03, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

explicate

RFV of the etymology.

This started out saying it was from Latin explicare, no doubt meaning the verb as a whole rather than the infinitive. Through a series of half-fixes, it now says "Borrowed from Latin explicāre, present active infinitive of explicō (“unfold, explain”)."

I suspect it's not directly from explicāre or explicō, but a back-formation from English explication. What does everyone else think? Chuck Entz (talk) 20:53, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Or perhaps, like so many verbs on -ate (castrate, inflate, masticate, ...), from the Latin past participle.  --Lambiam 21:09, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

大马哈鱼

大馬哈魚／大马哈鱼 (dàmǎhāyú) is a salmon native to Pacific Ocean. Literally, "big maha fish." What does the maha (马哈) in the middle mean and what is its origin? A Chinese friend thinks it is likely a transcription of a word from a non-Sinitic language of northeastern China. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 23:12, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

• Nanai /dao imaχa/. [8] 49.180.102.171 11:27, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Thanks. I'm told the initial 大 is sometimes dropped in speech, suggesting it has been reanalyzed as I described it, "big maha fish". Vox Sciurorum (talk) 22:17, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

viens, vienas, vīns et al.

The etymology differs in each entry:

• The Lithuanian vienas says PIE *éynos > PBSl *einas
• The Latvian viens says PIE *éynos > PBat *eynos
• The PIE *óynos says PIE *óyH-nos > PBSl *aiˀnas
• The Proto-Slavic *edinъ says PIE *(H)óy(H)nos > PBSl *edīˀnas.
• The Old Prussian ainan says PIE *HoyHnos > PBSl *(o)iHnos.

  -> _{although this etymology should be on the main entry, ains}

Of all these, only the Latvian entry is sourced. Could we resolve this to one etymology? Thadh (talk) 09:09, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

? is to "fire" as "h₁n̥gʷnís" is to "péh₂wr̥"

Hi,

per the usage note at the PIE entries linked in the subject line, the two

[...] are usually considered in semantic opposition. The first term is usually masculine and refers to fire as something animate and active (compare Agni, the most prominent Old Indic deity), whereas the second term is neuter and refers to fire as something inanimate and passive, i.e. as a substance.

Modern English gets "ignite" from the one, via Latin, and "fire" from the other, via Germanic. I'm looking for speculation, as wild as you like, as to what form the "semantic opposite" of "fire" might take, if, hypothetically, both of them had descended via Germanic instead. Some references connect "ingle" to the first root... via Celtic, obviously, and at best a minority view, but still grist for the mill, I reckon.

Thanks in advance for whatever you guys come up with,

- 2A02:560:42D5:E800:A88E:215:20D4:CD48 11:59, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

So you're asking to speculate what *h₁n̥gʷnís would have become if it had entered Proto-Germanic and thence into Old English and Modern English? I suppose the Proto-Germanic form would have been *unkwniz. That probably would have become Old English *ynċen, which in turn probably would have become English inchen or inch. —Mahāgaja · talk 13:03, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that is precisely what I was looking for. I tried tracking down parallel cases, which is to say, PIE roots that are phonetically similar to the one in question and that do have such descendents, but didn't really know how to go about that. Much appreciated!

- 2A02:560:42D5:E800:A88E:215:20D4:CD48 19:16, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Well, I'm not 100% sure about the development of the -nkwn- cluster, it's really just a guess. —Mahāgaja · talk 06:48, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

I think Kluge's law would have yielded something like Proto-Germanic *unkwiz, which going by *stunkwiz would also have yielded English *inch. --RichardW57 (talk) 13:27, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

paccuppana

What reason is there to believe that Pali paccuppanna goes back to a common ancestor of Sanskrit and Pali, or is even a calque of the Sanskrit word, as opposed to the Sanskrit word प्रत्युत्पन्न (pratyutpanna) being a calque of the Pali word or a Prakrit equivalent? I similarly doubt that Pali uppanna derives from Sanskrit उत्पन्न (utpanna) (likewise lacking an entry on Wiktionary), though I've not yet seen that being asserted on Wiktionary.

The etymology of Khmer បច្ចុប្បន្ន (paccobɑn) asserts that the Pali word derives from Sanskrit. --RichardW57 (talk) 12:34, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

@RichardW57: I've responded on Talk:បច្ចុប្បន្ន, if it's about this term. User:Stephen G. Brown has been missing for a long time and won't respond to your challenge. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 13:02, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm anticipating a challenge over the etymology of the Pali word, where I've recorded the etymology as unresolved. --RichardW57 (talk) 13:54, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

@RichardW57: Are you saying up- is a productive prefix in Pali? It seems that (praty)utpanna > (pacc)uppanna is going through normal Sanskrit to Pali sound changes. —Aryaman^{A (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान)} 15:17, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

@AryamanA: I haven't got a way of counting innovations within Pali, so productivity at any attested stage in Pali is difficult for me to comment on. The prefix, which I am recording as ud-, occurs in a lot of Pali words. It's also visible in the aorist of uppajjati. Two of the aorist stems show the augment following the prefix. By the time of the Pali grammarians (about a millennium after the Buddha), I understand the prefix was perceived of as u- with induced gemination. --RichardW57 (talk) 17:01, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

What seems to be missing is the internal history in Sanskrit. I can't find any arguments against the counter-claim that the two words were borrowed from Pali (or one of the Prakrits - didn't the Jain Prakrit writings also contribute to Sanskrit vocabulary?). The sense 'to go' of the Sanskrit verb padyate appears late, as does the word utpanna. --RichardW57 (talk) 17:01, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

@RichardW57: So Monier-Williams says Skt. pratyutpanna is attested in the Mahabharata, which while a little late seems uncontroversial enough for inheritance. One option to try (which I do very often for modern Hindi neologisms modelled on Sanskrit, when the Sanskrit is attested very late or not in dictionaries, except those are borrowings not inherited) is "From {{inh|pi|sa|blah}}. Equivalent to {{af|pi|morpheme|morpheme}}." Which covers both internal derivation and inheritance when it's unclear. —Aryaman^{A (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान)} 18:17, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree. Moreover, pratyutpanna comes from prati + ud + panna. Also to be noted is that panna itself goes back to an earlier *padná-. I think it'd be incorrect to say all of this innovation along with the Sandhi happened in Pali... paccuppana is too morphologically opaque. I think Skt. pratyutpanna --> Pali paccuppana is very reasonable. -- Bhagadatta (talk) 08:47, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't see why you think paccuppanna is too morphologically opaque. Pacc- is a fairly frequent allomorph of pati-/paṭi-. Uppanna as the past participle of uppajjati is well supported by the past participles of other compounds of -pajjati, and they're not rare. (I prefer to have quotations ready before I record past participles.) Now, the meaning 'existent' of uppanna may be a bit obscure, but it's not remarkably so for Pali. Now, uppanna is a bit vague as to timing, but prefixing pacc- seems to nail it down. All this derivation happening within Pali seems quite unremarkable. --RichardW57 (talk) 19:23, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't know why you mention the history of the past participle. How far back does panná go? What's the reason for seeing the cluster -dn- in Proto-Indo-Aryan past participles? As a simplex it keeps(?) the meaning 'fallen'. Do we actually have two verbs here? --RichardW57 (talk) 19:23, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

@Bhagadatta, AryamanA: I thought the Mahabharata contained a fair number of loans from the Prakrits. Also, its composition date is later than the date of most of the Tipitaka, and is after the dominant position of Prakrit in philosophy has subsided. There's time for (praty)utpanna to be missing from Sanskrit and then borrowed from the Prakrits and correctly Sanskritised. --RichardW57 (talk) 19:23, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

@RichardW57, Bhagadatta: Hmm that seems to be right, it's very possible the Sanskrit was a calque then. There's a good century gap following the Tipitaka to the Mahabharata. But as Bhagadatta mentioned, I wasn't aware that sandhi was this productive in Pali, and that makes me a bit skeptical that there was no Sanskrit influence at all. I, of course, do not doubt the validity of the synchronic analysis, it's just a question of do we mention the Sanskrit as an ancestor or a cognate. —Aryaman^{A (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान)} 22:38, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Which sandhi are you talking about? Some of it seems lexicalised, and sandhi between words is optional.

Well, the visible text as is should be OK. The question is whether we use {{inh}}, {{der}} or {{m}} to reference the Sanskrit. On the Sanskrit side, how do we record plausible borrowing from an unidentified Prakrit? The words also show up in BHS. We don't have 'plausible descent' tooling. I believe there's a lot of horizontal transfer. --RichardW57 (talk) 06:54, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

@RichardW57, AryamanA: I mentioned that the earlier form of panna was *padná to show that if Pali synchronically formed the past participle by attaching -na to the root pad OR had it inherited directly from padna, the word would probably have been *padda. I might be wrong on this one though. But on a related uppajjati was not a synchronic derivation as Sanskrit उत्पद्यते (utpadyate) exists in the Shatapatha Brahmana, from the Vedic period. So excusing both uppanna and paccupanna, viz. the subjects of this discussion, I believe the etymology of uppajjati should derive it from उत्पद्यते but keep the surface analysis as it's useful to understand how word combinations work in Pali. -- Bhagadatta (talk) 01:22, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Synchronic v. inherited is often a false dichotomy - obvious derivatives get reformed all the time - look at the alleged descendants of *h₂érh₃trom (“plough”). Pali past participles in -na regularly assimilate -dn- to -nn-. It seems that from a root like pad, Pali would have a past participle either *padita or panna. In this case, the precedent of other compounds of -pajjati dictates uppanna. --RichardW57 (talk) 06:54, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

@RichardW57, Bhagadatta, to revive this old discussion; I searched through the full text of the Mahābhārata (the online critical edition here) and found the word used only in the Book 12 (Śānti Parva) for three times (a quotation is added to the page प्रत्युत्पन्न). If the date of Book 12 may be later than the bulk of the main work (as stated in WP), it may be possible that the term प्रत्युत्पन्न could also be a later addition to the Sanskrit lexicon, right? --Frigoris (talk) 10:04, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

@Frigoris: A lot of times, the fact that a term is attested late in the Sanskrit corpus does not definitively prove that it was a late addition or that it did not exist in the spoken dialects of Old Indo-Aryan. There are terms which are attested for the first time in Classical Sanskrit but which have a good IE etymology which means that the term or a particular sense of the term was in use in vernacular speech but did not make it to Vedic literature. परुत् (parut) is a good example.

The reason I'm strongly in favour of giving a Sanskrit etymology for this is that, with a word structure like paccuppanna, it seems a bit far fetched to believe that Pali speakers, whether consciously or not, synchronically coined this term, from the components pati- , ud- and panna. And it's even more implausible that paccuppanna came first and the Sanskrit term प्रत्युत्पन्न was backwardly reconstructed from it as its etymon. So naturally, putting pratyutpanna as the etymon of paccuppanna is the appropriate thing to do. The hesitation to put the Sanskrit term as the etymon of the Pali term seems to come from the fact that the attestation of the Sanskrit term comes quite late and the particular Old Indo-Aryan dialect that recorded the word प्रत्युत्पन्न may not have been the one that gave rise to Pali's paccuppanna, which in my personal opinion is unnecessarily pedantic. -- 𝓑𝓱𝓪𝓰𝓪𝓭𝓪𝓽𝓽𝓪^{(𝓽𝓪𝓵𝓴)}15:00, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

@Bhagadatta, thanks for the information; I did a search for the "-panna" suffix and got 114 hits in the MW. I searched for an apparently earlier word among them, सम्पन्न (sampanna) (listed in the MW as attested in the Atharvaveda), in the TITUS database with keys "sampanna", and got 2 hits in the White Yajurveda; "sam%panna" = saṃpanna got 2 hits in the Black Yajurveda; but no hits from the AV. (I'm very much not proficient with TITUS search). It seems to me that at least the "-panna" component is quite "native" to Sanskrit literature. Does that add weight for the Sanskrit-origin idea, or has the pad ~ panna stuff never been the focus of the problem? (Sorry if I'm adding to any confusion; I too am trying to understand). --Frigoris (talk) 17:31, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

@Frigoris: Yes, it certainly does. Even the development of panná from an earlier *padná is a Sanskritic one. -- 𝓑𝓱𝓪𝓰𝓪𝓭𝓪𝓽𝓽𝓪^{(𝓽𝓪𝓵𝓴)}03:10, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ @Frigoris, Bhagadatta:: As far as I am aware this is common Indic, and is retained in Pali, though one can find evidence that it is yielding to the past participle in -ita. Isn't it yielding in both languages? It's native to both languages as an inheritance. --RichardW57 (talk) 18:07, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

At Special:diff/73434455, @Svartava remarked, "Discussion mentioned appears to be inconclusive to state independent formation. Can you mention a single completely Pali formation with pacc- that does not have the related Sanskrit word?". I presume this remark is an attempt to claim that Pali words in pacc- are necessarily inherited. As an example, I offer paccakkosati (“to swear back at”). I rather like the quotation given there from the Anguttara Nikaya, as the parallelism of the three pairs of verbs suggests a living prefix. Note that alternations such as paṭi/pacc can exist long after the assimilatory change has ceased to be active as a sound law; it is not inconsistent with Pali mati having oblique singular matyā. (Affrication in these noun forms has been described as wildly inconsistent.) <ty> = /cc/ and <tp> = /pp/ are reading rules of Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, so the Pali and Sanskrit words were easy to convert either way. Sanskritisation gets difficult when the Sanskrit correspondents cannot be identified. For Sanskrit <tp> = Pali <pp> in calques, compare तत्पुरुष (tatpuruṣa, “tatpurusha”) > tappurisa.

In the opposite direction, what do we have in the way of pati- or pați- in hiatus before vowels? --RichardW57m (talk) 10:06, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

@RichardW57m, @Bhagadatta As I just fixed the etymology, paccakkosati is inherited from Sanskrit प्रत्याक्रोशति (pratyākrośati) which is attested in literature since Mahabharata and well may be spoken in OIA earlier. Inheritance makes complete sense in this case. Svartava (talk) 15:16, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Scraping Childers, I find paccājāyati, paccaṅga (possibly an invalid extraction from aṅgapaccaṅga, where 'pacc' belongs to the whole compound and is an allomorph of paṭi), paccantaṃ, paccantima, paccāsiṃsati (but perhaps disqualified by paccāsā), paccosakkati, paccuddhāra and paccupaṭṭhita.

I had been going to offer paccatta (“separate”), but I suspect it may be built on the adverb paccattaṃ, for which I can find a Sanskrit correspondent प्रत्यात्मम् (pratyātmam) and which I look forward to seeing in Wiktionary. Purely for its etymology, does the adjective as such have a Sanskrit correspondent? --RichardW57m (talk) 17:00, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

@Svartava We do have an abnormal adjective Pali pāṭekka／pāṭiyekka／pāṭiekka, and, in the commentaries, so in a translation into Pali in the 5th century AD (or later), two verbs paṭiāneti and paṭiorohati, so the two verbs are not very relevant. Childers' dictionary does not mention them. --RichardW57m (talk) 08:37, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

And both the verbs have Canonical Pali forms in pacc-! --RichardW57m (talk) 08:56, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

• The application of sandhi here is so intricate, it seems far fetched to believe it was consciously coined by Pali speakers by taking pati-ud-pad-na. Why would one assume that the -dn- combination, having already simplified to -nn- in Old Indo-Aryan, would independently undergo the same transformation again in Pali? That would mean that at least panna is inherited and not synchronically coined.
  • I would now like to draw attention to similar inherited terms in Hindi and other New Indo-Aryan languages which are inherited from unattested Sanskrit compounds. bahnautā (“sister's son”) is one such example which is derived from Old Indo Aryan bhaginī-putra. It would be absolutely wrong to assume that Hindi coined this term by taking bahan (sister) + "autā" which Hindi speakers somehow knew to be the intervocalic alt form of, wait for it, pūt (“son”). This is why Turner goes back to an OIA form bhaginī-putra, in spite of the compound being unattested. He does this for not just the aforementioned term, but for a great deal of words, and the fact that such a compound is not attested (or in certain cases outright violates the sandhi rules) is no hindrance to his assumption of an OIA etymon. Why then are we so uncomfortable and hesistant in giving pratyutpanna as the ancestor of paccupanna? There are sound laws applied here which occur in inherited terms and it is far fetched to believe that this was synchronic. Thus, now the question is, while there WAS an OIA form pratyutpanna, how do we know that the particular term attested in the Mahabharata is the one that gave rise to Pali paccuppanna? Addressing that, I can only repeat what I said 2 years ago: The hesitation to put the Sanskrit term as the etymon of the Pali term seems to come from the fact that the attestation of the Sanskrit term comes quite late and the particular Old Indo-Aryan dialect that recorded the word प्रत्युत्पन्न may not have been the one that gave rise to Pali's paccuppanna, which in my personal opinion is unnecessarily pedantic. As of now, I see that the etymology does both: state inheritance and give the synchronic derivation side-by-side. I am fine with this compromise and I propose that this format be applied to all such entries which have been affixed with pacc. -- 𝘗𝘶𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘺𝘪^{(𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘬)}06:22, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

  It's almost as incredible as the gymnastics required of English speakers to go from 'I didn't think' to unthought- the assimilations (and ablaut) to get from "think + -ed" to "thought", not to mention unpacking the 'n' of 'not' and expanding it to un-. To coin the word in Pali, all one had to do was compose paṭi- and uppanna. The existence of pacc- as an allomorph of paṭi- seems fairly clear and is parallel to other conditioned alternants amongst the verbal prefixes, most notably abhi-／abbh- but with varying degrees of opacity also ati-／acc-, adhi-／ajjh- and vi-／vy-. (I haven't found any cases of vi- + augment - for vicarati, the only aorist I can find, vicari, lacks the augment, and similarly for vigacchati). I presume this is the reason for the attack on the concept of (pre-)Pali-speakers prefixing words beginning with vowels with the prefix paṭi-.

  What made me suspicious of inheritance is that the concepts of future, present and past are slightly intellectual, and the words for the concepts seem prone to replacement. Remember that Pali is generally believed to descend from a basilect. RichardW57 (talk) 12:12, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

  Giving the synchronic derivation is a sine qua non. --RichardW57 (talk) 12:18, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Geodesic

Discussion moved to Wiktionary:Tea room/2020/August#geodesic.

Word "beach" in Romance languages

Cheers! I have some possibly conflicting sources on the etymology of the words for "beach" in the Romance languages, that I would like for someone to help me sort it out. There was also a question about this in 2011 (see Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2011/January#Romance 'beach': playa, praia, &c).

Currently, the various etymologies sections on Wiktionary cite the Late Latin plagia (no entry), from Latin plaga, as the source. However, the actual sources state:

• Italian piaggia: from Medieval Latin plagia, maybe a cross from Latin plaga and Greek πλάγια (plágia) (see Treccani)
• Spanish playa: from Late Latin plagia (see Real Academia Española)
• Portuguese praia: 1. from Late Latin plagĭa-, from Greek πλάγια (plágia) (see Infopédia and Aulete, both added by me), 2. from plaga (“plaga, plagae”) (see Priberam).
• French plage is stated as a borrowing from Latin plaga, later confounded with homonym borrowed from Italian piaggia (see Trésor de la langue française informatisé);
• Albanian pllajë entry states it's from VL. *plagius (cited source is Albanian Etymological Dictionary)

Unless I've missed any, these are all the sources cited from the descendent list in plaga. Can someone please confirm what etymologies are the correct ones and how should we write and source this? - Sarilho1 (talk) 21:10, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

set

We have etymology 4 reference Old French sette', even so far as to almost suggest that the modern noun's different senses under etymology 4 may not actually all be the same word.

Setting aside the good evidence that suggests that Old French sette merely altered the development of the existing native English word "set", by introducing a couple of new senses, which altered the development of further senses of the word, I would say that I think that it is worth noting that German Satz, which is doubtlessly related to setzen, has a similar sense to the common English sense of the noun [[set].

Is it really accurate to imply even that that the English sense of "a group of things" is derived in full from Old French sette in the first place, rather than Old French sette functioning ultimately as a significant factor that ended up reinforcing perhaps a very minor and little-used (native) sense of the word in the English language, to the point that it became usual?

Incidentally, why does the (blank) "Etymology 2" section exist? Do we have any evidence that it isn't a derivative of the verb marked at Etymology 1? Tharthan (talk) 21:21, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

泵 and 泵浦

Any chance they could have derived from German Pumpe or French pompe? ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:28, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

In Cantonese, English is the most likely source language. Standard reference books on Mandarin (e.g. Xiandai Hanyu Guifan Cidian, Xiandai Hanyu Cidian, Guoyu Cidian, Liang'an Cidian) also list the English word as the etymon. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 04:52, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I see. Thank you. ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:37, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

shabby, Dutch schabbig, German schäbig

Any chance at all of a late Proto-West-Germanic *skabbīg ("scabbed, mangy, in a poor state, pitiable")? Tharthan (talk) 21:33, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

What about *skabbaz (“scab, scabies”) +‎ *-īgaz (“-y”)?  --Lambiam 19:42, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

So perhaps a Proto-Germanic *skabbīgaz, then? The reason why I reckoned that if it even existed at all, it would have been likely to be Proto-West-Germanic, is that I haven't seen evidence outside of West-Germanic of any "mangy, in a poor state, pitiable" sense. So, if we presume for the sake of argument the prior existence of a general Proto-Germanic (as opposed to Proto-West-Germanic) etymon, the only way that that would make sense is if:

• Proto-Germanic *skabbīgaz simply meant "scabbed", and it was only in Proto-West-Germanic (*skabbīg) that meanings like "mangy, in a poor state, pitiable" came about. This seems somewhat doubtful, given that Proto-Germanic *skabbaz is reckoned to have had a "scabies" sense.

OR

• Proto-Germanic *skabbīgaz, and Proto-West-Germanic *skabbīg, solely meant "scabbed". It was only in West Germanic daughter languages that other senses developed. I would doubt this for much the same reason as the previous.

OR

• Proto-Germanic *skabbīgaz primarily meant "scabbed", but did have "mangy, in a poor state, pitiable" secondarily.

...Whatever the answer is, I don't know. Hence why I asked if there is any reasonable likelihood of a Proto-(West)-Germanic etymon for the English, Dutch, and German terms. Tharthan (talk) 01:19, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

The appearances of the words in English and Dutch are so late as to probably be from new formations. Only Middle Low German (schabbich) and Middle High German (schebic) have this term earlier, and even then it's still rather late. I don't think it's accurate to try and create a Proto-West Germanic for this. Leasnam (talk) 03:40, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

All right. Fair enough.

On a somewhat related matter: we don't list Old English sċeabb as having had a meaning of "scabies", but we do list "shab" (its descendant) as having had that as a meaning. Are we intentionally suggesting that a meaning of "scabies" existed during Proto-Germanic, went away in Old English, but then arose anew during (Early) Modern English? Is it just that we have no attestations which demonstrate that sċeabb was ever used in reference to scabies? Tharthan (talk) 22:43, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

In Old English, Latin scabiēs is used on at least two occasions to translate Old English sċeabb/sċeabbas, so it has that meaning of "itching disease": 1). Se hæfþ singalne sceabb se ðe nfre ne blinþ ungestæððignesse. Ðonne bí ðæm sceabbe swíðe ryhte sió hreófl getácnaþ ðæt wóhhmed = jugem habet scabiem, cui carnis petulantia sine cessatione dominatur. Per scabiem recte luxuria designatur & 2). Gif hé hæfde singale sceabbas = si jugem scabiem habens fuerit. The Middle English also has the meaning of scabies/mange. Leasnam (talk) 02:50, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

I've added the additional sense at sċeabb. Leasnam (talk) 02:51, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

gage, greengage

Which William Gage? Sir William Gage, 7th Baronet (1695–1744) – linked currently at Wiktionary – is not described to have pursued botany. According to the Oxford English dictionary it is an English botanist Sir William Gage living 1657–1727 about whom there is no notice on Wikipedia or Wikispecies. According to OED the term is attested from the mid of the 19th century, although I get hits from the 1780s and then it becomes more frequent in the 1830s. Would an English eponymic plant name start being attested a century after the death of its namesake? I opine that this is wholly a sham etymology. Due to its contradictoriness, I am inclined to assume that English greengage is a semi-calque of Persian گوجه سبز (gowje sabz). While the greengage has been popular in France and Germany in the 17th century already, no earlier English term seems to be of importance because of the Little Ice Age. The productivity of greengage trees in Penwith, Cornwall, is in 1834 (John Forbes, Sketch of the Medical Topography of the Hundred of Penwith, p. 66) compared to that of apricot trees: “The apricot rarely produces any fruit, except in a few places, and then very scantily. The greengage plum is nearly equally unproductive.” By then the British already had multiple campaigns in Persia. Fay Freak (talk) 15:44, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Several sources state that the fruit was introduced to Britain by Thomas Gage (1781–1820), who was a botanist.^[9][10] The first source gives Greece as the presumed origin; the second source tells us that his gardener lost the label when planting the fruit tree received from Paris, but according to what I read here the label fell off in shipment, so the gardener named the fruit "Green Gage". This is sourced to: Frederick A. Roach, Cultivated Fruits of Britain: Their Origin and History. (I could not access this book, so I cannot verify this citation.) The univerbation greengage may have arisen later; does the OED say anything about early attestations of gage in the sense of a type of plum? As far as I could figure out, the two Gages are from different families (or distant branches of a family).  --Lambiam 19:29, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

@Lambiam: So it was the Oxford Dictionary of English – “not based on the Oxford English Dictionary (OED)” according to Wikipedia, but this cannot be strictly true (very creative naming scheme…) – deriving the term gage from the mid 19th century, whereas greengage is derived from the “early 18th cent.”, again from the same Sir William Gage living 1657–1727. The Oxford English Dictionary has only a single quote for the sense of a plum from the year 1888, whereas for greengage they have a quote from 1718 and one from 1722, and then follows a 1768 quote which they refer to derive from “Sir William Gage” without dating Sir William Gage: P[eter] Collinson in L. W. Dillwyn, Hortus Collinsonianus (1843) 60: I was on a visit to Sir William Gage, at Hengrave, near Bury; he was then near 70; he told me that he first brought over, from France, the Grosse reine Claude, and introduced it into England, and in compliment to him the Plum was called the Green Gage; this was about the year 1725.” However at that time Sir William Gage, 7th Baronet (1695–1744) was not near 70 but near 30, which however fits Sir William Gage, 2nd Baronet of Hengrave, allegedly having lived “c. 1656—1727” (the 2nd Baronet was a contemporary of the 7th because this is of two different baronetages), allegedly a botanist – without publications however it seems and anything much written about or from him. A gimmick by the baronet perhaps? Maybe he has made one of the jokes people make if their proper name coincides with a thing? Alarmingly in spite of the story with the lost labels he actually knew the name reine Claude, according to this central quote. Next is an 1813 quote in the interesting spelling green-gedge. Fay Freak (talk) 13:10, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

The theory that this is a loanblend is seductive. It is bit mysterious, though, that the Persian name would have found its way to the British Isles and suddenly emerges there without having left a trace on its way. Is the assumption that British troops returning from one of these Gulf campaigns brought a specimen of Prunus domestica italica with them? A horticultural treatise from 1629 mentions the "Verdoch plum" (the occurrence is two lines below the highlight), which has been equated with the Italian Verdocchio or Verdoccia, i.e. the Reine Claude.^[11][12] (An 1890 Triestine dictionary has “Verdaza, sf. — specie di prugna: verdacchia.”) Was the fruit completely forgotten and then reintroduced? According to the second source it came originally from Armenia, via Greece, to France. BTW, the Arabic name appears to come from Turkish can erik (unless it is the other way around and the latter is folk etymology).  --Lambiam 12:28, 2 September 2020 (UTC)