Talk:kap

Etymology of the Hungarian term

Kiss's Etimologiai szótár describes this as a possible onomatopoeia. That explanation works well for other words mentioned in that entry, like koppant (“to rap, to strike”), but semantically, an onomatopoeic explanation for to seize, to grab doesn't make as much sense to me: the action described is less obviously connected to a sound.

I note a striking semantic and phonological overlap with Proto-Indo-European *kap- (“to seize, to hold”) and derivative *kapyéti (“to be seized, to be held”). Looking at the daughter languages, a Germanic derivation seems unlikely, since the initial /k-/ shifted to /h-/ for that family. However, the initial hard /k-/ persisted in other languages that proto-Hungarian speakers may have been in contact with, such as Latin capio or (geographically less likely) Albanian kap. There's also Proto-Turkic *kap- as reflected in modern Turkish kapmak (“to seize, to get”). While Turkic is not part of the PIE family, I note that there was a branch of PIE speakers (the w:Afanasievo culture) in the vicinity of the Proto-Turkic urheimat, leaving open the possibility that Proto-Turkic *kap- may be related to Proto-Indo-European *kap-.

Would there be any opposition to mentioning these in the etym here at Hungarian kap, at least as comparanda? And are there any Hungarian etymologists who discuss these similarities? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 19:15, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

@Eirikr The etymology dictionaries only mention the onomatopoeia, the clicking sound of suddenly closing the mouth and the teeth. The earliest meaning was probably "<the dog> snaps at <it>". See kap in Tótfalusi, István. Magyar etimológiai nagyszótár (’Hungarian Comprehensive Dictionary of Etymology’). Budapest: Arcanum Adatbázis, 2001; Arcanum DVD Könyvtár →ISBN. I'm not sure about mentioning the above items, wether they are they really connected to this word. Maybe someone else with a deeper etymology knowledge can answer that. Panda10 (talk) 17:39, 8 June 2022 (UTC)