Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium

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Etymology scriptorium

Welcome to the Etymology scriptorium. This is the place to cogitate on etymological aspects of the Wiktionary entries.

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March 2024

Bulgarian адсорбция (adsorbcija)

The Dictionary of the Bulgarian Language says that the origin of this word is Latin adsorbtio. I have a few questions about this:

  1. Should the vowel length be 'adsorbtiō'?
  2. Should it be 'adsorptio' instead of 'adsorbtio'? We see this in absorptio, and I am vaguely familiar with some kind of /b/ → /p/ invalid IPA characters (/→/) change in Latin, but I don't know it well enough to weigh in.
  3. Does this etymology make sense? Is this a real Latin word, or is it a back-formation from Latin roots, where the actual etymology is from modern languages that made use of those roots?

Thanks, Kiril kovachev (talkcontribs) 16:03, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

@Kiril kovachev 1) Dictionaries often skip Latin vowel length 2) this word was likely formed after Latin using Latin morphemes, compare adsorpcja. Vininn126 (talk) 16:04, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
@Vininn126 So adsorbtiō is correct? And, what should be the treatment of the etymology then? Just write out the roots with {{affix}}? Should the Latin word be kept? Kiril kovachev (talkcontribs) 16:07, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
@Kiril kovachev Yes, and I'm not sure. This is an internationalisms, so it was likely formed in one language and spread. That honestly might be a better etymology, i.e. {{intnat|bg}}, compare {{cog|en|adsorption}}, ultimately from {{der|bg|la|] + ] + ]}}. Or something along those lines. Vininn126 (talk) 16:11, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
I don't know if adsorptiō is even attested in Latin. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word was coined in German in 1882, so for the Bulgarian etymology I'd say it's borrowed from German Adsorption. Then you can add a {{surf|bg|адсорбирам|-ция}} if you like. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:16, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
This is why I said it's an internationalism formed after Latin using Latin roots. Vininn126 (talk) 16:19, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
Thank you both, I have now updated the etymology, hopefully it's in a decent place now. Kiril kovachev (talkcontribs) 16:27, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
@Kiril kovachev I'm not sure about the New-Latin, but if it's any Latin it's that. Vininn126 (talk) 16:41, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
@Vininn126 I dunno, I'm just citing what the source says. I'm not sure of the value of that either. But, for people looking at the sources (which are supposed to be reliable in general), it might be confusing if we don't mention that the dictionary is probably wrong in this case. Kiril kovachev (talkcontribs) 16:44, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
@Kiril kovachev I've been distrustful of the BEI in general; they've put out some odd etymologies, but it's not only them. Part of sourcing is knowing how to take that material and map it to the concepts confined within our project. Vininn126 (talk) 16:46, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
@Vininn126, Indeed, so am I, increasingly after seeing many such etymologies, and it hurts to think how many words may already have wrong etymologies entered from there. But virtually the only source of etymology we have for Bulgarian are those works by the IBL. I have a paper dictionary next to me that does mention the languages of origin, but nothing about specific terms, so it's not anywhere near as complete.
Anyway, in this case, are you saying it would be best to ignore what it says and remove the "New Latin" part? Should the reference still be kept? Kiril kovachev (talkcontribs) 16:50, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
@Kiril kovachev Personally I think whether the term is New Latin needs to be checked. If it's real, we could include it in other etymologies, but until that time I'd only mention the morphemes. Vininn126 (talk) 16:51, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
I wouldn't be surprised if it does exist in New Latin, but even then, we'd say the Latin word is derived from German. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:58, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
Wouldn't a Latin verb newly formed from ad- +‎ sorbeō get adssimilated to assorbeō? This would then carry over to derived forms. Compare associō < ad- +‎ sociō and so on.  --Lambiam 20:15, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
Learned words in modern languages usually use assimilated spellings of Latin prepositional prefixes (although not all of these were consistently used in historical Latin texts; the spelling ass- in particular seems to have been less common than the spelling ads- in Republican Latin), but not all new coinages use the assimilated variant. Compare adposition.--Urszag (talk) 00:40, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
Okay, I think I'll remove it anyway for now then. Unfortunately it doesn't seem Google Books can search in Latin, so finding anything will be hard, at least for me... Kiril kovachev (talkcontribs) 17:00, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
To search for Latin I add uniquely Latin words that are common as search terms, such as etiam and quoniam. This did not find any GBS results, also not for any of the oblique case forms of *adsorbtio or *adsorptio.  --Lambiam 20:05, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

The content is reduplicated in Bakhmut. The name was discussed last in January 2023. IP posted a reference, Luchyk, V. V. (2014) “Ба́хмут”, in Етимологічний словник топонімів України (in Ukrainian), Kyiv: Academy, →ISBN, page 35. I do not read Ukrainian but I am pretty sure that Luchyk says something about water and not so much about horses. Sources we have in footnotes mention horses mainly because they talk about a different word that actually means horse (бахма́т (baxmát)). Rudnyc'kyj does list Бахмут in the same entry but does not motivate the place name as derived from the river. Hurtmeplenty (talk) 19:01, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Albus

I was studying the endonyms and exonyms of countries (as one does) and I specifically was looking at the etymologies for countries whose meaning is related to the color white. Two prime examples are the exonym of Albania and Alba in Scots Gaelic. While looking for others I discovered that the etymology of Lebanon comes from *laban- or the root l-b-n which also means white or in some dialects milk. I think the similarities are pretty clear but I haven't found any definite pieces of information discussing whether these are linked so consequently; I am here. If anyone could verify the possibility of Alban and Laban being connected I would greatly appreciate your insight! I would also be interested if someone has some more examples. (First time posting) KermitBretkosa (talk) 07:47, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Albion is a good example of a place name deriving from a word meaning white. Overlordnat1 (talk) 08:28, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Tok Pisin paul

The Tok Pisin word "paul" is currently listed as "probably from English Paul." It's almost certainly not; the word's primary meanings are "bird/chicken" and "confused/tangled," neither of which makes any sense coming from the name "Paul." The Jacaranda Dictionary lists the former as coming from English "fowl," and I'd hazard a guess that the latter comes from English "foul," based on what I've seen in older sources on Tok Pisin. "paul" and "Paul" also aren't pronounced the same way; "Paul" is borrowed into Tok Pisin as "Pol" . I'm new to editing and don't know what the protocols for removing a spurious etymology are; do I need to cite sources to justify the removal or can I just delete the etymology from the entry? Laralei (talk) 02:04, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

@Laralei: The current etymology has no source and is just a guess, so I think you're safe replacing it with a more reasonable one, especially since "bird/chicken" < "fowl" can be sourced to a published dictionary. We don't require sources for etymologies, especially not ones that seem obvious, but adding sources, especially for more arcane etymologies, is always welcome. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:23, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
I'd say, “probably not from Paul ”. But given Tok Pisin foa < English four and Tok Pisin ful < English fool, how plausible is paul < fowl ?  --Lambiam 21:42, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia states " and are not distinguished in Tok Pisin (they are in free variation)", apparently despite the existence of F and P as separate alphabet letters. Compare pis, although it has a less-than-three-attested-examples warning.--Urszag (talk) 22:44, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Spine? Spindle? Spinach? 64.233.225.66 00:18, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

The Online Etymology Dictionary says "either a derivative of spin in the sense of "go rapidly" or based on a corrupt pronunciation of Sphinx, which was the name of the first yacht known to carry this type of racing sail." —Mahāgaja · talk 06:45, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
Hmm... Initially, it looks like something Low German and Dutch, but it is believed to be a Native English coinage? Wakuran (talk) 12:46, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Macanese verb-forming suffixes

More specifically, and . I'm not sure the extent to which these really count as independent suffixes, and whether I should possibly delete those pages.

I think is quite convincingly a workable suffix, as it is often added to words of various different endings regardless of the final vowel or original stress of the word; but for and (and even to a degree), it's not really adding to anything. Most often they're found on Malay-derived words, which are final-stressed anyway. Plus some of those Malay words (colek for cholê, cucuk for chuchú) end in -k, which becomes a glottal stop in Malay and silent in Macanese. The Glossário which I've used many times as a reference re-analyzes those as -er, -ir and -ur endings but where the -r is silent, but that doesn't feel right either since in modern Macanese final /ɾ/ is very much a thing.

So what do we think? Do I keep the and entries or no? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 10:52, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

On the topic of Macanese suffixes, should I also change -do to fit the Portuguese entries, and make -ado and -ido instead? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 11:02, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
Anyone? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 18:38, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Persian "لاخ"

It is a suffix for place names like "سنگلاخ" meaning stony place. What is its possible etymology? Is it from Turkic *-lik? Kamran.nef (talk) 21:32, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

While -lik is used for placenames (see e.g. Kayalık, Kovancılar), kayalık has a more general meaning of stoniness, rockiness; for example, the Turkish term for rocky shore is kayalık sahil. Does the Persian suffix also have this more general meaning?
I think there are very few examples of a language borrowing a productive suffix from another language – which in this case would be totally unrelated. My initial hypothesis would be it is one of those coincidences that one can expect to occur every now and then.  --Lambiam 20:22, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
It is only used for places. Dehkhoda says it means place and mine and he mentions the similarity between Persian and Turkish. I found لاخ in "An Etymological Dictionary of Persian, English and other Indo-European Languages", by Dr. Ali Nourai. He Drives it from PIE *lêsos meaning place, space, area, and he cites "An Indo-European Comparative Dictionary by Stuart E Mann", for the root. Although Nourai's book has some questionable etymologies, It is the only place I could find for the word. This word might be in "The etymological dictionary of Persian" by Mohammad Hassandust, but I don't have access to that book. There is a Turkic borrowing in Persian "قشلاق" meaning wintering house which has the ending -laq. I don't know whether it is qış+laq or qışla+k. Kamran.nef (talk) 01:14, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
@Kamran.nef: It is a morpheme meaning “comminuted”, identical to لخت (laxt, piece, portion) and idem “club“ we have, and in the soup لخشک (laxšak) Irman has lemmatized at the random form لاکشه (lākiša); whence Slavic lokša, лапша́ (lapšá). Monchi-Zadeh, Davoud (1990) Wörter aus Xurāsān und ihre Herkunft (Acta Iranica; 29)‎ (in German), Leiden: E. J. Brill, page 115 Nr. 336. Fay Freak (talk) 01:56, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
Thank you and thanks to Lambiam. Kamran.nef (talk) 02:31, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
Guys, at the Russian лапша I almost wrote “Ultimately an Iranian word also found with different suffix in the dish лагма́н (lagmán, laghman)” until I saw its Chinese connections. Isn’t Chinese 拉麵拉面 (lāmiàn), and hence ramen, in reality some phono-semantic matching of a Turkic term loaned from Iranian learnt by the Chinese in Xinjiang? I mean I do know that noodles have quite long an history at the eastern brink of Asia, and superficially the compound makes sense by itself, yet some attestation data, that is missing, might show something. Who’s doing Chinese these days? @Fish bowl. KevinUp who helped at Talk:八角 is gone. Fay Freak (talk) 02:40, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
In Chinese, we have 掛麵挂面 (guàmiàn), 切麵切面 (qiēmiàn), 抻麵抻面 (chēnmiàn), 削麵削面 (xiāomiàn), Chinese 索麵索面 (suǒmiàn), 撈麵捞面 (lāomiàn), 冷麵冷面 (lěngmiàn), 拌麵拌面 (bànmiàn), 涼麵凉面 (liángmiàn), etc. Why would you think that 拉麵拉面 (lāmiàn) is special from all these words? I can not find any necessity to put a brand new hypothesis without any attestation.At least we need an academic source to confirm it. Ydcok (talk) 07:35, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
@Ydcok: Well thanks, it was only a hypothesis we have to leave open, as long as neither on the Turkic nor Chinese anything is written about age and distribution, or culinary history. For now we have only the word لخشک (laxšak) with its variants and the postformative as on درمان (darmān) and فرمان (farmān) on one hand and many words with (miàn) on the other hand. If ever such a formation were borrowed, it is sure the Chinese would have rendered it with (miàn), unless this is old enough that its older pronunciations fit less and the Turkic match the Mandarin. I find surprisingly little about the laghman noodle dish in academic databases, in European languages. Fay Freak (talk) 12:42, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
Is it not the Middle Chinese pronunciation we should look at? In this case, it is *Lopmenh or something. Tollef Salemann (talk) 19:58, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

RFV of the etymology.

Austronesian Comparative Dictionary cau

Wiktionary etymology for this word mentions "From Spanish funche, original from Cuba, or even from Kikongo." https://en.wiktionary.orghttps://dictious.com/en/funchi This is a difficult path to trace, however. Ascribing Spanish origins to Papiamentu words with obvious African cultural content is problematic. There are no sources that show that Cuban "funche" precedes Papiamentu "funchi". The Diccionario de la Real Academia Española mentions Cuba and Puerto Rico as places of usage but the word is also known in other Caribbean Spanish speaking countries of Dominican Republic and Venezuela. The Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage mentions the word in different spellings for seven English speaking islands and offers four possible African influences: Twi fugyee (adj.) soft, mealy (of boiled yam), Kimbundu funzi cassava mush, Congo fundi flour, porridge, and Yoruba funjẹ given to eat. ObaTango (talk) 11:29, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

RFV of the etymology.

The Nakijin Dictionary cites ゑめて 'to demand' from an Omoro Soshi dictionary. — This unsigned comment was added by Chuterix (talkcontribs) at 14:53, 8 March 2024 (UTC).

Would that be いみゆん? Why the katakana? Wakuran (talk) 02:41, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
@Wakuran: Chuterix had moved the entry to the katakana spelling at the time this was posted, but the move was reverted. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:16, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
There is also the Japanese term いびる (ibiru, to bully, to bother). This seems a better phonetic match, albeit the Kotobank version of the NKD only cites this from the 1770s. Meanwhile, Japanese せびる (sebiru, to pester, to insistently ask for something) is from older seburu, only attested from the late 1500s, and I don't see Japanese seburu and Ryukyuan imiyun fitting together very well.
JLect's listing of imiyun at https://www.jlect.com/search.php?r=%E3%81%84%E3%81%BF%E3%82%86%E3%82%93&l=ryukyu&group=words glosses this as Japanese 催促する (saisoku suru, to rush or hasten someone or something). Are we sure that modern Ryukyuan imiyun is actually from the wemete listed in the Omoro Soshi dictionary? These don't seem to fit together either. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 22:44, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
ゑめて means "(催促して 'demand and')。 The initial w- is probably due to the instability to え and ゑ. I do not have access to the Okinawa Kogo Daijiten to prove the putative emeru, however, I have requested an ILL loan for the dictionary.
Since the Omoro Soshi's date is at earliest 1531, I don't know if the Japanese terms you mentioned are cognates, since I don't think Old Okinawan would borrow a newly coined Japanese term, unless one hypothesizes that it must have existed earlier (unlikely scenario). Thus, I have removed the Japanese correspondances in that entry for the time being. Chuterix (talk) 15:35, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Second, this make the assumption that ibiru < *ebiru/*eberu. Chuterix (talk) 15:36, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

It's a kind of a mess.

Liczba defined as "mathematical concept used for describing amounts with the help of digits or symbols" does not seem right, because that would be the colloquial or proscribed meaning - amount translates to "ilość", which is not the same as "liczba" (the former is for measuring uncountable nouns, the latter for countable). The entry on ilość correctly states that the meaning "liczba" is proscribed in ilość.

I don't really understand what "1. (obsolete) number (digit itself)" is supposed to mean in the entry for liczba. When was liczba ever used to mean "(sama) cyfra"? Or is digit here referring to "figure", which is a proscribed meaning of cyfra? The entry on cyfra equates this proscribed meaning with the prescribed one, being "digit (a distinct symbol representing a natural number in a positional number system)" - this is definitely wrong. They should be separate definitions. Figure is translatable to "cyfra" only in the colloquial or proscribed sense, meaning either "result of counting (liczba)" or "result of measuring (ilość)". This is somewhat defined in the definition of liczba stating "2. number (result of counting) Synonyms: (proscribed) ilość, liczebność, liczność", but then this is missing the proscribed synonym cyfra, the main culprit, so to speak.

I've probably missed something, but hopefully this makes it easier to understand what edits need to be made. I'd like somebody's input, and to help mainly or solely with the semantic side of this, as I'm not proficient with the technical aspect (context labels and such) of editing yet.

I also apologize if this is the wrong place to bring this up. It's basically my first contribution. Is this room the right place to discuss the definitions in this sense, or is it just for etymology side of things? Polorzanca (talk) 17:43, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

@Polorzanca The main difference is of course if the thing is countable or not - ilość is used with uncountable nouns which you cannot use numbers directly with. "5 waters" only makes sense as an elision of "five glasses of water", therefor you cannot use digits to directly mention the numbers, whereas with countable nouns you can "five people". We are indeed missing the proscribed synonym ilość on liczba, which I have added with a qualifier.
Liczba was once synonymous with cyfra. I.e. liczba 5, as opposed to cyfra 5, as evinced in SJP1900.
I have not had time to clean up the entry cyfra yet and it is missing many explanations and definitions.
I would say that the WT:Tea Room would have been the ideal forum for this. Vininn126 (talk) 18:05, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Link between gulbia and geule?

I'm looking for the etymology of modern Irish gulba, meaning snout or beak.

This information is on the page for Latin gulbia.

This page says it's probably not Indo-European, but it has striking similarity to:

  1. gullet, snout, face (of an animal)

Are these words linked? —2001:861:5700:4370:3596:608:F785:5550 20:04, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

The Celtic words can't come from Proto-Indo-European *gʷel-, because * became *b in Proto-Celtic. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:37, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

RFV of the etymology:

Possibly from Proto-Indo-European *ḱr̥h₃-m- (porridge, soup) or *ḱh₁erh₂- (to mix).

An IP tried to fix this by manually replacing the palatal "*ḱ" with non-palatal "*k", but it seems to me like that's just papering over the fact that this was probably copied from an entry on the other side of the satem/centum line, possibly Latin cremor. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:39, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

The connection with Latin cremor was Charpentier's idea and is rejected by Mayrhofer on formal grounds. I have updated our entry. Vahag (talk) 12:24, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

I just found that has one meaning the same with "trồng". The Proto-Vietic phonic of "trồng" is *m-loːŋ, and 種 has 2 ancient ones : *k.toŋʔ and *(mə-)toŋʔ-s However I am not sure if the latter phonic of 種 is relevant enough to *m-loːŋ

I am not an etymologist so this is just my perspective. Could you prove it please? Lưu Quang Trường (talk) 14:24, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Basically the last term still on Category:Requests for native script for Chinese terms - but there's no sourcing for it, and the only results for searches with this etymology for "carcass" from Chinese listed is the Wiktionary page itself. Kungming2 (talk)

According to Nocentini micio is linked to Catalan mixo and comes from an onomatopoeic word used in the Mediterrarean area as a call for the cat.-- Carnby (talk) 06:25, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Would that be moix? Wiktionary has no Catalan listing for mixo. Wakuran (talk) 14:21, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
@Wakuran Sorry, I meant mix. Moix is Balearic Catalan, not sure whether related or not. Compare also Leonese mixu and Spanish micho, from the same onomatopoeia.-- Carnby (talk) 06:28, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

RFV of the etymology. Specifically: reconstruction at the PIE level. No cognates provided outside of Germanic. -saph 🍏 19:12, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

SAOB mentions "relatives in Slavic languages" without specifying. The relevant volume was published in 1922, so it could be an outdated hypothesis... Wakuran (talk) 23:00, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
Looking through EDPG, Kroonen says "no certain etymology" of the Proto-Germanic root but suggests the following connections:
  • Lithuanian tríedžiu (to have diarrhoea) < *tréydʰyeti
    • I believe the expected outcome of that would be *trìedži(?).
  • Lithuanian trìdė f (diarrhoea) < *tridʰyéh₂
    • I really do not see this one happening, especially given that Kroonen presumed *dʰy > dž for the above cognate and that ė is not a regular outcome of *eh₂.
  • Dialectal Russian дришта́ть (drištátʹ, to have diarrhoea), Serbo-Croatian drískati, dríćkati (id.) < *dʰridsḱéti (with lengthening of *i by Winter's law)
    • Firstly, these two terms don't even appear to use the same suffix, unless there's some regular sound change in Russian of *dsḱ > št I'm missing. The two also have accents in different places, which leads me to believe that these were formed at entirely different times.
At best the Balto-Slavic terms are simply from the same substratum etymon as the Germanic terms, I really doubt this can be traced back to Proto-Indo-European. -saph 🍏 01:25, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Latin ūniō (onion)

This is a hapax mentioned as the name that some rural folk used for a type of onion, and it survives as an inherited form only in northern and southwestern Gallo-Romance. In scenarios like this one is often dealing with a specialized word that was borrowed from another language into Latin but failed to spread beyond its original area. Here one might expect a Gaulish word, and as it happens the source that we cite for ūniō's etymology mentions there being a Middle Irish uinniun (> oinniún) and Welsh wynwyn, with the comment ‘as if from Celt. *usniūn- rather than a loan word from Latin they demonstrate the initial short vowel *ŭ-’.

In fact the Romance forms under ūniō also reflect */ŭ-/, and there isn't any particular evidence for an /ū-/ in the Latin word, apart from the etymology that we currently give (inheritance from a Proto-Italic *uznjō would indeed imply /ū-/).

If we accept the ultimate Indo-European etymology as it is, I would rather think that unio was borrowed from Celtic with /ŭ-/. On the other hand, our entry for Irish oinniún gives it as a borrowing from Old French oignon (< Latin unio), and our entry for Welsh wynwyn gives it as a borrowing from Middle English (< Old French oignon, again).

Meanwhile under unio we have a Proto-West Germanic *unnjā, given with a short */ŭ-/, but the reconstruction is cited as *ūniju, *unnjā in the etymology for Old English ȳn.

What do people knowledgeable about Celtic and Germanic make of the overall picture? Paging @Mahagaja, @Sokkjo/@Victar, @Leasnam, @Caoimhin ceallach. (@Hazarasp as well, if you don't mind.) Nicodene (talk) 14:45, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

It's certainly an interesting hypothesis to say that the "onion" word was borrowed from Celtic into Latin rather than the other way around. Still, neither the Irish nor the Welsh can come directly from a thematic *usniyūnos/-ā or an n-stem Proto-Celtic *usniyū without interference from something else, so maybe a native Celtic word was altered under the influence of the Latin word? —Mahāgaja · talk 15:25, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Walde-Hofmann (vol. 2, p. 820) give uniō with a short u as the form. According to them the Germanic terms are from Latin and the Celtic terms from English (ultimately from Old French or Norman I guess, which seems probably to me if the pronunciation of oignon /uˈɲun/ is correct). They don't give an etymology. A borrowing vice-versa seems unlikely to me too. I'd wonder how the ending would have arisen. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 18:02, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
I'm not up to commenting here much, but I agree with the notion that Welsh wynwyn is a Middle English borrowing (as stated by the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru); it would seem to be an alteration of earlier *wyniwn or winiwn, even though such forms are only attested later.
As for the Germanic forms, Old High German unna and its descendants (e.g. Luxembourgish Ënn) would seem to require Proto-West Germanic *unnjā. However, the existence of a collateral *ūnijā is needed to explain Old English ȳn/ȳne (though compare ynnelẽac) and the OHG compound ūnilouh (Central Franconian Öllich can come from either ūnilouh or *unnilouh). There seems to be no obvious intra-Germanic source for this variation, so it must somehow be explained in terms of the Romance source. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 01:17, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
There is a possibility: reconstruct a quasi-ablauting n-stem ūnjō ~ unnjaz, similar to strūtō ~ struttaz "throat". It's not inconceivable that a Latin loanword got roped into this pattern if it was common enough (see Kroonen 2011 pp. 267-95 for other examples). —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 02:03, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
I'm not sure how plausible that is, given that Kroonen lists no examples of /n/:/nn/ apophony; additionally, given that the consonantal alternations he posits aren't productive even in the oldest WGmc languages, it's unclear whether they would've been productive at the time of borrowing. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 05:54, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
What Mahagaja said, deriving Welsh wynwyn from *wósH-r̥ ~ *usH-én-s isn't possible without some shenanigans, and it looks pretty clearly from Middle English (or directly from Old French). Perhaps the word survived in Gallo-Romance thanks to reinforcement from Frankish? --{{victar|talk}} 04:11, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
Very interesting. Thank you all for your input. It sounds as though a Celtic or German origin isn't likely, at least not without Latin involvement on some level.
The case for a Latin origin might be reinforced by unio (pearl), which is well-attested and shares the masculine gender of unio (onion) - more specifically the masculine gender implied by the latter's descendants. This sets the two apart from unio f (unity), as does the fact that they are attested some three centuries earlier.
If we accept the ones meaning ‘onion’ and ‘pearl’ as one word, and the semantics don't seem unimaginable at least, then we are no longer dealing with a hapax. On the other hand we are left with a somewhat odd timeline if we take the etymology as-is. Inherited from a Proto-Indo-European word for ‘onion’, recorded several times as ‘pearl’ but only once in passing as ‘onion’, then handed off to Romance and Germanic as ‘onion’. Stranger things have happened though.
Vowel length is also an issue, but it sounds as though a Latin /ū-/ is corroborated by some of the Germanic reflexes. That leaves the question of why a short variant would have developed, for which I have no answer. Nicodene (talk) 16:30, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Turkish "toplu" and Persian تپل

Is the Persian word from Turkish(ic)? Kamran.nef (talk) 03:02, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

@Kamran.nef: Probably. Also, please add an e-mail address to your account. Fay Freak (talk) 07:24, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
@Fay Freak Thanks. Done. Kamran.nef (talk) 17:07, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Pashto "kalay" and Punjabi "kullī کلی

So کلی means 'village' in Pashto and 'small hut' in Punjabi. Any possibility that these two are linked? Punjabi Kullī is the feminine of kullā which means 'a modest home'. نعم البدل (talk) 03:15, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

RFV of the etymology.--62.73.69.121 13:15, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Note that there appear to be two senses to the Latin proper noun Moneta: (1) the name of a goddess equated to the Greek goddess Mnemosyne; (2) an epithet of the goddess Juno (Iuno Moneta), a goddess equated to the Greek goddess Hera. Only the latter sense is claimed to have a connection to Ancient Greek μονήρης.
Disregarding sources that may have copied the claim from the Wikipedia article Moneta, to which it was added in Latin script already in in 2008 and using Greek letters in in 2009, the closest I found to a source relating Moneta to Ancient Greek μονήρης is in an article, or rather a monograph, written in Classical Greek, that appeared in 1909 in volume 5 of the Journal international d'archéologie numismatique:
Κύριον χαρακτηριστικὸν τῆς παραδόσεως περὶ τῆς διὰ τοῦ ἐπιθέτου Moneta ἢ Μονήτα ἐπικλήσεως τῆς Ἥρας εἶναι ἡ ἐν ἀπορίᾳ χρημάτων, κατόπιν σεισμοῦ (Cicero) ἢ πολέμον (Σουΐδας), ἐπανόρθωσις τῇ συμβουλῇ χρησμοῦ τοῦ ναοῦ τῆς Ἥρας διὰ συὸς ἐγκύμογος (sue plena procuratio). Λοιπὸν γνωρίζομεν ὅτι ὁ σῦς, δηλαδὴ ὁ ἄγριος ὕς, ἐκαλεῖτο ἑλληνιστὶ μονιὸς ὡς ζῶν μονήρης καὶ ἐν ἰδίᾳ μονῇ μονιτεύων (πβλ. καὶ τὰς λέξεις μονηΐς, μονία, μονίας).
It uses the word μονιὸς (moniòs) (“wild swine”) as a stepping stone: the oracle of the Hera temple gave the Romans advice on a situation of financial distress; the advice was communicated through a pregnant sow, a wild one; and wild swine prefer a solitary life.
Notwithstanding the admirable creativity for the sense development, it remains to be explained why the ancient Romans chose to use a word of Greek provenance to bestow an epithet on their divine protectress. Furthermore, the transformation from something like /moˈne.res/ to /moˈneː.ta/ is also a nontrivial step.  --Lambiam 16:41, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
data: in Greek, Katharevousa: p.214 (214-217) etymology of Moneta under the chapter p.207 (jambons), of p.147 Numismatics lessons, by Ioannis Svoronos in theJournal international d'archéologie numismatique, vol.9, 1906. Contents. ‑‑Sarri.greek  I 05:39, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

RFV of the etymology.

Absolutely no sources; added by dead @荒巻モロゾフ. Do not close just because of claimed (but definitely not) harassment. Chuterix (talk) 21:07, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I read somewhere not too long ago that this character form is a known scribal variant for . Can't find where I saw that just at the moment. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 00:24, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&file=1000071&page=179 Xie1995 (talk) 02:24, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
Xiè xiè, @Xie1995! That isn't the page I remember, but that definitely corroborates what I saw. Cheers! ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 16:57, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I think this entire entry is all wrong etymology-wise. Akizu appears to be the initial form while akitsu is a shift since the Heian period (per Kōjien and Daijirin, and the NKD just stating the historical spelling あきづ is the older form). The etymology of akitsu is also pretty odd, since I'm not even sure where the mushi element comes from (perhaps it's a misreading of the NKD entry which gives あきつ虫 as the definition). akitsumushi *is* an entry in the NKD but is only attested since the Edo period and is given as a compound with mushi, so I don't think it has much to do with this. lattermint (talk) 01:01, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Update re akitsu mushi: the user who added that etymology gave their reasoning in this edit, but once again that seems quite spurious given it's a term of its own that postdates the original term and the mushi bit is still completely arbitrary. lattermint (talk) 02:35, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
The revision history doesn't inspire confidence. Both of the editors who contributed to the etymology have been banned for high volumes of edits in languages they don't know. Fumiko is particularly arrogant and incompetent. That said, I don't know enough to comment on the etymology itself. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:37, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
@Lattermint, looks like the dodgy etym was added in this edit from February 2019.
As you note, the akidu reading is the oldest attested form, making akitu or akitsu the later development (which the prior etym editor had gotten backwards).
I don't have time to dive into this one to fix it up fully, so for now, I've gone ahead and ripped out the incorrect info. Better to be incomplete than to be wrong. 😄 ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 00:22, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

The cited source (De Vaan) is misrepresented in this entry. De Vaan doesn't say *ǵʰéslo- 'thousand' comes from the root *ǵʰés- for 'hand'; what he says is that *ǵʰéslo- may have meant 'heap' (which is, at least, obviously more plausible semantically for the meaning 'thousand' than 'a full hand'). The derivation from 'hand' is repeated in the entry for the Greek cognate and in the entry on *ǵʰéslom itself, but nowhere is it sourced, and in fact it contradicts the cited sources (Beekes, like De Vaan, assumes 'heap' and does not mention 'hand'). I can't even start to rewrite all of these entries to fix this, but false attributions of views to sources are as bad as it gets and should not be tolerated.--62.73.69.121 11:16, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

If you look into de Vaan's dictionary there are references.
  • Ernout-Meillet refer to F. Sommer, "Handbuch der Laut- und Formenlehre" (1902), who glossed *smī-ǵzhlī "Tausendheit", *ǵzhlī=*ǵhslī- *ǵʰéslo- "1000", *sm̥-ǵʰéslo- "ein Tausend", and remark on a variety of different explanations which they call more ingenious than convincing because in their view no set term for "1000" existed in Indo-European.
  • Walde-Hofmann concure basically, rejecting a hypothesis by Grimm and followed by Brugmann.
De Vaan also cites Leumann, Coleman, Sihler and Meiser who offer different vowel changes to account for final -e.
  • Meiser in turn cites Rix for the semantics of a handfull of seed kernels "eine Hand(voll )" from which a large quantity "eine große Anzahl" (Meiser 1998: 174), which may be translated as "a heap" (thus de Vaan), except that that is not exactly what Rix wrote.
TIL: *-lo- (viz. *-lós) marks Verbaladjektive like nomina agentis. So *ǵʰes- would have to be a verb root in origin, in zero-grade, for which no direct evidence exists, but fassen (grasp, to catch) is plausible in comparison with the noted nouns summed up under *ǵʰes- (Rix 1991: 228). It is not included in LIV² (Rix, Kümmel et al.) but there is *ǵʰer-, cf. हृ (hṛ, to take), notably without reliable comparison (NB: hortus is cited in both works). Note that the reference to kernels may be informed by either typology or poetry ("And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered," GEN 13:16). The reference to the hand is typologically likely at least for the lower numbers. For higher numberals, I 'd like to say I read a lot, but I can not.
  • Sihler, " also have the meaning of any immense number, and that is probably the original meaning." (1995: 425). This seems to be true of Indo-Iranian "1000" which can mean higher thousands as well. And I would argue that so many, some and German so manche (meaning "some, a lot" but built as "so many") are a useful tangent to this point even if they should not be cognate in the strict sense.
So, technically the quote is correct? Admittedly, Weiss Grammar says that " the semantic development is questionable" (2005: 373), if you want to quote substantially. The root can still be found in NIL though (Wodtko-Irslinger-Schneider 2008: 170-172).
More research is needed. Any form of discussion should be handled in the reconstruction space, so I will delete the bit. Is that better? On the downside, this too is questionable if a unique word is not reconstructable as Rix seems to argue that different phrases existed which fossilized independently in Greek, Latin and Indo-Iranian, and are absent in the more peripheral branches. To lemmatize under *ǵʰéslom which is not immediately attested to mean "thousand" or anything is perhaps not the best idea.
See also Wiktionary:Etymology#References. DurdyWendy (talk) 18:31, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Moenis

Has anyone ever suggested in print that Moenis, the Latin name for the River Main, is from Proto-Celtic *moinis (treasure, precious object)? Phonologically, the connection is beautiful, but I've never heard of Iron Age Europeans giving their rivers names with that sort of meaning. Usually river names mean things like "river" or "water" or "full of fish" or are named after river deities. They didn't usually go in for metaphors like "this river is a real treasure". —Mahāgaja · talk 13:26, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

A reasonable suggestion! But *moinis derives from PIE *mey- (to change), so it may refer to a river with a tendency to change its course. 24.108.18.81 18:43, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
The Germanic cognate *mainiz means "common" and the Latin cognate mūnis means "ready to be of service, obliging", so maybe the Celtic word originally meant something like "belonging to everyone" or "useful", both which could conceivably be a way to describe a river. On the other hand, precious treasures most certainly do not belong to everyone and tend not to be particularly useful, either. Hmm... —Mahāgaja · talk 19:55, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
All good suggestions! But a river is more likely to be named for something like a tendency to change course. 24.108.18.81 23:10, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Mahagaja, if you are interested in German river names, do you have any suggestions for Ems aka Amisia?
  • Ad fontes, I have no source, but you may be able to access Kuhn's article in Beiträge zur Namenforschung 4 (1969)? Ad Asterisk, I believe you are too critical in the end. Ritual spaces receive donations which need to be stored. As a profane example, the original Habsburg was a treasury and Hab maybe a hydronymic, compare Haff, but this is not documented. On a grander scale, reserve (fund) is cognate with reservation (land), you know, where *ser- (to protect) may be cognate to *srew- (to flow), formally speaking. Certainly there are more examples which fail less to convince than a game of bingo with fishy names instead of numbers. DurdyWendy (talk) 20:33, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Khitan

Cathay comes from Khitan, that is well established. So what about Khitan? There is not much to go on, except that the original form was something like qid un. The Khitans had close dealings with Korea in both trade and warfare, especially with w:Balhae#Fall.

I'd like to suggest that Khitan might be an exonym derived from #크다 (keuda), Middle Korean khútá (great, big).

w:Alexander Vovin has written much on Korean-Khitan linguistic exchange' 24.108.18.81 19:50, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

There's a long section at the ZH Wikipedia article specifically about this very topic. Starting with the existing research would probably be a good idea. Kungming2 (talk) 07:16, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
Wow, really helpful! I'll have to consult zh:wikipedia more often! 24.108.18.81 19:25, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
I have posted this at Cathay, let's see if it gets accepted. 24.108.18.81 02:52, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

We say "splutter" is merely sound-imitative, whereas we say "sputter" is a equivalent to "spout" + "-er" and derives from semantically meaningful (rather than merely onomatopoeic) roots, but the meanings are so interchangeable that it seems unlikely there is not a stronger connection. Is splutter perhaps a sound-motivated alteration of sputter? - -sche (discuss) 23:54, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

RFV of the etymology (Etymology 2; nekoma).

Added by Aramaki Morozov, with absolutely zero sources as usual. "note that in compound words for species names, the pitch pattern may be simplised to <-HL> when the final element is a 2-mora noun..." Any examples? (Martin (1987:234-239) gives examples of a atonic two-mora noun + atonic two mora noun changing to atonic noun <LLLL>. He gives exceptions, but compounds that have <LLHL> often are compounds of <LL> + <HH>; his exceptions where he gives compounds of <LL> + <LL> are just plain <LLLH> or <LLHH> (see WT discord for pictures of the page) Chuterix (talk) 23:59, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

https://en.wiktionary.orghttps://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=%E7%8C%AB&direction=next&oldid=69907402 The edit in question. Chuterix (talk) 23:59, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
I don't have anything in particular to say about the pitch patterns, but I am concerned that our current etymology for the neko reading doesn't mention the common view that this is onomatopoeic ne + diminutive / endearing suffix -ko. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 00:30, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
@Eirikr: Of course the initial mora must have been onomatopoeic, but the problem is that we cannot account for the word final -ma that begins to appear in MJ, and ko1 'child' is a class 1.1 word (initial high register <H> accent). Note that (ma, real) is only prefix or noun (but prefix is more common), and (ma, space) does not match semantically. To tell whether a monosyllabic word belongs to the low register is if it has a Atamadaka (H-L) accent in Tokyo, which is the regular reflex. Class 1.1 and 1.2 are Heiban (L-H) in standard Tokyo dialect. There are irregularities, which is why it's best I deal with the comparative accentual stuff; otherwise based solely on Tokyo, (kumo, cloud) could theoretically be a class 2.4/5 word, but other dialects point to class 2.3, and the irregular accent is likely due to contamination with 蜘蛛 (kumo, spider) (< pJ *kompo 2.5). Chuterix (talk) 14:24, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
I note that nekoma appears from the 900s, while neko from the 800s. I wonder if this development might be one of the following:
  • suffix -ma indicating state: "cat-ness" as perhaps an originally humorous nuance
  • influence from or blend with koma ("foal, young horse" / "piece, as for chess")
‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 18:55, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
It actually appears first attest in Shin'yaku Kegon Ongi Shiki, per JDB (p. 559). The Engishiki attestation is also incorrect spelling (in the particular manuscript), the same entry in JDB cites 禰古 for Engishiki (p. 559). The problem is that ko1ma 'stallion' is also 2.1 (tone class extracted from Martin 1987, 455, will further check when I get home). Anyways this "<-LL> changes to <-HL> in animal names if final compound is two mora noun" is completely unsourced and needs to be investigated. If Aramaki can just come back and explain this mess. Chuterix (talk) 19:57, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
Just added an example of this unsourced "fact", so this rfv-etym is solved (at least right now). Chuterix (talk) 13:19, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

China ~ Qin

The most accepted theory is that China derives from (Qin) - a family, a dynasty, and the state it founded. So whence comes 秦?

It seems to derive from 秦 valley in eastern Gansu, where the surname first appeared as retainers of the Zhou. The ideogram combines the images pestle and grain, so it was probably a word refering to fertile territory. Compare (can, to eat).

Any suggestions would be welcome. 24.108.18.81 01:00, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

RFV of the etymology. Would have expected origin from the same extension of PIE *lewh as for the verb *leusan-.--62.73.69.121 09:23, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Fixed. Leasnam (talk) 01:50, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

RFV of the etymology. Kroonen derives it from a separate root *wen-, not from *wenh/Hwenh1 as in *weniz. LIV keeps the two roots *wen- and *wenH- separate as well. Even if some do equate them, that may be a minority view that shouldn't be presented as the main version in the entry on *winnan-, 'win' etc.--62.73.69.121 11:18, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, LIV derives it from *wn̥-néw-ti, cognate with Sanskrit वनोति (vanoti, to win). The derivation from *wenH- is Gotō's (1987) "Die „I. Präsensklasse" im Vedischen", but LIV's is better. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 17:53, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

RFV of the etymology. As 'alternative etymologies' to De Vaan's reasonable interpretation, it is claimed to derive from a supposed PIE *proHwo- 'right judge, master', or from a *prowo- 'right, true'. Neither is sourced. Even worse, Proto-Slavic pravъ 'right, correct' (as reflected also in the entries about all of its descendants) is also claimed to derive from the same alleged PIE 'right judge, master', which would clearly be too secondary and specialised a meaning to be able to give rise to the basic meaning of 'right(-hand)'.--62.73.69.121 13:19, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

What to do for a reconstruction with multiple forms?

What is the suggested policy when a root has two forms (whether because of uncertainty/disagreement about the reconstructed form or because it is believed there really were two forms)? As an example, consider Reconstruction:Proto-Dravidian/wey-; the main source for this reconstruction, Krishnamurti (2003), gives the root as *wec/wey. Which of the following is the correct way to handle this, or if none of them are correct, what do you suggest? (I have omitted the Reconstruction:Proto-Dravidian/ from the prefixes for clarity):

  1. Name the page wey- and set up a redirect from wec-, or vice versa.
  2. Name the page wec-/wey- and set up a redirect from wec- and wey-.
  3. Essentially the same as the last option, but name the page wec/wey- (only one dash, at the end, instead of two).
  4. Name the page wey- but create a page for wec- whose definition is something like Alternate form of wey-.
(a) Do the above, but then also set up redirects from wec-/wey-, wec/wey-, wey/wec-, etc. to wey-.

Note that I'm asking partly because there are cases where an entry links to a non-existent version of the title, e.g. ಬಿಸಿಲು whose etymology contains a reference to the presently non-existent Reconstruction:Proto-Dravidian/wec-/*wey- (note also the superfluous asterisk due to the use of the {{der}} template). Brusquedandelion (talk) 12:56, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

We seem to have different conventions for different reconstructed languages. For Proto-Indo-European, our common practice is to pick one reconstruction as the primary one, then list alternative reconstructions on the page. For Proto-Sino-Tibetan, on the other hand, we have entry names like Reconstruction:Proto-Sino-Tibetan/b-r-gjat ~ b-g-rjat and Reconstruction:Proto-Sino-Tibetan/m-ljak ~ mrak ~ mruk, where the competing hypotheses are all listed in the page name. —Mahāgaja · talk 13:04, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
I see. Does anyone familiar with the Proto-Dravidian entries happen to know what the convention is? Pinging @AleksiB 1945 and @Bhashashastri1234 (as the only two users I have interacted with who work on Dravidian). Brusquedandelion (talk) 13:09, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
Looking through CAT:Proto-Dravidian lemmas I didn't see any formatted like Proto-Sino-Tibetan, but after a word search I did find several with "Alternative reconstructions" sections: Reconstruction:Proto-Dravidian/caH-, Reconstruction:Proto-Dravidian/puH, Reconstruction:Proto-North Dravidian/keH-, Reconstruction:Proto-Dravidian/pilli and Reconstruction:Proto-South Dravidian/ū. —Mahāgaja · talk 13:14, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
Actually, the reconstructed word structure depends on the majority of the descendant word structures. If one of the forms has more descendants than the other, then that will be created as the main entry, and the other form will be under the heading of alternative forms. Illustrious Lock (talk) 18:55, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
imo if there is a difference in reconstruction between diff authors then we could use alt reconstructions and if a single author considers the word form to be uncertain/considers that indeed there were multiple forms in the proto lang we could use alt forms. For the title we could use the most commonly accepted form/the rec of the most prominent author (BK) or the form with the most descendents, better than using PST like form1~form2 in the title. AleksiB 1945 (talk) 17:03, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
@AleksiB 1945 @Illustrious Lock what do you suggest we do in this specific case, for *wec-/wey-? Brusquedandelion (talk) 23:18, 22 March 2024 (UTC
The page Reconstruction:Proto-Dravidian/wec- already exists and wey- will be put under the heading of alternative forms. Illustrious Lock (talk) 08:12, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

iubeō

If Latin iubeō is from Old Latin ioubeō, from Proto-Italic *jouðejō, why isn't the u long in Classical Latin? —Mahāgaja · talk 14:00, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

My guess is it was shortened in analogy to iussī, iussum. A reason could be that there were many (or any?) 2nd conjugation verbs with preserved root ablaut. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 18:05, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Punjabi جند / ਜਿੰਦ / jind

Meaning 'life'/'soul'. Would this be a corruption/linked to Persian زِنْدَگِی (zindagī) or related to ਜਿਊਣਾ (jiūṇā, to live), along with other terms derived from the Sanskrit root जीव् (jīv) (like جِیوَن (jīvan, life, youth))? نعم البدل (talk) 23:00, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Could be related to جیندا/جیوندا Notevenkidding (talk) 03:23, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

India

Term India could possibly develop from Arabic term Hindiyyah هِنْدِيَّة

  • Reasons

Term India was the synonymous term for Mogul empire. https://in.pinterest.com/pin/538180224194101915/

Hindiyyah هِنْدِيَّة happens to one of the official name of Mogul empire which is found on the epithet of Emperor Aurangzeb. https://web.archive.org/web/20150923175254/http://www.asiaurangabad.in/pdf/Tourist/Tomb_of_Aurangzeb-_Khulatabad.pdf

Term Hindostan was also the synonymous term for Mogul empire https://commons.m.wikimedia.orgview_image.php?q=Wiktionary:Etymology_scriptorium&sq=Wiktionary:Etymology_scriptorium&lang=en&file=File:Map_of_Hindoostan,_1788,_by_Rennell.jpg

But Term Indostan happens to be the obsolete form of term Hindoostan/Hindustan https://en.m.wiktionary.orghttps://dictious.com/en/Indostan

As Hindoostan became Indostan in latin, Like that; Hindiyyah (Hindia) became India. Abirtel (talk) 04:49, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

The Latin name was India, which was almost certainly borrowed from Ancient Greek Ἰνδία (Indía). The latter name can be explained as Ἰνδός (Indós, the Indus river) +‎ -ία (-ía), in which the suffix -ία is regularly used to form names of geographic areas (Αἰολία (Aiolía), Αἰτωλία (Aitōlía), Ἀλβανία (Albanía), ...). At the time, the predecessors of Arabic, the Old Arabic languages, were languages of low prestige, attested by scant inscriptions, so borrowing from Old Arabic is unlikely. The name Ἰνδός (Indós) for the river comes likely from Old Persian Hiⁿduš.  --Lambiam 22:37, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
Any word that has last "ia" ending has an absolute linkage of semitic linkage.
Greek or Latin surely have semitic links in their naming system.
Moreover, Greek tradition does not only have one tradition. There are other traditions also.
Arabic or even other semitic tongue has very fixed naming system for place. Like wise Aramaic term for "Bharat" is Hendea" which is very close to Arabic Hindiyyah.
Wiktionary has an entry for Hindia, there has been asserted that, It is just another term for portuguese term Índia.
https://en.m.wiktionary.orghttps://dictious.com/en/Hindia
I do not understand why there is such Semiticophobia among Europeans!
Likewise: If you go for Amalia term, we are told Amalia is a germanic term!
But if you go to root it is a Semitic term for sure. It is a direct borrowing of Hebrew/Arabic root word "Amal عمل". The female version is Amal + iyya(t) = Amaliyyah عَمَلِيَّة. Male version is Aamil عامل
If you really think present India term is from Greek Ἰνδία then only Modern day Pakistan could be the from that historic point. Other regions of Modern day India can't be India, bcz they were distinct political and cultural entities. Abirtel (talk) 06:18, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
There are many English terms borrowed from Arabic, but India is not one of them. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 00:24, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
As I have stated earlier,
territory of Modern term India exceeds The territory of Greek India.
So English term India is borrowed from latin Hindia/India. Abirtel (talk) 07:24, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
Asia is also from Greek, even though in Greek it used to refer to a small part of western Anatolia. So what? —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 13:42, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
Then it would be completely different etymological viewpoint.
All of the etymologies must be added on the page of certain word.
Greetings. Abirtel (talk) 17:39, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

the Greek part of Greco-Roman cromulent

In diff, a user added that cromulent "may be analyzed as an ultimately ] term, hypothetically as if from {{m|VL.||*cromulentus}} (then borrowed to English via {{noncog|fro|-}}; compare {{m|en|corpulent}}, {{m|en|excellent}}, etc.), from fictitious prefix {{suf|la|*cromus|ulentus|t1=rightness?|t2=full of, abounding in}}." OK, the suffix is Latinate, but what part of this hypothetical etymology is Greek, that would make it "Greco-Latin" as opposed to "Latinate"? (As an aside, I have more than once found that user's edits to entries to be unhelpful... not necessarily introducing errors per se, but unnecessary verbosity or speculation...) - -sche (discuss) 23:09, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

@-sche I think they're using Greco-Latin as a synonym for "Classical". Chuck Entz (talk) 23:30, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
I've trimmed the etymology, removing the unsourced speculation that if a Latin word *cromus had existed and meant "rightness", this would look like it was derived from it. - -sche (discuss) 01:47, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Is it a calque of French immobilier or German Immobilie? Shoshin000 (talk) 11:49, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

They all translate Latin rēs immōbilis.
The native German is Liegenschaft, also phrases as liegender Grund, liegendes Gut, vs. Fahrnis, so недви́жимость (nedvížimostʹ) is contracted from недвижимая вещь, directly corresponding to the name with classical Roman jurisprudence. Fay Freak (talk) 14:01, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

RFV of Etymology 4. Other dicts just give this as a straightforward sense development of Ety 1, first as a verb, then transferred to the noun. I can't imagine why British school slang would be formed from an Old Occitan root. This, that and the other (talk) 03:34, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

See User talk:Flet#Stop! and Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2013/September Chuck Entz (talk) 04:09, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
Hmm, it seems like this user's edits from 2013 may not have been properly audited. Cat:English terms derived from Occitan and Cat:English terms derived from Old Occitan may need a look. This, that and the other (talk) 01:12, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, they seem to be a prime example of what I like to call the Small Shiny Object school of etymology: they remind me of a creature like a packrat or magpie that picks up whatever attracts its attention without knowing anything about it. I bet @Nicodene could make short work of their edit history. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:41, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

The etymology for the English slang word currently gives two highly specific and apparently contradictory explanations of its origin: "From reduplication of the abbreviation PO (“police officer”), originally in reference to partnered bike officers in Southern California whose paired shirts would read POPO" and "POPO originated in Pontiac Michigan during Detroit's heaviest crime wave during the 1960s and 1970s and into the 1980s." Can either of these specific details (about "partnered bike officers in Southern California" or "Pontiac Michigan") be verified by any reliable source? To me, it seems plausible that it could have originated simply from reduplication of the initial syllable of police, which has a pronunciation /ˈpoʊ.liːs/ in some accents. It having something to do with abbreviations on the shirts of partnered bike officers seems unnecessary and unlikely. Urszag (talk) 04:42, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

I guess a connection to poopoo could have played a part, considering how many slurs that exist for the occupation. Wakuran (talk) 13:15, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
Both OED and Green's Dictionary of Slang state that it comes from shortening and reduplication of police, which seems intuitively correct to me. I suspect that the two highly specific origins are received wisdom in Southern California and Michigan, respectively; one of them might be true, but it is also possible that neither is. Cnilep (talk) 05:28, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

I've seen multiple instances (including most major dictionaries like weblio, goo.jp and kotobank) quote that the origin of the word 相槌 is in the context of making a Katana sword, namely that when 3 people forge a sword together the master/the one crafting the sword taps it with the hammer (to give the rythm) and gives the 相槌 whereas the other three in succession respond by hitting the sword with their hammer. ジュリあン (talk) 11:35, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

The NKD entry here at Kotobank cites this to the 1260s, but with regard to any workpiece in a forge, and perhaps only one master and one apprentice: the master taps for the rhythm, the apprentice hits with the hammer. Alternatively, both strike the workpiece with their hammers, in succession.
Your post here doesn't actually include a question. Could you clarify? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 19:02, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
It said the word was missing a etymology on here so I thought surely others know better than me how to add that (I never edited here) and I wanted to rule out that it was a misunderstanding of the Japanese on my side as I'm quite good but nowhere near fluent. ジュリあン (talk) 17:34, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Udmurt and Yakut borrowing from Mongolian?

Anybody knows if Udmurt курень (kureń, brown) and Yakut күрэҥ (küreñ, brown ponny) are borrowed from Mongolian? Tollef Salemann (talk) 11:43, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Seems also that Udmurt may be borrowed from Tatar көрән (körän), which is from Mongolian. Tollef Salemann (talk) 11:59, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
Mikola 1977 (Materialen zur wotjakischen Etymologie) points towards the following references (sorry for un-backtranslitterated Cyrillic):
  • Fedotov, M. R. 1968: Istoričeskie svjazi čuvašskogo jazyka s volžskimi i permskimi finno-ugorskimi jazykami, p. 110 (Čeboksary)
  • 1975: Fenno-ugristica. Trudy po finnougrovedeniju I, p. 320 (Tartu)
  • 1959: Voprosy udmurtskogo jazykoznanija 1, p. 40 (Iževsk)
  • 1973: Voprosy udmurtskogo jazykoznanija. Vypusk vtoroj, p. 35 (Iževsk)
and if it appears in the first of those, fairly safe guess it's proposed to be Mongolic ↔ Bulghar > older Chuvash → Udmurt. --Tropylium (talk) 00:17, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
Nice! In modern Chuvash brown is хӑмӑр tho. Tollef Salemann (talk) 08:21, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

from PIE *h₁n̥dʰér, perchance? 203.145.95.77 15:43, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

By the way PIE *-dʰe ~ *-dʰi derived Proto-Germanic *-þ, so it seemed possible being an exception to Grimm's law with this parallel example (especially that the *-dʰ- from *h₁n̥dʰér is from *-dʰe ~ *-dʰi) 203.145.95.77 15:54, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
  • h₁n̥dʰér derived Latin inferus which *dʰ shifted to /θ/, compare Proto-Germanic niþer. I think its more plausible being from*h₁n̥dʰér, since the *-þer is unexplained.
203.145.95.77 16:00, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
Seems to be different derivations from the same basic PIE root, as far as I can see. Wakuran (talk) 22:22, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
The -þer seems to be from -téros. Still derivation from *h₁n̥dʰér would be more believable 203.145.95.77 00:40, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
English already has under, so I guess -dʰ- becoming -th- would be difficult to explain. Wakuran (talk) 13:02, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Any ideas? Surely not related to German pinkeln. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 06:19, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

If not Slavic or something, perhaps from "blinkeln", iterative of "blinken". By dissimilation and/or influenced by "פֿינקלען" = German "funkeln" (older also "fünkeln"). 90.186.83.227 21:06, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

The links to Latin Nausicaa are broken, as there is no Latin entry. Ncfavier (talk) 11:19, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi! The etymology currently given for the Polish entry on "madka" (Blend of English mad +‎ matka (mother)) is a possible one, but not the most probable one. According to WSJP, Wyraz utworzony być może jako imitacja hiperpoprawnych zapisów wyrazu matka. Możliwe jest też skojarzenie z ang. przymiotnikiem mad 'szalony'. (Word coined possible as an imitation of hypercorrect spellings of the word 'matka'. Possible connotations with the English adjective 'mad'.). I would like to correct it, but I'm not sure which template(s) to use for 1. uncertain/multiple etymologies 2. words created from alternative spellings. Any help would be highly appreciated! Thank you! Literowka (talk) 13:05, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Portuguese -deira

An entry should be created regarding the suffix -deira. There seems to be a Category:Portuguese_terms_suffixed_with_-deira, which includes words like "brincadeira" and, as I just found out, "escorredeira" and "escorregadeira". How does this suffix work? Polomo47 (talk) 22:05, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

It's equivalent etymologically to -(a)do + the feminine of -eiro, but I can't say what the best analysis is for how it works in the current language.--Urszag (talk) 22:32, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

What's the etymology of etymology section 1? Hebrew? - -sche (discuss) 05:42, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, נַחַל. Fay Freak (talk) 06:45, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

April 2024

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)

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

'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. PUC18:11, 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 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 and 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 ), 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)

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)

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)

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 . 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 (kx 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 , which explains the "u". But "church" had Old English , which makes it different. (The fact that it had in Greek is irrelevant because it clearly passed into Germanic with , 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 ? 90.186.83.227 00:46, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
Would ü signify ? 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 aids the rounding, has normal ŭ (so in Hart, Bullokar, Robinson, and Gil), but the original ĭ 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), ("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)

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)

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)

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)

Does someone know when and by whom this term was invented? It sounds like 20th-century businessese. Maybe @DCDuring, -sche? PUC17:45, 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 (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)

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)

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 with a linking sound. Dutch adds regularly in (duurder etc.) and also - almost regularly - in (kelder, mulder, zolder) and (minder, beenderen, hoenderen). So the development would have been for example: Ik ken haar niet > Ik ken ’r niet > Ik ken d’r niet . -- The most likely is perhaps a combination of both influences. A third one may be daar, because it also contracts to d’r and ’r . 178.1.250.55 23:24, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
That also rings true. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 10:10, 18 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)

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.“
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 + -tuscursus / 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)

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)

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)

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)

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)