Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2024/April

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Ctedoctema

The protist Ctedoctema is the type genus of the family Ctedoctematidae. I don't understand all its etymology: the prefix cte- seems derived from the ancient Greek κτένα / ktena, "comb" (because of its comb-like hairs), but the meaning of doctema escapes me. Could you please help me? Gerardgiraud (talk) 06:56, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

I really want it to be ctedo- + -ctema, but the only thing I can find for "ctedo-" is κτηδών (ktēdṓn, “fiber, layer (of slate), gill (of a mushroom), shred (of lint)”, usually in the plural), but the stem of that should really be ctedono- rather than ctedo-. -ctema could be κτῆμα (ktêma, “piece of property, possession”). The only words containing the string δοκτ that I can find at Perseus are ones where the "δο" belongs to the first part of a compound and the "κτ" belongs to the second part (e.g. παιδο-κτόνος (paido-któnos, “child-slaying”)). I can't find any words containing the string δωκτ at all. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:20, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Mahāgaja, thank you for your reply. I have just found the original reference of Ctedoctema. Stein attributes it to the Greek ktedon, “comb” and ktema, “possession”. See Stein 1884, page 666. Do you agree with that? Gerardgiraud (talk) 06:43, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

The Classical-era Ancient Greek word for comb is κτείς (kteís), stem κτεν- (kten-), which doesn't have a d in it. The only word I can find starting κτεδ- or κτηδ- is κτηδών (ktēdṓn) mentioned above. Maybe Medieval Greek has a word for "comb" with a d in it; I don't know. Or maybe whoever named this critter made a mistake and "ought" to have named it Ctenoctema. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:10, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

rõ

Is Vietnamese rõ related to Thai รู้ or Zhuang rox ? 汩汩银泉 (talk) 12:33, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-West Germanic/bodag

'From PG *budagą 'body, trunk, corpse', from Proto-Indo-European *bʰewdʰ- (“to be awake, observe”)'

I fail to see the logic behind such a semantic development, and no source is given either.

Speaking of which, whoever added Proto-West-Germanic a couple of years ago was apparently so keen for all the world to see their achievement that they have made all the English and German etymology sections that used to lead the derivation back to the Proto-Germanic etymon refer to the Proto-West-Germanic one instead, and, what is worse, from there jump directly to the Proto-Indo-European etymon, as if Proto-Germanic had never existed. Weird and arbitrary. For what is worth, the existence of Proto-Germanic is less controversial than the existence of Proto-West-Germanic, and it's a more important stage in the grand scheme of things; if you have to skip one of the two for reasons of space, it should be Proto-West-Germanic.--62.73.69.121 23:56, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

A "body" is a living thing (cf. Leib < leben). And being "awake" is of course strongly associated with life (just like "sleep" with "death"). So that already makes it plausible enough. Whether it's true I can't say. --- Regarding your "speaking of which", this probably belongs in the beer parlour, but I actually agree. I think "Proto-West Germanic" is a good thing as such, but I absolutely fail to understand why the much more established Proto-Germanic has been displaced in so many etymologies. I think PWG should only be mentioned when it's somehow particularly relevant (e.g. a special West Germanic development) or obviously when we can't trace a word further. 90.186.83.227 01:08, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

There is no basis for reconstructing it in Proto-Germanic as there is no North Germanic cognate. Simple as that. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 12:37, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

What does that have to do with anything? 67.73.69.121 challenged the derivation from PIE *bʰewdʰ- because they didn't see semantic relation between "be awake" and "body". --- But anyway: no, it's absolutely not "simple as that". Very often we can and even must reconstruct a West Germanic term for Proto-Germanic, namely when there are PIE cognates and when the construction in its form shows that it must predate Proto-West Germanic. Whether that is the case here, I cannot say. But note that the current etymology does say "From PG *budagą". 90.186.83.227 14:36, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Because you already addressed the semantic aspect, I responded to you saying: "I absolutely fail to understand why the much more established Proto-Germanic has been displaced in so many etymologies." There has to be a positive reason to reconstruct Proto-Germanic instead of Proto-West-Germanic. Usually that means a North Germanic cognate, but you're right that it could also be an extra-Germanic cognate; when sound laws necessitate it; or when a derivation was only productive in Proto-Germanic. We can argue over whether "PG *budagą" even deserves to be mentioned. We could add a "maybe". At any rate, I see no positive reason to reconstruct it, so no redlink/own entry. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 15:38, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Okay, I see. Sorry. -- But note that the question of "Proto-West Germanic displacing Proto-Germanic on wiktionary" refers more to our etymology sections. In a lot of entries we have something like "From MHG .., from OHG .., from PWG *..". And that's it, even when the word is Proto-Germanic. A numbers of users have systematically removed PG in favour of PWG. 90.186.83.227 16:33, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

I follow Germanic entries too and I haven't noticed that. Do you have some examples? —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 17:31, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

I have the suspicion not leaving me that *bodag is just butticula – like *flaskā (“flask”) is *flaiski (“flesh”), but this is sought, right. There is a long tradition of seeing the human trunk as yet another instrument or household utensil, the most aggressive part of which is of course called weapon / yarak or also tool, the head its lid *kopp. Fay Freak (talk) 06:39, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Russian музей

Wouldn't it make more sense for it to come from French musée? Shoshin000 (talk) 12:43, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

It's what Shansky says too. Shoshin000 (talk) 12:46, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Wouldn't musée be expected to be adapted as something like мюзе?--Urszag (talk) 16:06, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps, I don't know, but to me it sounds more probable to come from musée than museum. (where did the -um go?) Shoshin000 (talk) 18:52, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah it should've been мюзе if it came from French. The z-sound seems to be from German, but who knows. The -um ending went away to the same place as -us. The Latin words in Russian have often common spelling rules. The ending and the z-sound seem just as a normal Latin borrowing to me. See also examples of sound changes at лицей, симбиоз, ru:Колизей and ru:Мёзия Tollef Salemann (talk) 13:49, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Musée is pronounced with Z as well. (with an S it would have been mussée) Shoshin000 (talk) 14:19, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

I know, but take a look at the plural German form without no -um ending. It is also common in Norwegian to cut this ending. So i wouldn’t be surpized if Russian музей is directly borrowed from Latin. There are surely some books about the history of Latin borrowings in Russian. The pronunciation of Latin stuff in Russian is close to German, but the words themself must not be borrowed through German. Tollef Salemann (talk) 14:29, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

So what? Look at кофе́й (koféj) and конде́й (kondéj), whose derivation written by me is but a trinket. Chronolectwise the equation is dodgy but you recognize that Russian likes the ending for some generations already; I probably omitted vulgarities with the same auslautung which I could have searched. Illič-Svityč's law has an effect all the time since antiquity. As a law-oriented person I deny, against the crowd’s intuition, the commonplace conceptualization of historic changes in language as natural laws, as mathematical arrow operations, a conceptualization which has been criticized with insufficient understanding of the implications of the critique, in that the regulatory frameworks, that of a language being called grammar, have many regulatory principles without regulatory power in isolation, rather serving the purpose of loosening the whole structure of schoolmaster rules. “The grammar of a natural language is its set of structural rules on speakers' or writers' usage and creation of clauses, phrases, and words“, our sister project writes about them, which they equate with grammar. The real interesting question here, for someone more interested in general theory, is what “rules” are, the word they haven’t linked, as if self-explanatory. We are mighty lucky in the oral exams if they don’t ask us what law is. The answer is often ugly enough that you try to spell it out not. Fay Freak (talk) 16:49, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Lol i was thinking about лицедей. Tollef Salemann (talk) 20:04, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not educated enough to say that the grammar is math, but my satanist friend said it once. Anyway, the question was about the origin of the Latin borrowing. I still can't find no sources that the stuff like музей came into Russian through German or French. Maybe am lookin in a wrong place. But for me it seems as a usual Latin borrowing. Tollef Salemann (talk) 20:09, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm curious: the French pronunciation is apparently /'my.ze/, so why would Russian borrow this with a /mju/ initial syllable? Is /ju/ a common Russian-phonology realization of a borrowed /y/? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:45, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

@Eirikr: I think so, compare пюре (pjure) from purée, Дюма (Djuma) from Dumas. PUC – 18:11, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Very interesting. For French purée, the audio really sounds more like /pʲy.ʁe/, with a palatal glide. Am I imagining things? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 19:27, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

@Eirikr: You are. As a native speaker of Russian I can hear the presence and absence of palatalization distinguishedly, as also the difference between soft and hard vowel ü without palatalization of consonant present in vowel-rich German which is also my native tongue, /y/ and /ʏ/. Of course palatalization may be a spectrum affecting the pronunciation of the consonant [p] in the vicinity of vowels, as a close front vowel requires to move all towards palatalization position, I don’t know the phonetic pedantries, but by a Russian standard it would have to move stronger to be palatalized on the token-level, though admittedly almost vanishing the varying perception in my mouth apparatus be.

Your brain is working correctly to some degree, perception must be specifically trained, use it or lose or never acquire it, as with muscles, you won’t hear it if the distinction was never relevant in the languages you like or need. Like seriously, we know how large swathes of dementia arise, I got exactly the timestamp by the doctor, and it is not a coincidence that statistically polyglots don’t get it or later, as with sarcopenia after young age that lifters avoid without juice. (I have had this 25-year old thinker problem and then had to stop this self-referentiality by maxing out recomposition and neuroplasticity.) Fay Freak (talk) 20:49, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

About the French words, I hear a difference in vowel values in the audio samples for French musée and purée. (Setting aside the annoyance that the speaker says more than just the term: un musée, and la purée.) These are both given in IPA with a first vowel of /y/ and a second vowel of /e/, but the two terms seem qualitatively different in the vowels of both syllables. Both [p] and [m] are bilabial consonants, so place of articulation doesn't change, thus one would expect the following vowels to be unaffected (or rather, affected in identical ways).

I don't speak Russian, but I do speak some German (minored in uni), I'm fluent in Japanese (lived there for 6 years or so, and at least somewhat familiar with the phonetic finer points of how that differs from multiple varieties of English, well enough that native Japanese speakers have confused my pronunciation for native when talking on the phone [I'm a honky and visually very obviously not Japanese]), and I've studied several other languages to varying degrees. I'm aware of allophones, as non-contrastive phonetic variances. While I don't speak French, the identical phonemic transcriptions for French musée and purée would suggest that the vowel variation I hear is not phonemically significant. Listening again and comparing to the audio for other French words starting with pu-, such as puce or puma or punaiser, I suspect that the first-syllable vowel shift I hear in our audio for purée might be caused by the medial -r-. By contrast, this other speaker on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KkhPcgstJw&t=16s) says purée with less of a glide than in the audio in our entry.

I'm afraid your second paragraph loses me: it seems neither all that relevant nor coherent? (Honestly not trying to be insulting, I'm just confused as to your point.) ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:01, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

@Eirikr: It’s interdisciplinary, a bit more than you are used to. I knew that I added a hard part, that’s why there is the paragraph break, even though I am not examining you. I doubt that the perception difference between you and me can be boiled down to an arbitrarily scalable mere memory content difference, even though I shoehorned everything into supposedly universalist linguistic terminology and described it with the type—token—instance distinction, and even though I like David Hume. At some points there are hard limits in the brain (pretty sure it must be created if there is an idiomatic meaning I am not aware of) that can only be broken down over time, though I am convinced it works correctly with you. It’s not the frequency of an input per se, it must be in combination with systematic professional approaches to the evaluation of this data, of course, like there are people who have not specifically learned the linguistic domain of phonology and are polyglot through much experience but their experience then is much different (and we know that intuition is valuable, so again this is not depreciative). I have noticed the like issue with being versus not being able to talk to jurists and non-jurists respectively, there is completely different processing capacity even though both speak “in the same language”, that’s why one can’t take the exams in under 3 ½ years; large difference between what you know and what you can do in the situation, which is not just being scared.

I mean you asked me about perception, and beyond its mere observation there is an approach to explain it (we observe the observation, that hard in theory of mind!), even (at least) two approaches I took. Fay Freak (talk) 06:25, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

@Eirikr: It’s the regular realization, being the closest transcription. Fay Freak (talk) 18:15, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

@Eirikr: The expected Russian adaptation of French /my/ is /mʲu/ (Russian has a contrast between /Cʲ/ and /Cj/, so this isn't the same thing as /mju/). Here's a paper discussing this: Russian /Cʲu/ and “perceptual” vs. “phonological” theories of borrowing: a reply to Paradis (and Thibeault) (Jaye Padgett, 2010, Lingua 120.5, 1233-1239).--Urszag (talk) 22:47, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Interesting paper. I will have to read that through more fully when I have more time later. Thank you! ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:06, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

苧

RFV of the etymology.

(Notifying Eirikr, TAKASUGI Shinji, Atitarev, Fish bowl, Poketalker, Cnilep, Marlin Setia1, Huhu9001, 荒巻モロゾフ, 片割れ靴下, Onionbar, Shen233, Alves9, Cpt.Guapo, Sartma, Lugria, LittleWhole, Mcph2, TAKASUGI Shinji, Atitarev, HappyMidnight, Tibidibi, Quadmix77, Kaepoong, AG202, The Editor's Apprenice, Saranamd): : Where did Vovin ever mention this? Cannot find in Vovin 2010 (Koreo-Japonica). Please source this. Chuterix (talk) 16:59, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

I've replied at Talk:苧#Sources. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:39, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Need help with editing references Neelthakrebew (talk) 12:52, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

fanservice and fan service

RFV of the etymology.

Our entry, Wikipedia, and the OED now all source this to Japanese ファンサービス (fan sābisu), but I haven't seen a date yet on when this was purportedly borrowed.

Searching Google Books for works between 1956 and 1999, I find a work from 1993, Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service, by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles. This context has nothing directly to do with anime or sexual content, and is instead about customer service: providing service to generate and appeal to fans of one's products or services. Semantically, this seems to cover the narrower senses in our entry.

There may be older works using the term "fan service" in a similar way. I haven't really dug through the Google hits yet.

Are we certain that fan service / fanservice originates in Japanese, as a whole term? Or is it just the specific anime / manga / pop idol senses that come from Japanese usage?

Also, why are we putting the main entry at the fanservice form with no spaces? A quick look at results in Google Ngrams suggests that the version with a space, fan service, is more common by a factor of seven.

(Separately, if anyone has the time and inclination, the EN WP article at w:Fan service is a fascinating piece of otaku fixation. That article is rather embarrassing, frankly, given the wider range of uses I've seen for the term.)

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:38, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

The book doesn't use "fan service" even once. I have a hard time accepting it. The OED says that the word was first used in 1994, in rec.arts.anime.info, which makes sense if it did come from Japan. CitationsFreak (talk) 23:48, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm curious, have you been through the whole book? I'll grant you that searching for that term in that specific title does not show any instances, but I also note that Google Preview often does not offer access to the whole text. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:36, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

No, I just searched it in-book. CitationsFreak (talk) 03:38, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Double-checked, it does appear in-book, always a part of "Raving Fan Service". Hmmmm... CitationsFreak (talk) 03:45, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

That is a significant limitation, thank you for finding that.

I don't suppose you're finding anything about whitespace, fanservice vs. fan service? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 20:36, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't care either way, but it should probably be at "fan service". CitationsFreak (talk) 21:40, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

fanservice seems more common, especially nowadays. I'm not sure if I've ever seen fan service in the wild. Binarystep (talk) 12:14, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Derivation of Greek adjectives in -πνοος

Greek has a number of adjectives ending in -πνοος, as I found out while editing the entry for dyspnea and its ancestors. There's an inconsistency in how we present the etymology of ἄπνοος vs. ἡδύπνοος: the first says "From ἀ- (a-) +‎ πνοή (pnoḗ, “breath”) +‎ -ος (-os)" while the second says "ἡδῠ́ς (hēdús, “pleasant, sweet”) +‎ πνέω (pnéō, “blow, breathe”) +‎ -ος (-os, suffix forming two-termination adjectives)". That is, the first derives the adjective from the noun πνοή while the second derives it from the verb (or directly from the root). As far as I can see, the suffix -ή is not present on the surface in these adjectives, and the vowel -ο- is just an ablaut grade of the root. Is there any morphological reason to include the noun πνοή in such etymologies? I found an article in French that seemingly describes such compounds as "composés avec un second membre verbal" (ALONSO DÉNIZ, Alcorac. Le développement historique des finales ‑ειᾰ/‑είᾱ/‑είη (att. ὑγίεια/ὑγιείᾱ, ion. ὑγιείη « bonne santé ») et ‑οιᾰ/‑οίᾱ/‑οίη (att. εὔπλοια, ion. εὐπλοίη « bonne navigation ») en grec ancien In: Dérivation nominale et innovations dans les langues indo‑européennes anciennes [online]. Lyon: MOM Éditions, 2021 (generated 06 avril 2024).) Urszag (talk) 18:08, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

-πνοος for modern Greek, if it is of interset, M @Urszag ‑‑Sarri.greek ^♫ I 00:28, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Canaan

כנען is supposed to come from a Semitic root *'knʿ (“to be low, humble, subjugated”), but there is not much evidence for such a root, If there is, could someone please create a proto-Semitic page for it? More reasonable is the suggestion in w:Canaan that it derives from Hurrian Kinaḫḫu (purple) and Kinaḫnu (purple dye), referring to trade in dye, words attested from tablets at w:Nuzi. Kinaḫnu might then be an equivalent of Phoenicia. See Assyrian Dictionary, p. 399. Any thoughts? 24.108.18.81 20:23, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

The 'subjugated' sense would presumably be related to Arabic خضع? DJ K-Çel (contribs ~ talk) 21:07, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Consonants are very important in Semitic, I don't think ḵ-ḍ-ʕ would qualify. We need k-n-ʕ 24.108.18.81 01:30, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

قَنَعَ (qanaʕa), wtf, the apostrophe in the beginning says nothing to the Semitist. Fay Freak (talk) 19:17, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, the Hurrian explanation makes more sense. 24.108.18.81 22:20, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for updating כנען, I hope someone will trace the word back to Proto-Semitic. Next I think I'll tackle the problem surrounding Phoenician. 24.108.18.81 03:36, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

You can create the verb in Proto-West Semitic as linked by me (I reasoned that the more southern West Semitic languages assimilated the articulation position of the third radical to the first), with lots of Ethiopian Semitic words in Leslau’s Gurage dictionary cited and also derived Sabaean 𐩤𐩬𐩲𐩣 (qnʿm, “supplication, imprecation”), 𐩩𐩤𐩬𐩲 (tqnʿ, “to cave in; to obtain approval”, form V). Together with the Arabic page and the Aramaics and Hebrew on CAL this makes a reconstruction.

Not much motivated, I didn’t even read the Hurrian part, this of course should be considered, anyone might add it. Fay Freak (talk) 07:52, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Polish kantor

Isn't it more likely to be a borrowing from Dutch kantoor? Shoshin000 (talk) 21:19, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Latin has been used in the Catholic Church continuously so I would say that it is Latin. The Jewish sense may have a separate etymology even though it clearly goes back to the same Latin word; I'm not sure how much in contact the two religions were with each other and in which languages. —Soap— 17:07, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Updated both etymologies with a source. Vininn126 (talk) 17:10, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Sofia: from Swahili?

Is the given name Sophia derived from Swahili? It was categorized into that (and many other) categories in diff, but nothing in the text of the etymology mentions a Swahili etymon. - -sche (discuss) 21:20, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

@-sche: I suspect that they got the cats from the translations for the given name, which are at Sophia. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:06, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Hungarian ház

How did *kota turn into ház?? Shoshin000 (talk) 21:32, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

*k- -> h- is a regular development, as far as I know. There's been a similar sound shift from Proto-Indo-European to Germanic. Wakuran (talk) 22:20, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Shoshin000: In approximately the same way that *kayt- turned into heath in English. Hungarian had a set of consonant changes quite similar to Grimm's law that turned stops like k and t into fricatives like h and z. (This is essentially all I know about Hungarian historical phonology though, so someone else will have to help you with the vowels.) —Mahāgaja · talk 22:25, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

And likewise Proto-Germanic *haitijaną (to heat) became German heizen, which shows a similar change in the dentals. Someone might make a case that the changes going on in German had an effect on the development of Hungarian. 24.108.18.81 22:42, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Considering the Northern Khanty cognate is хат /xat/, it would seem that at least the first stage of the change (k → x on the way to h) happened long before Proto-Hungarian was in contact with German. Also, don't be thrown off by German orthography: Hungarian ház has the voiced fricative /z/, while German heizen has the voiceless affricate /t͡s/. —Mahāgaja · talk 23:02, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Albanian qymyr

Does the Albanian word for "coal", qymyr, have a possible Turkic origin? since that word resembles Proto-Turkic *kömür in shape, and Albania was ruled by the Ottman Empire for a significant period of time, I feel it is plausible that the word might have a Turkic origin. 2001:B011:4002:3AF3:C53C:BC8C:33F0:FD0A 17:24, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes. You see the Albanian entry was created by an author who adds or knows many languages without spending a thought on etymology, whereas the Ottoman entry, made by one of our editors who spend the most for etymology, has the Albanian entry in the descendants section. Fay Freak (talk) 19:11, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Interesting! The Turkish word is an equivalent of German Brennstoff. 24.108.18.81 22:25, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Vowel of English "church"

There's a note in the etymology "For vowel evolution, see bury". This sentence is copied from Online Etymology Dictionary, which also says "Phonetic spelling from c. 1200, established by 16c." Both of these are cryptic to me. The comparison with "bury" seems problematic, because "bury" had Old English [y], which explains the "u". But "church" had Old English [i], which makes it different. (The fact that it had [y] in Greek is irrelevant because it clearly passed into Germanic with [i], as the ch- itself proves, apart from all the cognates). I'd already asked this question on the talk page of "church" three years ago, but as there hasn't been any response, I'm raising it again here. Thank you! 90.186.83.227 22:09, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

bury states "The spelling with ⟨u⟩ represents the pronunciation of the West Midland and Southern dialects, while the Modern English pronunciation with /ɛ/ is from the Kentish dialects." Then, I believe both -irch and -urch would be pronounced the same anyway (such as in birch and lurch), so the additional note feels unclear. Wakuran (talk) 22:19, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Off the top of my head, I can't think of a single word where a high or non-back vowel in a closed syllable followed by "r" isn't pronounced exactly the same: search, perch, birch, lurch and church all rhyme, but parch and porch don't. It seems like the history of the vowel hardly matters, as long as it's not an "o" or an "a". There are even a few "or" words like "worm" that have that same vowel. Note that the vowel in question varies regionally (my very rhotic Los Angeles version of "church" doesn't rhyme with with a non-rhotic Southern US, English or Australian one, but all the words above rhyme within each dialect, as far as I know). Chuck Entz (talk) 00:10, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Even -ir and -ur (such as in fir and fur) tend to be pronounced the same way. Not -ear, as in search, though. (Which is usually pronounced as in ear, or as in bear.) Wakuran (talk) 10:46, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

You gave a bad example in "search", which has the same vowel as -ir and -ur in all the 'major' accents, except for those where it went the same change of /er/ to /ar/ (or the change was not undone), as in clerk and Derby. Now, Scottish English keeps all three separate - I'm not sure how much of spelling pronunciation that is, as English orthographic 'er' often goes back to Old English 'ir'.

What the etymologies leave out is the West Saxon (at least) cyrice, which prompts comparison with bury. I don't know how far that form extended. --RichardW57m (talk) 16:11, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

I think what the OED's comment is getting at is that English used to distinguish between preconsonantal /ɪɹ/ and /ʌɹ/ (and some varieties of Scottish English still do). Etymologically, one would expect church to have had /ɪɹ/ (as indicated by the Middle and Old English spellings) before the two sounds merged into /ɜɹ/ (and later /ɜː/ in nonrhotic varieties), but the spelling with u occurs early enough that it indicates people were actually pronouncing it with /ʌɹ/ (or a forerunner of it like /ʊɹ/). The connection with bury is quite tenuous since bury involves prevocalic /ʊɹ/ > /ʌɹ/ vs. /ɛɹ/, while church involves preconsonantal /ʊɹ/ > /ʌɹ/ vs. /ɪɹ/. And unlike bury, in church it is not the case that the spelling fails to represent the pronunciation, since in church, /ʊɹ/ > /ʌɹ/ and /ɪɹ/ wound up merging anyway, so we can't tell who "won". —Mahāgaja · talk 17:46, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

We can - it depends on dating spellings and mergers. Onions (Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology) writes, "The threefold development in ME, churche, chirche, cherche is evidence that the late OE form ċyrċe indicates a roundinɡ of the vowel i to ü.". I think though that chirche can go straight back to the earlier OE ċir(i)ċe. --RichardW57 (talk) 20:59, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Clearly the much later /ɜr/-merger is beside the point here. So I thank the last two users for taking the question more seriously. Now an Old English ċyrċe would indeed, to my knowledge, explain it. Because that would've yielded Middle English "churche" in some dialects (comparable to "bury"). But the question then becomes: How did ċyrċe get its [y]? 90.186.83.227 00:46, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Would ü signify [y]? Although it seems the vowel was lost in Early Middle English... Wakuran (talk) 11:07, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

We can in fact tell what pronunciation of church "won" before the NURSE merger, as we have plentiful sources on Early Modern English pronunciation; the following comment indicates the vowel they give for church:

1957, E. J. Dobson, English pronunciation 1500-1700, volume II: Phonology, Oxford, published 1968, § 82, page 572:

Church (late OE (Southern) cy̆rice < cĭrice), in which the preceding [tʃ] aids the rounding, has normal ŭ [i.e. /ʊ/] (so in Hart, Bullokar, Robinson, and Gil), but the original ĭ [i.e. /ɪ/] remains in Salesbury, Smith (beside ŭ), and the Northerner Poole (beside ŭ).

As can be seen, the majority of sources, including all our best sources for the period (Hart, Robinson, and Gil), give a pronunciation with /ʊ/, so it can be safely said that that pronunciation "won" in the formation of the London standard (despite Chaucer's chirche or Lydgate's cherche), hence the modern spelling. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 12:57, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

@Hazarasp Thanks for this useful source. As I'd already said: If we start out from OE ċyr(i)ċe, all the rest is clear. But the "y" is precisely the point. Your source now says that it's due to the influence of /tʃ/, which is possible. In German /ʃ/ often caused rounding. I'm not aware of other instances in English, however. 178.1.250.55 21:17, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Rounding of West Germanic /i/ to Old English /y/ is also attested in myċel ("great", from Proto-West Germanic *mikil); given that this rounding does not generally occur in other words with /it͡ʃ/ such as biċċe (“bitch”), iċ ("I", but compare modern dialectal utch), or piċ (“pitch”), we may surmise that the /r/ of *kirikā and the /m/ of *mikil exerted a particularly strong rounding influence; in the former case is plausible given that /r///ɹ/ has demonstrably exerted this influence in other cases throughout the history of English. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 06:13, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

World War II

Of course "two comes after one" , but who came up with this specific wording "World War II", and when? Was there pre-war speculation about future wars using this or other nomenclature? Geographyinitiative (talk) 10:06, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't know, but I do know that there was some competition between the designations "World War II" and "Second World War"; when the dust settled, the former was more common in the States and the latter more common in the UK. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:35, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

"Second World War" is attested early on, definitely without capital "Second", but even with it. For example here. 90.186.83.227 00:56, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

East Bergish (ik, Männeken)

See edit history and the WP discussion linked there for some back-and-forth regarding whether "East Bergish" is real; Sarcelles (arguing East Bergish was not a thing) changed "East Bergish, more specifically Mölmsch" to just "more specifically Mölmsch"; an IP reverted on the correct grounds that bare "(more specifically Mölmsch)" doesn't make sense. But if East Bergish is not a thing, we could just drop "more specifically" and just say "Mölmsch". (Frankly, if it's specifically Mölmsch, we could do that even without taking a stance on whether East Bergish is real.) I don't have time to look into it myself at this moment. - -sche (discuss) 13:41, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

See previous discussion at WT:RFM#Mölmsch. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:29, 8 April 2024 (UTC) Actually, that's a rather different discussion. I think we can safely just change the label to "Mölmsch". —Mahāgaja · talk 17:31, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

haereo

Sourced from IEW with no other cognates. -saph 🍏 12:04, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

@Saph668: For cognates, Pokorny says, "vermutlich zu lit. gaištù, -aũ, gaĩšti `säumen, zögern, schwinden', gaišìnti `vertrödeln, vernichten'". If Pokorny saw only Latin and Lithuanian reflexes, it's not really plausible. We don't have the Lithuanian words on Wiktionary, but that means little. --RichardW57m (talk) 15:20, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Walde-Hoffmann supports it, but De Vaan says that Fraenkel denies the connection. Ideally someone who knows their way around Lithuanian etymological dictionaries comments on this. LIV doesn't mention it. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 20:44, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Latin -cer (ludicer/volucer)

There are two or three adjectives (type ludicer/volucer/pulcher?, the more dubious) I see having their etymology not provided when they seem to share a common but rare 1st/2nd declension suffix, that is -cer/-crus. I can't seem to find any source adressing it and neither can I track it back myself. The french Wiktionary is the only one singling it, though just in mentioning it. It can't be extracted from forms such as macer/lacer which are too few and besides, I don't have any other examples than these, when ludicer and volucer seem strictly related (forming from verbs, same embedded meaning, -crus/-cer alternation,...). Tim Utikal (talk) 20:43, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

De Vaan, in his entry for alacer, expresses uncertainty about where the ending *-kri- (> -cris/-cer) comes from. Ranjan Sen (Syllable and Segment in Latin, 2015, page 107) derives -cris from *-tli-s > *-kli-s followed by dissimilation of l...l > l...r (note that alacer, volucer, ludicer all have a preceding /l/ sound).--Urszag (talk) 21:09, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Where did De Vaan discuss it?

I have a hard time resuming his 4.4.9 heading from its single reading

- -cris/cer < PIE *-tli-s, I can't find this suffix

- -cilis < *-tli-s / any -cilis example? (maybe I don't search for the right vowel grade?)

- why does he speak of "two continuations..." and leaves apart the later-mentioned ludicrus (though I get the vowel conditionning and the VSV root parts I don't understand why it is not further discussed)

- vowel conditionning of the vowel before the suffix

- originally a i-stem suffix

- how would you explain the i-stem to o-stem shift?

I'm not that used yet to this area of linguistics, so forgive me if my questions seem strange. The goal would be at least to provide a short paragraph on the pages concerned stating the apparent archaism of volucrus and linking it to alacer and ludicrus. Tim Utikal (talk) 22:47, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

De Vaan's entry for alacer, page 32, says "The question remains how the suffix *-kri- came about." Sen says on page 95 that there are no examples of -cilis: it must be a hypothetical form. Sen discusses ludicra on page 103, grouping it in with the noun-forming suffix -crum < *-tlom, but doesn't really elaborate on how it came to be an adjective. So Sen doesn't derive *ludicrus/*ludicer from original *-tli-s. While we don't have an entry for PIE *-tl-is yet on Wiktionary, presumably it would be composed of the zero-grade of *-tḗr (in its variant form with a lateral) + *-is (compare maybe Proto-Slavic *-teľь, although that seems to be from e-grade *-tel-i-s rather than from zero-grade *tl-i-s). I don't think volucrus is an archaic form. I'm also not sure yet how to summarize this but I will try to contribute more after thinking over it and seeing if there are any other sources that discuss this.--Urszag (talk) 23:29, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Ok I think I understand the gist of it now. I will try to make some research too and update other wiktionaries I can contribute to when we have agreed on something (especially Fr that is thus apparently misinforming). Tim Utikal (talk) 07:32, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I updated the etymology sections of alacer, volucer, lūdicer; any corrections are welcome.--Urszag (talk) 07:02, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Sie

This common German word needs a origin! (I'm sorry if this is not what I am meant to say I am new to this site.) 90.241.192.210 15:33, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Change was through the 18th century, ousting ihr and er, I disregard capitalization rules here and the regional details of development and spread would be grounds for a whole paper. Fay Freak (talk) 20:15, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Seems to be etymologically identical to "sie" meaning "they", with "sie" meaning" "she" having a different origin. Wakuran (talk) 12:50, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

human resources

Does someone know when and by whom this term was invented? It sounds like 20th-century businessese. Maybe @DCDuring, -sche? PUC – 17:45, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

@PUC: By looking into Springer Link arsewards, it seems like an original demoscopic, national economy rather than business economy term. 1935 Dublin even before medics (or epidemiologists, if that existed, via the idea of public health in an intersection with public = national economy), 1939 in the said context in Nature. So it is actually not businessese because the blokes who introduced it studied the academic field which is in Germany VWL (general economics) and not BWL (business administration), deffo would have finished with an M.Sc. and not MBA by current standards. And it slowly lexicalized and was not invented by any one. Fay Freak (talk) 18:46, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

To be honest, PUC, there are a lot of terms from both branches of economics to create or expand whose origins their graduates don’t know either and we could make a whole project portal about. The other day, only this early year, I created such a frequent set term like earning power and blockholder. They have heaped their tenbaggers while we failed to even include the concept. Who, I don’t even know them, but they leave gains on the table by unjustly outsourcing their métier to Belgian classicists and German jurists, though I duppied the oral exams because I investigate the origin of everything and argue with people on the internet half my life, so definitely worth it, they should recommend Wiktionary as every college student’s vocabulary sheet. wikibooks:Category:Shelf:Business is negligibly thin. Fay Freak (talk) 19:56, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

The collocation seems to have been most commonly used in the second half of the 18th century in a religious context. WP says that institutional economist John R. Commons used the term in an 1893 work The Distribution of Wealth. This might reflect "his desire to unite Christian ideals with the emerging social sciences of sociology and economics." (WP) Whether through his influence or not the collocation came into wide use in works that I would ascribe to the Progressive Movement in the US around the turn of the 20th Century. It was only 1900 that the first US business "Personnel Department" (at NCR) was named. 'Human resources' seems to have been used in government to name 'personnel departments' from near the beginning of the 20th Century. It entered business use perhaps only during WWII mobilization, under government influence. It does not seem to have become the replacement name for 'personnel department' until the 1960s or even later. DCDuring (talk) 23:08, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

latin lacuna

From lacu-īna (as in regīna/urīna) seen as a sort of feminine/diminutive ending? Do we have any other ūna-ending reflex? I also see a lucuna form.Tim Utikal (talk) 19:43, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Intuitively, there is a chance that an -n derivational suffix can be added directly to the u stem, not an -īna one, by the examples I gave on vīburnum. I found support in Ernout, Alfred, Meillet, Antoine (1985) “lacus”, in Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine: histoire des mots‎^[2] (in French), 4th edition, with additions and corrections of Jacques André, Paris: Klincksieck, published 2001, page 337 who notes that it is the feminine from an adjective *lacūnus as seen in opportūnus ←→ importūnus, for whose etymologization we have the u-stem portus + -nus, so you can expand lacūna accordingly. We should add the same then to the theonym Portūnus where someone faltered to add the suffix. Fay Freak (talk) 20:09, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Ok it makes sense, if adjectival it's closer to urina than any other then. But would it be from the clipping of a set-phrase (likely for urina) or just a simple substantivation since feminine (any example)? and concerning the lucuna form? I don't understand the assimilation he posits. Tim Utikal (talk) 20:35, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

How do I explain the lengthening of the suffix ? e.g. portus → portūnus. Tim Utikal (talk) 08:14, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Because that’s an u-stem. I don’t know why you construct the u-stems as of short u. Or Wikipedia: “The neuter nominative/vocative/accusative singular must have originally been short *-u, but in Latin only long -ū is found. It is unclear what the origin of this could be. “ What does that even mean? At least they admit that the u-declensions are ū-declensions. Old Church Slavonic крꙑ (kry) is also obviously from long u, but there we categorize Proto-Slavic v-stems against as many Proto-Slavic u-stems, which are soon not distinguishable in the individual languages anymore, so we might see what happened in Italic originwise.

As for lucūna, it seems the usual unstressed vowel reduction to me. Fay Freak (talk) 10:02, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Every one of these reduced variants I have seen thus far lacked an etymology section, I think it would be nice if we put a common sentence and title in their variant for each one. Also I see on the wiki: i+labial=u(sonus medius), but again, wikipedia... As for lacuna, any correction/addition is welcome ! Tim Utikal (talk) 22:27, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

catat

Do other Austronesian languages have words similar to "catat"? Or actually this is a loan from another language, for example an Austroasiatic or Sanskrit loan. Berbuah salak (talk) 23:30, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

It could be borrowed from English charted. — Jeluang Terluang (talk) 14:13, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

באַשאַם־לעפֿל

What is a "basham"? I couldn't even find that part standalone on the same dictionary where I got basham-lefl. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 10:21, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Maybe just Hebrew בשם? This website seems to give the sense "spice", which would make sense here. Thadh (talk) 10:27, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Spice-spoon for slotted spoon? I'm finding that a bit hard to believe to be honest. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 13:18, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Also, Hebrew בֹּשֶׂם (bōśem) wouldn't be borrowed into Yiddish as bashám but as bóys(e)m. And while I suppose it's possible that the phonetic spelling would be used rather than the Hebrew spelling, it isn't very likely. On the other hand, a borrowing from Arabic بَشَام (bašām) (a cognate of the Hebrew) would work both phonologically and orthographically, if we can somehow finesse the semantics. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:05, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Etymology of Persian "شیوه"

Hi, What is the etymology of this word. The Kurdish Wiktionary page says it's not a common Iranian word. Is it from Arabic "عشوة"? Kamran.nef (talk) 20:54, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

@Kamran.nef: Probably شیب (šēb, “tilt, descend; bottom, base”). One German translation of شیوه (šēwa) is also Ansatz, which by its idea is also the bottom where something is begun. I have no chronologic or dialectal details in mind though, just connect the ballpark. Fay Freak (talk) 21:10, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

@Fay Freak: You are mentioning a good point. Given that its description by Steinguss is "Amorous looks, gestures, blandishments, coquetry, feigned disdain, or playfulness of lovers; the graceful movements of a lovely girl" which can be from شیفتن "To become insane or distracted with love" which is related to شیب .

The only thing that made me think of عشوة is this explanation by NİŞANYAN for şive "Farsça işve sözcüğünün varyant yazımıdır. Güncel anlamı şīve-i lisān deyiminden türemiş ve ilk kez 1920'lerde kaydedilmiştir." and işve "Farsça işve اشوه veya şīve شیوه “naz, eda, jest, cilve” sözcüğünden alıntıdır.". I could not find اشوه but عشوه exists. On that pint, lugatim.com says işve is from Arabic. Kamran.nef (talk) 01:30, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

lubba'mila: Unadapted borrowing of lobak merah?

It's not very well an "Unadapted borrowing from Malay lobak merah" it's been adapted to lubba'mila, now is it? And similarly for bultil. Listing it here rather than just fixing it, in the hopes that someone familiar with the language can check the contributor's other edits in case there are other problems which are harder to spot... - -sche (discuss) 03:17, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Zanj/Zinj/Zanzibar etc.

We are told that Zanj/Zinj/Zanzibar derive from Persian Persian زنگ (zang, “East Africa”) (Etymology 3), and that this is related to Ancient Greek Ζήγγισα (Zḗngisa), the Greek name of a cape in East Africa. Looking at the w:Lamu Archipelago (Lamu being one of the historic ports), we see that Pate Island's major fishing port is Kizingitini. Given that ki- is a typical Bantu prefix (which might have been added later), zingitini is a fairly close match for Zang and Zengisa. Kizingitini is on a cape facing the Indian Ocean, so it is the sort of place that would get noticed. Compare Swahili kizingiti (“barrier”). Since Bantu languages only arrived here much later, Kizingitini would have to be a remoulding of an earlier, probably Cushitic word, and it is possible that Somali | sanka (the nose, a variant of san, see below) might fit. map Thoughts? 24.108.18.81 23:47, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

I have also started an article on the name Ἀζανία (Azanía), which is sometimes said to be related, and I conclude that it is a different name altogether. There was a Greek region with this name, a subregion of Arcadia. It looks as if some foreign word has been re-moulded to resemble something Greek, and it is too different from Ζήγγισα for that to be the origin. Fruitful avenues of enquiry would be san (nose, metaphorically cape) and عَجَمِيّ (ʕajamiyy, “foreigner”). In either case, Ἀζανία might refer to the entire Horn of Africa. "AZANIA SOME ETYMOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS" 24.108.18.81 17:29, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

"Nameless finger" for "ring finger"?

I see Chinese 無名指／无名指 (wúmíngzhǐ), Russian безымянный палец (bezymjannyj palec), Finnish nimetön, Sanskrit अनामिका (anāmikā), and even English nameless finger, and I wonder whether there's one common origin for this designation (just like there is for "railroad" being "steel road" in numerous languages, from French chemin de fer and German Eisenbahn), or if several cultures somehow just simultaneously and spontaneously came up with this designation. To me at least, it feels like too much of a coincidence for so many different languages to have the exact same concept for the ring finger, and yet (apparently) none of them are calques of one another. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 13:37, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

According to User:Surjection, it stems from superstition, I guess as a noa concept. Wakuran (talk) 14:00, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

This article says of "nameless finger":

This label was once used in parts of Europe, leading Wilhelm Grimm, of fairy tale fame, to speculate about its origins. One of his ideas was that the name alludes to this digit’s squeaky-clean reputation, in contrast to that of its lewd neighbor. Another was that, because of the finger’s quasi-mystical uses in healing, some dared not speak its name.

A simpler explanation may be in order, however. This same paradoxical label is found in Native American languages and in Chinese, making it unlikely that it stems from cultural beliefs peculiar to Europe. Rather, the nameless-ness of this finger may be due to its utter unremarkability. Sandwiched between more distinctive fingers, and not particularly useful, the ring finger is—let’s face it—the forgettable also-ran of the bunch.

—Mahāgaja · talk 14:14, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Etymology of "d'r" in Dutch

I was sitting in the park yesterday with a friend of mine. I was explaining to him the usage of the possessive pronoun dier when he asked me: "Is that where d'r comes from?" I felt stupid because I had never thought of that, despite being preoccupied with cases and pronouns lately. The etymology of d'r seems to be missing on Wiktionary, so I just wanted to say that I think it's very probable that d'r is derived from a weakened form of dier, given that they're both female possessives. Thijs Bakker (talk) 19:38, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I have no doubt that's true. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:22, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

An alternative theory would be that it's from the variant ’r [ər] with a linking sound. Dutch adds [d] regularly in [rər] (duurder etc.) and also - almost regularly - in [lər] (kelder, mulder, zolder) and [nər] (minder, beenderen, hoenderen). So the development would have been for example: Ik ken haar niet > Ik ken ’r niet [kɛn‿ər] > Ik ken d’r niet [kɛn‿dər]. -- The most likely is perhaps a combination of both influences. A third one may be daar, because it also contracts to d’r [dər] and ’r [ər]. 178.1.250.55 23:24, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

That also rings true. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 10:10, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

If d’r is a contracted form of dier, one wonders why there is no similar contraction for diens. Note, furthermore, the uses of d’r in nonstandard speech such as we hebben d’r net nog gesproken, where it can only substitute for ’r. And there is also its use instead of er in all its senses (d’r zijn d’r twee die d’rvandoor zijn).  --Lambiam 19:50, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Further problems are 1) that die and inflected forms are by definition stressed, so they shouldn't have unstressed forms, and 2) dier is also plural, but d'r can never substitute for hun. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 20:18, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Bescheid

Where did this German word come from? Does it mean the same as bescheid the Dutch word of same spelling? What is it's English equivalent? 90.241.192.210 21:32, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

The basic meaning is “to impart, to alot, to shed for”. We only depicted the synchronic understanding of the German verb, i.e. the understanding of the non-philologist standard average German user, which is one specification away: to impart a decision. You see more detailled development data in DRW: It also meant just to “to bid, to hote”, which it kind of still means because of being used for administrative acts which by definition have regulatory power, on the other hand also just “to decide, to determine”, and it also meant “to bid to come, to summon, laden”, Fay Freak (talk) 21:57, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

There's also Swedish and Danish besked, and Norwegian beskjed, from Middle Low German, although Modern High German might have influenced some meanings. Wakuran (talk) 22:44, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

so literally beshed? 193.39.158.203 14:04, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

I guess Latin scio from a root meaning 'separate, split' could be comparable. Wakuran (talk) 17:17, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

帛琉

RFV of the etymology. seems it shoud be "Pelew"-- the archaic name in English.

French "dimanche"

Old French has "diemeine" from Latin "dies Dominicus" alongside "diemenche", which latter in my opinion must be from "dies Dominica". The fact that it is treated as masculine doesn't mean much because it was influenced by the first-mentioned variant. To my knowledge there is no other way to explain -che other than Latin -ca. There are also several sources that agree to this, including Meyer-Lübke. I just want to check here for objections before editing, because neither the Trésor nor Wartburg mention it. 178.1.250.55 21:12, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Nevermind. We already have it at "diemenche". I hadn't seen this entry because I used a different lemma at first. I'll adapt the Modern French entry accordingly. 178.1.250.55 21:24, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

‘To my knowledge there is no other way to explain -che other than Latin -ca.’

1) manche, porche < manicus, porticus

2) ache, sache < apium, sapiat

‘There are also several sources that agree to this, including Meyer-Lübke.’

Meyer-Lübke (REW 2738) in fact argues against it:

• „Afrz. diemanche Mask. fällt auf, da, wenn es auf dia dominica beruhen würde, man Fem. erwarten müßte und außerdem *dia im Frz. fehlt.“ ['Old French diemanche is striking since, if it were based on dia dominica, one would have rather expected a feminine; moreover *dia is missing in French.’]

Note also Catalan diumenge m and Occitan dimenge m, with affrication and without the final -a that would be expected, in these languages, from Latin -a. Nicodene (talk) 23:08, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

latin -timus/-tumus (finitimus, maritimus, legitimus)

Another rare adjectival suffix, i-stem. Seeing some sources relating it to aestimo, autumo which I can't give credit to, others I found don't expand on it. Tim Utikal (talk) 23:42, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Latin cursim, passim, sparsim, etc.

Currently given as having suffix -tim, but isn't this simply curs-/pass-/spars- + -im ? Or am I missing something? Exarchus (talk) 09:42, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Compare the treatment of the -tus suffix (either of the verbal-appended one): curro + -tus → cursus / passus (patior) / accensus (accendo). Removing the "using the same stem as the supine" wording as misleading and misplaced would be nice, they are not formed on it but undergo the same phonetic rule. See vicissim, subject to the same treatment but not a verbal root. I will write a usage note for the page later. Tim Utikal (talk) 09:53, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Entries are divided on whether the suffix is added to the imperfectum verbal stem or the supine one. According to me, saying it is supine-formed is an uncoherent analysis where people just compared supine and -tim forms and saw the latter as formed on them due to their morphological likeness. But this explanation doesn't account for forms like passim which would have given *passtim or something of this taste (or even more laughable: pass + -tim = passim).

Now, what I do think -as seen in the my other comment- is that verbal roots just undergo the same phonological treatment as when attached with the -tus suffix (the which further proves my point as we would need to state action nouns also derived from supine stems which doesm't make much more sense). Thus the -tim forms are not from supine stems but are analogical to them in their irregularities.

So I am ensuring you will all agree if I change all the pages concerned accordingly. Tim Utikal (talk) 11:16, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Latin has many verbal derivatives that are built on what looks like the "4th principal part" of the verb, but that aren't straightforward to analyze morphologically. There are several problems with analyzing the supine or passive perfect participle as the base of the derived form: first, some verbs such as subsiliō don't even have an attested supine or passive perfect participle per dictionaries, yet we still have subsultim, subsultō etc. Second, in many cases there is no apparent semantic connection between the meaning of the supine or passive perfect participle and the meaning of the derived form: e.g. frequentatives are not inherently passive or used to express the purpose of a motion. Considerations like this, as well as etymological considerations, suggest analyzing -tus, -tiō, -tor etc. as deverbal suffixes starting with /t/ rather than analyzing them as being morphologically composed of a supine/passive perfect participle base + -us, -io, -or. Some suffixes can be applied in some cases to noun or adjective bases too (sometimes with an intervening vowel), as in ubertim. The complication of course is that the suffixes don't show totally independent behavior as they do cause the same changes in form to the preceding verb root, both in cases where the change is relatively predictable (like -d-t- and -t-t- becoming -(s)s-) and in cases where the change is harder to predict. This has been discussed by linguists; some analyses make use of a concept called a "morphome". It seems like it can be explained as the result of some kind of analogical pressure; compare the common use of the same verb 'stems' in languages such as French, Spanish and Italian for various semantically remote functions (e.g. French language learners are taught that they can find the stem of the present subjective by referring to the stem of the third-person plural present indicative form (as in je suis, ils suivent; subj. je suive); but that doesn't mean that it is accurate to characterize the French subjunctive as being morphologically derived from the third-person plural present indicative form.--Urszag (talk) 12:40, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

@Urszag, Tim Utikal, Exarchus: What should be kept, or is almost missing, is that these suffixes in -t almost always end up with the same form, which is the form of the 4th principal part. (This is different from Sanskrit, where seṭ roots can show different results for different formatives.) The only Latin exception I can think of is ruitūrus (future participle) - perhaps others are hidden in the existence of alternative past participles. We're generally not very good at recording inflectional endings - I could find an entry for the Latin supine or future participle entries. --RichardW57m (talk) 16:31, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

באָמאָז

Ideas? I've seen some suggestions that this could be from Hebrew, but I'm not very versed with how Hebrew words are transformed when entering Yiddish, so I'd need some help on that front. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 14:26, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Is there a link between Hebrew כולל/kollel and Arabic كلية?

@Fay Freak I know you're into these kinds of sidequests. Shoshin000 (talk) 14:47, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

@Shoshin000: -īya nouns for institutions are generally suspect to be artificial. Of course this comes from medieval universities already; the calqued nature of كُلِّيَّة (kulliyya) = universitas was obvious to me from the beginning of learning Arabic and encountering this word as a Western learned man. It was an obvious option to extend a genuine Arabic word meaning “totality, entirety; completeness, fullness, wholeness; universality, generality; integrity”: بِالْكُلِّيَّة (bi-l-kulliyya, “completely”). A philosophical lexicon yet notes such senses to translate Neoplatonist ὁλότης (holótēs). If we think about learned Jews then the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic terminology could not develop independently at that time on either side, but this intra-Semitic exchange for Arabic is less than that with Greek and Latin even.

The Philosophical Lexicon has interesting other claims of non-obvious borrowing directions: intentio (“intention”) would be from مَعْنًى (maʕnan), conjunctio (“conjunction”) in logics from اِتِّصَال (ittiṣāl). I have not followed the debates from medieval times.

I leave these snaps to those who have mere philosophy or theology degrees. Fay Freak (talk) 16:15, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Proto-Indo-European -yéti

I think this entry needs some expansion/cleanup, but I don't think I'm the most knowledgeable person to do this. What is missing is basically the denominative suffix (plus the factitive), and then the derived terms and descendants would need to be sorted as to which suffix they belong to.

For example, the derived *-eh₂yéti and *-oyéti seem to belong to the denominative/factitive suffix rather than the currently given suffix for primary verbs, and so do Proto-Anatolian *-yéti, Proto-Germanic *-janą and (partially) Greek -έω (-éō). Sanskrit denominative -यति (-yati) would belong there too. Exarchus (talk) 15:20, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

am

I mean the German word. 90.241.192.210 16:38, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

It's there on the German entry though...? an + dem or auf + dem. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 19:43, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

bairisch

Where did it come from? Does it have ANYTHING to do with Bavarian? 90.241.192.210 17:39, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I've added an Etymology to the page. Leasnam (talk) 18:16, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Uh, yeah but I want a more distant etymology above the German dialects. 90.241.192.210 19:57, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Bayern / Bavaria is ultimately of unknown origin. Bairisch is just Bayer + -isch. Wakuran (talk) 21:34, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

-en-

Where did this Dutch word come from? 90.241.192.210 20:15, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I think there have been similar constructions found throughout West Germanic. Possibly related to Old English -en, if I am to hazard a guess. Wakuran (talk) 21:33, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

From univerbation of declension endings, as also -s-. The dependent of a genitive construction can well be put in the front of a genitive construction the more we go back in history, and articles also become more optional. Fay Freak (talk) 22:09, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm sure it originated in the combining forms of Proto-Germanic an-stem‎, īn-stem and ōn-stem nouns. —Mahāgaja · talk 22:10, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Yep. These consonants were later reanalyzed as part of the inflection paradigms rather than of the stem. At least that’s how I understand all gaping-schwa words like Krume, whether they be masculine or feminine. What does “genitival interfix” in our definitions of -s- mean, anyway? Speakers in the late Middle Ages had no opportunity to know the complexity of Proto-Germanic declension. Fay Freak (talk) 22:23, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

knellen

Where did this Dutch word come from. 90.241.192.210 19:44, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

It's been hypothetized to derive from Proto-Germanic *knuzlijaną, but the late attestations and semantic shift makes the hypothesis uncertain. [3] Wakuran (talk) 21:07, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

knäcka

I want to know where this Swedish word came from. 90.241.192.210 19:48, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

See SAOB. Seems like it is two different verbs merged into one. Tollef Salemann (talk) 21:24, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Which verbs? 90.241.192.210 14:17, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Seems to be a merger of the intransitive verb knäcka (conjugated strongly; knäcka, knack, knuckit, I believe) and the transitive verb knäcka (conjugated weakly; knäcka, knäckte, knäckt). [4] Wakuran (talk) 23:33, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Now I realize that in Swedish bränna still has the same paradigm; intransitive verb bränna (conjugated strongly; bränna, brann, brunnit) and the transitive verb bränna (conjugated weakly; bränna, brände, bränt). Wakuran (talk) 12:57, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

does that mean we should have two conjugation tables on bränna? i dont see the strong verb forms on the table we have. thanks, —Soap— 21:05, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't know if the other form is even attested. SAOB says that it is still used in some dialects (without specifying which dialects is it), but i can’t find anything. Tollef Salemann (talk) 05:40, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Joe Schmoe

Is it just a coincidence that "schmo" means "his name" in Hebrew? Dngweh2s (talk) 20:01, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Probably, but whoever coined it was probably aware of the connection, since it used a Yiddish derivation process. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:44, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Bulgarian току-що

@Chernorizets, @Bezimenen: the first element here is току́ (tokú), meaning "just (now)", but what's the purpose of the що? Is it the same as the що we already have defined, and if so, how can it be explained in the context of this word? Thanks for any ideas, Kiril kovachev (talk・contribs) 20:03, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Just now, that... (subclause implied, such as something happened), or similar? Wakuran (talk) 21:12, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Compare also Russian только что (tolʹko što). Thadh (talk) 21:17, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

BER lists it under the etymology for току as a derived term, and I'm not sure it's profitable to try to break it up into its constituent parts. току (toku) is apparently from an earlier толку (tolku)/толко (tolko) with a deletion of the "л". I think @Wakuran's guess is probably closest to the truth, and consistent with the dictionary definition for що (što), esp the third sub-sense of the third listed sense. Chernorizets (talk) 00:05, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

@Kiril kovachev more discussion on що as a particle in compound adverbs here. Chernorizets (talk) 00:21, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

@Chernorizets Thanks for this. The reason I originally started this is because I saw what BER had to say about it and thought it must effectively be a compound - I mean, току is току, so the що must have some purpose as well, right? -- From which line of thought it only made sense to me to enquire what the other part means. What might you mean rather than breaking it down into its constituent parts?

That said this is valuable stuff, I will transfer it over to the page I think. Thanks very much :) Kiril kovachev (talk・contribs) 18:16, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

trebbler

Is it from Yiddish or Scots? Or from English? Tollef Salemann (talk) 21:26, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Seems to be a variant of traveller. [5]. Wakuran (talk) 21:38, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Cool! Thanks! Tollef Salemann (talk) 21:44, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Described as an "own Scots-Yiddish idiom" in the source. The pronunciation feels more Yiddish than Scots, though, since I believe the phoneme [v] would be mostly used initially in Yiddish. Wakuran (talk) 21:46, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

So it’s not even English? Do we even have Scots-Yiddish language code? I'm not sure about the phoneme, because all the English words in Yiddish I remember have not such change, but who knows what kinda features the Scots-Yiddish had developed (it’s first time I hear about this language, so I have no clue). Tollef Salemann (talk) 21:53, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Not originally, if we consider English and Scots as separate languages, I guess, although it's been loaned into English to describe the occupation. Wakuran (talk) 22:07, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Most likely a rude imitation of the Yiddish pronunciation. You could imagine the street urchins shouting "trebbler,trebbler". 24.108.18.81 02:16, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

radfem: blend or shortening

The etymology was changed from saying this is a shortening of "radical feminist" to saying it's a blend of "radical" and "feminist". To my mind that seems incorrect (shortening to syllables like this is shortening and not "blending"), but I want others' input, because I realize "blend" and "shortening" are kind of a spectrum: "jorts" at one end is a blend, not just a shortening of "jean shorts"; "UK" at the other end is a type of shortening, an abbreviation, shortening to just the first letters of "United Kingdom", not a blend; so where does "radfem" fall? - -sche (discuss) 23:32, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't have thought of it as a blend, just as an abbreviation, and it doesn't match the glossary's description of blends as "typically starting with the start of one word and ending with the end of another".--Urszag (talk) 23:47, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Exactly. "rad" and "fem" are in the same position in their respective words- if you blended the two words they would collide and one would cancel the other out. A blend would be something like "radinist" or "femical". Chuck Entz (talk) 02:08, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I sincerely like the sound of "femical", though. Wakuran (talk) 22:34, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

"Janji"

Does anyone know or have a theory about the origins of the Malay word janji? Is this word a loan from another language? for example, borrowings from Sanskrit or Austroasiatic languages, or is this word native to Austronesian? Berbuah salak (talk) 13:44, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

עשפּער

Again, ideas? I found the surname Esper, and cursory searches suggests that that is a word in Bavarian/Swabian, but semantically it would not have anything to do with "afternoon snack". Insaneguy1083 (talk) 22:28, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, there's Vesper (“light meal, snack”), but I can't imagine where the v would have disappeared to. —Mahāgaja · talk 22:46, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

In addition, the emergence of ־ש־ (-sh-) is irregular, unlike in the consonant cluster ־רשט (-rsht). Insaneguy1083 (talk) 11:27, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

That's true. A borrowing from Alemannic perhaps? But still no explanation for the missing v. There's Greek εσπέρα (espéra, “evening”), and Modern Greek σ sounds a great deal like /ʃ/ to the untrained ear, but I don't know whether the Greek word can also mean "afternoon snack" (or any meal at all, for that matter – Sarri.greek, can it?), and anyway loanwords directly from Modern Greek into Yiddish are rare enough that we don't even have a Category:Yiddish terms borrowed from Greek. —Mahāgaja · talk 22:03, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

No, @Mahagaja: cannot find sense 'meal' in Modern Greek. Neither at grc. ἑσπέρα (hespéra), ἕσπερος (hésperos). There is a medieval ἑσπέρισμα @LBG "evenging meal" ++ wikt:el:ἑσπέρισμα also Koine [thank you M Nikos1nikos1-- and a verb ἑσπερίζω. The sense "evening", since Koine, also associated to evening prayers. For Latin, there is also Hesperus. ‑‑Sarri.greek ^♫ I 23:13, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for that info! I don't think it really gets us much further with the etymology of eshper, though, since getting from ἑσπέρισμα (hespérisma) to eshper is at least as difficult as getting from Vesper to it, at least in the absence of a Russian or Ukrainian word to form the missing link between Byzantine Greek and Yiddish. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:57, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I was thinking maybe Mariupol Greek - Soviet and all that - but for Mariupol Greek speakers to even come into contact with Yiddish speakers would be a miracle of epic proportions. Plus from my very rudimentary knowledge of Mariupol Greek, ш (š) really only emerges etymologically from Greek σι- (si-) before a vowel, χ (ch), or from Urum loanwords. In fact, we know specifically that "good evening is калиспера (kalispjera) in Mariupol Greek (possibly a borrowing from modern Greek?) and not *калишпера (*kališpjera), and the most common word for "evening" is врадъы (vraðy) which has nothing to do with εσπέρα (espéra). Insaneguy1083 (talk) 14:24, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

It's an exaggeration to say "for Mariupol Greek speakers to even come into contact with Yiddish speakers would be a miracle of epic proportions" since there were thousands of Jews in Mariupol before the Holocaust, but what is unlikely is that a word from Mariupol Greek would spread to the entire Yiddish-speaking world (though I don't know how widespread eshper is in Yiddish). —Mahāgaja · talk 16:08, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Also, I wonder if this word is attested outside of the dictionary referenced in the entry. When I google this word, Wiktionary is literally the only the hit for it. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:23, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Strange too that it's uncountable, but that's what the CYED entry said. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 18:17, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

There's a chance it's a copyright trap. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:23, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I was thinking of that as well. Like how some maps have "trap streets" that don't exist in real life. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 09:44, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Persian الو Turkish alev "flame"

Hi, in "В. С. Расторгуева, Джой Иосифовна Эдельман - Этимологический словарь иранских языков. Т.1" page "322", it is said that the Turkic root (Turkish alev) is derived from Iranian. In respective Wiki pages of Persian الو and Turkish alev, it is said that the root is Turkic and the only referenced NİŞANYAN, and NİŞANYAN says it is possible that the word be from yal- but he is not sure. The word in Turkic is very well known in several languages but it is perhaps a borrowing because there is no vowel harmony. What do you think? Kamran.nef (talk) 02:16, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Malay "racun"

Does anyone know or have a theory on the origins of the Malay word racun? I think this word is a loan from Austroasiatic. Berbuah salak (talk) 08:51, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps Proto-Austroasiatic *riəs (root), which becomes *rʔiɛs in proto-Aslian (the Austroasiatic language family spoken in Malaya). Poison was frequently made from roots. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Proto-Austroasiatic_reconstructions#List 24.108.18.81 16:48, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

This looks implausible. Other cases of borrowing from a AA source into Malay (and other AN languages in the area) underwent less drastic phonetic changes (e.g. semut < *smuːc; sekam < *skaːm). But I have no idea at the moment about the actual source of racun. Old Javanese also has racun, but the direction of borrowing is unclear as with so many other words that are restricted to the western part of the archipelago. –Austronesier (talk) 22:36, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

-s-

I want to know where this German grammatical term came from as well as -es-. 90.241.192.210 09:59, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Etymologically identical to German genitive -s and -es and English -'s, I believe. A kingsman and a king's man are etymologically identical. Wakuran (talk) 18:48, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Synchronically, though, it has been disconnected from the genitive ending, as it freely attaches to feminine nouns, which don't take -s in the genitive. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:47, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

auftragen

Origin? 90.241.192.210 12:41, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

auf + tragen —Mahāgaja · talk 14:22, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Aa

I mean the German word. 90.241.192.210 14:44, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

The one I know is in the report you can read on German Wikipedia from PIE *h₂ékʷeh₂ inherited into Proto-Germanic as *ahwō, as are the Dutch hydronyms mentioned in the Dutch section. â is even given as a descendant in Middle Low German, from which it must be “borrowed”, if that makes sense for toponyms, though nobody speaks Low German in the area around this river anymore. Fay Freak (talk) 15:43, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

malayu/Malay

Wondering about Old Javanese malayū (“to run”)...could it be the origin of the name Malay? It could refer to the habit of travelling great distances by oceangoing canoe. Thoughts? 24.108.18.81 01:00, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

No-one has objected to this, so I will post it at Malaysia, unless anyone has something more to say. 24.108.18.81 03:26, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Seems unlikely, especially since it can mean "run away". @Austronesier: what do you think? Chuck Entz (talk) 03:40, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

It means "run fast" or "run away". Speed is not distance, so the proposed connection is indeed unlikely. Also, there is no known ethnonym in the entire region that is derived from words meaning 'far' or 'travel' or 'sailing' or whatever, even though many groups are known for their maritime mobility.

Malayu most likely originally referred to a river. So if the term was borrowed from Old Javanese, it referred to a characteristic of the river and the way it flows. Austronesier (talk) 06:03, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

River, great idea, thanx for the suggestion...I'll take it into account. 24.108.18.81 19:35, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

*kʷeh₁t-/Pict

None of the present etymologies for Pictus e.g. *Kʷritenī make much sense, since they fail to account for the dropping of the r and the addition of the c. It is undoubtedly an autonym, as shown by forms like Old English Peohtas and Pictones. There is a PIE root *kʷeh₁t- (“to shake”) which is mentioned as the root of Ancient Greek πάσσω (pássō); this accounts for kʷ~p as well as h₁~k, the semantics being "movers and shakers", just right for a tribe of warriors. Thoughts? 24.108.18.81 01:54, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

You're right that *kʷritenī is unlikely to be related to Pictus, Pict, etc. But I don't see anything attractive about a connection to *kʷeh₁t- either. Finding etymologies for names is notoriously treacherous, so until something especially compelling comes along, I think this should be labeled unknown. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 11:36, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I find it compelling. PIE kʷ- becomes Brittonic p-, while it is quite plausible that h₁ could become χ, which Roman scribes would turn into c. And the semantics work out! I imagine people are suspicious of this idea simply because it is new. 24.108.18.81 00:01, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

It is not even remotely plausible that h₁ could become x. eh₁ became ī in Proto-Celtic, while xt comes from kt or pt. —Mahāgaja · talk 06:11, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Malay "limbah"

Does anyone know or have a theory about the Malay word limbah? Are there words in other Austronesian languages that are similar to this word? Berbuah salak (talk) 11:48, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Malayic/buhaŋ

Does anyone know or have a theory about the Proto-Malayic word *buhaŋ? Did I make a mistake when doing this reconstruction? For example, /a/ at the end of the word is actually /ə/, or worse, this word doesn't exist in the language, for example, this word is a loan from another language which first entered Malay, then spread to several other Malayic languages. Berbuah salak (talk) 12:26, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

The reconstruction is good except for the medial *h. You can only posit it with positive evidence, either bottom-up (i.e. -h- in Banjar), or top-down (i.e. *-q- in Proto-Malayo-Polynesian). Based on the Iban, Malay and Minang cognate set, you must reconstruct *buaŋ. This is also what Adelaar (1992) does[6] (see p. 47). Considering the non-trivial correspondence of the final segment in Iban and Malay, I think we can exclude borrowing.

As for external cognates, Proto-Philippines *buaŋ[7] might be good candidate. I'm a bit surprised that Blust didn't see the connection. Austronesier (talk) 22:15, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Birgitta

Birgitta (and her countless permutations: Brigitta, Bergitta, Bergitte, Birgitte, Beritte, Berite, Birgit, Berit, Berith, Beret, Berte, Birte, Birthe, Brita, Brit, Britt etc.) has been one of the most common given names in Scandinavia ever since Bridget of Sweden aka Birgitta Birgersdotter was sanctified in 1391. Every single source I consulted (Store norske leksikon, Dansk navnelekiskon etc.) states that her name goes back to the Irish saint Brigid of Kildare, and ultimately to the Celtic godess Brigid - but to me it seems bleedin' obvious that she owes her name to her father, Birger Persson, whose name - Birger - is Nordic, not Celtic. Am I on the wrong track...? --178.24.239.38 20:58, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

She could have been given a similar sounding name in his honor without the two names being etymologically related. My sister Marcia was named (partially) in honor of our grandfather Marshall, but the two names are not etymologically related at all. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:49, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

It may seem obvious to you, but it is not obvious to me. Why couldn't Birger Persson till Finsta and Ingeborg Bengtsdotter have decided to give their daughter the Christian name Birgitta after a female saint? The name was reportedly recorded in Sweden in 1293, before Bridget of Sweden was born.  --Lambiam 14:42, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, still. It does seem rather obvious to me that Birger Persson till Finsta had himself in mind when christening his daughter, rather than some long-forgotten Irish saint, and why would he take pains to subject St. Brigid to a metathesis if he didn't...--2003:D4:6702:E300:306B:6690:89C7:48EA

The first syllable isn't stressed, so a metathesis could have occurred naturally. Wakuran (talk) 19:50, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

It is not? I don't know about Irish, but English Bridget is very much stressed on the first syllable, and I would have assumed the same for Latin Brigida. Gina Lollobrigida comes to mind. --178.24.238.7 23:21, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

In Swedish, I meant. Wakuran (talk) 23:50, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Hm, but since the original form wasn't Swedish, but Irish and/or Latin, it would appear that poor St. Bridget was subjected to both metathesis and stress shift, "unnaturally", as it were, no? --178.24.238.7 23:21, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Swedish phonology is somewhat different from Latin. Anyway, the form "Birgitta" is apparently attested in Sweden from 1293, ten years before Bridget of Sweden supposedly was born. [8] Wakuran (talk) 00:02, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Mm, your source says that Birgitta och liknande has been attested since 1293. Btw, I'm not being contrarian, on the contrary, I'm enjoying this conversation very much (and still I believe I might be on to something...)--178.24.236.115 00:10, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

The following sentences make it clear that the metathesis Bir- has been used already since 1293 in Swedish. Wakuran (talk) 10:49, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Etymology of Rome

I was wondering if the Latin word Rōma could be from the Egyptian word rmṯ? The Egyptian word seems to have a similar pronunciation and I could see the shift between "people" to "city" but I wanted a second opinion. Seraphinanewt (talk) 15:46, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

That seems exceedingly unlikely as neither Egyptian nor anything closely related to it was spoken in Italy at the time Rome got its name. The Etruscan hypothesis mentioned at Roma#Latin is much more plausible. —Mahāgaja · talk 18:47, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

bamse

Where did this Norwegian/Swedish/Danish word come from? 90.241.192.210 16:44, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Related to björn, according to ordbokene.no . [9] Wakuran (talk) 20:13, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

mums

Where did this Norwegian/Swedish/Danish word come from? 90.241.192.210 16:46, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Likely onomatopoetic, such as English yum and om nom nom. Wakuran (talk) 20:17, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Old Norse ancestor? 90.241.192.210 17:37, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

None attested, Norwegian has mumse. Possible connection to mumla (mumble). I guess English munch might be derived from similar thinking. Wakuran (talk) 23:28, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

sowohl

Origin? 90.241.192.210 17:21, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

so + wohl, cf. English as well as. Wakuran (talk) 20:18, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

igitt

Origin? 90.241.192.210 20:44, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

🏁 DJ K-Çel (contribs ~ talk) 20:54, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

What do you mean? 90.241.192.210 21:20, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Finish line, of course. I added it in. DJ K-Çel (contribs ~ talk) 21:30, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

otoancorin

Given as oto- + ancor +-in, previously oto-- + ancorin. Neither ancorin nor ancor are English. Does anyone care about this? P. Sovjunk (talk) 20:51, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

There's a listing for anchorin, though. Could it be a typo? Wakuran (talk) 23:28, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Chinese 蜜月

The recently-added etym there states that this is calqued from the English honeymoon. Was it borrowed directly from English? Any chance it was borrowed from written Japanese 蜜月, itself first attested in 1903? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:58, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

For such a modern word, it's also uncertain that the neighboring countries would have Chinese descendants. Wakuran (talk) 23:16, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Turkish kafa and Greek κεφάλι, κεφάλα

Could the semantic shift in kafa be linked to κεφάλι, κεφάλα in Greek? Shoshin000 (talk) 12:05, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

gravy train

"It is a shortening of the phrase riding the gravy train, referring to "a transportation vehicle that carries a number of people going the same way" or "to teach people". "

Underlined part is nonsense? Mihia (talk) 14:41, 25 April 2024 (UTC) "

The Online Etymology Dictionary says the meaning "something lucrative or productive is said to have been originally railroad slang for a short haul that paid well". —Mahāgaja · talk 15:26, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Right, but it seemed a bit odd to me that someone would enter such a specific and relatively elaborate nonsense explanation, so I wondered whether there was something to it that I was missing. Delving back into history, I now see that originally, going back to at least 2010, it read "It is a shortening of the phrase riding the gravy train, rather than train referring to a number of individuals going the same way or a way of teaching people." So originally it kind of made sense as a way of explaining what "train" did not mean, then it got turned into nonsense over time. Ho-hum. Mihia (talk) 17:36, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

-i

Origin of German grammatical term? 90.241.192.210 20:30, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Added. In short, it's the same as English -y (diminutive suffix). —Mahāgaja · talk 20:44, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

mayhem

Any clues when this has moved from the legal term to the more general "chaos"? The explanation "journalese expression" isn't very convincing. Jberkel 11:16, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

This pair of Google Books Ngram graphs shows that this happened sometime after 1900. The rise in popularity of the journalese use was gradual, making it hard to be specific, but this smoothed graph suggests that 1940, when the charted ratio drops and remains below 5, is a defensible milestone.  --Lambiam 19:38, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

συνομιλία

συνομιλία is missing the etymology section. Seems to me it's probably συν-#Greek + ὁμιλία#Ancient_Greek = "with people." But I literally just made that up. Do I need a source or something? :) Mvolz (talk) 09:05, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

There's also μιλώ, althouth it's apparently derived from ὁμιλία, anyway. Wakuran (talk) 11:03, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

According to the Greek Wiktionary, it is a Koine noun from the verb συνομιλῶ, which is the contracted form of συνομιλέω, “converse with”.^[10] The latter is obviously συν- (sun-) +‎ ὁμιλέω (homiléō)  --Lambiam 18:28, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

English edling

The term used for the heir apparent of a Welsh monarch in the medieval period. It's a doublet of atheling, which is the (modern) English term for an Anglo-Saxon prince, as both are derived from Old English æþeling (“prince”). However, edling has a more specific meaning.

The Welsh-language term (according to Wikipedia) is etifedd, so it's not clear to me how or when the term edling came about. Theknightwho (talk) 12:06, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

-t (German)

Origin? 90.241.192.210 16:52, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Already given in the entry. —Mahāgaja · talk 23:04, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't find it clear what grammatical terms it's talking about, that's all. 90.241.192.210 10:24, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

All of them. The third-person singular present indicative ending is from a conflation of the various third-person singular present indicative endings of basically all verbs except the preterite-present ones, from Middle High German all the way back to Proto-Germanic. Likewise the second-person plural endings are from a conflation of the various second-person plural endings of basically all verbs, from Middle High German all the way back to Proto-Germanic. And the past participle ending is from a conflation of the various past participle endings of basically all weak verbs, from Middle High German all the way back to Proto-Germanic. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:20, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

give me some examples of such terms 90.241.192.210 21:37, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

magpie (archery)

Why is the blue ring on an archery target called the magpie? ~ heyzeuss 07:08, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

A quote:

The Target Division called the “ magpie ” first appeared in the National Rifle Association Targets as used at Wimbledon and elsewhere for prize shooting, when improvements in the accuracy of the rifles and the skill of the marksmen made it necessary to increase the number of the target divisions. [...] It was found, however, that the terms centre and inner led to some confusion, and consequently in 1877 the space next within the outer was called the magpie, and the name inner was transferred to that adjoining the bullseye. The name “ magpie ” was of course due to the employment of the black and white disc, and its appropriateness for a hit inferior to both the bullseye and inner have been emphasised by the ill-luck which superstition attaches to the bird.^[11]

 --Lambiam 09:11, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

müßig

Origin? 90.241.192.210 10:53, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

It's in the etymology section already. Vininn126 (talk) 10:54, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Proto West Germanic ancestor? 90.241.192.210 12:25, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to be found in English. Apparently related to German müssen and English must. Wakuran (talk) 12:31, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

How would that work? It sounds like a hypercorrect form of mühseelig minus the adverbial -l- ending to me, *mühs'(l)ig, from mühen. 2A02:3032:20A:B279:1134:37FA:BE6D:2ECB 22:07, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Or mühselig, which is however not compared to Seele. 2A02:3032:20A:B279:1134:37FA:BE6D:2ECB 22:11, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

There's been a lot of semantic shifts, but the older meaning was something like "having free time to perform anything". Wakuran (talk) 11:19, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

I've updated the etymology. The *mōtijan I've added is not the PWGmc term it's linked to (i.e. "to meet"). This is a homonym. Leasnam (talk) 02:17, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Proto-Norse ᚺᚱᛟᛉᚨᛉ and Old English hrōr

(Please read my comment at Talk:ᚺᚱᛟᛉᚨᛉ!)

Does anyone have any ideas on what the Germanic or Indo-European root of these two (possibly related) words might could be? ᛙᛆᚱᛐᛁᚿᛌᛆᛌ ᛭ Proto-Norsing ᛭ Ask me anything 20:45, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

@Mårtensås: As I assume you saw, Orel, Frank, etc., cite PN ᚺᚱᛟᛉᚨᛉ (hroʀaʀ) as from PG *hrōzaz (“active, lively”), with at least Orel further connecting it to Proto-Slavic *krasa (“beauty”), which seems rather semantically unlikely to me, as I would expect cognates with meanings like “to move” or “to live”. Vasmer actually gives Old Norse hrósa (“to boast”) as a cognate to the Slavic, which I also find dubious, but per your guess, hróðr and hrósa could be related to ᚺᚱᛟᛉᚨᛉ (hroʀaʀ). Onomastics are always problematic, but it's worth mentioning in the etymology at least, I think. @Leasnam -- Sokkjō 05:26, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

lucky girl syndrome

An anonymous user added lucky girl syndrome, noting it was coined "in December 2023", but citing a mention from March of that year. Perhaps that was just a typo for "December 2022"? Also, that mention, as well as a usage I found, seem to style it Lucky Girl Syndrome with capital letters. Cnilep (talk) 03:43, 30 April 2024 (UTC)