Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2014/November

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← October 2014 · November 2014 · December 2014 → · (current)

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ciabatta, zapato, сабата... лапоть?

These entries say it's ultimately from Persian (via "[Ottoman] Turkish zabata"), which is probably incorrect as far as I can tell. I found Russian лапоть, is it also a loanword? --Z 16:58, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Russian ла́поть (lápotʹ) is inherited from Proto-Slavic *lapъtъ / *lapъtь and is probably unrelated to those other words; see ЭССЯ. --Vahag (talk) 18:38, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

I removed the garbage finally, after a Turk complained on Talk:zapato in 2009 already. The Turkish word given in etymological dictionaries of romanists is a ghost word, as one must see in 2019, the Romance word is of unknown origin. Fay Freak (talk) 21:23, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

@Djkcel: It is not too late to mention that I am seriously unamused that you readded the garbage from popular trash dictionaries just in August 2019, duplicating those multiple wrongs spellings on multiple pages, the more so that as a Turk you should recognize that there is zero evidence for the alleged Turkish word **zabata (which is not a formal fit either if it had existed). Corriente already mentioned in Corriente, Federico (2008) “zapato”, in Dictionary of Arabic and Allied Loanwords. Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Galician and Kindred Dialects (Handbook of Oriental Studies; 97), Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, page 492 “it appears never to have existed”. Don’t do this again; moreover you should feel obliged to revert if anyone has the same misreading and reintroduces the like. Realize that many standard references have many errors. They copy dictionary compilators like you 😡 Fay Freak (talk) 22:37, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

crimini

RFV of the etymology.

We have no Italian entry for the mushroom sense, none of the easily accessible online sources I checked gives an etymology, and Italian Wikipedia doesn't seem to mention it (though it's hard to be sure, given that it's widely used as the word for "crimes" in Italian). There's one source in Google Books here] that says it came from an Italian mushroom grower's name, but it doesn't say whether this happened in Italian or English. There's also the possibility of folk etymology of the sort that happened with broccoli, which I've seen attributed to an Italian family name as well. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:29, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Neither form is listed in my Italian etymology sources. It may derive from the plural of cremino which is a type of chocolate truffle. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 19:44, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

See here for an etymology. I too do not find the mushroom sense in my standard Italian dictionaries. --Vahag (talk) 19:49, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

If the change from /e/ to /i/ is not a phenomenon somehow internal to English, the most obvious possibility is that it is some kind of dialectal influence, either metaphony or simply borrowed from an Italo-Romance variety where a change like that took place in general, with Sicilian the most obvious candidate. Derivations from proper names (as from acronyms) are generally suspect of being false etymology prior to the 20th century. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:56, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Halloween

Since it's this time of the year again, I wondered about the details of this etymology. Wikipedia (which also interestingly gives the alternative form Allhalloween) states that the origin of the word is Scots, which sounds possible and not implausible but is not obvious (nothing specifically Scots about the phonology or morphology), while we here at Wiktionary don't. But then, the OED is a source that must be taken seriously. Anybody who can add to this?

I also see that e'en gives Hallowe'en as a derivation. This is a bit awkward: the entry is for the adverb, and the word Hallowe'en is obviously not derived from the adverb e'en < even, but the noun. Not sure how to solve this one best; there should be two different sections, one for the adverb and one for the noun sense, but two identical definitions look a bit stupid. It seems that there isn't even a good way to solidly link to a specific homonym; in this case, an obvious way out is provided by the different word classes, but in case we want to link, say, to one of several homonymous nouns, how do we do this here? What's the standard practice? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:14, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

How are PIE words notated?

I am new to Wiktionary, and I was wondering what for example the numbers under individual Latin letters meant, as of course these words were meant to be visible in their fluidity, since nobody actually has seen anybody say these things. I hope I have made myself clear, if not, please tell me, and thank you for your help. þþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþþ so many thorns, its getting spiky. — This unsigned comment was added by 2602:306:BCAE:4CE0:2CBB:BBF8:A787:A041 (talk) at 02:04, 6 November 2014 (UTC).

See WT:AINE for the system of representation we use. You may also need to read w:Proto-Indo-European for an explanation of some of the concepts involved. Proto-languages such as Proto-Indo-European are theoretical constructs used to show our best guess as to what the language that gave rise to all of the descendant languages may have been like. In the case of laryngeals, we have a very general idea of what they must have sounded like, but not enough to use a normal phonetic symbol. Instead, we use capital H, with a subscripted number to show which type of laryngeal it was. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:50, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Actually, we use a lower-case h with a subscripted number. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:19, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

притча во языцех

Apparently this Russian expression is borrowed directly from Old Church Slavonic, using its grammar, roughly meaning "talk of the town". What would be the original OCS spelling? Not sure if it's притъча во ꙗзꙑкцѣхъ (pritŭča vo jazykcěxŭ)? --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:09, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Probably притъча въ ѩзꙑцѣхъ (pritŭča vŭ języcěxŭ). --WikiTiki89 05:41, 17 November 2014 (UTC)--WikiTiki89 05:41, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I don't agree with your edit in diff, though. Here's why: 1. It's definitely idiomatic. Why did you remove the tag? 2. Linking to Russian во язы́цех (vo jazýcex) doesn't seem right, it's only used in this set expression and is grammatically and semantically incorrect from the modern Russian point of view. The term "язык" only means "tongue" or "language", not "people" as in OCS and Russian has the form "в языка́х" in the locative/prepositional case, not "во язы́цех". Cf. "exempli gratia" where "exempli" probably doesn't mean anything in English. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 10:09, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

The idiomatic tag is redundant; if it wasn't idiomatic, it wouldn't be included in the dictionary. I remove this tag everywhere I see it, and there are others who agree with me. If we don't link во (vo) or языцех (jazycex), then we shouldn't link притча (pritča) either because it is also OCS, even though it happens to coincide with the Russian word as well. --WikiTiki89 16:57, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

-izn- infix

Just a thought. Could the infix -izn- as in shiznit have arisen through (probably humorous) reanalysis of business /bɪznɪs/ as derived from the shortening biz /bɪz/, in AAVE possibly with devoicing /bɪs/ (does AAVE devoice word-final fricatives too?), according to the schema /b-/ + /ɪzn/ + /-ɪs/? After all, there aren't many English words including the sequence /ɪzn/, are there?

As for the -iz- infix, an analogous derivation might also be found, but I can't think of any right now. In any case, it is clear that the infix in shiznit is -izn-, not -iz-, as the article illogically claims. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:44, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Blend of business and shit? Renard Migrant (talk) 16:15, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

I believe it’s a blend of shit and isn’t it. —Stephen ^(Talk) 05:16, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

یلدا

RFV of the etymology.

See the talk page for explanation. First one IP added some nonsense which was reverted, then another IP added what they claim is sourced, but seems unnecessary, and it's been going back and forth a bit. Can someone settle this? Chuck Entz (talk) 14:56, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Derivation from Syriac "nativity"/Christmas is in black and white in the first source listed on the Citations tab. Both sources listed there are from the Encyclopedia Iranica.

Note: for the etymology I initially just had "Loanword (with accompanying change of meaning) from Nestorian Christian word for Christmas: Syriac ܝܠܕܐ (yaldā, “nativity”), i.e. of Christ." On second thoughts, that should probably read "...Church of the East technical term...".

Either way, without the bridge "winter solstice", this simple etymology causes onomastic problems since the average reader will not understand how a technical term for Christmas should become the name for another (non-Christian) festival. Which is why I initially had an additional definition that exposed a progression.

As to whether its necessary or not to indicate that both festivals occurred on the winter solstice: The original entry had a ridiculous definition related to Mithra being born of a rock. The Internet is littered with that nonsense, all of which seems to derive from a fanciful transplanting of a certain Roman belief to the Iranosphere, and then associating the Syriac word for "birth" with that. As such, to explain the connection (i.e. because both festivals occurred on the winter solstice, and *not* simply leaving an association with "birth") is sensible, and not doing so would be negligent.

And, besides its useful. (At least as useful as going back to the dawn of time with an etymology that has nothing to do with what the word was borrowed for).

(rest of this post is a cross post) -----------------------------------

Re: etymology... From the first source cited on the Citations tab:

• "In Islamic Persia, the night of the winter solstice (the last night of autumn) was known under its Syriac name of Šab-e Yaldā (the night of nativity)"
• "Being the longest and the darkest night of the year, additionally connected with Christianity, Šab-e Yaldā usually has negative connotations in Persian poetry".

For Syriac Yalda = nativity/Christmas:

• take your pick.
• Like this one (first hit, was for the fa term): "Yalda -- the longest night of winter; from Syr. Yalda "Christmas". This word corresponds to Arab. ___ Milād and is derived from the same Semitic root YLD (or WLD) -- to give birth or to be born."

-- 95.116.181.209 17:48, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

marcher

RFV of the etymology. It's the same as march#Etymology 2, but that doesn't explain the final -er which is I think what the tagger is concerned with. Change to march (“border region”) +‎ -er? Renard Migrant (talk) 16:12, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

hmm, not so sure ... Looks like Etym1 uses the demonym suffix -er#Etymology_2 whilst the other uses the agent suffix Leasnam (talk) 07:33, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

на́ледь

Does anyone know the etymology of this Russian word? Also, while we're on the subject, can anyone confirm that this and this are both called на́ледь in Russian? Ru.WP says they are, but they seem to form in two different ways, and look different. - -sche (discuss) 23:06, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

I'd say that the na- part is the same as the preposition, so that leaves only the second part. —CodeCat 23:16, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

And it looks like the second part must be connected to лёд (ljod) somehow. —CodeCat 23:18, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Checked and fixed the entry. Re: attention tag. The three senses in the Russian wiki can be compressed into two, which I have done. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:00, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you both! :) - -sche (discuss) 00:33, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

It's likely this was formed before Modern Russian, so I'm going to change it to "equivalent to". --WikiTiki89 01:35, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

See also ЭССЯ, reconstructing Proto-Slavic *naledь, but saying that the "Proto-Slavic antiquity is questionable". --Vahag (talk) 05:30, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

But at the same time, the fact that it's an i-stem is interesting. I don't think i-stems were productive much beyond Proto-Slavic (I'm not sure if they were even productive in by late Proto-Slavic times), and as far as I know they've not been productive at all for most of Russian's separate history. So if it's not Proto-Slavic, it's very nearly so at least. —CodeCat 13:23, 30 November 2014 (UTC)