Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2019/March

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← February 2019 · March 2019 · April 2019 → · (current)

---

Gaulish *'śokka

Why do we say that it derives from Proto-Germanic *stukkaz? Others simply say that it is akin to it. Tharthan (talk) 01:12, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

The most notable difference between Pgmc and other PIE lects of the period is the effect of Grimm's law on stops. Clusters starting with s are immune to Grimm's Law, but the "kk" part isn't, and is exactly what one would expect from Grimm's law's affect on a "g" . Given that Proto-Celtic *stungeti is said to be descended directly from Proto-Indo-European *(s)tewg-, the ancestor of Proto-Germanic *stukkaz, and clearly hasn't changed the "g" to a "k", I don't see any other way for the "k" to come from that "g". That said, I know next to nothing about the development of stops in the Celtic languages, so I'll leave that for those who know more. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:31, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

English seep and soap as cognates

I think that both of seep and soap are ultimately from the same PIE root (which, according to the Online Etymological Dictionary, is *seib-, "to pour out, drop, trickle").

However, in Wiktionary, the ultimate root for seep is given as *seib-, *sib-, WHEREAS for soap it is given as *seyb-, *seyp-. Ironically, for both of the words in the wiki, the same meaning for the roots have been given: “to pour out, drip, trickle”.

Therefor, the needful uniformization needs to be wrought (by experts), i.e., the same root be given for both. Thanks, Lbdñk (talk) 07:46, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Pokorny also has seip-, seib-, but our page about Proto-Indo-European states: “Diphthongs are sequences of a vowel followed by a nonsyllabic sonorant, and are written as such: *ey *oy *ew *ow etc. (not ei oi eu ou)”. I don’t know where *sib- comes from. Our own PIE index only has *seyb-.  --Lambiam 14:11, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

You may want to read up on Proto-Indo-European ablaut, which explains the different forms a root or affix can have in PIE. In Wiktionary's etymologies, though, the full grade of a root should always be used, regardless of what grade the term derives from. We only have PIE entries for the full-grade form of roots. —Rua (mew) 22:31, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

獴

Is this by any chance a phonetic transcription of the English mongoose?

Chuck Entz has suggested a trans-Himalayan borrowing from a language such as Marathi or Telugu (sources of the English mongoose), his reasoning being 'India is a lot closer to China than the US'. I have used his explanation in the etymology section of 獴.

Then, justin(r)leung added that the character's use to mean 'mongoose' is not attested in ancient dictionaries such as the Kangxi dictionary (though the character's entry states the character is present in the Kangxi dictionary).

Mongooses are found in China, so the possibility of the word being native cannot be excluded. What's the consensus?

--Corsicanwarrah (talk) 10:49, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

@Corsicanwarrah: It is in the Kangxi dictionary, but the definition is not "mongoose". It says it's used in the word 獴𤡱, also written as 蒙貴, which is a kind of small ape. This word is unlikely related to 獴 (mongoose). Just because Chuck Entz suggested a possible trans-Himalayan origin doesn't mean it should be added to the entry immediately unless there is good evidence. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 14:02, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

林投

The Chinese for the pandanus plant is comprised of two characters which mean "forest" and "to throw" respectively. I'm really confused as to whether this is descriptive, or a phonetic transcription of the plant's name in some other language (some Taiwanese aboriginal language, mayhaps?). The latter option seems more likely... --Corsicanwarrah (talk) 10:53, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Why repost this question? See Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2019/February#林投.

No definite answer was given in February. --Corsicanwarrah (talk) 15:27, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Austronesian words for the domestic cat

So, I have noticed the Amis pusi, Kapampangan and Ilokano pusa and Sundanese empus, all of which refer to the domestic cat. However, I am rather confused -- I am not aware of the domestic cat being among the animals that were brought by Austronesian seafarers to the new lands they settled. Is there any chance that these words are loaned from English puss or Dutch poes? (I think it is likely that these words are derived from European languages, but I'm not entirely sure. After all, there are Austronesian languages where the word for the domestic cat is definitely loaned from European languages.)

I would also like to know what the etymology of the Maori ngeru is. --Corsicanwarrah (talk) 10:52, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Apparently (page 151), ngeru comes from a word for "soft" (I'm not sure if this sense is still current in Maori). --Hazarasp (talk) 10:03, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

I didn't see a conclusive direct statement, but a paper by Jean Lowenstamm published in Living on the Edge: 28 Papers in Honour of Jonathan Kaye (→ISBN, see pp. 348-349) implies pusa is a loanword, because the entire chapter is discussing how "the massive injection of loans from those languages [English and Spanish] eventually altered the syllable inventory of Ilokano" and the other words Lowenstamm analyses the syllabification of, besides pusa, are clearly loanwords, e.g. klase "class" and jyanitor "janitor". (Incidentally, this trascribes the Amis word in a quasi-phonetic way as puʃi, but says nothing of the etymology.) - -sche (discuss) 06:48, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

bacalhau vs. bakailao

The etymology sections for Greek μπακαλιάρος (bakaliáros) and Dutch bakkeljauw state that the word derives from Portuguese bacalhau; although not explicitly stated, it seems this also applies for Chinese 馬介休／马介休 (mǎjièxiū). The etymology sections for Spanish bacalao and Dutch kabeljauw, on the other hand, give Basque bakailao as the origin. This raises the obvious question, what is the relationship between the Portuguese and Basque terms? The etymology section for Portuguese bacalhau says “Unknown”. Basque bakailao has no etymology section.  --Lambiam 10:59, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

• See also the Italian baccalà. SemperBlotto (talk) 11:03, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language gives this etymology:

[Spanish bacalao and Portuguese bacalhau, both from Basque bakailao, probably from alteration of Old French cabillau, from Gascon cabelh, head (in reference to the cod's large head), from Latin capitulum, diminutive of caput, head; see CHAPTER.]

Other sources, including Le Trésor, give the French name cabillaud as a loan from Middle Dutch cab(b)eliau. How to reconcile this?  --Lambiam 12:51, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

The Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands (M. Philippa et al.), in the entry kabeljauw, states that the origin is contentious and mentions three theories:

(1) The forms with cab- are original (possibly related to Latin caput) and the forms with bac- arose by metathesis;

(2) The forms with bac- are original (possibly related to Latin baculus) and the forms with cab- arose by metathesis;

(3) Both forms have independent origins and the similarity is a coincidence.

The last theory, championed by W. Sayers (2002), ‘Some Fishy Etymologies: Engels cod, Norse þorskr, Du. kabeljauw, Sp. bacalao’, in: Nowele 41, pp. 17–30, is deemed “very plausible”. The entry also points out a central role of Basque in spreading the bac- forms. It is interesting to note that cab- forms are attested from the 12th century while the earliest attestations of bac- forms are from the 16th century. In my opinion, this makes theory 2 unlikely.  --Lambiam 10:50, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

See also bacalhau below.  --Lambiam 20:44, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Bizarrely, bacalao mentions an Old Dutch cognate. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 10:37, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

That must be incorrect. The Dutch cognate, originally spelled bakeljauw and later bakkeljauw, is only attested from around the beginning of the 17th century. It survives in Surinamese Dutch and as the loanword batyaw in Sranan Tongo.  --Lambiam 19:51, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

buka

I was thinking that maybe Zulu -bûka (“view, watch, look at, admire”) could come from Proto-Bantu *-kébʊka (“look around”), with deletion of the first syllable. The meanings are very similar and other than the initial syllable, all the phonological correspondences are correct. I'm not aware of any regular process of syllable deletion in Zulu though. Thoughts? Smashhoof (talk) 00:58, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

깃

Is this from Chinese 旗? I note the word for "flag" in Korean is 깃발. ---> Tooironic (talk) 08:29, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

깃발 (gitbal) is from 기 (旗, gi) + -ㅅ- (-s-) + 발 (bal). ko:깃발, [1]. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 08:48, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:16, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

confetti

Over a dozen languages (see confetti#Translations) use this to mean festive pieces of paper, like English does, and many have etymologies saying it's a pseudo-Italianism, since it ostensibly doesn't mean that in Italian. It seems implausible so many languages would independently decide to use an Italian word for "confections" with this meaning unless it sometimes had that meaning in Italian or they are borrowing from another language which did give it that sense. Did this sense first arise in English, which would then be the souce of the other languages' words, directly or (e.g. in the case of Galician) maybe via another intermediary? Or did it have this meaning in Italian? {{R:Etymonline}} and w:Confetti have some interesting comments about this, and the use of confetti during Carnival. - -sche (discuss) 18:31, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

So, apparently the Italians initially threw literal confetti (sugar-coated almonds), and then pellets of e.g. plaster symbolizing them, during festivities—English reference works say Carnival, but I can find Italian works documenting the practice also during weddings. The English adopted the practice, for weddings and other festivities, using coloured paper instead of plaster to symbolize the almonds. I suppose other languages could've similarly borrowed the practice of throwing faux candies. In which case, I'm back to wondering if it's really a pseudo-Italianism or just a straight borrowing... - -sche (discuss) 20:39, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

According to Treccani, it has a sense that seems to denote things that are rained down in great amounts (“figurative, humorous: rock/pebble [?], projectile, large hailstone, etc., especially in great quantity”) — Ungoliant ^(falai) 20:46, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

According to Etymonline, the British had adopted the Italian tradition of throwing little things, but using bits of paper instead of plaster pellets, calling them confetti by 1846. From Wikipedia we learn that (possibly independently) one Mangili started selling small paper disks in 1875 that quickly replaced the plaster imitation confetti, but which, according to several other sources, came to be called coriandoli in Italian, reusing an earlier term that once was a hyponym of confetti, being confetti with specifically coriander seeds as their cores. In regard to the original question, it would be helpful to know if, in the early stages of adopting and adapting the Italian tradition, the British perhaps also used plaster or a like substitute (or perhaps even actual confections) before switching to paper, and if so, whether they called these also confetti already then. If the answer can be determined to be affirmative, the implication is that we have a straightforward borrowing from Italian to English, whose meaning shifted later, as it had done earlier in Italian. The variants in other languages are (regardless of the status of the word in English) probably best explained as borrowings from English.  --Lambiam 00:18, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

An 1893 article in the Scientific American about confetti in Paris disambiguates the term by repeatedly making it clear when paper confetti is meant: ‘‘confetti’’ (those of paper of course) / confetti of paper / paper confetti. Also interesting is that the term is used grammatically as a plural instead of a mass noun.  --Lambiam 00:35, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Useful! Amid quite a few inconclusive books, this and this say that yes, sugared almonds / comfits were and apparently still are used in some English weddings (apparently, one English groom once threw one so hard he injured his bride). And The Oxford Companion to Food (unusually among English references works I've looked at, some of which claim the opposite, leading to the claim of pseudo-Italianness) admits Italian still has the same "little thrown things" meaning as English, according with some Italian books I saw and the Italian reference Ungoliant found. - -sche (discuss) 00:47, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

The second of these sources, The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, states that the Italian name confetti was transferred to the paper cutouts in France at the end of the nineteenth century. If that is when the transfer happened, the 1846 date from the Online Etymology Dictionary is wrong. And if that is where it happened (which the Scientific American article also seems to suggest), the English word was borrowed from French.  --Lambiam 06:02, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

An 1892 newspaper article (in Dutch) describes the transformation from gypsum projectiles to round pieces of paper as having taken place with the introduction of confetti throwing in Paris on Mardi Gras of 1892. So the term was used before in French (e.g. for the Nice carnival) in the Italian sense of fake confectionary to pelt people with, but, while retaining the basic idea, the sense was adopted in Paris to cover a less dangerous stuff – the earlier confetti battles sometimes caused bodily harm. Considering this, I would not call the term a pseudo-anything. It appears to be a bona fide loanword in French, for which the French, once it had become a French word, used their right to set the meaning of French words and extended the meaning to a new material – just like in English when you tickle the ivories you do not touch ivory, and most linens are not made of linen).  --Lambiam 07:07, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Great finds! Intriguingly, one of the references I had added to the page claims an engineer in Savoy intended paper confetti in 1892, but Wikipedia claims it was Enrico Mangili as early as 1875, and says (with a dead link, but maybe we can find another reference, using the date and other clues) they were used in Paris as early as 1885. In any event, I agree it's not a pseudo-loan.
(IMO even if the Italians had only used it to refer to plaster pellets thrown in celebrations, for the French to use it for paper thrown in celebration in imitation thereof doesn't strike me as "pseudo" any more than English using frau or wurst to denote a German woman or sausage while in German it denotes any woman or sausage, respectively: it strikes me as a small, obvious semantic shift. (baby-foot would be on the other end of the spectrum, a clear pseudo-loan because it doesn't exist in English, and French people (“a celebrity, singular”) also seems like enough of a semantic jump that it's possibly a pseudo-loan. OTOH, autostop seems closer to maybe not being a pseudo-loan but a true loan, if English autostop's contents are accurate...)
- -sche (discuss) 20:23, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Sprinkling petals is at least as old as the Ancient Romans, and undoubtedly the idea of using scraps of papers as substitute petals is as old as the invention of paper scrap. Mantini’s claim to fame is that he saw the commercial potential of a byproduct that before was discarded as waste. I hesitate to consider that “inventing”, but OK. What is of interest in the present context is not so much who invented this when, but who first applied the term confetti to the paper rounds. Apparently, Mantini’s invention was sold as coriandoli. This page, from the mayor’s office of Modane in Savoy, cites a 1923 source stating that the manager of the Casino de Paris, named Lue, was responsible for spreading the “invention” to Paris in 1891, his father being an engineer from Modane, where allegedly silkworms were bred. The mairie of Modane sets the record straight by stating there were no silkworm farms in Modane at the time, but that there was a large paper factory in nearby Fourneaux that produced this kind of paper.  --Lambiam 19:21, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

hebrew שוטה: biblical?

The etymology of the word שוטה is listed as "biblical". But I did not find the word in Gesenius' dictionary. (Only שטה, but not as a verb.) שוטה

Where does שוטה appear in the bible?

--217.149.170.233 22:34, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

The term occurs in the tractate Ḥagigah: "ת"ר איזהו שוטה? היוצא יחידי בלילה והלן בבית הקברות והמקרע את כסותו והמאבד כל מה שנותנים לו". (Wikisource: חגיגה ג ב.) The English translation hosted at Halakhah.com translates this sentence as: “Who is [deemed] an imbecile? He that goes out alone at night and he that spends the night in a cemetery, and he that tears his garments.”  --Lambiam 12:03, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

ustag

And variants. Italian Walser term for "spring" (season). Could there be a connection to Latin aestās (“summer”)? Julia ☺ ☆ 04:46, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

I’d say it appears unlikely already on purely semantic grounds, what with the primal importance of the seasons for rural life and the immense difference between spring, much welcomed after the cold winters of the Alps, and summer.  --Lambiam 12:36, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

@Lambiam: Then maybe Proto-Germanic *Austrǭ (“Easter; springtime”)? Though I'm wondering why the second element seems to be "day". Julia ☺ ☆ 21:59, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

According to one source, “Il tempo dei Walser: i nomi tedeschi dei giorni, dei mesi e delle stagioni ai piedi del Monte Rosa”, it is literally out-day: “Se l’estate, l’autunno e l’inverno corrispondono suppergiù al tedesco moderno, la primavera viene chiamata der üstàg/ustog o simili, ovvero ‘il tempo in cui si esce e si riprendono i lavori dei campi dopo la lunga pausa invernale (letteralmente ‘il giorno in cui si va fuori’)’.”  --Lambiam 09:46, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

I’ve tried to find confirmation that Highest Alemannic us corresponds to High German aus. For now the best I saw is that in Swiss German, High but not Highest Alemannic, German Ausfahrt is Usfahrt.  --Lambiam 11:41, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

醬

RFV of the etymology. @Freelance Intellectual — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 17:39, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

I took this from Baxter-Sagart (searchable here: http://edoc.uchicago.edu/edoc2013/digitaledoc_linearformat.php ). Apologies, should have given the reference. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 17:49, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

@Freelance Intellectual: I don't think it explicitly says it's derived from 漿 though. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 17:57, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Good point, I guess I jumped to a conclusion there. It seems likely, given that the phonetic match and the semantic match, but to avoid original research we would need to find another source or hedge the wording in the entry for 醬. Freelance Intellectual (talk) 18:33, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

They're probably cognates. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:15, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

They probably are, but we would like to have a proper source that would back this up. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 05:54, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

bacalhau

Recent changes to the etymology by an anon, connecting it to Basque, might affect related words in other languages. Do we have any reliable sources in support of this affirmation? --Robbie SWE (talk) 18:03, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

See also bacalhau vs. bakailao above.  --Lambiam 18:43, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

• DEHLP-Houaiss stablishes "etim.contrv.; prov. das f.dial. do basco bakaillao, bakaillo, makaillao, makaillo, que designam um peixe, mas não têm étimo conhecido; o port. bacalhau e o esp. bacalao (fonte do it. baccalà, somente para 'peixe seco') podem prender-se tb. ao gascão cabilhau, der. da f. alat. cabellauwus, doc. em 1163 nas Flandres e ligada ao rad. lat. cap- e capit-; ver bacalh-; f.hist. sXVI bacalhãos"

  TRANSLATION: probably from dialectal forms in basque bakaillao, bakaillo, makaillao, makaillo, designating a fish, but without known etym; PT bacalhau and ES bacalao (in contrast to IT baccalà, only for 'dry fish') can be taken from Gascon cabilhau, derived from old Latin cabellauwus, documented in 1163 in Flandres and linked to Latin roots cap- and capit-; see bacalh-; historical forms 16th century bacalhãos Sobreira ►〓 (parlez) 10:54, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

• DRAE (Spanish Royal Academy): Del vasco bakailao; cf. neerl. ant. bakeljauw, var. de kabeljauw. = From basque bakailao; confert Dutch bakeljaw, variant of kabeljauw.

RFV: LA boletus vs. GR βωλίτης

• Boletus: From Ancient Greek βωλίτης (bōlítēs)
• βωλίτης: Uncertain. Perhaps cognate with Latin bōlētus and/or Proto-Slavic *bъdla.

Sobreira ►〓 (parlez) 11:52, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

The existence of the variant form βωλήτης (bōlḗtēs) (“βωλήτης”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press) makes a loan from Greek to Latin more likely. Given that the Greek word is masculine, first declension, the Latin ending -us is then not strange, although -a (as in athleta) would seem more likely. For the Greek, one might think of a relation with βῶλος (bôlos, “lump”) (“βῶλος”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press); in fact, one of the senses listed in Liddell & Scott for this word is βωλίτης. But lacking further evidence, a common source for the Greek and Latin words cannot be excluded.  --Lambiam 12:34, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Are Sanskrit वातिगगम (vātigagama) and भण्टाकी/भण्डाकी (bhaṇṭākī/bhaṇḍākī) cognates?

While the English aubergine and brinjal —the outcome of Wanderwort — are indeed doublets owing to their common source Persian بادنجان, I have however seen that in the brinjal entry, the ultimate source for the Persian word (the word having many variants, though) has been given as भण्डाकी, whereas in the aubergine entry, the ultimate source for the Persian word as वातिगगम. This therefor betokens that the two Sanskrit words are cognates. So, are they? and if so, how are they related?

—Thanks, Lbdñk (talk) 17:14, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

It seems to me that these are two competing and incompatible theories. I have some trouble imagining the morphophonetic journey from bhaṇṭākī to bâdengân. For the other candidate I can imagine something like vatigagama → (by haplology and apocope) vatigam → (common substitutions) batẽgan → badengan – with the various steps not necessarily in that order.  --Lambiam 20:40, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

@Lambiam: Thank you... However, might you tell me what you mean by "common substitution"? —Lbdñk (talk) 16:34, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

By substitution I mean the replacement of one phoneme by another in the course of the evolution of a word on its journey from language to language (or within one language as that language evolves). For example, in Latin faba → Italian fava, a /v/ was substituted for the older /b/. Some substitutions are more common than others; in the example, a voiced labial consonant was replaced by a different voiced labial consonant; the main difference is that one is a stop and the other a fricative. In another example, in Proto-Germanic *dagaz → Middle High German tag, a /t/ was substituted for a /d/, both dental stops, the difference being that one is voiced and the other voiceless. Both are types of substitution that are very common (in either direction). For both, only a single phonemic aspect changes (in the examples, for the first the manner of articulation and for the second the voicedness). Such substitutions tend to be among the most common.  --Lambiam 14:32, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation! —Lbdñk (talk) 12:58, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Icelandic kyrkja

The etymology currently gives the ancestral form as *kwirkwijaną, but what evidence is there for the second labiovelar? It seems like it could have come from *kwirkijaną too. —Rua (mew) 17:27, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Could it be a quirky typo?  --Lambiam 20:17, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Odoacer

RFV of the etymology.

The origin from Gothic has been changed to "disputed" by virtue of a 1946 article by two history professors that refers to the "learning of Ural-Altaic philology and archaeology" in suggesting that Odoacer was probably a Turkic-speaking Hun. Is this article, based on outdated theories, worthy of listing as the only source for a reworking of the etymology? Full disclosure: I've only read the abstract, not the article itself. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:42, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

A brief article by Bruce Macbain, “Odovacer the Hun?”, cited in the Wikipedia article on Odoacer, points out that the Suda, discussing Odoacer’s brother Onoulphus, states that the latter’s father was Thuringian and his mother Skirian, both Germanic. This is the only known definite ethnic assignment from ancient sources. The author adds further arguments, based on primary sources, that make the conclusion of Reynolds and Lopez appear implausible. As to the proposed etymologies themselves, I find it hard to see how putative (and unattested!) Turkic names like Ot-toghar or Ot-ghar could have been Latinized to Odoacer or even Odovacer. Clearly, there were two syllables between the dental t/d and the guttural gh/c. In conclusion, I feel that the prominent attention to this speculative and unsubstantiated theory is undue. It is a fact that the etymology is disputed, but this should not merit more than a footnote.  --Lambiam 03:45, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

The fact that there are other attestations of the same name in Germanic languages speaks in favour of its existence. I don't see what else it could be from. —Rua (mew) 12:28, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Pretty thin, I support relegating the Turkic theory to a footnote. Crom daba (talk) 16:08, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

How's this? - -sche (discuss) 17:09, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Could Indian English 'byheart' be a calque, perhaps from Portuguese?

It looks like there is a similar word in Portuguese: decorar.

My first instinct on looking at it was to think of Esperanto parkerigi, which I assumed to be a calque from French, so I tried to search for the equivalent French verb and couldn't find one (though parkere is derived from par cœur). פֿינצטערניש (talk) 14:42, 10 March 2019 (UTC) Corrections פֿינצטערניש (talk) 14:44, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

I suspect that this verb is a relatively recent acquisition of the Indian English vocabulary, later than Portuguese can have played a role.  --Lambiam 14:45, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Some circumstantial against this theory: the connection between de cor (“by heart”)/decorar (“memorise”) and coração (“heart”) is not immediately obvious to the average Portuguese speaker. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 16:08, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree. De cor and coração maybe, but with decorar not very much connected apart from alleged "popular" etymologizing. Sobreira ►〓 (parlez) 14:30, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

សិគាល

The Khmer for jackal.

Jackals are found where Khmer is spoken, but they are not common. (The subspecies Canis aureus cruesemanni is found in Myanmar, Thailand and Indochina, but there have only been a few sightings in Indochina in recent years.)

Is the term derived from an European language, or just coincidentally sounds like the English "jackal"? --Corsicanwarrah (talk) 12:37, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

When referring to present-day distribution of predators, always remember cases like lion, which made it all the way to medieval England in spite of the notable absence of the animals themselves at the time. Also, look at the etymology for jackal, which goes back to Sanskrit.

Considering that Southeast Asia received its writing systems and a substantial part of its culture from ancient India, the default explanation would be direct borrowing from there- especially since the Khmer term is much closer to just about everything but the English.

Of course, you would need to know the history of the Khmer term, and things like whether it was associated with any characteristically Indian elements of the culture, how it fits phonologically with similar terms known to be borrowed, etc. To understand the etymology, you need to know something about the the history of the languages, and the history of the regions. Your approach to studying animal names lacks a great deal of context: it's sort of like parachuting in blindfolded without a map. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:42, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

I suspect Chuck Entz was deliberating making the OP do some work. The answer lies in the etymology for jackal, which is traced back to Sanskrit sṛgāla / śṛgāla. Now, the Khmer form projects back to [i]sigāla[/i], which immediately suggests Pali sigāla, which exists and fits. Khmer has borrowed an immense amount of vocabulary from Pali and Sanskrit.

@Corsicanwarrah: I was about to go ahead and add the derivation from Pali, but then I saw the note to this entry. So, I'll give you a few days to add the etymology. --RichardW57 (talk) 16:24, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Not deliberately. I don't know enough about the linguistic history of the area to tell which language would be the most likely source, so I left that for others to answer. My knowledge is more general than specific: aside from a year of beginning Sanskrit and a year of beginning Mandarin at UCLA in the 80's, I haven't spent more than a few weeks on any of the languages in question. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:55, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂welh₁-

@Jaspet, this looks to me more a confounding of roots than anything else. Unless there is something to corroborate Derksen's apparent assertion, I think the alleged connection should be discarded. --{{victar|talk}} 23:40, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

paletot - twice borrowed?

In January, this entry was manually categorized into Category:English twice-borrowed terms, because the English word derives from French which derives from Middle (not modern) English. Do we want to do that? (My inclination is no.) Such entries would probably(?) have to be categorized manually, unless we are so confident that all instances of English words being directly inherited from Middle English use {{inh}} that we are willing to have {{der|en|enm}} categorize things as "twice-borrowed" the way {{der|en|en}} does. - -sche (discuss) 08:52, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

I removed the category. - -sche (discuss) 17:03, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

海棗

Is it right to assume the name means 'jujube from overseas/abroad' since date palms don't have any close relation to the sea/ocean? (This is what is currently in the etymology section of the entry, but I'm not too sure myself.)

--Corsicanwarrah (talk) 17:51, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

I believe the intuitive interpretation is correct, yet the etymology seems to go a bit further than that. The term finds its origins in the Yanzi chunqiu, where the story goes that the Duke of Qi inquired about the properties of purported "sea jujube" growing in red seawater, and Yanzi gave him an equally frivolous response; i.e. ask stupid questions, get stupid answers. (《晏子春秋·外篇下十三》：景公謂晏子曰：東海之中，有水而赤，其中有棗，華而不實，何也？晏子對曰：昔者秦繆公乘龍舟而理天下，以黃布裹烝棗，至東海而捐其布，彼黃布，故水赤；烝棗，故華而不實。) When actual jujube produced overseas appeared in China, the already familiar term was naturally applied. 58.38.21.53 17:06, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/wes-

I think this entry should inhold two different etymologies, the one for "to clothe, dress", which is already given; the other for "to buy, sell", which is missing, but needs to be included (by experts) as Etymology 2.
Reflexes of *wes- (Etymology 2) include Sanskrit वस्न (vasná, “price”), वस्नयति (vasnayati, “to haggle”), Persian بها (behâ, “price, worth”), Old Armenian գին (gin, “price, worth, buying”), Latin vēnus (“sale”), vīlis (“cheap, worthless”), Ancient Greek ὦνος (ônos, “price”), ὠνέομαι (ōnéomai, “to buy”), Hittite [script needed] (wāš-, “to buy”), etc.
So, Etymology 2 should be created. Thanks—Lbdñk (talk) 19:40, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

illokutiv

illokutiv says it's from il- + lokutiv. Given that neither il- nor il have a German entry, shouldn't it be from illocutive (which lacks an etymology) or some similar alternate language source?--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:56, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

I‘m pretty sure this was formed as an adjective from the noun Illokution by analogy to how administrativ is the adjective corresponding to the noun Administration. The English adjective illocutive was probably borrowed from the newly coined German word, but to state this with more certainty will need more probing of the scientific literature than I have the resources for.  --Lambiam 08:46, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

RFR: splitting etym for diet

Did I split the etyms well? I did it because it seemed pretty obvious to me (cf. NL diet). Although it's not listed among descendants in PIE *tewtéh₂, it's almost obvious from Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/þeudō (where Dutch and Deutsch are also missing), but I dunno the middle step into English. How do we level now the different PoS and translations? Sobreira ►〓 (parlez) 13:59, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Is there any evidence that diet in the sense of assembly is cognate with Proto-Germanic *þeudō? The Latin is diaeta[2] while the German term is Reichstag (as in Reichstag zu Worms). The alternative form dieta suggests an association with German Tag = Latin dies.  --Lambiam 18:17, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Unless some convincing evidence is forthcoming, I feel the split should be undone.  --Lambiam 12:08, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Good point, I never would have thought of that relationship. My only evidence is that it was attested in NL diet and Proto-Germanic *þeudō itself. Etymonline agrees with you. Sobreira ►〓 (parlez) 14:41, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

PIE *h₁er(i)- or *h₁r-i-(e)t-?

The Tocharian B word ariwe (“ram”) is defined by Adams in A Dictionary of Tocharian B: Revised and Greatly Enlarged as coming from Proto-Indo-European *h₁er(i)- and cognate to Latin aries, of the same meaning. Aries, however, is said by De Vann in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages to be from Proto-Indo-European *h₁r-i-(e)t-. These are obviously related reconstructions, and both sources list several cognates in different languages, which seems to constitute an entry that would include both the Tocharian B and Latin terms. If I were to make an entry for this reconstructed term, what would I put it under? Forgive me if the answer to this question is obvious; I'm new to this type of thing. GabeMoore (talk) 14:55, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

This word in unreconstructable, see {{R:itc:EDL|54}}. Also please be careful what templates you use on talk pages. --{{victar|talk}} 21:55, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

@victar I don't understand what you mean. The link takes me to a page showing how to cite the book, which I already know how to do. For creating a page for this entry, would it be possible to use one of the above reconstructions and list the other as an "Alternative reconstruction"?

Also, thanks for letting me know about not using those templates on talk pages. GabeMoore (talk) 15:15, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

@GabeMoore: The link I gave was to De Vaan, Michiel (2008) Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages. No, I don't think either should be made into an entry. --{{victar|talk}} 15:54, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

meaning in english of the french expression: "au doigt mouillé"

The literal translation of "au doigt mouillée" is : with a wet finger. Origin: to find out the direction of the wind, wet one's finger and hold it up in the air; the side of the finger that dries first is where the wind comes from. By derivation, the expression qualifies a non-scientific method. An english equivalent could be: By the seam of one's pants.

I know the latter expression as (fly) by the seat of one’s pants. There is a completely analogous Dutch expression: met de natte vinger. The English expression is about improvised action, while the French and Dutch ones are about provisional methods of estimation, like one might apply when asked how much it would cost to build a life-size replica of the Coliseum. So the meaning is more like “by using a rough estimation”.  --Lambiam 23:50, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

We have finger to the wind, which is the same metaphor but with a different meaning. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:33, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

We, at a British engineering firm, are well-acquainted with the concept of 'wet-finger estimates' - generally unreliable, but much better than no information, and often good enough for feasibility decisions. The origin is exactly as above. -- RichardW57 (talk) 18:12, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

abrojo

Our etymology lists Latin aperi oculos as does Corominas, but it seems more likely to me that it's just a contraction of Spanish abre ojo (or some variant) as the RAE suggests. Ultimateria (talk) 21:41, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

What, precisely, does Corominas say? The Spanish Wikipedia states that the word is from Latin aperi oculos (which seems plausible enough if you interpret “from” as meaning “ultimately from”), but not that it is a contraction of specifically the Latin collocation. A possible path is abrojo < abre ojo < aperi oculos.  --Lambiam 18:26, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

It says "contracción de la frase latina APERI OCULUS 'abre los ojos'". Ultimateria (talk) 15:18, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Hmm. Obviously the Latin phrase cannot have been the immediate predecessor; there must have been some intermediate form in the path abrojo < ? < aperi oculos. (I assume Corominas has OCULOS, not OCULUS.) I found a somewhat lengthy-ish exposition on the etymology of abrojo here. Interesting is the possible confluence of the Latin with Greek άβροχος (ávrochos, “dry”), inherited from Ancient Greek ἄβροχος. However, it does not offer suggestions for intermediate stepping stones on the development path.  --Lambiam 20:39, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't agree with the alternative form given for Galician in that reference abrojo. For Galician, this is given, and Portuguese Dict Houais frase lat. aperí ocùlos 'abra os olhos' de aperíre 'abrir' e ocùlus 'olho, vista'; segundo Corominas, o voc. era a princípio advertência ao que segava em um terreno coberto de abrolhos, tendo em seguida sido us. para o nome da planta; abr- e olh-. Sobreira ►〓 (parlez) 09:12, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

scran

The etymology used to read:

Probably of North Germanic origin, ultimately from Old Norse skran (“rubbish; marine stores”). Compare Icelandic skran (“junk”).

Then it was changed, with no explanation, to:

Supposedly, naval acronym for Sultanas, Currants, Raisins And Nuts, life saving nutritional essentials to stop sailors developing Scurvey while at sea.

I suppose that this is a made-up backronym, and we need to mention it only to eliminate it. But the question is whether the original etymology has any validity either, and whether it should be restored. Some dictionaries say the etymology is unknown, while oxforddictionaries.com also gives the information "Early 18th century (denoting a bill at an inn)", and this says "The first recorded sense of scran, from the early eighteenth century, actually refers to a reckoning at a tavern". I'm not sure how this relates to our explanation. Any ideas? Mihia (talk) 18:23, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

FWIW the OED mentions the Icelandic comparison, but only to call it "probably accidental":

> Of obscure origin; the coincidence with modern Icelandic skran rubbish, odds and ends (Björn Haldorson, 18th cent.) is probably accidental.

Early citations include one for that 18c sense (now obsolete):

> 1725 New Canting Dict. -- Scran, a Reckoning at a Boozing-ken.

and then there's one not long after that for a verb form that OED (a) says is derived from the noun and (b) defines as about food:

> c1742 in W. Hone Every-day Bk. II. 527 -- Tickets to be had for three Megs a Carcass to scran their Pannum-Boxes.

Then the "food" senses pick up more citations starting in 1808. So it does kind of look like the obsolete "bill at an inn" sense is part of the etymology of the "food" sense. But the trail goes cold there.

Lacking any explanation of how or why an Icelandic term for "odds and ends" would have been borrowed as "bill at an inn" in the early 18c., I think we should follow OED in mentioning the Icelandic coincidence only to discount it. --Gnp (talk) 22:16, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

gormy (or "gawmy")

I'm not sure that this can be determined definitively, but is it more likely that this derives from gormless or similar (gormless also exists as "gawmless"), or from Irish gám(aí) ["fool, dolt"]? Surely it can't come from gaum by itself, considering that the shift from "attentive" or "heed" or "to understand", to "clumsy" seems counterintuitive (although that has never stopped semantic shifts before), right? Tharthan (talk) 06:14, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Well, another meaning of gaum (in the entry) is "useless person" and another is "make a mess of", from which an -y derivative meaning "clumsy, ungainly" is plausible. (Incidentally, this 1889 publication by the English Dialect Society has "GAUMY [gormy] or GOMEY [goamy]" as a Shieffield noun for "an awkward, ungainly man", while the EDD has "ormy-gormy" as a Cheshire noun for "simpleton". One other book I saw suggested that some uses of "gormy" in the latter vein derive from the verb "gorm" meaning "stare, gape", itself from the "heed" sense.) - -sche (discuss) 06:47, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

-ago#Latin

• Def: Suffixed to nouns, forms nouns describing objects, plants, and animals.
• Last example: ‎vorō + ‎-āgō → ‎vorāgō

This example is a verb!? Sobreira ►〓 (parlez) 08:22, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Just like vertigo is from vertic- (the oblique stem of vertex) + -o, so perhaps vorago is from vorac- (the oblique stem of vorax) + -o, with a substitution /k/ → /ɡ/ under the influence of other words ending in -igo or -ago. This source appears to support my guess.  --Lambiam 14:47, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

I remove it then. vorax is an adjective, anyway, I didn't find the correspondent noun. Sobreira ►〓 (parlez) 08:55, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Etymon for Persian لنگ

Is Persian لنگ (lang, “lame, limp”) cognate to Sanskrit लङ्ग (laṅga, “limping, lame”)? — Lbdñk^{(⏳)·(🙊🙉🙈)}, 09:55, 25 March 2019 (UTC).

The similarity in both meaning and form makes this an attractive theory, but one wanders how – if true – it is possible that this has thus far escaped the attention of Indo-European etymology scholars.  --Lambiam 14:33, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

So, @Lambiam: is the etymon for the Persian word not found in any Indo-European etymological wordbooks? — Lbdñk , 18:36, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

I suppose dictionaries like Asatrian or Hassandoust have more info, but I do not have access to these works.  --Lambiam 04:52, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Asatrian's dictionary is not published yet. But the connection of Persian لنگ (lang, “lame, limp”) with Sanskrit लङ्ग (laṅga, “limping, lame”) is well-known in the standard literature. See {{R:ira:ESIJa|pages=63—64|vol=V}}. --Vahag (talk) 07:52, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

So do they give a PIE etymon for لنگ, such as *(s)leh₁g-?  --Lambiam 14:11, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

@Lambiam: ESIJa says further origin is unknown, but that inheritance from PIE *leng- (“to bend oneself; to sway”) or *lek- (“to bend, wind”) with a nasal infix is possible. --Vahag (talk) 19:08, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

ka

A Cimbrian preposition meaning "at" or "towards". What I'm baffled by is the two other "variants" listed in my source, kan and kor. They seem to be contractions in the style of preposition + definite article, but they match neither the accusative or dative expected endings – approximately: accusative kan, ka, kas, ka; dative kam, kar, kam, kan. Any input? Julia ☺ ☆ 00:38, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

howsomever

According to Oxford: "Also, south. dial. howsomdever. A parallel formation to howsoever, of earlier appearance, with the conj. sum, som instead of so]".

What conjunction is sum or som? I cannot find it on wiktionary. --Backinstadiums (talk) 01:26, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

I guess the Oxford editor means to say that sum, som in this univerbation is a dialectal variant of the conjunction so.  --Lambiam 05:01, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

@Lambiam: the dial. label applies to somd --Backinstadiums (talk) 08:15, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

The English Dialect Dictionary mentions the Middle English collocation hou sum euir, equating sum with the Old Norse conjunction sem, for which we list alternative forms sum and som.  --Lambiam 07:14, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

@Lambiam: Any explanation about how the collocation hou sum euir came together? I cannot make any sense of it --Backinstadiums (talk) 14:14, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Any such explanation must needs be tentative. “How” means “in what way”, and “ever” can mean “in any way”, so perhaps “in what way, like, in any way”, where the last part suggests that the speaker believes that in this case there is no obvious way. Like modern English “somehow or other”. The collocation occurs in the poem Cursor Mundi, here (line 23390). Please don’t ask me to translate this; my ME skills are not good enough to avoid blunders.  --Lambiam 16:05, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Reconstruction: Proto-Germanic

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:List_of_German_cognates_with_English (see also the discussion page there)

It would be helpful if some kind of script were able to generate a page that lists all Proto-Germanic reconstructions that have entries for (modern) English and (modern) German in the descendants list because these are the words needed for the above-mentioned table. If there are multiple descendant for one language, multiple lines should be generated

Ideally that list would auto-generate a table with columns like this: first column: have the PG root and its descendants already been added to the appendix page: yes or no (see below [1]) second column: Proto-Germanic word, linked to Wiktionary entry third column: English descendant, linked to entry forth column: German descendant, linked to entry following columns: auto-generated links to: - German Wiktionary entry for German word https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/WORD - DWDS entry for German word https://www.dwds.de/wb/WORD - Duden entry for German word - Etymonline entry for English word https://www.etymonline.com/word/WORD - Oxford DoE, and dictionary.com entries

It should be mentioned that in rare cases direct links to words will not work, in particular for example on the Duden website. One has to use the normal word search engine on Duden in this case. This should be mentioned in the table.

[1] In the source-code of Proto-Germanic words, hidden information should be placed if the word has been added to the cognates appendix page. This could be done automatically too by automatically screening the German cognates list for that particular Proto-Germanic entry. If it occurs, then the PG reconstruction page of that word gets tagged, and subsequently the entry in the corresponding line in the auto-generated list will be chance to "yes" (first column).

Note that the German descendants have been automated: {{desctree|goh|jung}}

I have broken down the table into three in order to prevent formatting issues as a result of the width of the table. It should ideally be in one row, of course.

Added to cognates list?	PG	E	G
YES	*jungaz	English young	German jung

G: German Wiktionary	G: DWDS	G: Duden	G: Leo
https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/jung	https://www.dwds.de/wb/jung	https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/jung	https://dict.leo.org/englisch-deutsch/jung?side=right

E: Etymonline	E: Oxford DoO	E: Dictionary.com	E: MW
https://www.etymonline.com/word/young	https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/young	https://www.dictionary.com/browse/young	https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/young

I am obviously not able to do this myself and don't even know if this is feasible.

--77.189.46.111 16:56, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

pablum

Surely this came from the trademark Pablum first, since its meaning in English ("anything overly bland or simplistic") is quite different from the Latin ("nourishment"). ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:34, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

The Online Etymology Dictionary agrees, ascribing the first attested figurative use to Spiro T. Agnew. Apparently this was in his characterization of the Scranton Report as “more Pablum for permissiveness”. In the context, I do not see a compelling case for a connotation of blandness or mushiness. The plain sense “food” fits quite well, and Agnew’s choice of this specific word may have been directed by his fondness of alliteration, as in his “nattering nabobs of negativism”.
In the course of my investigations it became clear that pabulum is also a (dated?) English loanword, used both in a literal sense (e.g. for sustenance for bacteria) and figuratively, as for “nourishment for the mind”. OneLook indicates it has an entry in many dictionaries. It seems conceivable to me that Agnew meant to say – or even actually said – “pabulum”, but that the reporters, more familiar with the brand name than the learned loanword, heard “Pablum”.  --Lambiam 06:55, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

khan and khagan: Ruanruan/Yeniseian root?

Please see cited sources on articles of these two words on En WP:

• Khan > Etymology
• Khagan > Etymology

Alexander Vovin proposed a non-Turkic and non-Mongolian root for both words (qan and qayan). --Wario-Man (talk) 08:43, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Currently we have, for Old Turkic 𐰴𐰍𐰣 (qaɣan), “Thought to be a borrowing from an unknown source.” Vovin’s theory is one among several competing ones, so if we are to be more specific we should include all. None appear to have a shred of concrete evidence and Vovin’s proposed derivation from reconstructed Yeniseian, whether Ruanruan and/or the unknown language spoken by the Xiongnu, is a tenuous thread. Therefore I do not see the value of including this.  --Lambiam 16:39, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

It shows an initial /x/ in Karakhanid, a sure sign of a foreign word. It's found in undeciphered (claimed to be Mongolic, but see my post) Hüis Tolgoi inscription and earlier in Chinese transcription of Xiongnu titles. The Yeniseian etymology is not particularly convincing, but neither are the alternatives. Crom daba (talk) 22:16, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Wario-Man is an established member from the main wiki-project known for his pan-Iranist motivated edit wars in Turkic-related articles. His "friend" Krakkos is a metapuppet of the same group of actors. This is the motivation of his "request".--Hirabutor (talk) 20:18, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Hirabutor is a sock of the Pseudo-Turkologist Tirgil34.[3] See Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Tirgil34. Krakkos (talk) 10:15, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Etymology of Latin reageō

Is this word from re +‎ -agō ? This seems most like an etymon: however, why is the form so irregular, with an bewildering e in between?
—Lbdñk^{(⏳)·(🙊🙉🙈)} 15:10, 28 March 2019 (UTC).

De Vaan makes no mention of it at all, which seems like a strange omission, unless it didn't actually exist in classical Latin. —Rua (mew) 15:59, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

I think that it doesn't exist, and Semper wasn't being careful. I've sent it to RFV. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:03, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Maybe I'm fully wrong, but from a verb giving a verb: from re- +‎ agō ? Sobreira ►〓 (parlez) 08:25, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Bantu words for white person

I'm doing some speculating here, but I thought this was interesting and wanted to share. Many Bantu languages share cognate words for "white person", and it can be reconstructed to 4 variations of the same word. The variations are best explained as resulting from loaning across languages at some point in the historical development of the Bantu languages. The map below shows the distribution of these variations.

Bantu words for "white person".

Based on the distribution, it looks as if the word originated near the east coast of Africa and spread from there. This would make sense from a historical standpoint because Arabs have a long history of trading along the east coast of Africa. The first Arab settlement on the coast was founded in the 8th century AD.

I'm pretty confident about everything said above, but now I'm curious about the origin of the word. First I thought it might be a loanword from (Classical) Arabic, but it doesn't seem to be the case. Though I might be missing something because I don't speak Arabic. If it's not a loan from Arabic, then the word probably originates in Bantu. There are a few words that are very similar in form to the reconstructed word *-jʊ́ngʊ̀ "white person":

• *-jʊ̀ngʊ̀, *-jʊ́ngʊ̀ "chaff" < *-jʊ̀ng- "sift"
• *-jʊ̀ngʊ́ "cooking pot"
• *-jʊ́ngʊ́ "pumpkin"

Everything below is speculation.

I can't help but wonder if the word for "white person" was derived from one of these other words. Chaff, for example (I had to look up that word), has a light color that may have been metaphorically used to describe the skin color of Arab traders. Maybe Arab traders were strongly associated with chaff, cooking pots, or pumpkins and the word came to refer to them. It's probably impossible to know, but it's fun to think about. Maybe knowing more about the history of interaction between Arabs and Bantu peoples could shed some light on this.

Smashhoof (talk) 23:58, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Madan relates Swahili mzungu to an adjective -zungu which he glosses as "strange, wonderful, clever, extraordinary" (which I imagine is obsolete, as I haven't seen it before), but one could easily imagine that the derivation went either way. He also suggests an origin in the verb -zungua (“to wander, to stroll around”), which is apparently widely believed by Swahili speakers, and although it could be a folk etymology, it seems reasonable. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:42, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

A derivation from the adjective seems possible, but it fails to explain the why Shona has /r/ and Zulu has /l/ for the initial consonant (unless this derivation occurred before /z/ developed in Swahili). A derivation from -zungua doesn't seem tenable to me, as the expected agentive form would be mzunguzi. It's most likely a folk etymology. Similarly, I've heard a folk etymology that the Zulu cognate umlungu (“white person”) comes from the verb -lunga (“become correct, become right”). I think the word probably originated in a coastal Bantu language around 1000 years ago, maybe the ancestor of Swahili, but I don't think we can say it comes from Swahili itself. Smashhoof (talk) 19:58, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

@Smashhoof2: In any case, it seems clear to me that this probably didn't exist in Proto-Bantu, so Reconstruction:Proto-Bantu/mʊ̀jʊ́ngʊ̀ should be deleted. BLR lists "Common Bantu", which is not the same as what can actually be reconstructed (something we should set guidelines for, I suppose). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:29, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

The problem is I don't think there's any way of determining which reconstructed words were actually in Proto-Bantu or developed in an early daughter language of Proto-Bantu. I'm not even sure that Proto-Bantu as it is currently reconstructed can be considered to be a single language. Smashhoof (talk) 03:24, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

@Smashhoof2: That's an issue with protolanguages in general. We can establish guidelines like a certain number of zones in which a word should be attested in an inherited form, for example, in order to at least make a better guess. (Maho distinguishes terms he considers genuine PB, but I'm not sure what criteria he uses.) This word is pretty clearly not a candidate. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:02, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge Although this word most likely doesn't go back to Proto-Bantu, it is old enough that the reconstructed forms have some significance. It is certainly Proto-something, but I'm not sure what the best way of dealing with this is. Smashhoof (talk) 04:49, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

@Smashhoof2: Well, if the spread was by borrowing rather than inheritance, then it's it isn't necessarily proto anything. The reconstruction isn't meaningless, but it also isn't PB. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 14:37, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

tayra

What is the etymology of tayra, may I ask? --Corsicanwarrah (talk) 15:42, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

MWOnline says: "Portuguese taira & Spanish taira, tayra, from Tupi". DCDuring (talk) 16:53, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Tupi was widely spoken on the Atlantic coast of Brazil as well in in parts of the interior. The closely related Guarani language was spoken in, for example, Paraguay. DCDuring (talk) 16:59, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

chà là

What's the etymology of this word, may I ask? This is a question that's been bugging me for a while.

True date palms (Phoenix dactylifera) are not native to Vietnam, but Phoenix loureiroi, in the same genus, is. I currently think that the word was a native term for P. loureiroi, but then was used to refer to P. dactylifera when the fruit of the latter were introduced to Vietnam. But there's also the more plausible option that the term is a loan. If it's a loan, then from what language? Can't be French, datte and dattier don't sound much like chà là.

--Corsicanwarrah (talk) 14:35, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

A third option is that it referred to some other botanically-unrelated plant with similar fruits that was known to the people of the day. In this context, it would help to know how long ago dates were introduced. Given the ancient trade routes between Africa, the Middle East and India, as well as between India and Southeast Asia, I'm assuming this was quite some time ago.

First of all, ancient peoples weren't botanists in the modern sense, so it's best not to start from botanical relatives unless the relationship would be obvious and significant to a non-botanist.

Second, I don't believe date palms would have been known to the people of Southeast Asia back then, just the dates themselves (and, given the long distances, probably dried). If Phoenix loureiroi has fruits that are easy to recognize as very much like Phoenix dactylifera dates without knowing what plant they came from, they might be a possibility. Otherwise, it could be almost anything (see turmeric as an extreme example- Europeans apparently thought that it was some kind of earth).

It's good that you want to know about this kind of thing, but you need to do more than guess based on dictionaries and general references. I would suggest looking at etymologies for similar terms to see what kinds of patterns there are, and reading about the history of trade and other interactions in the area. Southeast Asia was influenced by both China and India as well as various local kingdoms, with one or the other becoming dominant at various historical periods. I would guess that other peoples such as the Malay would factor into that as well, but I haven't read much on the subject.

I started out as you did, but mostly concentrated on reading widely and developing the tools I would need to learn more. Of course, there weren't the online resources and forums available back then that there are now, so I didn't have much choice. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:45, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

whereof

It'd enrich this entry to add some info. regarding the choice of 'where' --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:18, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

See pronominal adverb. The adverbs formed with this pattern (locative + preposition) can often also be used as conjunctions – although one can argue that that PoS assignment is a misnomer.  --Lambiam 22:42, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

@Lambiam: What is the meaning of prepositional adverb --Backinstadiums (talk) 13:36, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Well, see prepositional adverb. It has nothing to do with what we have here.  --Lambiam 14:31, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

@Lambiam: but pronominal adverb references prepositional adverb --Backinstadiums (talk) 14:44, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

I see. That text is actually copied from the Wikipedia article Pronominal adverb. All I can say is that I do not agree with that analysis. The part by in thereby is no more an adverb than it is in by that means. Just like adding the preposition by turns that means into an adverb indicating the “how”, so does gluing the corresponding postposition by onto there. Historically it would perhaps be more correct to talk about adverbial prepositions, since the adverbial functions may have preceded the prepositional ones. The development into a preposition was often accompanied by a change in form, reflected e.g. in Dutch me(d)e vs. met. When used as a postposition in pronominal adverbs, however, this change did not occur – the adverbial form was retained, but not the adverbial function. And thereby hangs a tale. At least, that is how I see it.  --Lambiam 16:32, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Peter(verb)

(Disclaimer) This is a thought of a newcomer to etymology jargon. Comments would be appreciated. The definition of the word is a description of the Denial of Peter(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial_of_Peter). The word’s base is Peter because the actions are that of Peter the Apostle in the Bible. This Wikipedia article describes for itself.

Used as a synonym of the verb blue peter, this is undoubtedly a shortening of “blue peter”, which I found more often spelled with majuscules, like “Blue Peter”. If not derived in some way from the maritime flag of that name, a proposed etymology will also have to explain the colour designation.  --Lambiam 11:06, 1 April 2019 (UTC)