Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2020/October

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

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apis and *wóps

I was looking into the etymology of Latin apis (“bee”), of uncertain origin, and I happened to come across Proto-Indo-European *wóps (“wasp”). Is a connection between these two possible? I don't know much about Latin, but I couldn't help but notice that there's definitely a similar sound. Has this already been considered and ruled out? Am I asking a really dumb question? —Globins (yo) 08:15, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Since *wóps already gives Latin vespa it's hard to see how it could also have given apis. And the p of *wóps only appears next to s; between vowels it's bʰ, which would become b, not p, in Latin. And w becomes v in Latin, it doesn't disappear. So it seems really, really unlikely. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:47, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Descendants of femur

All of the descendants seem to be obvious loans, not just the Germanic ones, aren't they? — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 17:41, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

@Mellohi! Yes, very much so. For one, the inherited outcome in Spanish would be *hiembre, and in French, *fembre (cf. generum > gendre, rememorari > Old French remembrer). (The -o- in Italian femore is interesting, and it makes the word look as if it was inherited, but in light of the other Romance languages, it's more likely there's been some vowel harmony with the final -e, or it's an irregular development from uncertainty due to being unstressed, or something.)--Ser be etre shi (talk) 00:21, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

virgo#Tok Pisin

RFV of the etymology for virgo (“virgin”). Do we really think Tok Pisin borrowed from Latin rather than this coming through English? —Globins (yo) 19:12, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

But the English word is virgin, not virgo. —Mahāgaja · talk 19:27, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, but could it not be some kind of shortening? It seems weird to me that Tok Pisin would borrow from Latin when there's already a nearly identical word in English. Either way, I can't find a source for it. —Globins (yo) 22:24, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

I doubt you will find a source, but it's pretty obviously from Latin. Missionaries in the Pacific dipped into Latin all the time to coin words for their Bible translations; compare Category:Samoan terms derived from Latin. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:30, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

I'd never heard of that before, but that makes a lot of sense. —Globins (yo) 00:11, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian više (“more, higher”)

Is this from Proto-Slavic *vysь (“height”)? It also is presumably related to the first element of Proto-Slavic *Vęťeslavъ (“greater glory”), the source of several Slavic names like Václav, Wenceslaus, Вячеслав, Wenzel, Vjenceslav, Velimir, Višeslav, etc. DJ K-Çel (talk) 08:15, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

It’s from *vyšьjь (“higher”) — ultimately related to *vysь, but not inherited from it. Cognates exist in Russian выше (vyše) etc. The other element you mention as appearing in *Vęťeslavъ is from *vęťьjь (“more, bigger”) and AFAIK unrelated. Velimir and Višeslav, however, are totally different names and don’t come from *Vęťeslavъ; their first elements are *velьjь and *vyšьjь repsectively. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 16:54, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Scots o

The standard etymology of Scots o (“of”) is that it's from Middle English of. This explanation seems fine and intuitive, as after all plenty of English speech varieties frequently shorten of to o’ or just [ə], and in fact the Scots word has historically been written o’ to reflect the parallel. However, note that Scottish Gaelic o exists as well and means “from”. (It is inherited from Old Irish úa, not related to English of.) Given the nearly identical semantics and the identical form, is it a stretch to suggest that Scots o could rather be a continuation of the Gaelic? At the very least, could it be considered a merger/conflation of the two? — 69.120.64.15 10:22, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Unlikely. Function words like prepositions are only rarely borrowed (not never, but rarely). And although the semantics of "of" and "from" aren't very far apart, Gaelic does have a different word for "of", de, not to mention a genitive case that obviates the need for a preposition meaning "of" a lot of the time. So there are probably only very limited contexts in which Gaelic o and Scots o mean the same thing and would be interchangeable with each other. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:01, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

That makes sense. Thanks. — 69.120.64.15 00:09, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

MHG dunster and Low German dumper

This page mentions Middle High German dunster (“darkness”) and Low German dumper (“gloomy”) as derivatives of PIE *tem(H)-.
Does the former belong at Proto–West Germanic *þiustrī? Everything seems to match up, except for the lack of a nasal consonant in that reconstruction and its descendants. Are these just variant forms that preserve the original nasal (cf. *þimstr)? (Note that German düster is listed with the other Germanic terms on the UT Austin page, and it is derived from the aforementioned *þiustrī.)
As for the latter, dumper, it seems to parallel Old High German demar (“dusk”) (< PWG *þimr), presumably with epenthetic -p-, but the vowels don't match. — 69.120.64.15 08:30, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

diff. Unfortunately, the only source for this word is the not-so-reputable Bomhard (2002) Reconstructing Proto-Nostratic (yuck). It could just be MLG donster, dunster (“mists”), from PG *dunstą. --{{victar|talk}} 18:48, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Perplexing. Thanks. — 69.120.64.15 00:26, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

yearning

I wouldn't be surprised if yearning=longing isn't etymologically the same word as yearning=rennet.--Akletos (talk) 12:49, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

I think I've found a source on that. I'll add it once I've done a little more research—it appears to be related to earn#Etymology_2. —Globins (yo) 20:44, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

@Akletos I added an etymology for the rennet sense. Citations are a pain and I don't want to do em now so I'm just going to put the links on my user page for later. Yay. —Globins (yo) 20:06, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! --Akletos (talk) 20:20, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Proto-Indo-European root of reap

The root listed on the entry for reap is *h₁rep-. This root seems to have failed an RFD (it looks like a war went down here at Reconstruction talk:Proto-Indo-European/h₁rep-). There are actually several other pages that are listed as deriving words from *h₁rep-, including ἐρέπτομαι, rapio, ἁρπάζω, and rrjep. The alternatives to this root seem to be *Hrewp- (linked from Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/raubōną) and *h₁reyp- (linked at Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/rīpaną, which is also listed as an ancestor of reap). Since we apparently don't like this one (I don't know enough to comment on that), is there a better reconstruction it should be switched with? Or should it not have been deleted? It seems like there's a lot of inconsistency. —Globins (yo) 22:02, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

I've just fixed reap and ripe (for which the expected PIE form would in fact be *Hreyb- with a *b, but that's an issue for later). I've also edited the etymology at ἁρπάζω (harpázō) since it was very confusing and misleading. I think the other pages linking to *h₁rep- are OK for now, given the absence of more convincing (or standard) explanations. Rather than purging any mention of *h₁rep-, we should note alternative explanations for the respective etymologies.

As for whether an entry on *h₁rep- should exist, I'm not sure, but what I am sure of is that the data is inconclusive. At most optimistic, we would need to assume that these disparate forms are all from the same root based on their similar meanings and sharing a form like -/r(V)p/-, reconstructing initial *h₁- on the basis of ἐρέπτομαι (eréptomai) alone. The initial /a/ in some descendants is unexplained and apparently spurious; also not a single pair of the supposed derivatives of *h₁rep- are a morphological match. There's nothing wrong with hypothesizing on such data, but to "establish" such an etymology is poor methodology, and there's a case to be made for why we should avoid it on Wiktionary. But these arguments are best left to expert indoeuropeanists and academia. So long as we present useful hypotheses in an informed manner without being misleading, Wiktionary is doing its job. — 69.120.64.15 10:07, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

scold

Noun ety presently reads:

From Middle English scold, scolde, skolde, skalde, borrowed from Old Norse skald (“poet”). Cognate with Icelandic skáld (“poet, scop”).

It's unclear from this how "scold" could have any connection to "poet". Looking in other dictionaries, I see that the connection may be through the idea of a poet making scurrilous or satirical verse. However, I don't like to just copy ety information myself from other sources when I personally have no knowledge about it. Perhaps someone with more expertise would wish to look at this and hopefully clarify it. Mihia (talk) 17:27, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

According to Etymonline,

"...from Old Norse skald (“poet”)...The sense evolution might reflect the fact that Germanic poets (like their Celtic counterparts) were famously feared for their ability to lampoon and mock (as in Icelandic skáldskapur (“poetry”)," also, in Icelandic law books, "libel in verse")."

OED and AHD seem to agree with this etymology as well. DJ K-Çel (talk) 22:36, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

For sure, but, as I say, should we just copy ety information from other sources if we don't have knowledge ourselves? Mihia (talk) 22:28, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

... I suppose we could fall back on the "said to be ~" type of wording. I am still a little concerned about possibly helping to create an "echo chamber" whereby everyone is copying everyone else. Mihia (talk) 22:49, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Margaret Clunies Ross, in A History of Old Norse Poetry and Poetics (2011), page 13, suggests the English word does not derive from the Norse for "poet" but rather that English and Norse both derive from a Germanic root meaning "scold". "The etymology of the term skáld has been debated, but a common view is that the noun is cognate with Old High German skeldan ('to scold'), English scold (both noun and verb), and may have originally referred to the satiric or critical role skaldic poets sometimes played". OTOH, the Middle English Dictionary and most other sources do seem to favor deriving the English noun from Norse. We should give both theories.

Patrick James Dunagan et al., Roots and Routes (2020), page 81, does claim that "scold is [...] a variant of skald. We get to scold from skald sense development by way of the later Icelandic law books in which the derivative skaldscaper poetry has the specific sense of libel in verse. A scold, in early use, was 'a person (esp. a woman) of ribald speech; later, a woman (rarely a man) addicted to abusive language)'"; however, they also say scald (burn) is derived from skald, which is wrong, so I wouldn't trust what they say (but only treat the Icelandic-law theory they mention as possible lead to try to and find independent, higher-quality evidence for or against).

Susan E. Phillips, Transforming Talk: The Problem with Gossip in Late Medieval England (2010), page 52, does not mention the Norse word, but documents what may have been another stage in the semantic development of scold which we might need to add, quoting a medieval text referring to a priest as a "skald", rendered in her translation into modern English as "scold", which she says was "usually reversed for gossiping and cantankerous women but also applied to priests who violate the confessional seal". One wonders if this sense (focused less on anger/rebuking and more on gossiping) survived into modern English. I see a 1611 Book of Common Prayer refer to "a loude crying woman, and a scolde, shall be sought out to drive away the enemies", which might be the 'gossipy, cantankerous woman' sense(?).

- -sche (discuss) 18:43, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

trump, last trump

"the last trump" is listed as a derivative of trump, etymology 1 (der. of "triumph").

But isn't this actually trump ("sounding of a trumpet"), and thus trump, etymology 2? Tharthan (talk) 00:21, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it is. It's the last trumpet (in German, letzte Posaune (literally “last trombone”), because German angels are more into jazz than English-speaking ones). —Mahāgaja · talk 06:30, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Heh.

Thanks for confirming that. I've moved "the last trump" from under Etymology 1 to under Etymology 2. Tharthan (talk) 08:50, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

length of ā in māsculus (măsculus...)

Hi. Many pages pointing to masculus show ā in this word. What is the basis of this word length? I notice the Gaffiot dictionary, which normally shows "hidden quantities" (vowel length inside closed syllables), such as ūsque, leaves the vowel unmarked, as if it was either short or unknown. Moreover, the root noun mās shows a short ă in the oblique stem, măris, and it is this stem that should be retained in derived nouns such as masculus, not the nominative mās, which may have a long ā due to compensatory lengthening for having formerly ended in -s (so mas-s > mās).

I suspect the ultimate culprit is an error in the Lewis & Short dictionary, where it shows mās māris for the noun ("substantive") sense. Looking at the copy on archive.org (you can find this at the top-left corner), I see the mistake is in the original publication, so it's not a typo from the Perseus Project. Perhaps a user here saw that, and (reasonably) figured the derived noun should be derived from this, and so retain a long ā. I want to note that even the poetic example in the Lewis & Short entry itself shows that the noun sense has a short ă too (Horace, Carmina 1.21, the line is a lesser asclepiadean):
— — | — u u — || — u u — | u x
nātā/lemquĕ mărēs // Dēlŏn Ăpol/lĭnis

Do I get approval to change all the many references to māsculus to simply masculus? I thought of having a little discussion about it because it's quite a number of pages... I know of WT:BOLD, but there's some social aspect on this site involved too... Also, should the mistake in Lewis & Short be noted here too, perhaps as a Note?--Ser be etre shi (talk) 00:41, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree that it's most probably a short vowel, but L&S isn't the only dictionary to mark it as long. I think we shouldn't mark it as long, but we could include a note saying that several dictionaries do mark it as long, but that the etymology of the word makes a short vowel more likely. —Mahāgaja · talk 06:46, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

I think I would prefer to mark the first vowel in masculus as having uncertain length. Compensatory lengthening of the type mas-s > mās is not a usual process in Latin, to my understanding. The length variation in this word is attributed to ablaut (de Vaan writes "The ablaut mās vs. maris is explained by Schrijver from an ablauting paradigm *meh₂-(o)s, *mh₂-(e)s-"). I'm not very convinced by the argument that the the vowel length should be the same as in the oblique stem of the base noun. This is not true in all cases: there are diminutives in -uncul-o/a- from bases with stems ending in -ōn-. Forms like minusculus vs. minor-, mūsculus vs. mūr-, and lepusculus vs. lepor- could have led to speakers analyzing diminutives in -s-culus as being built on the nominative stem rather than an unrhotacized version of the oblique stem (there are arguments that by the time of Classical Latin, rhotacism was a relic rather than an active sound change, in which case the underlying representation of the oblique stem would not have /s/). That mās, māris paradigm in L&S is puzzling; I haven't heard of this in any other source and I would suspect an error. —Urszag (talk) 05:45, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

@Ser be etre shi mentions a "social aspect" to this site, so I shall muster the courage to be BOLD and inform users @Mahagaja, Urszag that I changed this word a while back to a short vowel on the oblique-stem word-formation rationale. In my opinion we shouldn't overuse "uncertain length" marks when we have the opportunity to explain to the reader what exactly is going on. To this effect I've appended a note, from which the reader can see our rationale, and if they disagree with the premise (eg Urszag's 'reanalysis'), they can consciously opt for the different conclusion. For my part, I take forms in -usculus and -unculus, continued at least from Proto-Latin, as indication that diminitives weren't subjected to much reanalysis. The clearest case of the latter that I can offer is rēscula for rēcula in Apuleius - and I blame his Āfricānitās xP A. Gellius, totally my spirit animal, in fact discusses a similar sort of learnèd reanalysis with lengthened perfects (people shortening āctitō because it's from agō you see!). Just another example of the maxim "you have to be educated to be that stupid" xD To be exceedingly specific: if we have attestation of shortening of the vowel in āctitō, but no attestation for masculus, it's ā̆ctitō that we would in principle be forced to list a varying vowel length for, and not masculus. It's in principle easy to imagine all sorts of analogical shortenings and lengthenings (averta) and litter many pages with macron-breves - I would rather prefer to communicate this via notes in the etymology and pronunciation sections. Brutal Russian (talk) 20:21, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

弁才天

This was tagged but not listed by an IP user in December 2019. The entry claims, "from Sanskrit सरस्वती (sarasvatī)", which seems like a description of English Saraswati and not of Japanese 弁才天(べんざいてん) (Benzaiten).

More recently User:PulauKakatua19 added, "the Chinese words for "happiness-talent-deva", but I'm not certain whether that is offered as a historical explanation or just a spell-out of the characters. It seems not unlikely that, for example, the Sanskrit name could have been calqued in Chinese, or a Chinese nickname coined and then borrowed into Japanese, but when? from which topolect? etc. Cnilep (talk) 03:14, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

According to Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, the name 辯才天(べんざいてん) (Benzaiten) is attested in Japanese from the thirteenth century, and the goddesses Benzaiten and Kisshoten (who were sometimes conflated) arrived during the late Heian period, which would be at least a century earlier. Cnilep (talk) 03:28, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

The odd content was added by a known-incompetent anon from the UK who is apparently obsessed with mythology and pop culture, and who is unable to understand Japanese. I've cleaned up a lot of their messes over the years, but never took on this one.

I may have a go at it in the near future, time allowing. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:22, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I've had a go at it, but correction of my errors would be most welcome. Cnilep (talk) 04:38, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

青海

@Justinrleung, Frigoris, LlywelynII RFV of the etymology. 青海 is earliest attested in 水經注 from the Northern Wei Dynasty:

《十三州志》曰：城在臨羌新縣西三百一十里。王莽納西零之獻，以為西海郡，治此城。湟水又東南逕卑禾羌海北，有鹽池。闞駰曰：縣西有卑禾羌海者也。世謂之青海。東去西平二百五十里。湟水東流逕湟中城北，故小月氏之地也。

Also in 兵車行 by Du Fu (711-770):

君不見青海頭，古來白骨無人收。

And 通典 (801):

及親征吐谷渾，駐軍青海，遇雨雪，士卒死者十二三。

既而隴右有青海之師，范陽有天門之役，朔方布思之背叛，劍南羅鳳之憑陵，或全軍不返，或連城而陷。

I would like to see sources that suggest it is calqued from Mongolian or an ancient Mongolic language. RcAlex36 (talk) 14:32, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

In the spirit of 述而不作 I think nothing is lost by removing the {{calque|...}} from the etymology. The Mongolic and Sinitic might as well be cognates, but given the textual history the "calque from Mongolian (i.e. the Mongolian language, mn, rather than any classical/earlier/substrate form !!)" statement looks pretty weak for now without further evidence. Instead, I think we can safely say, e.g. "Compare Mongolian {{l|mn|...}}" in the section. How do you think about that? --Frigoris (talk) 16:03, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Obviously it cannot be calqued from Mongolian since the Mongolian language did not exist during Northern Wei and Tang. RcAlex36 (talk) 17:42, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

@Justinrleung, Frigoris: I'm removing the {{calque|...}} since it's blatantly false. RcAlex36 (talk) 13:27, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Romance and Basque: txakur, ghjacaru, cachorro

@Djkcel, Thadh, Metaknowledge, I had some thoughts about our discussion about these words on Discord. I'm posting this here so more people can share their opinions. I looked at the source that Djkcel referenced (Trask's The History of Basque), and it seems to make a good argument that Spanish cachorro isn't from Basque. However, it seems less clear with Corsican ghjacaru and Sardinian giagaru, and Trask doesn't mention those languages at all. Trask notes that Basque txakur simply means "dog", not "puppy", which is the meaning of Spanish cachorro. However, Corsican ghjacaru simply means "dog", not "puppy". Trask's other argument against a Basque origin of cachorro is the metathesis that would be required for that etymology to be true. However, if we suppose a Romance origin of ghjacaru and giagaru, then we have the same unlikely metathesis the other way around. After considering these facts it seems much more likely to me that ghjacaru and giagaru do indeed come from Basque txakur, and thus are unrelated to Spanish cachorro. Smashhoof (Talk · Contributions) 16:55, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

As I already said, it seems strange that the Basques even be in Corsica and Sardinia, seeing as their trade routes are Atlantic, let alone introduce the word for "dog" which was already realized by the words cane and cani. Thadh (talk) 17:04, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree, and that's part of the reason I'm posting this. Because based on what you say, it seems unlikely. But the linguistic evidence seems to point the other way. Perhaps the similarity between the Corsican and Sardinian words with Basque is a coincidence? But then that introduces a new question of where do those words come from? Smashhoof (Talk · Contributions) 17:17, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

I have not read what was on פiscorפ, but Ottoman Turkish زغر (zağar) may suggest it is one of the difficult wanderworts for domesticated animals like cat. Fay Freak (talk) 18:06, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I don’t know about the historic use, but in present-day Turkish zağar is used for a specific breed of dogs; see this image.  --Lambiam 12:52, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

@Smashhoof, Thadh, Djkcel, Fay Freak, Lambiam: Arriving right on time here - just came across this word, and here are my observations:

• Haven't read Trask, but I condemn him.
• The substrate of Sardinian is quite unambiguously paleo-Basque (LibGennable) - and I see no reason to doubt that the same was true for Corsica, or that a Sardinian-like variety was spoken in Corsica before its Tuscanisation.
• The expected outcome of cattulus would be *cacho (right? -tt- escapes voicing as in macho); meanwhile the -orro in Spanish cachorro can't have anything to do with it, but matches per–fect–ly to the underlying Basque /uR/ (R = the fortis rhotic = Spanish -rr-) which is visible with suffixation (Basque also has underlyingly lenis word-final rhotic, likewise spelt single unless suffixation follows).
• The meaning "puppy" is claimed for the Basque word itself in our Etymology section. Is this against Trask?
• The other meaning in question is "hound, hunting dog" as clearly separate from the less-than-recherché canis and reflected by all save for Spanish, even Turkish.
• Sardinian has further derivatives within the "hunting" semantic range: gegerai/zacarare etc. meaning "to chase, urge, make run".
• With all that said, it's difficult not to recall *jakkōną and Alānus xD
• I've added back the possible descendats to the Basque page, now with the unc=1 parameter - still, I feel that the connection is as solid as one can hope for with borrowings of this type. Brutal Russian (talk) 07:40, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

  I don't think there is any other "obvious" Basque borrowing in Corsican to compare to (at least not that I'm aware of), but does the sound change /t͡ʃ/ > [ɟ] make sense? And I don't understand why Sardinian would voice it, either, they both have perfect ci- matches. Non-diminutive (Proto-)Basque isn't a match either, the /s/ > /d͡ʒ/, [ɟ] make even less sense. Thadh (talk) 08:14, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Etymology of vertēre (latin)

Can anyone add etymological information to the vertēre page please, even if only linking back to PIE *wert-.

vertere is an inflected form; the etymology is at the lemma vertō. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:28, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

deaf

The etymology for deaf ends with *dʰewbʰ- (“to whisk, smoke, darken, obscure”), but the definition on that reconstruction page is deep and its listed descendants are words with meanings like deep, dip, baptize. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 20:37, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Since deaf comes from Proto-Germanic *daubaz which is reported to come from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ-, the question can be refined to why *daubaz is not listed as a descendant of the latter.  --Lambiam 12:39, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

The page *dʰewbʰ- lists only one reconstructed meaning, namely that for "deep" rather than "to whisk" (itself a derivative of *dʰewh₂- *steubaną ([1]) *staumaz ([2])) - whence also deaf - or "black" (*dubus ([3]), although this also lists "deaf" as a cognate). The one from which "deaf" is derived has also some other forms mentioned on this wiki: *dʰem- (dimmr ([4])), *dheubh- (daff ([5])). All in all needs some cleanup. Thadh (talk) 13:11, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

The etymology of the Meglen Vlach word 'zãmblóc' - 'deep'

I am interested about this word as it doesn't exist in Romanian and Aromanian. The Meglen Vlach word for 'deep' is 'zãmblóc' which somehow reminds me of the Macedonian word 'длабок'(dlabok). About (dlabok) all I can find here is that it stems from the reconstructed Proto-Slavic word *glǫbokъ. And the etymology is missing or it's incomplete about the Proto-Slavic word *glǫbokъ for which is suggested that it might stem from the Proto-Indo-European *glewbʰ, to split, which I doubt it might be so. Any suggestions about the etymology of the word? — This unsigned comment was added by 92.40.168.180 (talk).

Maybe completely unrelated, but there is a regional word in Romanian zamba (from Turkish zimba), which means "hole (made by a drift)". Might be a stretch to try and connect it to "deep", but it's the only thing I can think of remotely tangent. Otherwise any lemma with zâmb- in Romanian is probably related to Proto-Slavic *zǫbъ – so that's not going to help I'm afraid. --Robbie SWE (talk) 12:08, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Etymology of rrëfanë

Hi there. Could someone locate the etymology of the first possibility on rrëfanë? This is part of a wider unsourced Albanian entries issue, but we'll fix this one for now. Thanks, ArbDardh (talk) 20:07, 14 October 2020 (UTC)ArbDardh

Category:Chinese terms coined by Kumārajīva

Kumārajīva, the 5th century Buddhist translator, is commonly credited with the coinage of many Chinese words still used today, including 世界, 平等, 悲观, 思维, 烦恼, 苦海, 未来, 心田, 爱河. I think it would be good to record these coinages on Wiktionary but I am not familiar with either Sanskrit or Buddhist scripts. Can anyone help? 恨国党非蠢即坏 (talk) 09:35, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

breed#West Frisian

The etymology (and the source) states that the lemma is borrowed from Dutch. However, Old Frisian brēd seems more direct. Why would the lemma be borrowed rather than inherited? And what would then be the direct descendant of brēd? Thadh (talk) 18:28, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Also, Old Frisian brēd lists West Frisian breed as a descendant, so we have an internal contradiction here that needs to be resolved one way or another. Given that this is a term that would have been commonly used in every-day speech, regular descent from Old Frisian seems much more likely to me on a priori grounds; the vernacular term having first been discarded and then been borrowed from Dutch to fill the void is an extraordinary assertion that needs extraordinary evidence to support it.  --Lambiam 10:04, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

A priori arm-chair reasonings don't count for much. What matters is whether this is in line with expected outcomes from Old Frisian -ēd. Don't forget that bilingualism goes back a long way in Frisia. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 12:18, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

• The Old Frisian descendants section was added by me, but specifically West Frisian was copied from Proto-Germanic *braidaz. ([1]) Thadh (talk) 12:42, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't know much about West Frisian historical phonology, but from what I know it is quite unlikely that this is a direct descendants from Old Frisian. It looks to me the usual outcome from Old Frisian ē (< Proto-German *ai) is ie and that root-final d is often lost, so the inherited form would indeed be brie. @Rua, Lambiam ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 12:18, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Leasnam is right, the occurrence of ee rather than ie points to borrowing. However, the inherited form brie is indeed attested, although it is now obsolete. —Rua (mew) 12:35, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

*þankijaną's descendant list

I've noticed this (or something similar to it) in at least one or two other Proto-Germanic etymon entries, but the Old Norse descendant from (supposedly) Middle Low Saxon doesn't seem (at least at first glance) to make sense.

Specifically:

How does denken yield þenkja? How did the d get fixed to be a þ again? Was it somehow due to influence from þekkja?

I get that there was a pretty particular time period when this word could have been reasonably loaned into Old Norse, but that doesn't excuse the thorn in the word being where it etymologically ought to be despite the supposed loaner language having totally lost th-distinction prior to the time of loaning. Tharthan (talk) 01:37, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Denasalization in Old Norse is not universal across the dialects, cf. e.g. *bankiz > West ON bekkr but East ON *benkr (> Danish bænk, Swedish bänk etc.). It looks like this could be also a case of loans between East Norse and West Norse (with also a split in meaning: þekkja broadly 'to know' vs. þenkja 'to think'). --Tropylium (talk) 21:38, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

@-sche, Lambiam: Do you (or anyone else) have any reasoning to support a Middle Low Saxon origin? Tharthan (talk) 05:19, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Málið.is seems to agree with our entry that the Icelandic word is (ultimately) from MLG, and highlights that þ has been put in place of the expected stop, but doesn't seem to suggest why, though one could suspect influence from the related words þekkja and þenking they mention. This work on Norse manuscripts also says "þenkja is a loan of MLG denken; see Westergård-Nielsen, Låneordene, 399; Bandle, 430; NT, 406-7; KW, cxxxiv", if anyone wants to track down the works referenced in case they provide more detail. (This also attributes it to MLG denken, OSx thenkian.) Málið seems to say it's attested from the 17th century, though, which makes viewing it as Old Norse curious; Cleasby/Vigfusson push the date slightly earlier, but still quite late for it to be Old Norse: "ÞENKJA, t; for the origin of this word see þekkja, which is the true old Norse form; [þenkja is a mod. word from Germ. denken, whence Dan. tænke]:—to think; this word first appears at or shortly before the Reformation; [...and in some editions of older works] this word is due to a mod. interpolation." - -sche (discuss) 09:14, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

In other words, if þenkja is indeed a loan from (Middle) Low German as multiple old and modern sources do explicitly say, the þ is curious and must, I suppose, be attributed to comparison to þekkja et al., but ... there seem to be timing problems with a loan from MLG, going by the very dates the aforementioned sources give. Perhaps the pre-16th-century uses of þenkja-with-an-n which Cleasby calls errors are in fact genuine and derive from (dialectal survival of the n in) the PGmc word rather than from MLG? This needs more looking-into. - -sche (discuss) 21:56, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Wit-Rusland (Dutch for Belarus)

Can someone please check if the etymology I added in Wit-Rusland (the Dutch word for the country Belarus) is correct? - Munmula (talk) 06:27, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I suspect that the (obsolete) Dutch name, just like English White Russia and French Russie blanche, was calqued from Russian Белая Русь (Belaja Rusʹ).  --Lambiam 21:38, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

In Dutch and German, Wit-Rusland and Weißrussland are definitely not obsolete but Belarus/Belarus have now become official. (compare also Swedish, Norwegian, Danish where native terms "White Rus/Russia" are more common) The etymology for both is most likely, a calque of Russian Белору́ссия (Belorússija), which is in turn from Бе́лая Русь (Bélaja Rusʹ, “White Rus/Ruthenia”).

"Belarus" is derived from Belarusian Белару́сь (Bjelarúsʹ) from which Russian has also borrowed - Белару́сь (Belarúsʹ). --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 22:23, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

forsooth

Isn't there an OE forsoþ "for the truth"? --Backinstadiums (talk) 10:07, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

• Middle English Compendium agrees. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 12:32, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
  • ...but, if you look at citations for spelling the older uses are often two words: "for sothe" and "for soþ" in addition to "for-soþe" and "forsoðe". Vox Sciurorum (talk) 12:50, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@Vox Sciurorum: the current etymology of forsooth reads From Middle English for + sothe, but should we have for sothe? --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:48, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

• Old English certainly had the collocation for sōþ, but Bosworth-Toller at least has no entry for a univerbation forsōþ, and I suspect even for sōþ is SOP enough not to warrant an entry. I don't know about Middle English, though. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:15, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
• I updated the etymology to refer to Middle English forsōth or for soothe, but did not add the Old English origin because MED Online and Mahāgaja's research disagree. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 22:48, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@Vox Sciurorum: [OE. forsóð, f. for prep. + sóð, sooth (noun), written as one word.] https://www.oed.com/oed2/00088749 --Backinstadiums (talk) 06:50, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Added the Old English forsoþ in etymology without diacritics. (Following Wiktionary:About Old English: "Old English entries here should be without diacritical marks in the page title" but perhaps they should be present in link text.) Vox Sciurorum (talk) 11:31, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

We do usually write Old English with long marks, which are stripped off in links and not present in page names. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:40, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

كرموس

Roger Blench says here that this word is a loan from Berber and gives (besides Tashelhit and Kabyle forms, which theoretically could have borrowed from Arabic) the Guanche form achormaze as a cognate.

As Guanche did not have any contact with Arabic, it seems that this really is just a straight up loan from Berber.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 13:52, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, كَرْمَة (karma) did mean “fig tree”, Corriente, Federico, Pereira, Christophe, Vicente, Angeles, editors (2017), Dictionnaire du faisceau dialectal arabe andalou. Perspectives phraséologiques et étymologiques (in French), Berlin: De Gruyter, →ISBN, page 1101 gives as a source the edition of a medieval treatise Ḥasan Ḥusni ʿabdelwahhāb (1953) Al-Djumânah. Étude dialectologique sur les parlers de Grenade et de Tunis au XIVe siècle, page 36, and in Northwestern African Arabic one often adds this -ūs. The supposition that the Guanches never had contact with Arabic is doubtful. At which point did they enter those islands from the African mainland? Either it was already arabicized, or one still spoke Punic, which likely also had the word كَرْم (karm). And what after the Spaniards found them? Fay Freak (talk) 14:19, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

A word to the wise: Blench is a sloppy scholar, and he should not be trusted for our etymologies. This is well supported as a native Arabic word, and I don't know where Blench got his Guanche data, but when I go back to the source, I see arahormaze instead, which is perhaps not even related. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 14:32, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@Karaeng Matoaya: I see now that you've created several Guanche entries based on Blench's article. Please stop; these will be quite challenging to clean up, and are at the very least orthographically manipulated, and seemingly in some cases mistranscribed. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 14:34, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge Ah, I see, thank you for the notice. I was not previously aware about Blench's reputation (or lack thereof).--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 15:06, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

It's... complicated. He means well, and knows a lot, but gets in over his head because he's interesting in everything, and makes basic mistakes as a result. Anyway, if you're interested in working on Guanche, send me an email and I can send you some materials. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:17, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Is 筒子 considered ateji?

What do we consider as ateji here? @Huhu9001 has removed it from the etymology twice, but the definition given in the glossary seems to allow it to be in the category of ateji. Pinging @Eirikr, Poketalker, Suzukaze-c. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 02:39, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: This is how ateji works: To be qualified as ateji, 筒 needs to have a pronunciation (either Japanese or Chinese) similar to ピン before the kanji form 筒子 emerged. But it has none. Compare 寿司, a well-known example of ateji. 寿 and 司 had already had pronunciations similar to す and し before they were assigned to the word すし. -- Huhu9001 (talk) 02:48, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

@Huhu9001: That's the narrow sense of ateji. There is a broader sense that would also call 時計, where 時 doesn't have any relationship to the pronunciation と, ateji. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 02:52, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: No. 時 has the pronunciation とき, and thus is related to と. This kind of pseudo-sound shift, by analogy with words like 水, みず, み, is often permitted in ateji. -- Huhu9001 (talk) 02:56, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Chiming in --

@Justinrleung: There are different applications of the term ateji. In its broadest sense, it is any case where there are applied (ate-) characters (ji) for a reading that wouldn't ordinarily be spelled that way.

More specific to Wiktionary, the evolved consensus here has been a narrower sense, concerning only those spellings where the characters so applied are used for their phonetic values, but usually without regard to their semantic values. Things like 夜露死苦 used to spell よろしく (yoroshiku). Meanwhile, jukujikun describes those cases where the characters so applied are used for their semantic values, and generally ignoring their phonetic values. Things like 百済 used to spell くだら (Kudara), an old Japanese name for the Baekje.

Terms borrowed in toto from Chinese more recently, and that use a more Chinese-ish reading, can't quite fit into either ateji or jukujikun categories, so in this, I ultimately agree with Huhu9001's removal of the ateji label. (I might recommend that Huhu9001 make greater use of edit comments in future to explain his reasoning, as that could help avoid confusion and the resulting need for discussion threads.) ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 03:41, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

@Huhu9001, Eirikr: Okay, thanks for the clarification! — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 03:58, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

@Eirikr: What? You mean I should write

This is how ateji works: To be qualified as ateji, 筒 needs to have a pronunciation (either Japanese or Chinese) similar to ピン before the kanji form 筒子 emerged. But it has none. Compare 寿司, a well-known example of ateji. 寿 and 司 had already had pronunciations similar to す and し before they were assigned to the word すし. No. 時 has the pronunciation とき, and thus is related to と. This kind of pseudo-sound shift, by analogy with words like 水, みず, み, is often permitted in ateji.

in the edit comment? Apparently sometimes discussion threads are unavoidable. -- Huhu9001 (talk) 04:16, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

fortitudinous

< Fortitūdinem (accusative sg. of fortitūdō) + -ous.

Synchronically, should an -in- be accounted for? --Backinstadiums (talk) 13:53, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

No, it's just part of the stem. It doesn't come from the accusative case plus a suffix, it comes from the stem plus a suffix. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:34, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

cygne

Does this really come from Old French cine, cisne (and if so, why isn't the modern form cîne), or is it a reborrowing from Latin or derived from some other Old French form?

It's not exactly a reborrowing from Latin, but it's a respelling under classical influence, followed by a spelling pronunciation. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:33, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

English terms borrowed from Old French

I think Category:English terms borrowed from Old French should be empty or nearly empty, because Old French died before Modern English was born. Most or all instances of {{bor|en|fro}} should be replaced by {{der|en|fro}}. The borrowing {{bor|enm|fro}} belongs in the Middle English section. Is that how the templates are meant to be used? Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:19, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, but rather than simply replacing {{bor|en|fro}} with {{der|en|fro}}, we should find out the Middle English form and put "From {{inh|en|enm|...}}, from {{der|en|fro|...}}". Of course, there may be some Old French words that were borrowed directly into Modern English as historical technical terms or the like. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:54, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

A lot of these seem to be words with ME forms mentioned where {{der|en|fro}} was mistakenly replaced with {{bor|en|fro}} (or where {{bor|en|fro}} was never removed in the first place). There probably is at least a few words which were directly borrowed into ModE from OF, so a manual look-though is needed; I'll see what I can do in that regard. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 12:39, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

行

The first Japanese etymology is described as a 慣用音 (kan'yōon) reading, and the second as a 呉音 (goon) reading. Yet, they have the same pronunciation (ぎょう "gyou"; historical ぎやう "gyau") and derivation (from Middle Chinese 行 (MC ɦˠæŋ)), so what is the basis for this distinction? The definition for kan'yōon states: “a reading of a kanji that is commonly accepted, but that is originally based on a corrupted or otherwise non-standard reading.” How can this kan'yōon be "corrupted" or "non-standard" when it is the same as a standard reading?

―98.110.85.106 01:40, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

herd

Perhaps someone etymological might like to have a look at Wiktionary:Tea_room/2020/October#herd. Mihia (talk) 10:08, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

cylinders

I am building the descendant tree of Ancient Greek κύλινδρος (kúlindros), the father of all cylinders. There are a few cases where the details are unclear to me.

1. Were any of the Romance language words for cylinder, like Italian cilindro and Catalan cilindre, inherited from Latin? The online sources do not distinguish inheritance from borrowing the way we do. At treccani.it I find "dal lat. cylindrus". At RAE, "del lat. cylindrus"[2].
2. Was Middle French chilindre coined directly from Greek or from Latin cylindrus? Most sources put Latin in the middle but our etymology gives ancient Greek.
3. How did the Slavic words arise, and were any of them passed by inheritance within the language family? I changed цилиндр (cilindr) from a descendant of κύλινδρος to a borrowing because Russian is not derived from ancient Greek. But it may not be a direct borrowing.
4. Is it known how cylinder came into the Scandinavian languages? As I understand SAOB[3] the route from France to Sweden is uncertain. Gammeldansk Ordbog gives nothing for cylinder so I presume it to be a modern borrowing. Den Danske Ordbog[4] only gives the Greek.
5. Where did Albanian cilindër come from?
6. Turkish silindir is said to be borrowed from modern Greek, but the etymology section uses {{der}}. Needs fixing.

Any thoughts would be welcome. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 12:57, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't have answers to all your questions, but here are few things to consider:

1. In Western Romance at least, Latin short /i/ becomes high-mid /e/, so we'd expect inherited forms to look like celendro rather than cilindro. In addition, intervocalic /l/ disappears in inherited forms in Portuguese, so if it were inherited we'd expect *cendro, but in fact it's cilindro. So the Romance words definitely look like learned borrowings.
2. I strongly suspect the Middle French was borrowed directly from Latin; whoever wrote the etymology section of that entry probably simply didn't bother to say so, rather than deliberately omitting it because it shouldn't be there.
3. Slavic loanwords from Greek don't change κ to ц before a front vowel. If the Russian were borrowed directly from Greek, we'd expect *килиндр (*kilindr). Looking through the translation section of cylinder, I don't see any that start with kil or кил, so I'd say all the Slavic words were borrowed from some Western European source, probably German Zylinder.
4. The Scandinavian words are probably also from either German or French.
5. The Albanian word is probably either directly from German or else from a neighboring Slavic language that got it from German. If it were from Italian we'd expect it to start with ç, and if it were from Greek we'd expect it to start with k.
6. I suspect the Turkish is borrowed from French. As with Albanian, if it were from Italian we'd expect it to start with ç, and if it were from Greek we'd expect it to start with k.

Hope this helps! —Mahāgaja · talk 13:49, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

That is helpful.

1. Do you think Italian could have inherited the Latin word? (I once read a book on the phonological changes from Latin to Italian, but far too many years ago to remember any details.)
2. I've changed the French word to come from Latin. I have not found an online copy in Middle French of the paper in which the word first appears (Problèmes d'Aristote, Évrard de Conty).
3. Is the initial /t͡s/ shared between German and Russian evidence of a borrowing? Would you expect a borrowing into a Slavic language from French to yield /s/? Russian Wiktionary agrees that цилиндр came through German and I've changed the etymology here.
4. Danish cylinder (according to Den Danske Ordbog) begins with /s/. Is that a likely outcome of a borrowing from a word beginning /t͡s/? In the borrowing category here I find Zirkon (/t͡sɪrˈkoːn/) became zirkon (/siɐ̯ˈkoˀn/) so it is at least possible.

Thanks. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 18:58, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

돈

錢 (OC *ʔslenʔ, *zlen, “money”) > 돈〯 (Yale: twǒn) is not even given consideration by Mark C. Miyake ("Korean does not have a cognate for this word [Old Japanese zeni from 錢]", p. 186, "Pre-Sino-Korean and Pre-Sino-Japanese", 1997). The source cited in the edit summary/talk page is a pop econ book by a business school professor, so does not constitute a valid source.

Besides this, the etymology has unaddressed problems:

• No match in initial consonant or vowel quality, including implausible fortition of a fricative to /t/ (unknown in any other OK > MK word that I know of). In the talk page 짧다 is given as an example of a change in vowel quality but this is incorrect: 짧다 does not come from Middle Korean 뎌르다 but from its yang-vowel pair 댜ᄅᆞ다, which is also attested in Middle Korean and had much the same meaning
• Fails to explain MK rising pitch, which implies either a Middle Chinese non-level tone or an Old Korean bisyllabic form (and this is a thorny word; Roy Andrew Miller also failed to establish an etymology that could explain the pitch of 돈〯). This is actually a problem for the 銅 etymology as well.

@Eirikr, B2V22BHARAT. KevinUp seems to be inactive.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 09:43, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@Karaeng Matoaya I'll bring the quote for you.

Page 25, in 돈의 철학 by 임석민:

돈의 어원

우리나라 화폐를 '돈이라' 부르게 된 유래에 대해 여러 설이 있다. 한자의 전(錢)이 화폐를 뜻하는 말로 쓰였고, 錢을 '전'과 '돈'으로 읽었는데, 고려 말까지 '전'과 '돈'이 같이 쓰이다가, 한글창제 후 '돈'으로 통일되어싸는 설이 가장 신빙성이 있다. 약제나 귀금속의 무게를 재는 중량단위인 '전'이 '돈'으로 변하여 사용되어 오다가 '돈'으로 정착된 것이다. 금 1'돈'=3.75g,이라 할때의 '돈'이다.

영어의 Money는 라틴어 'moneta'에서 유래된 것이다. 로마의 유노 모네타(Juno Moneta) 신전 근처의 조폐소에서 만들어진 돈을 '모네타'라고 불렀고, 모네타가 옛 프랑스어 'moneie'를 거쳐 영어의 'money'가 되었다.

• 돈의 명칭은 무게를 나타내는 말에서 나왔다. 우리의 경우 1냥=10전(=돈)=100푼(分=文)=37.5g이다. 프랑스의 옛 화폐단위인 리브르(490g, 1803년 나폴레옹이 '프랑'으로 변경)와 영국의 파운드(453.6g) 등도 무게단위의 호칭이다.

I hope this information can help many international readers who are curious about the origin of money. Sincerely, B2V22BHARAT (talk) 09:53, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@B2V22BHARAT, 돈 (don) as a unit of measurement is a calque from Japanese enforced in 1909 (see 한국민족문화대백과사전 entry, 돈은 우리나라의 전통 무게단위로 처음부터 사용된 것이 아니고, 일본의 조선침략과 함께 우리의 도량형의 단위를 일본의 단위로 일부 통일하면서 사용되기 시작하여...) so the etymology really doesn't hold up at all.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 10:19, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@Karaeng Matoaya No, what the writer is saying is that 전(The original weighting unit used in Korea before 일본 침략 사건) changed to 돈 because of palatalization, so the etymology holds. B2V22BHARAT (talk) 10:25, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

And this etymology is way better than the old etymology that says, 돈 came from 돌다, which 한국민족문화대백과사전 [5] considers it as folks etymology. 돈은 ‘돈다’는 동사에서 유래하였고, 한 곳에 머물지 않고 돌아다닌다는 뜻이라고 하기 일쑤이나, 민간 어원이라고 보아 마땅하다 [출처: 한국민족문화대백과사전(돈)] B2V22BHARAT (talk) 10:28, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@B2V22BHARAT The 전 etymology should be removed because it is spurious and the 돌다 etymology should be clearly marked as a false but pervasive folk etymology, like the mention of acronyms we have at fuck.

Per the 한국민족문화대백과사전 there is no evidence that 돈 was ever a unit of measurement in Korea before 1909, when the Japanese enforced it as a calque of their own measuring systems. The sound shifts involved are beyond implausible. 젼 > 돈 is not palatalization, an example of which would be e.g. 둏다 > 죻다; it's the complete opposite of palatalization. Furthermore, Korean /tj/ > /t͡ɕ/ occurred in the eighteenth century (we have direct records of people complaining about this from the period), whereas 돈〯 is attested since the earliest Hangul records in the fifteenth century. There is simply no known phonological process in the history of Korean that could have produced 돈〯 out of any form of 錢.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 10:34, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@Karaeng Matoaya Well, I'm not that history savvy as you are, and I also think that 젼 > 돈 palatalization is werid. But it is stated in the book like above and that's why I brought it. Yes, 돌다 is a pervasive folks etymology, but I thought what's published in printed material(book) is much more stronger than the folks etymology. Also, if you could find any Korean words that had shift from ㅈ--> ㄷ, I appreciate it, because it may be a sign that 전 became 돈 pre 일본 침략 사건. Regards, B2V22BHARAT (talk) 10:39, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Here is another person arguing that 돈 came from 錢. In naver 지식인, quote, "한편 ‘돈’의 어원을 한자 ‘錢’의 중국 상고음 ‘dzjan’에서 구하기도 한다. ‘錢’과 ‘돈’의 의미가 같고 또 음운론적으로 그 변화를 설명할 수 있다는 점에서 설득력이 있다." https://kin.naver.com/qna/detail.nhn?d1id=11&dirId=11080102&docId=333864759&qb=64+I7J2YIOyWtOybkCDsoIQ=&enc=utf8&section=kin&rank=1&search_sort=0&spq=0 B2V22BHARAT (talk) 10:45, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Oh never mind, it seems that what author is saying is that 錢's old pronunciation was 뎐, rather than 전(current pronunciation), hence 돈 came from 뎐. B2V22BHARAT (talk) 10:54, 26 October 2020 (UTC) And there is another theory that says 돈 came from 刀(Knife), which is pretty plausible because of existence of 명도전, https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EB%AA%85%EB%8F%84%EC%A0%84 but in this case, it is difficult to explain why you have ㄴ 받침 in the bottom. B2V22BHARAT (talk) 11:01, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

I personally think that 돈 came from either 刀 or 錢 and I see it as latter because it has ㄴ 받침 in it. B2V22BHARAT (talk) 11:01, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

And also it seems that 刀 and 錢 were both used interchangeably to mean 'currency' until 고려 period(https://opendict.korean.go.kr/dictionary/view?sense_no=404089), and I believe that latter is the answer because of ㄴ 받침. B2V22BHARAT (talk) 11:04, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

In either way, the current etymology of 돌다 should be removed or come in third place after these two, because 돌다 lacks historical evidence. B2V22BHARAT (talk) 11:07, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@B2V22BHARAT There was a brief academic discussion about this very word in 1993 which you might be interested in, and where the 錢 etymology was very quickly rejected. Linguists have reconstructed the Chinese pronunciation of 錢 since the early first millennium BC and at no point did it ever sound like 뎐. The first phoneme has always been a sibilant fricative.

The two other hypotheses raised in this discussion were:

• 刀銀／刀银 (dāo yín): because ancient coins were sword-shaped. Explains the rising pitch, but seems pretty implausible to me.
• 도 + ㄴ: the ancestor of Middle Korean 되 (unit of measurement) is given as 刀 in the Jilin leishi. See also 跡烏, 岩乎 for attested examples of Old Korean ㅗ > Middle Korean ㅚ. Since the Middle Korean verb 되다 "to measure" is derived from the unit, the argument was proposed that the Old Korean ancestor of this verb was 도다, with 돈 a derived nominalized form of this verb (see 隱). Thus "something measured" > "money".

The second hypothesis makes good sense to me and should probably be added as a potential etymology to the main entry.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 11:12, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@Karaeng Matoaya No, I don't think 돈 came from unit of measurement 되. You can't explain ㄴ 받침, still. Besides, all of the history that you explained above (跡烏, 岩乎, 隱) seems like 짜집기 to me. After a quite extensive research on naver and google, it seems that there are two main etymologies. One is Knife(칼, 날, 날카롭다) as you mentioned in 刀銀／刀银. However, if you are to adopt this etymology, 錢／钱 comes also, because 錢 and 刀 were both used interchangeably to mean money and 錢 is more stronger than 刀 because it has ㄴ 받침 in the bottom. Your sibilant fricative argument is just an assumption, so I strongly think that 돈 came from 錢. However, we will not reach consensus, so we should put both etymologies. One is Knife(칼) and the other is 전(錢). B2V22BHARAT (talk) 11:26, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@B2V22BHARAT Again, I think you're ill-equipped to deal with Korean etymologies to any degree if you believe that a century of research by linguists since Shinpei Ogura is "짜집기". The verbal suffix -n has been explained: this is a highly productive realis nominalizer (or gerund, some would say) in Old Korean, which retained some of its functions in the early Hangul texts, e.g. 동동:

德이여 福이라 호ᄂᆞᆯ 나ᅀᆞ라 오소ᅌᅵ다

덕이며 복이라고 하는 것을 진상하려 왔습니다

From 용비어천가:

威化振旅ᄒᆞ〮시〮ᄂᆞ로〮 輿望이〮 다〯 몯ᄌᆞᄫᆞ〮나〮

위화진려(威化振旅)하신 것으로 여망(輿望)이 다 모이나

You should not be adding etymologies based on "extensive research on naver and google" without understanding the processes you are dealing with.

Again, your notion that Old and Middle Chinese reconstructions are "just an assumption" is simply not the way linguistics works as a science. I understand that you do not believe in comparative linguistics, but most people do not agree with you.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 11:50, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@Karaeng Matoaya Again, no citation. Present to people the reference that 돈 came from 되(unit of measurement) and that will strengthen your argument. However, even if that's the case, the most popular etymologies(刀 and 錢) will be under etymology of 돈, also. Sincerely, B2V22BHARAT (talk) 12:14, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@B2V22BHARAT The citation is already given in this very comment chain (at 11:12), in fact the only academic citation to be offered over the course of this conversation (other than Miyake at the beginning, who also dismisses the 錢 etymology as something not even worth spending time discussing).--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 12:29, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@Karaeng Matoaya If what you said in 11:12 was from a book, why didn't you use <ref> < /ref>? That's plagiarism. I always encounter your edits without citation(reference) and after I revert it, you put reference. Be careful not to plagiarize. The definition of plagiarism is "claiming somebody else's ideas as your own". You obviously majored or studied Korean linguistics, but you should always cite what you're saying. In addition, just like you and I differ in beliefs, scholars also view things differently. There is no right or wrong in Proto-language field, where there is no record, which is attractive, but always be aware that it is only hypothetical evidence that is believed to have existed based on comparative evidence which may be right or wrong. That's why I'm requesting for renowned scholars' citation. B2V22BHARAT (talk) 12:37, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@B2V22BHARAT You have not offered a single academic source for your claim that 錢 is the most likely source. Feel free to come up with them and then we can discuss.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 15:00, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@Karaeng Matoaya I've already provided sufficient amount of links in the above that explains 돈 came from 錢 hence is related with 푼. B2V22BHARAT (talk) 15:09, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@B2V22BHARAT You have offered a source which is frankly completely useless (pop econ book) and an opendict.korean.go.kr link, which while valid as a source is superseded in its analysis by more specialized linguistic sources such as the one I offered. The opendict.korean.go.kr link in particular is also unusually bad (it calls a Middle Chinese reconstruction 상고음, which does not bode well for its capability to treat matters of Chinese linguistics). You also seem to lack the expertise to propose by yourself any plausible means by which 錢 (OC *ʔslenʔ, *zlen) could have become 돈〯 (Yale: twǒn), so this discussion is really superfluous unless you can find an academic source which does so.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 15:14, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@Karaeng Matoaya That doesn't mean that you can put etymology supported by only one book published in 1993. If you search the origin of money in naver.com and google.com, the most popular theories are that 돈 came from a weighting unit 錢, like the Libre(489.5g) and Pound(453.6g) in France and Britain. And hence Don(3.75g), which have similar pronunciations with 刀 and 錢, which meant money(or currency) until Goryeo period are much more plausible than the 되다 origin. B2V22BHARAT (talk) 15:20, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@B2V22BHARAT You should not be doing research based on naver.com and google.com. Again, if you can find any substantial academic treatment of this word's etymology other than the 1993 proceedings, you are welcome to do so.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 15:22, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@Karaeng Matoaya Yes I can. There are plenty of materials in here that supports my argument. https://www.google.com/search?q=%EB%8F%88%EC%9D%98+%EC%96%B4%EC%9B%90+%E9%8C%A2&sxsrf=ALeKk02oBTaX2qbe-xEnZdvXqwcMJHuF1A:1603725904619&source=lnms&tbm=bks&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiCgfLGyNLsAhXxDaYKHUHSDiUQ_AUoAXoECA8QCQ&biw=1707&bih=865 B2V22BHARAT (talk) 15:26, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

What about yours? None. https://www.google.com/search?biw=1707&bih=865&tbm=bks&sxsrf=ALeKk034fH4PmsaqkmsrN0osWx3IZIYIIQ%3A1603726041904&ei=2eqWX6_aNrLVmAWAg7TYBg&q=%EB%8F%88%EC%9D%98+%EC%96%B4%EC%9B%90+%EB%90%98%EB%8B%A4&oq=%EB%8F%88%EC%9D%98+%EC%96%B4%EC%9B%90+%EB%90%98%EB%8B%A4&gs_l=psy-ab.3...5115.5115.0.5289.1.1.0.0.0.0.75.75.1.1.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.0.0....0.usbHCQ6HlTA

@B2V22BHARAT Let's look at each of the Google Books links, shall we?

• [6]: About the etymology of an unrelated word.
• The next three are all pop econ or self help books.
• [7]: Proposes an etymology from 돓(石) for 돈, not from 錢
• [8]: Does not suggest an etymology from 錢
• [9]: This is the exact 1993 paper we're talking about

So no, you have given nothing at all.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 15:32, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

And in general, etymologies are not decided by the number of Google hits.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 15:34, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@Karaeng Matoaya Look again. B2V22BHARAT (talk) 15:35, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@Karaeng Matoaya Yes, but it's more widely accepted and read my many people, so.. I think it's much better than 1993 published obsolete or archaic reference. B2V22BHARAT (talk) 15:41, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@B2V22BHARAT I have looked again and found no substantial academic explanation of your claims. "It's more widely accepted and read my many people" is not a good reason for supporting a thesis in academics, and 1993 is far from "obsolete or archaic" for the field.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 15:44, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

After quite a bit more research I have found only this paper and this paper which are even tangentially related. The first claims a 錢 etymology without elaboration, while the latter classifies the word with other native words. Neither are even slightly about etymology, so they aren't too relevant. 서정범 (whose etymologies tend to be highly speculative and can't always be trusted) seems to prefer an etymology from 돓 (Yale: twolh) but also theorizes about a potential connection to 錢 which he apparently reconstructs bizarrely as */tan/. If only this were true, our problem would be solved. But I'm not sure where this even comes from—Karlgren's Grammata Serica Recensa correctly reconstructs a sibilant here and I'm fairly sure all mainstream reconstructions have followed him in this.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 19:06, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

I have yet not been able to find any other academic source discussing the etymology of this word, especially not one that actually takes into account the reconstructions of the Chinese pronunciation. These were the very reconstructions that were so incompatible with the Korean form that Seo Jae-geuk (of the 1993 seminar) immediately abandoned the 錢 hypothesis, of course. In the absence of further sources I hold that the etymology section should be written around the 1993 seminar, as the only in-depth consideration of the etymology.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 19:22, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@Karaeng Matoaya Well, that's only your thought to choose which etymology of money should be used over others, because all of those theories including mine and yours are speculation; hence, I suggest putting both eymologies. 刀 and 錢. // 되다(to become) origin--> I oppose, because I cannot find this origin in recent published books. B2V22BHARAT (talk) 01:54, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

---

@B2V22BHARAT There is a distinction between academic speculation, such as I have offered, and speculation found via Google hits, such as the ones you have offered. 1993 is fully recent for our purposes here (in fact, barring 서정범's subpar speculations, they are the most recent academic material we have so far been able to find), and for the small field of historical linguistics generally. None of the discussion there is superseded by newer discoveries in Korean historical linguistics (if anything they have won more support), and in Indo-European entries we regularly have references from the early twentieth century.

되다 here is also not "to become" but "to measure in containers".

But let's compromise, given that it's largely irrelevant anyways as the actual etymology is simply unknown. We could have a short:

The etymology beyond Middle Korean is unknown. Native etymologies have been hypothesized, such as an *-n nominalization from 되다 (doeda, “to measure in containers”), Old Korean form given as *도 in Jilin leishi, or even a connection to 돌 (dol, “stone”).

Others have speculated a pre-Sino-Korean or nativised Chinese etymon, perhaps from a phrase involving 刀 (OC *taːw, “knife”) such as 刀銀 (OC *taːw ŋrɯn, “knife silver”), Chinese knife money being the first form of coinage in Korea, or alternately from 錢 (OC *ʔslenʔ, *zlen, “money”).

There is a pervasive but spurious folk etymology connecting it to 돌— (dol-, “to spin around, to circulate”), hence "that which is circulated".

With the citation being to the 1993 paper, which is again the only academic reference that has been offered here.

And after this let's mutually stop stepping on each other's toes, alright? I have no particular interest in coming here every day for endless edit wars that never go anywhere, and you probably don't either. Please stop "supervising" my edits and just imagine I don't exist and I will do likewise.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 11:19, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

@Karaeng Matoaya Okay. I just didn't like the fact that you described the etymology of 錢 and 銅 as "problematic", because that did not match with what I could search on recently published books. But since you deleted this comment on a revised form, I'd say it's okay to put it because after all, those theories are all speculations about the origin of money. And I won't touch your editing for the time being. B2V22BHARAT (talk) 12:15, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

@B2V22BHARAT And me likewise.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 12:33, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

safka

I saw a question somewhere (I thought it was Linguistics Stackexchange, but I can't find it) on the origin of Finnish safka, and the reply pointed them to our entry, which says it is from завтрак (zavtrak). However, I've just noticed that the entry in fi-wikt derives it from a different Russian word, закуска (zakuska). Can anybody resolve this disagreement? --ColinFine (talk) 17:04, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Most likely safka < завтрак (zavtrak) and sapuska < закуска (zakuska), but probably the words have also influenced each other in some way, so it isn't that clear-cut. — surjection ⟨??⟩ 17:21, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

dollar

Is it borrowed directly from 16th-century Dutch, or actually from late Middle Low German? Sources give conflicting information. — 69.120.64.15

OED: Low German or Flemish

AHD: Low German

Etymonline: Low German

Merriam-Webster "Dutch or Low German ~ DJ K-Çel (contribs ~ talk) 03:36, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

If the account given at Dollar#History is correct, a Dutch coin called a (leeuwen)daler was in circulation throughout the Thirteen Colonies during the 17th and early 18th centuries, where it was popularly known as (lion) dollar, and so the term entered American English through Dutch. The Dutch word leeuwendaler can be seen in an 18th-century French encyclopedia. The English term is seen, spelled Lyon Dollar, in an 18th-century account. Other coins called Thaler were probably called daler in Low German as well, but I’m not aware of a competitively plausible route for dollar having been borrowed from Low German.  --Lambiam 13:24, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

The Dutch word daalder was actually borrowed from Low German, according to the EW, EWN and some other etymological reference works; [10] the Low German of course comes from German. According to Ewoud Sanders the spelling daler was preferred/prescribed by dictionaries until the nineteenth century, although the form with interfixed -d- is quite old. So it may not be surprising that the form daler was the one that would be borrowed. If the English word was indeed borrowed from Dutch, it derives from Low German anyway. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 12:58, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Hebrew מורה

Anyone know the etymology of Hebrew מורה "teacher"? Is it a newer word, or does it go back to antiquity? Just wondering if it's related to Hebrew מר (in the sense of "master", etymology #2) which I'm thinking was loaned from Aramaic (whence Syriac ܡܪܐ (etymology #1))... 2601:49:C301:D810:DD47:249B:D962:6568 17:40, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

It's Biblical: 2 Chronicles 15:3 reads וְיָמִ֥ים רַבִּ֖ים לְיִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל לְלֹ֣א אֱלֹהֵ֣י אֱמֶ֗ת וּלְלֹ֛א כֹּהֵ֥ן מֹורֶ֖ה וּלְלֹ֥א תֹורָֽה׃ (“Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law.”) and Isaiah 30:20 reads וְנָתַ֨ן לָכֶ֧ם אֲדֹנָ֛י לֶ֥חֶם צָ֖ר וּמַ֣יִם לָ֑חַץ וְלֹֽא־יִכָּנֵ֥ף עוֹד֙ מוֹרֶ֔יךָ וְהָי֥וּ עֵינֶ֖יךָ רֹא֥וֹת אֶת־מוֹרֶֽיךָ׃ (“And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers”). It's from ירה (“to point out, teach”); Brown-Driver-Briggs connects it with Aramaic אוֹרִי (ôrî, “to teach”), Amharic [script needed] (warê, “information, news”), and Assyrian Akkadian [script needed] (ârû, “to lead, guide”). (Frustratingly, though, the only verses actually mentioned in BDB's entry for מורה are the ones referring to the place name Moreh, which might not even be the same word.) The מ־ is a prefix, not part of the root, so it's unrelated to מר and ܡܪܐ. —Mahāgaja · talk 18:46, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Ok, thanks a lot! :) 2601:49:C301:D810:DD47:249B:D962:6568 01:15, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Note that it relates to תורה "Torah" (lit. "teaching") exactly as מוֹדֶה ("modeh", the participle of הודה "hodah" - "acknowledge, thank") does to תודה "todah" - "thanks". In both cases I believe the -מ form is a participle of the hiph'il, and the -ת a denominal from it. --ColinFine (talk) 20:17, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

laetus

Is the etym tenable as given? It isn't even mentioned in Prospér (2019), 472 (even if we don't follow Prospér in deriving it from deh2-). --Akletos (talk) 14:53, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Latin normally preserves initial pl- so it would be suspect if it were not in this one instance. —Rua (mew) 14:59, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Why should PIE pr- yield Latin pl- in the first place? There isn't anything which it could be dissimilated from. --Akletos (talk) 15:41, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

De Vaan does not give this etymology either. He mentions a possible connection, proposed by Walde & Hoffman and Pokorny, with lar(i)dum en largus, which would give a PIE *lai-to-. However, de Vaan deems this “a very artificial reconstruction”.  --Lambiam 12:41, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

I'd delete the etymology with prejudice since it is phonologically impossible and not obviously derivable from any existing facts or sources. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 19:28, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

I have done so. Ernout-Meillet also says “there is no net approach for this word”. Fay Freak (talk) 00:31, 31 October 2020 (UTC)