Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2019/February

Forgive my ignorance here, but why did Dutch glas become 「ガラス」, whereas English glass became 「グラス」? Does it have to do with the Japanese transliteration process for gairaigo being somewhat different at the time? If so, why did a consonant following a consonant result in a medial /u/ in other cases when borrowed into Japanese, even in those times? Tharthan (talk) 15:43, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

I’ll forgive your ignorance if you’ll forgive mine. 「ガラス」is the odd man out, since /u/ appears to be the norm for a “filler vowel”, except for /o/ after a /t/ or /d/ in the source language. Perhaps the divergent transliteration for the material served to disambiguate from the word for the vessel – a theory that will be busted if 「ガラス」 is older than 「グラス」. For a similar situation, compare 「カラン」 (from Dutch kraan) with 「クラン」 (from English clan).  --Lambiam 02:35, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Didn't the Dutch make contact with the Japanese before English speakers did? mellohi! (僕の乖離) 10:24 am, Today (UTC−5)

Well, I am almost certain (actually, I only say "almost" in this particular instance to cover myself, just in case) that 「ガラス」 is older than 「グラス」. I say this because the time when Dutch contact first allowed 「ガラス」 to come into Japanese predates direct English contact with Japan. And, from what I understand, 「グラス」 is believed to have been borrowed from English. Tharthan (talk) 18:25, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

What is the etymology of 弘, may I ask? Johnny Shiz (talk) 23:24, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

See here. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:39, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Is this by any chance a phonetic transcription of the English mongoose? --Corsicanwarrah (talk) 15:04, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Well, India is a lot closer to China than the US, so a trans-Himalayan borrowing is also a possibility. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:44, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

@Corsicanwarrah, Chuck Entz: That is possible, but it seems to be a relatively recent word, seeing that its use for "mongoose" is not attested in ancient dictionaries such as the Kangxi Dictionary. We'd need more investigation to be sure. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 05:10, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Help from a Sinhalese speaker would be welcome at koha (“the koel (Eudynamys), a genus of cuckoos from Asia, Australia, and the Pacific with a distinctive loud call”). Thanks. — SGconlaw (talk) 19:59, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

@AryamanA has helped with Sinhalese before. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:47, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

@AryamanA, are you able to assist? — SGconlaw (talk) 09:19, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

@Sgconlaw: Done. —Aryaman^{A (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान)} 23:13, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

@AryamanA: excellent, thanks! — SGconlaw (talk) 02:00, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

I suspect this word, both in English and Dutch, derives from Russian. Practically all of the early uses relate to the Soviet Union, which had several clinics or other institutes referred to as abortoriums. Does anybody know what the Russian term is? ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 12:08, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

I think it is аборторий (used e.g. on this page).  --Lambiam 13:16, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. That particular spelling seems rare, but абортарий is quite common on Google Books. There are several results for the 1930s, but not anything that clearly sets it apart as earlier than the English or Dutch words. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 15:36, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

The poem I linked to actually contains both spellings, with the spelling абортарий in a long quote from a poem by Joseph Brodsky (“Poet B”).  --Lambiam 04:41, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

I noticed лишь has no etymology. I had a look at the Russian Wiktionary entry and it reads «Происходит от др.-русск. лише «больше, кроме, лишь» (Лаврентьевск. летоп., Ипатьевск, летоп.); ср.: лишо (Аввакум). Первоначально — сравн. степ. ср. р. *лише от лихъ (лихой).Использованы данные словаря М. Фасмера. См. Список литературы.» under Etymology. The first step, I figured out, is Old East Slavic лише «больше (more), кроме (except), лишь (only)». Then we have "степ. ср. р." *лише from лихъ as a comparandum, whatever language that is. Let me finish decrypting this and then I'll be back. Anyway, is this accurate? And can we go from OES to Proto-Slavic and maybe PIE? MGorrone (talk) 11:05, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

«Лаврентьевская летопись, Ипатьевская летопись» in brackets are two chronicles, presumably usage examples of the OES word. MGorrone (talk) 11:08, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Аввакум is the prophet Habakkuk, presumably a translation of the book was done into OES using the alternate form (?) лишо we are given here as a comparandum. MGorrone (talk) 11:10, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

«Первоначально — сравн. степ. ср. р. *лише от лихъ (лихой)» seems to mean «Originally – cfr. neuter gender *лише from лихъ (лихой)». Then we are told, in a smaller font, that this data is (partly?) from the dictionary by М. Фасмера, and to see the references. MGorrone (talk) 11:18, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Here’s the relevant entry from Vasmer’s dictionary; it doesn’t really add anything to what you’ve said above. The ESSJa, however, gives much more information under its reconstruction of Proto-Slavic *liše. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 18:15, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Our entry says "something that is the greatest or most significant of its kind" is a calque of Arabic, unrelated to the female parent sense and its extended senses (including "a source or origin"). But at least some other dictionaries like Merriam-Webster cover this sense under the same etymology as the parental sense, and a similar sense exists for other parental words, e.g. google books:"the swirling Devil's Bathtub, the grand-daddy of all potholes", google books:"the grandfather of all recessions", or google books:"the father of all battles". (Hits for the latter phrase suggest it may be influenced by a term/phrase in some African language, the way "the mother of all battles" may be influenced by Arabic, but then the same sense exists in google books:"father of all depressions", and a different word exists in google books:"grandfather of all battles", etc.) Should these senses therefore be handled under the same etymology section as the 'parental' senses, as merely being influenced in some cases by Arabic, etc? - -sche (discuss) 17:35, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Given that we have the entry mother of all, I do not understand why we should need a separate etymology for the word mother used exclusively in that idiomatic phrase. I don’t see where it says that this is unrelated to the female parent sense and its extended senses, but clearly “a source or origin” does not fit: “the mother of all bombs” does not mean “the source or origin of all bombs”. The meaning is clearly “the most prominent”, which is not readily reducible to the parental sense. It is used in that sense already in the Qur’an in the designation أَمّ القُرَى (ʾUmm al-Qurā) (“Mother of Cities”) for Mecca.  --Lambiam 21:11, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

It says it's from French, but wikipedia:Lace curtain and shanty Irish says t'is from Irish seanteach. Sobreira ►〓 (parlez) 00:47, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm inclined towards the French etymology. Slapped a Citation needed tag for that Irish theory (and if nothing materializes in a few weeks, I will delete it entirely). mellohi! (僕の乖離) 01:12, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

This blog post and a follow-up aim to debunk the Irish theory. An article in the bilingual multi-tome book Lexikologie/Lexicology (subtitled “An international handbook on the nature and structure of words and vocabularies”), presenting the Irish theory as a borrowing of the genitive of sean teach, viz. sean tí, argues that “the oblique case militates against the Irish interpretation”. As to our etymology, perhaps we should add s.t. like “An alternative theory that the word derives from Irish seantí (meaning "of an old house") is not considered likely by lexicologists.”  --Lambiam 11:21, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

I like Lambian's wording. DCDuring (talk) 17:41, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

That sounds good. In general if an etymology is moderately common but debunked I think we can do our readers a service by mentioning that (collapsed to save space if necessary, although in this case it's so short that's not necessary). - -sche (discuss) 04:09, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Added. 10:05, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Where does this word come from? PIE, I'm assuming? Johnny Shiz (talk) 01:47, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Just тотъ (tot), well-known, with the expressive prefix э- (e-), also well-known, found (still) in other pronouns like э́такой, этакій (étakoj, etakij), and э́какой, э́какій (ékakoj, ékakij), and fashionable in the end of the nineteenth century. You would know this if you read dramas or similar texts in Russian from this time. You would also know that until then сей (sej) was usually employed in formal speech instead of этот (etot).

In what regards тотъ (tot), it contains now, as it and all adjectives in Russian and other Slavic languages, *tъ plus another demonstrative *jь that was becoming archaic in the end of Proto-Slavic and is best attested in the relative pronoun иже (iže) (though apparently the nominative singular masculine form, the citation form тотъ has something else mixed into it, as has also happened in the nominative singular masculine in the West Slavic languages). This definitive clitic served for an (attested) intermediate period for a weak distinction between definite indefinite nouns expressed only in their adjective attributes (like English “the” and “an”, determinate state and indeterminate state and so on), still weakly distinguished in some forms of the Serbo-Croatian adjectives, hence pages like lȁgan contain in the table ”positive indefinite forms” and “positive definite forms”. Fay Freak (talk) 02:16, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

The etymology section of catenary states that it derives from Late Latin catenaria, which is a noun. I have no reason to doubt that this etymology holds for the noun, but wouldn’t the adjective more likely come straight from the Latin adjective catenarius (see “catenarius”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press)?  --Lambiam 12:38, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

At *kъnędzь someone has recorded the idea that this word was formed in Proto-Slavic (*kun-ingo-) and borrowed into Germanic, instead of the other way round. Whose theory is this, and are they credible? 4pq1injbok (talk) 23:22, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

The idea is apparently taken from this page of the Etymological Dictionary of Slavic Languages, where it’s credited to Šimon Ondruš’s 1977 paper “Sú slovanské slová kъnędzь a pěnędzь germánskeho pôvodu?” Unfortunately I don’t have access to this paper, so I can’t judge Ondruš’s arguments, but his view is certainly in the minority. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 00:07, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

The Germanic loanwords in Proto-Slavic betray a very distinct power and technological imbalance in favour of the early Germanic speakers (cf. Saskia Pronk-Tiethoff's 2013 publication on the subject), so I would find it very strange indeed if such a general term pertaining to political hierarchy would be borrowed from Slavic to Germanic at this stage rather than the other way around (Slavic loanwords in early Germanic languages tend to be very, very scarce and not pertain to political lexical fields at all). It's made even more dubious by the fact that there seems to not have been any direct lexical exchanges between Proto-Germanic and Proto-Slavic at all (our Category:Proto-Slavic terms borrowed from Proto-Germanic is dubious IMO; all of those should list "from a Germanic language" instead or be specified as -mostly- OHG and Gothic where known), and the first language contact was established by the Goths or closely related East-Germanic speaking groups migrating towards the Pontic area in the first couple of centuries AD. (And as it happens, there is no known East Germanic reflex of *kuningaz.) Finally, the Germanic word follows a very logical derivation pattern (also semantically) with a well-attested and productive suffix, so there really is no reason to consider it borrowed. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 08:11, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

(Cf. also *korljь, a closely related loanword from Germanic in Slavic meaning "king".) — Mnemosientje (t · c) 08:33, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

The etymology of forlorn forgets to mention the essential info that it is apparently cognate with lose but does say that it comes from Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/fraleusaną, which comes from fra- + Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/leusaną. This supposedly comes from Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/lewH-, but that supposedly means louse. --Espoo (talk) 10:10, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

The etymology section says “From forlorn + hope, in part-translation of Dutch verloren hoop ‘lost troop’.” What is the meaning of “part-translation”?  --Lambiam 22:01, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

The meaning is that someone couldn't think of a better way to describe it, so they made something up. It looks to me like it started out as a calque, with the second half mistaken for an unrelated English word and the meaning changed to match it- phono-semantic mismatching? Chuck Entz (talk) 22:18, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

I have modified the etymology to say “partially translated, partially borrowed”. As the Dutch word can also (with a different etymology) mean hope, I find it hard to characterize the type of mismatch/misunderstanding/mistranslation. Wikipedia calls it “an example of false folk etymology” (as opposed to true folk etymology?), quoting the description “a quaint misunderstanding” from The American Heritage Dictionary. It is easy, though, to see how also Dutch speakers would be able and perhaps even likely to misunderstand the sense of the word “hoop” in this expression.  --Lambiam 10:08, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

RFV of the etymology. It seems unlikely that a verb with this meaning would come from a noun meaning "garden". The Online Etymology Dictionary has nothing. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:04, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

OED doesn't have it either, despite the "reference". This is a made-up word from what I can tell. Did some Google Books checking just to be sure and found scanno's; I've removed the entry. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 12:15, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

For the words in Category:Greek terms inherited from Proto-Hellenic and in Category:Greek terms inherited from Proto-Indo-European, am I right to assume that {inh was used by accident instead of {der...? (Greek here means Modern Greek). Would it be wrong to change them? sarri.greek (talk) 15:30, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

If there is an unbroken chain of inheritance, like Modern Greek ήλιος (ílios) < Ancient Greek ἥλιος (hḗlios) < Proto-Hellenic *hāwélios, then {{inherited}} is the template to use. In mathematical terms, the inheritance relation is transitive. So it is not used by accident. Whether the inheritance assumptions are actually etymologically correct is another question. For instance, it is probably not the case that Greek ακουστικός (akoustikós) was directly inherited from Ancient Greek ἀκουστικός (akoustikós), however plausible that might seem at first glance. But actually, the word was probably borrowed from French, which borrowed it from Ancient Greek.  --Lambiam 23:33, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Ow ok, thank you Lambiam. It looked as though I have met the Pelasgoi. sarri.greek (talk) 00:35, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Related to 孑孓? Johnny Shiz (talk) 20:03, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately the characters in the heading don’t display. Apparently, no font able to handle block CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B is installed by default on Mojave. Any hints on what I can do about that? I suspect that there are others who have the same problem.  --Lambiam 23:19, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

I get some Google hits for 孓孑, like here. I don’t know if that is a misspelling or an existing variant.  --Lambiam 23:19, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Persian امرود (amrud), ارمود (armud, “pear”) (whence, it is said, the Turkic forms like Turkish armut (“pear”) (whence regional Arabic Arabic عَرْمُوط (ʕarmūṭ, “pear”))) is put here as from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ébōl (“apple”). However this derivation is added by Irman, and the Indo-European reconstruction is, as said on Wiktionary and is according to my memory correct, “limited to the West Indo-European languages”, and the juxtaposition looks formally unsound. Hindustani امرود / अमरूद (amrūd, “guava”) (the direct (?) source of regional Arabic عَنْبَرُوت (ʕanbarūt), عَنْبَرُود (ʕanbarūd, “papaya”)) is put on Wiktionary as from the Persian apparently guesswise (Talk:अमरूद). Behnstedt, Peter, Woidich, Manfred (2010) Wortatlas der arabischen Dialekte – Band I: Mensch, Natur, Fauna und Flora (Handbook of Oriental Studies – Handbuch der Orientalistik; 100) (in German), Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, →DOI, →ISBN, page 500 puts it as a Mongolian loanword, referring only an encyclopedia published 1987 in Aleppo مَوْسُوعَة حَلَب الْمُقَارَنَة (mawsūʕa(t) ḥalab al-muqārana) by a certain خَيْرُ ٱلدِّين الْأَسَدِيّ (ḵayru d-dīn al-ʔasadiyy) – the way it is referred it is unclear if this encyclopedia says that it is from Mongolic or only that the Arabic is from Turkish, however it should be found elsewhere, but I have not succeeded in gaining further information, on Mongolic forms or the like. @Victar, Crom daba. Fay Freak (talk) 13:39, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Räsänen notes it's attested in Turkish, Azerbaijani, Old Turkic, Cuman and Siberian Tatar. However Clauson doesn't have it.

As far as I can tell without trawling through obscure sources, this word doesn't exist in any Mongolic variety (maybe Mogholi trivially, haven't checked). If this idea isn't a result of a more banal error, maybe the author conjured up a connection with алимууд (alimuud, “apples”), which would be semantically, phonologically and morphologically untenable.

Thus the origins of the word should be sought in the Near East. Crom daba (talk) 15:49, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

If you check the "Divan-i Luqat-i it-Türk" "armut" (pear) is exactly there, it should be from Turkic origin.

As you know the writer of the book was fully aware of Arabic/Persian.

Source: http://www.achiq.org/pitikler/dlt---.pdf (page 12) zeos_403 (talk) 23:23, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Rossi (2015) has some recent discussion and refers to Bläsing (2004, 2005) which would likely also be useful to check. --Tropylium (talk) 18:36, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

This paper says much already: »I do not want to enter a discussion, which probably will never solved, because the documentation is unsatisfactory.« It has a lot of other forms, giving Middle Persian forms in particular /umrōd/, /ambrōd/ and /umbrōd/, even /anbarōt/, which last three could explain the Arabic Arabic عَنْبَرُوت (ʕanbarūt), عَنْبَرُود (ʕanbarūd, “papaya”) (before, I considered a merger with عَنْبَا (ʕanbā, “mango”) from انبه (anbe, “mango”)), and refers data from Iranian languages I barely know by name; for Old Persian we see an *umrūta. For @Calak: p. 340 contains Kurdish forms. Particularly notable is also the Elamite form given as either umruta or umruda. Seeing all the data I dare mention the possibility that the Classical Syriac ܟܡܬܪܐ (kūmaṯrā, “pear”) (the source of Arabic كُمَّثْرَى (kummaṯrā, “pear”)) for which we have no etymology is the same word through a different path, since we have those three consonants m-r-t as m-t-r and a vocalism that is not far, considering the time spans in question and Semitic treatment of vowels; it might have come from some intermediate language that added a k- morpheme. @Profes.I. As concerns the Persian and Iranian, I conclude from it that it is from a Caucasian substrate, possibly related to Elamite, since Rossi deems it probable part of the Elamite core vocabulary; the Turkic apparently has the same murky origin and is not from Iranian. Fay Freak (talk) 21:05, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Fay Freak, "Divan-i Luqat-i it-Türk" is the most reasonable source for Turkic, I think we need to edit that page and add Turkic origin to word "armut" zeos_403 (talk) 12:20, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

RFV of the etymology.

We've been having a bit of a dispute/edit war with User:Aletguda over whether to to give Eduard Sievers credit for introducing the term. It's true that it was in use in German as the transliteration of a Hebrew term for a type of reduced vowel in Hebrew, and that Sievers based his term on the Hebrew term. It seems to me that the earlier usage is strictly about Hebrew, and Sievers' usage is also about the vowel referred to in English as the schwa. I think Sievers deserves credit, though he wasn't the first to use Schwa in German. Perhaps we need to split this into two etymologies. At any rate, my main concern was about the unilateral removal of content- I haven't read enough about the issue to be 100% sure that I'm right. I just think we need to discuss this. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:41, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

The quotes in Schwa from 1791 and 1856 show that the German term is much older than Sievers and 1876 or 1893. Considering forms like Schva and Schva it's even more older.
Additionally, the Sievers quote only shows that he mentions or used the term, and doesn't proof he was the first to do so. In fact, out of context the part "jetzt auch wohl schlechthin Schwa genannt" could be understood as "now probably also simply called Schwa ". --Aletguda (talk) 23:00, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

That is not being disputed. The issue is: who was the first to use the term Schwa, not as a transliteration of the Hebrew word שְׁוָא referring to the niqqud sign, but as a name for the mid-central vowel /ə/? The term actually occurs in the phonetic sense in an article by Ernst Chladni from 1824 entitled über die Hervorbringung der menschlichen Sprachlaute, published before Sievers was even born. Chladni’s choice of words strongly suggests that he is not the coiner, since he writes on p. 195 that the name, borrowed from Hebrew, has also been retained in German by “some of the better authors”. In any case, a special credit for Sievers is unwarranted.

Apart from whom is due what, the German word Schwa has two distinct senses: the niqqud sense and the phonetic sense. These need to be listed as separate senses.  --Lambiam 02:06, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

@Lambiam: Since you have access to that article, why not quote a relevant portion of it in the entry? – Jberkel 00:49, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Nevermind, I found an accessible version, will add it to the entry later. – Jberkel 01:10, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

A “poopy suit” is a head to toe Chemical, Biological, Nuclear Warfare protection suit. It’s name is nothing more than a physical fact.

Once put on, there is no access to relieve oneself, for as long as the threat exists. If you gotta go, it will be inside the suit.

No one ever wants to wear this. NO ONE!!!

Per this vote, Proto-Altaic (code tut-pro) is to be removed from the list of acceptable languages. As has already been discussed on the vote page, the existing Proto-Altaic entries that are to be removed might still have useful content to be migrated over to other entries. There are also plenty of entries using templates that refer to Proto-Altaic. We should probably decide on a deadline after which Altaic entries will be removed, any references to Proto-Altaic through templates will be de-templated by bot and tut-pro will be removed as a language code. — surjection ⟨?⟩ 21:32, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

The code and references to it have now been removed. — surjection ⟨?⟩ 18:39, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

The word ümit/امید cannot be Iranic.

1- It only exists in Iranic languages there is no relative in any other Indo-EU language.

2- It exists in all Turkic languages, from Russia to China.

3- It should be from verb "Om'maq"/"Om" which means "waiting for something".

— This unsigned comment was added by Zeos 403 (talk • contribs) at 05:13, 25 February 2019.

I do not find the logic compelling. As to point 1, there are many words found in Germanic languages that have no known cognates in other Indo-European languages (e.g. blood, broad, cut, drink, drive, fowl, hand, hold, meat, rain, wan, wife). The word attested in a wide range of Turkic languages is umut, thought to be related to the verb ummak. Although the possibility cannot be excluded that the word in the Iranian languages was borrowed from a Turkic language (and then reborrowed in addition to an existing inherited form, similar to words like Dutch mannequin through French from Dutch manneken), there is no concrete evidence of this. It may be one of these coincidences, rare but bound to happen occasionally, of two synonyms that are very similar in appearance, yet probably not cognates: Turkish ümit from Persian امید (omid, ommid), and Turkish umut descending from Proto-Turkic. In any case, even if the Persian word ultimately came from a Turkic language, it was reborrowed much later in altered form from Persian into Ottoman Turkish.  --Lambiam 16:48, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

I also think the word ümit is a borrowing from Persian word امید without doubt, but the Persian word by itself is also a borrowing from Turkic Om/Um. the word ümit exists in all Turkic languages specially the ones that are not and was never neighbors with Iranians, like Siberia Turks. so I think it is not good idea to add Persian origin to all the ümit words. we can do like this: Turkish <- Ottman Turkish <- Persian <- Turkic, It is also mentioned already: "and the Persian word may ultimately be a borrowing from a Turkic language.", so please lets fix them. zeos_403 (talk) 10:40, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Do you have specific evidence that the word found in all Turkic languages is not simply inherited from early Turkic the same way as Turkish umut? Are these words in Turkic languages that never neighboured Iranic-speaking regions in some way (phonetically, morphologically) closer to ümit than to umut? All available sources, including those cited at the TDK website, mention a Persian origin without suggesting an older Turkic origin. Do you know of any serious scholarly publication supporting the theory that Persian امید is (or descends from) a Turkic borrowing?  --Lambiam 11:06, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Lambiam, Yes the word ümit is a borrowing from Persian امید we all accept it. I am just saying the Persian word امید itself is a borrowing from Turkic word Umud. I don't know you accept Persian dictionaries as evidence or no? but if you do I can show you on Persian dictionaries. also what I am saying is already mentioned here (umut). also bro, combination of the word امید are made using Turkic, for example امید+وار which means hopeful, is made from umid+var, "var" is Turkic and means, "having". zeos_403 (talk) 11:49, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

It depends on the reliability of the dictionary; the question is whether its claims are based on solid scholarship. All dictionaries are not equally reputable. The etymology section at umut does not make a stronger statement than that “the Persian word may ultimately be a borrowing from a Turkic language”; that is similar to what I wrote above: “the possibility cannot be excluded that the word in the Iranian languages was borrowed from a Turkic language”. Without strong evidence, we must not make a jump from “it may be the case” to “it is the case”. I do not believe that the suffix وار in امیدوار is etymologically related to Turkish var. Turkish would use the suffix -li/-lu (see ümitli and umutlu).  --Lambiam 16:52, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Derivation from Turkic seemed reasonable to me, but Doerfer doesn't mention it and Clauson says the similarity is fortuitous. There's a Middle Persian attestation which also lowers the chance of being a Turkic borrowing. We need an Iranist again @Victar. Crom daba (talk) 17:54, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Crom daba, Lambiam, the suffix وار in Persian doesn't mean "having" bro, for example, شاه‌وار means "like a king". zeos_403 (talk) 19:31, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Pahlavi ōmēt < OIr *aβi-mati-, abstr. derived from aβi + Av. man- (v. menitan); in NW > *aβmēt > *aumēt > ōmēt (cf ham-ōdēn < *ham-aβdēn), whence NP ummēd; in SW > *aiβimati- > *ayiβmati> *ayim(m)ēt, whence ēmēt (written ʾdmēt, cf n. pro Ēmet, patr. Ēmētān, q. v., also with secondary aspiration Hēmēt; Arab ʿImāḏ) or ah(im)mēt > ahmēt (from "A MANUAL OF PAHLAVI" by HENRIK SAMUEL NYBERG, page 144).--Calak (talk) 07:47, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

@Calak: I saw that etymology. I wonder if a better etymology wouldn't be:

• Proto-Iranian *hamwátiš (“hope, belief”) > Middle Persian *hmwyt' (/⁠hamwēd⁠/), *ʾmwyt' (/⁠amwēd⁠/) > *hwmyt' (/⁠hawmēd⁠/), ʾwmyt' (/⁠awmēd⁠/) > ʾymyt' (/⁠ōmēd⁠/), cf. Central Kurdish ئاوات (awat, “desire, expectation”), Sogdian 𐼰𐼰𐼴𐽂 (ʾʾwt), 𐼰𐼰𐼴𐽂𐼳 (ʾʾwth /⁠āwat⁠/, “hope, faith”), Parthian 𐫍𐫖𐫇𐫅𐫏𐫅 (hmwdyd /⁠hamwadid⁠/, “to believe”), lw. Old Armenian հաւատ (hawat, “faith, belief”).

--{{victar|talk}} 23:28, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Guys, I just want to say, as this word doesn't have any relatives in other Indo-EU languages, its root is most likely from Turkic, cause in Turkic we have the word with exact same meaning. there isn't much writing left from proto-Turkic or old-Turkic, so you need to consider the structure and the origin of the word. zeos_403 (talk) 12:10, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

We have "Haydar's city" or "lion's city", but in what language? There are English redlinks in the etymology. Ultimateria (talk) 19:20, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

It's Hindustani; the first element is ultimately from Arabic and the second ultimately from Persian. Now, the etymology as it stands is clearly subpar, but I don't know whether we should handle this as Hindi or Urdu. @AryamanA? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:22, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Urdu as being separate from Hindi is a concept that dates from after the founding of these cities (1591 for the city in Andhra Pradesh, 1768 for the city in Sindh). But to stay on the safe side, we might give a dual etymology, one from Hindi हैदराबाद, one from Urdu حيدرآباد.  --Lambiam 16:23, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge, Lambiam: Please list both, that's what we usually do. Hindi is not a different language from Urdu, for etymological purposes we're listing one language in two scripts. —Aryaman^{A (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान)} 19:18, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

The Chinese for the pandanus plant is comprised of two characters which mean "forest" and "to throw" respectively. I'm really confused as to whether this is descriptive, or a phonetic transcription of the plant's name in some other language (some Taiwanese aboriginal language, mayhaps?). The latter option seems more likely... --Corsicanwarrah (talk) 12:50, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Why Taiwanese? The closest word in Austronesian is Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *dahun, which is found in pretty much all of Austronesian except the Formosan languages. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:55, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

There is a folk etymology connected with the Sister Lintou (林投姐) folktale situated on Taiwan, namely that the name of the tree is related to the fact that the poor woman "threw" herself "from the tree/forest". The "throw" character also appears in the name of Taiwanese Nantou (南投); the English Wikipedia explains the name as stemming from the Hoanya word Ramtau. Another Taiwan placename originating from Formosan languages using this character is Beitou (北投); the English Wikipedia explains this name as stemming from the Ketagalan word Kipatauw. (Both Honya and Ketagalan are now extinct.) This strengthens the hypothesis of an origin in a Taiwanese aboriginal language.  --Lambiam 15:36, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

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

I would also like to know what the etymology of the Maori ngeru and the Malay kucing are. --Corsicanwarrah (talk) 19:58, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

According to the Austronesian Comparative Dictionary , Malay kucing (“domestic cat”) is derived from Proto Western Malayo-Polynesian *kutíŋ. The origin of this term in the Austronesian world remains unclear. KevinUp (talk) 19:03, 27 February 2019 (UTC)