Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2022/July

No etymology, known to be inherited from Old Chinese but no further explanation. Ataraxii (talk) 03:47, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Looking for a modern-day or at least recent county called (or incorrectly called) Chenan in Hebei Province. The county is linked to the birthplace of Empress Liu of the Later Tang (劉玉娘). --Geographyinitiative (talk) 17:17, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative: Cheng'an? https://zh.wikipedia.orghttps://dictious.com/en/劉玉娘 劉玉娘，魏州成安縣人 —Fish bowl (talk) 19:09, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Yeah true I can accept it: but what about the FCW article? Was it the same error, 21 years beforehand? I guess so. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 19:11, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

This is a rare English term for the moonrat (Echinosorex gymnura), an animal native to the Malay peninsula and the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, which is related to hedgehogs and looks like a rat. The etymology just says "Native name".

When I searched for it on Google, I quickly discovered that the word is only found (with a few exceptions) in English-language books by zoologists and naturalists over a certain period in the 19th and early 20th century, as well as in the Century Dictionary universe of encyclopedic dictionaries and the Encyclopedia Americana. Searching for moonrat names in languages of the area, I found Malay tikus ambang bulan / تيکوس امبڠ بولن or tikus bulan and agi bulan or aji bulan/اجي بولن or ji bulan (I'm not positive about all of the Jawi spellings). Since both aji and tikus seem to be terms for rats or mice and bulan means "moon", the names make perfect sense for a nocturnal creature that looks like a rat. Indeed, our etymology for moonrat says it's a calque of tikus bulan.

It looks to me like some zoologist or naturalist in the 19th century misread an "n" as a "u", and everyone copied directly or indirectly from them (this 1843 publication is the earliest I could find). Lowercase n and u can be hard to tell apart, especially in handwriting, so the error would be understandable. I would note that the 1822 original scientific description mentions someone having earlier received a specimen under the name "tikus ambang bulan", so the correct spelling was available from the beginning.

Would someone who knows the languages of the area (@Austronesier, perhaps?) please confirm whether there are any languages with "bulau " rather than "bulan ", or point out anything I got wrong? Chuck Entz (talk) 01:53, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

@Austronesier, Chuck Entz: Yes, please, though apparently this is not possible as bulaw is another word (widespread?) in the family, and another important question is whether English bulan is attested—it probably should be in some handwriting at least, as Chuck Entz hinted, and then we can move thither and categorize this as one of the Cat:English ghost words, and it would be one clear example where ”native speakers” are more often than not incorrect (against that widespread but not utterly reliable argument that usage creates the rules), or anyhow this would be a good case for controversy. Fay Freak (talk) 10:42, 2 July 2022 (UTC).

I can imagine the error was influenced by the name of Pulau Tikus. If conforming to our CFI criteria, we should include it, noting it originated as a misspelling (misreading?) of a Malay term and that uses are limited to the late 19th and early 20th century.  --Lambiam 16:28, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

The reason this is at the Etymology scriptorium rather than rfv is that there are more than enough usages in English text for this to pass as English. As for "bulan": I can't find any English usage as a single-word term. There are a number of texts where "tikus bulan", etc. are listed as common names next to "moonrat", but those seem to be all meant to be read as native names, though a few texts don't explicitly say so.

The 1843 quote is by a scientist going through the collections at the British Museum and describing the various specimens. I can imagine that there was a handwritten note associated with a specimen giving the common name as "tikus bulan", and the scientist, who had no clue about the languages of the area, misread it as two names: "tikus" and "bulau"

I support Chuck Entz's "confused scientist" hypothesis. The first mention of "Tikus Ambang bulan" in 1822 is by Raffles, who had a good command of Malay and generally recorded Malay words faithfully. I have looked at a possible connection to bulaw (usually meaning "yellow" or "golden") as hinted by Fay Freak, but cognates are confined to the Philippines and Borneo. Then there is also the derived term bulawan "gold" (with suffix -an), a wanderwort which is found over much of Indonesia. However, in the area where Raffles and other scholar collected the first specimens of Echinosorex gymnura, neither "bulaw" nor "bulawan" (or cognate forms) is found. And *bulan doesn't turn into bulau/bulaw in any language as far as I know.

It is still interesting how "tikus ambang bulan" (which is hard to translate and pretty ambiguous: "rat at the threshold of the moon", "floating-moon rat", "rat floating on the moon") came to be translated as moon rat as if derived from simple "tikus bulan", which latter appears in texts only at the end of the 19th century. –Austronesier (talk) 18:24, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

I’ve just created hand someone his cards and give someone his cards which refer to firing someone or making them redundant. Where does this term originate? It could be a reference to the National Insurance card but that doesn’t explain why cards is used instead of the singular card. It could perhaps be due to the P45 but then papers would surely make more sense than cards? I think in the film KES an employee of the job centre says to Casper something like “Here’s your cards” or “Here are your cards” after which he hands him something but I couldn’t make out what. Perhaps he handed him another, now defunct, type of card or cards as well as the standard National Insurance card? Overlordnat1 (talk) 09:40, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

For P45 it would make sense since they have printed it on thick paper, or perhaps they filled a form sheet in a smaller format, less typical of “papers”, no? This is kind of an ephemeron nobody wants to have ado with so that images of antique P45s are not easy to see. Plural may be just for emphasis, and sometimes -s is not even plural in Britain, e.g. mums for mumsie, dots. Fay Freak (talk) 10:55, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Looking at GoogleImages (and personal experience admittedly) proves that a P45 is paper not card but perhaps it was in the past. Good point about dots though and mums sounds plausible as an alternative form of mum along the lines of the African American moms being an alternative form of mom (which I’ve heard in both Power And Trailer Park Boys) though I’ve never heard mums said with this meaning personally (or ‘dot(s)’ meaning shotgun - clearly I don’t associate with enough gangsters!). Overlordnat1 (talk) 11:28, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm trying to find out where the 'w' comes from, but I haven't found anything. It isn't part of any of the major Devanagari transliteration schemes. व would normally be 'va' in English. My personal suspicion is that the English spelling is from German, but as I say I can't confirm it. The OED's entry is very sparse. Can anyone find a source for this?—Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 13:57, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

It might also just be since it would feel more natural according to English orthography and phonotactics. I have difficulties coming up with any English words including a consonant cluster with final , except for proper names such as Svalbard. Wakuran (talk) 15:25, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

@Wakuran: The only "everyday" word I can think of is svelte, and the only other one at that's part of my lexicon is svarabhakti. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:51, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

There are 87 hits for *sv* at OneLook compared to 719 for *sw*, if we ignore words starting mis-, dis- or trans- or ending in -ville and false positives like the acronym csv and proper nouns there may well be only two words left. Overlordnat1 (talk) 19:42, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

There's also svengali, which also is an extended use from a proper (albeit made-up) name. Wakuran (talk) 22:15, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Or perhaps the term entered via German, in which ⟨w⟩ is unambiguously /v/, while ⟨v⟩ is often realized as /f/ (Vater = /ˈfaːtɐ/; Eva = /ˈeːfa/).  --Lambiam 19:31, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

The key question is what mentions we can find of English swastika prior to the 1930s. I note the 1888 cite is from a 2005 edition - does that use the original spelling? Theknightwho (talk) 20:20, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Wikisource has the transcription of the 1891 version.

The OED has an earlier citation:

"1871 H. Alabaster Wheel of Law 249 On the great toe is the Trisul. On each side of the others a Swastika."

—Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 22:58, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

There are a few uses of both "swastika" and "svastika" as early as the 1820's, but there's a considerable increase starting in the 1880's and 1890's, and most of those are English uses of "swastika". With a couple of exceptions, the early Non-English uses are predominantly "svastika". It's hard to be sure about anything regarding chronology, though, because Google has a very high percentage of seriously wrong publication dates in their metadata for these- often a century or more too early. It might be just an artifact of my search methods, though: I filtered for 19th century, so that would find all the bogus dates from 20th and 21st century texts, but none of the accurate ones. 19th-century usage is mostly referring to either ancient India and Buddhism or to archaeological finds, and generally glossed to explain what this obscure symbol was. Here is an entire book dating to 1884 that discussed it as an "Aryan" symbol. I think this is an indication of movement toward the idea that the reconstructed Indo-European language was the key to discovering a lost civilization, and that the swastika was part of its iconography. My hunch is that this change led to the swastika becoming more mainstream, at least in some circles. Another book on the subject mentions lots of theories that people had recently been espousing.

As to whether the "w" came from German, I would point out that "Diwali" shows the same development of a "v" sound in Hindu into an English "w" without any involvement of German. While it's true that many of the names in 19th-century Indo-European studies were German, it looks like Germans were just as likely to use the "v" spelling as anyone else. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:04, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

In the original Hindi/Sanskrit of both "swastika" and "Diwali", the consonant is given as /ʋ/. This is transliterated as "v" in IAST, but arguably sounds closer to English "w" (e.g. see Forvo or Google Translate's TTS). Most entries in Category:English terms borrowed from Hindi that contain a "w" exhibit the same phenomenon (व (va) in original spelling, "v" in the transliteration, /ʋ/ in original pronunciation).

See also: Hindustani phonology#Allophony_of_.5Bv.5D_and_.5Bw.5D for evidence that these sounds aren't really considered distinct in Indic languages. 98.170.164.88 01:14, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Just for completeness: 1826: Swastika, English, 1853: Svastika, English, 1827: Swastika, German, 1859: Svastika, German Chuck Entz (talk) 01:44, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

The German attestation in the work by Rhode is interesting so far as he describes this inscription (right side) in a report by W. H. Sykes. Sykes himself does not use the term swastika in his report, which means that Rhode must have been familiar with it from a different source. Unfortunately, Google Books does give any useful result before 1826. –Austronesier (talk) 19:57, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out Diwali. And thanks to @98.170.164.88 for pointing out the ~ ~ allophony. It made me reconsider my assumption about Devanagari transliterations. I didn't know Hindi uses w:Hunterian transliteration, which allows for both <v> and <w> to be used. In fact is the expected realisation for /ʋ/ after a consonant and before a vowel. Although, in that case shouldn't the etymology say "from Hindi"? Or does it make no sense to distinguish? —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 17:50, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

@Caoimhin ceallach: The Hindi word is svastik with no a at the end, so it's pretty clear English swastiska comes from the Sanskrit. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:29, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

I think it's likely that コーヒー was borrowed when ヒ was pronounced /fi/, and the pronunciation shifted from /koːfiː/ → /koːɸiː/ → /koːçiː/. Can we find a source confirming this? Qzekrom (talk) 04:04, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't think native Japanese has a strict h/f distinction, either way. At least, I doubt there are any minimal pairs. Wakuran (talk) 16:40, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't know of any reason to suppose that the initial consonant of ヒ was ever labiodental (it comes from lenition of bilabial *p, so it seems more likely that it went directly from that to and stayed there until becoming h or ). The Nippo Jisho shows that in 1603, ヒ started with some kind of labial fricative that was heard as Portuguese /f/ (that is consistent with its being in the sixteenth century). Dutch loanwords seem to have entered the language at some time after that date (this Wikipedia article indicates 1609 at earliest). Some borrowings from Dutch use the h/f series to adapt Dutch h, such as ハム (hamu, “ham”) and ホック (hokku, “hook”), which Leo J. Loveday lists alongside コーヒー in a paragraph about "seventeenth and early eighteenth-century Dutch loans" (Language Contact in Japan: A Sociolinguistic History, 1996, page 55). Given the lack of distinction between and mentioned by Wakuran, it seems plausible that either sound would be used as the nearest thing to foreign or , so I don't think any of these borrowings tells us that much about the progress of the sound change. I haven't found a source yet that gives a date for the debuccalization of .--Urszag (talk) 17:39, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

• According to the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten entry here at Kotobank, the word コーヒー (kōhī, “coffee”) is first attested in 1826 or so. I'm don't recall exactly when the /ɸ/ → /h/ shift was fully finalized for mora ひ (hi) in "standard" Japanese, but I suspect it was earlier than this. By way of circumstantial evidence, this would be during the period known as 文政 (Bunsei, 1818–1830), when Philipp Franz von Siebold was in Japan; I think I recall seeing initial "H" rather than "F" in the names and other Japanese words he recorded, suggesting that this shift had occurred for at least the Japanese spoken around the Nagasaki area. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:35, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Currently, there have been devised Katakana extensions to further differentiate the / ~ distinction, in loanwords from English and other languages, including ホゥ (hu), ファ (fa), フィ (fi), フェ (fe) and フォ (fo). I believe these rarely are written in Hiragana, and that it is a relatively recent development. Wakuran (talk) 12:59, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Latin eccum shifted its initial /e/ to /a/ when unstressed (see *accum), and acted as a deictic to form many Romance terms. In some languages spoken in Italy (Italo-Dalmatian, Gallo-Italic and presumably also Sardinian) the /a/ fell (apocope), thus leaving (mostly) no trace of the shift, eg: Italian qua is here considered to derive directly from eccum hac, without mention of the shift. The shift, though, most likely occured, and as evidence there are some terms in these languages in which the /a/ does survive (cf. Neapolitan accussì, accà), and the fact that on the other hand there is no remnant of */e/.

I suggest for the these descendants with apocope to be moved from the *eccum- reconstruction pages to the *accum- ones, to get rid of these double pages (the pages being *eccum hac, hic, illac, ille, inde, ipse, iste, modo, sic, talis, tantum), only leaving the few ones that actually have descentants exhibiting the original /e/. Catonif (talk) 14:58, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

That *accum is reflected in a few Neapolitan forms does not mean that it has to underlie all the Tuscan forms as well. It's not impossible, but the survival to this day of Italian ecco < eccum hints otherwise.

That said, this could be addressed by an idea that I've been playing around with lately, namely merging the reconstructed pages to the *eccum forms, and adding a note to the descendants sections saying 'many reflect a variant with accum-'. Nicodene (talk) 10:57, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, merging the pages. But it seems weird to say "many reflect a variant" when that variant is actually with great probability the main and only. It seems comically suspicious how the only languages who presumably retained the e-, are also the ones that casually also lost it.

• ècco is stressed, and as I mentioned the shift only occurred in unstressed position. Southern Italians who say accà also say ècco and not **àcco (though they mostly use other terms).
• the initial i- in Nuorese icudde and icusse is likely unrelated to the Latin e-, which would require a vowel shift and a semplification of -cc- to -c-. The i- was likely added by analogy with isse.
• we are left with Asturleonese (+ Galician) descentants of eccum hic, which could also probably be explained in some other way. Maybe /aˈi/ > /eˈi/? Considering that the Mirandese acá and alhá have a-, and eiqui and eilhi have e- (alhi also exists, but **eilhá or **eicá don't).

In the end, I agree on merging the pages in the *eccum titles, since it respects the Classical Latin spelling, but apart for the spelling, I think the e- should be nowhere else (e.g. the pronunciation should only have /a/ or /∅/), as it is not reconstructable. Catonif (talk) 10:07, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

I'll merge them and try to settle on some pronunciation on a case-by-case basis then. Nicodene (talk) 10:28, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Wow, you ended up doing all the manual work once again. Catonif (talk) 10:43, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Yeah it wasn't too much. There do remain some things to figure out, such as what to do with all the *ecce- forms. Early Old French shows icel and icest; is this /i-/ a genuine reflex of the initial vowel of ecce? Nicodene (talk) 12:27, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Pre-tonic e does shift to i (cf. issir, etc.), so phonetically it seems to check out. Cases of i- emerging is not unheard of, but I could only find it in adverbs (idunc, which also mentions itant and itel, could they be formed by hic-?). Catonif (talk) 12:26, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Right now, the etymology of “sweet summer child” says:

‘From the 1996 fantasy novel A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, in which a young boy is called a "sweet summer child" by an old woman, since seasons last years in the novel's world and he has yet to experience winter. Later popularized by its use in the episode "Lord Snow" (2011) of the television adaptation Game of Thrones.’

This was already briefly discussed on the talk page. However, I want to revisit whether this etymology may be improved.

There seems to be little doubt that “sweet summer child” dramatically increased in usage during and after the mid-1990s (see its Google Ngram results), concordantly with the publication of A Game of Thrones.

However, does that necessarily mean that it is appropriate to list listing as the exclusive provenance of the phrase? It is also clear that the phrase was used to refer to “pure” or “innocent” people in the 1800s, even if these usages were sporadic and independent of A Game of Thrones.

• “God took her forever, Our sweet summer child; She passed through the valley With Thee—Undefiled! So trusting, so fondly To Thee did she cling ” by Francis B. M. Brotherson, 1880

• “Sweet Summer’s child. All rob’d in white, dead Stanley seem’d, And radiance, from his features, beam’d;—Meta, companion of his way,—Yet pale as when, on earth, he lay,” by Mary S. F. Whitaker, 1850

• ‘TO YOU, OUR FIRSTBORN, MY SWEET “SUMMER-CHILD,” I DEDICATE THIS UNPRETENDING STORY,’ by Meta Lander, 1865

@WordyAndNerdy points out in Talk:sweet summer child that one cited 1849 poem (The West Wind by James S. Babcock) does not use it in the “naïf” / “innocent/pure person” sense but rather as a poetic allusion to wind: “Thy home is all around, Sweet summer child of light and air, Like God’s own presence, felt, ne’er found, A Spirit everywhere!” However, I think the other uses by multiple authors above do clearly refer to “innocent/pure person”, either in an affectionate context (Lander) or a mourning-a-death-too-soon context (Brotherson; Whitaker)…even if they are not in the ironic/sarcastic sense in A Game of Thrones. One of the occurrences even uses the word “undefiled”.

I therefore propose that this:

“From the 1996 century fantasy novel A Game of Thrones . Later popularized by its use in the television adaptation Game of Thrones.”

…be edited to this:

“First published uses in 19th century. Later popularized by the 1996 fantasy novel A Game of Thrones . Further popularized by the television adaptation Game of Thrones.”

It’s also probably worth adding these 19th century occurrences (as well as its occurrence in A Game of Thrones) as quotations.

I plan to make these edits if nobody here objects. Feel free to comment with any tweaks to the proposed changes. Cheers! Samppi111 (talk) 19:54, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't object to adding that, but I'm also not fully convinced there's a direct causal link between those 1800 works and A Game of Thrones. It still seems possible that GRRM came up with the phrase on his own. If there were more works using it, or a chain of historical uses with no large time gaps, I'd be more inclined to believe it. 98.170.164.88 20:06, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, to make my thinking clearer: I don’t think it is necessary for there to be a direct causal link between the 1800s occurrences and GRRM’s use. In fact, I agree that it is a significant possibility that GRRM came up with the phrase independently with a similar “pure, innocent person” meaning. However, even so, the 1880s occurrences still deserve to be cited, and GRRM should not be made out to be the sole provenance of the phrase meaning “pure, innocent person”. Cheers! Samppi111 (talk) 20:13, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

There isn't sufficient evidence to support the claim that GRRM "popularized" a phrase incidentally used by little-known Victorian poets (only one has a Wikipedia article). None of which have used it with a discernably consistent meaning. Babcock (1849) used it as an allusion to wind. Macdonald (1889) used it as an allusion to a grapevine. Whitaker (1850) used it as either an allusion to wind or a departed spirit. Brotherson (1880) used it in reference to a departed child. It's possible to interpret this as a reference to innocence or naiveté. But it's also possible to read it as a reference to the child's gentle disposition ("So trusting, so fondly To Thee did she cling"), or the idea that the child's life was as short and beautiful as summer. Lander (1865) didn't use the phrase "sweet summer child," but "my sweet 'summer-child'", i.e. the adjective "sweet" affixed to the noun "summer-child," presumably indicating the child's temperament or season of birth. There are only so many ways to meaningfully string together words. If one digs back far enough, they are sure to find incidental antecedents to turns of phrase attributed to James Joyce, or 15th century writers talking about angels flying on the "plane of air" etc. It makes for an interesting bit of trivia, but it's not really relevant etymological information. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 22:32, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

I appreciate the perspective that phrases may always have incidental and trivial antecedents if they are “obvious” enough. I also agree that the usage by Lander (1865) may indicate merely a child born in summer, although I think Brotherson is more clearly referring to an “undefiled”, pure/innocent child. I would also note that even GRRM’s usage is associated with being born or raised during the summer (the character having been raised during the long summer and not knowing winter), and in that sense even Lander (1865) is similar to GRRM’s usage.

I would like to gently push back against the idea that an occurrence’s author must be prominent enough to have a Wikipedia article to warrant inclusion in provenance. Usages are attestations, whether or not they are an obscure chemist with few citations or a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter. They may be stronger or weaker, but either way we should still consider mentioning them.

With the data we have, we do not have sufficient information to perform original research on causal relationships or lack thereof – nor should we on Wiktionary. Corpus occurrences often suggest possible nonverbal usage beyond published works, and I think their existences are therefore worth noting. Indeed, I would argue that “turns of phrase attributed to James Joyce” do indeed warrant mention as antecedent usages for those phrases, insofar that they are similar enough to the usages, and that there is the possibility of indirect influence.

More concretely, the proposal is merely to note that attestations to “sweet summer child” in a context meaning “innocent/youthful person associated with summer” first appear in the 19th century, and that the phrase became more popular since GRRM. There is insufficient information to claim either that GRRM was influenced by pre-1990s usages or that GRRM independently created it as a wholly original phrase. It’s not like he himself has discussed his thought process. And even if he did state that he had never heard it before he wrote it, I think that prior similar usage should be mentioned, regardless of its influence on GRRM or lack thereof.

Thus, the best that I think we can do is note similar antecedent usages and note that it became much more popular after GRRM. The rest (presence or absence of causal link) is conjecture (i.e., original research), right?

I don’t feel super strongly about this, and if the other editors here feel very differently, then I would be happy to acquiesce. But I do think there is insufficient evidence to attribute exclusive provenance to GRRM, and that – until a linguist formally publishes etymological findings about this in a tertiary source – confidently declaring GRRM’s exclusive provenance and excluding the relevancy of Brotherson et al. is original research. I’d like to at least mention possible antecedent uses.

Perhaps this would be more palatable to you:

“First possible attested uses in 19th century. Later used in the 1996 fantasy novel , in which – then popularized by .”

Hopefully, this is a sufficiently bland and uncontroversial statement. What do you think?

Cheers! Samppi111 (talk) 00:18, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

I parse most of the 19th-century uses as sweet + summer child; compare uses of a summer child, my summer child, and our summer child. And in these uses summer child is also a sum of parts. As used by George R. R. Martin, put in the mouth of the character Old Nan, I think it was also just a nested sum of parts, sweet + (summer + child); only later did this become idiom.  --Lambiam 08:28, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

If sources say Martin coined it (do they, or is that our own OR?), then say that, sure, but we should also akconlwedge the existence of the earlier instances. - -sche (discuss) 18:26, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Etymology unknown, the only other cognate in other languages are Biatah and West Coast Bajau, also spelled paus. Could the origin be from PMP or is the word loaned to Biatah and WC Bajau from Malay? Ataraxii (talk) 14:23, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Tagged but not listed (I think?). I am wondering about this one and would like to open it to further discussion. Per Derkson, this is a Proto-Slavic term, but Trubachyov claims the Russian word is a Polish borrowing, Vasmer relates it to Bruckner's form *blьk-, however WSJP and indirectly Bańkowski claim it is from German bleichen or ultimately Middle High German bleich. Also tagging @Thadh and @Sławobóg as the usual Slavic crew, but I'm sure more editors might be able to chip in. Vininn126 (talk) 08:58, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Furthermore, the earliest usage appears to be this, which would be in 1770 sometime in the 16th century (as that's when the author supposedly lived). I can find nothing on sxvii.pl. The next definite earliest use would be 1806 on G-books, which would suggest a borrowing rather than inheritance. Vininn126 (talk) 09:11, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

RFV of the part of the etymology that reads Possibly from Proto-Germanic *kuggilaz (“knobbed instrument”), derivative of Proto-Germanic *kuggǭ (“cog, swelling”), from Proto-Indo-European *gewgʰ- (“swelling, bow”), from Proto-Indo-European *gew-, *gū- (“to bow, bend, arch, curve”)

This was added by an IP in April. It also needs the correct formatting, but I don't know what our orthographic conventions are for Proto-Germanic or PIE. Theknightwho (talk) 17:58, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

If this and the etymology we give for cudgel are both correct, Kugel and cudgel are cognates. (The last sentence at Kugel § Etymology 1 states that the connection is far from certain, but the cited source is mum about cudgel, and “probably” is not “far from certain”.)  --Lambiam 07:51, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

It can't be directly "from" it, but it may be related it with it. Philippa reconstructs *kugulō as a byform of *kuggilō (from which the English). An alternative theory that she mentions goes *kugulō < *kuwulō < *kluwulō from the root of *klautaz. 90.186.170.234 21:42, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Who's Philippa? I don't think shes mentioned in the entry. Wakuran (talk) 22:43, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Marlies Philippa. I agree the German word must be from a different form, as there is no umlaut. Same for the Dutch kogel. Leasnam (talk) 23:36, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

An IP has claimed that English ball-buster possibly derives from Yiddish בעל־הביתטע (baleboste, literally “mistress of the house”). Is there likely to be any truth in this? Theknightwho (talk) 18:05, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

This seems to straddle the fine line between etymology and shitpost. Nicodene (talk) 18:40, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I initially thought it was vandalism, but it's just plausible enough that it seemed worth checking. Theknightwho (talk) 18:43, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

This is actually mentioned in a source (which goes on to dismiss it). Sorry for the excerpt view, but that's all I have. 98.170.164.88 18:48, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Something something, make an account. This isn't bad, but it's not really enough to list it. I reverted because it's the sort of something someone probably noticed randomly and decided to add a "maybe" with no credible source. Vininn126 (talk) 20:04, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not the one who added the claim. I agree it's pretty dubious (and the source I gave agrees, appealing to the existence of other terms like ball-breaker). 98.170.164.88 00:27, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

A few years ago I was the one who posted on Talk:ball-buster. The IP may have gotten it from me, or they may have come here indepndently. Anyway ..... I would say that this is more likely than not, but not that I believe in it 100%. I did my own searching, and couldnt find anything one way or the other. I dont see why the existence of the other two terms really matters, though, unless we know for sure that at least one of them was in common use before ball-buster was. I would love to see Mitchell's research on this. Although .... would it just be better to say "possibly derived from baleboste" or some such thing? We're not going to turn up anything that others have not, which means we can neither prove nor disprove the connection. We can, however, say that at least one other researcher believes in the connection. —Soap— 01:12, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

The article in The Jewish Review dismisses Mitchell’s theory rather forcefully, but acknowledges that ballbuster may have been the earliest ball...er term:

Deriving ballbuster from balboste / baleboste (sic recte) is nonsense. For one thing, that ball in this English word has always referred to the testicles (hence 'testicle', i.e., Eng. ball-, is not a folk etymology of Yid. bal-) is proven by the existence of two synonyms of ballbuster, namely ballbreaker and ballwracker, which cannot possibly be from Yiddish (though Mitchell could argue that these two synonyms are younger than ballbreaker and reflect a reinterpretation of Yid. bal- as English ball).

While Mitchell states that the semantic leap (from “head of the household” to “bossy woman”) is “a slight extension” of the sense and “quite understandable”, I think the term is rather more strongly derogatory than “bossy woman”; the emergence of such a strongly derogatory load for the originally neutral or even honorable designation is IMO not that plausible. And I’d like to see evidence that the earliest uses refer to women, and not just to anything tough for a hard-working man (like here).  --Lambiam 08:55, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

I would like to see that evidence too, since it's the basis for my theory. I searched a few years ago and found nothing, but I don't have quite the same reach as some others here regarding electronic and in-person research. I still want to add a few other points ....

• I think the term may have been used by women as a term of pride, and not just by men who were jealous of some women's power.
• The semantic pejoration of the term may have begun when it came to be widely used outside the Jewish community, and thus by people who did not realize it was a pun on the longstanding word baleboste.
• Of the three transparently English terms above, I'd say that ball-buster is the outlier because the verb bust isn't as semantically powerful in this context as the other two verbs, break and wrack. Therefore if you told me that one of the three was originally a pun based on a loanword, I know which one I would pick.

Wish I could say more, but that's all I've got for now. Thanks for providing the full context for the lines in The Jewish Review. —Soap— 11:55, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

I have a hunch that this may be from Sanskrit because of the "dh" in the word. I did some searching and found ताड़ना, tādanā to mean punishment, chastisement but I cannot find any cognates with Malay or Javanese/Old Javanese. While punishment is related to fate, to something like judgment, maybe someone could provide ideas where tadhana came from. I'm also not sure of the other Indo-Aryan languages as well. Ysrael214 (talk) 01:24, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Aren't they different dh's, though? Tagalog looks like it might be a compound word, while transcribed Sanskrit dh is pronounced as . Wakuran (talk) 02:07, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

That was my first thought, too, but if you look through Category:Tagalog terms derived from Sanskrit, you'll find a couple with the stop and h in separate syllables. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:00, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

This book seems to agree, linking the Tagalog word to various Sanskrit terms (but note that none of them have ta-): . There's a question mark there, but I'm not sure if that's supposed to cast doubt on the entire hypothesis or just the details. 98.170.164.88 02:17, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, Tagalog terms considers "dh", "kh", "gh" as separate syllables such as budhi, dukha, and agham.

I also tried Arabic and found تَدِينَ • (tadīna) and تُدَيَّنَ • (tudayyana). I don't know Arabic though but the words are related to "obligation, duty, debts (divinely related so maybe also judgment)" which is close to tadhana (fated, determined, bound to happen) as well. Although the Sanskrit descendant ध्यान (dhyāna), though has "dh" as a possible clue, does not talk about obligations but contemplation. Ysrael214 (talk) 04:33, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't think that Sanskrit ध्यान (dhyāna) is a descendant of the Arabic. Our etymology traces it back to Proto-Indo-Iranian.Chuck Entz (talk) 06:00, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

In Tagalog, Ch is always a real sequence of two sounds, even if derived from Sanskrit aspirates. Before the mass introduction of Spanish loanwords, Tagalog syllable structure was strictly (C)V(C). Medial aspirates could be integrated without much change (mukha < Sanskrit मुख (mukha), katha < Sanskrit कथा (kathā)), but the initial aspiration in Sanskrit भट्टार (bhaṭṭāra) was transferred to the following syllable in bathala to conform with Tagalog phonotactics.

So the "dh" in tadhana does not necessarily have to derive from an earlier Sanskrit dʰ. That said, I have no idea about the etymology of tadhana. H. Kern traced it to सन्धान (sandhāna) (also mentioned in Potet's Tagalog Borrowings and Cognates), but I find this far-fetched. –Austronesier (talk) 21:10, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

What's written in Potet's book is संधान (saṃdhāna) to mean union. He also wrote विधान (vidhāna) which actually means fate in Mahabharata and Kavya literature. However, I think that word would evolve to something like "bidhana" or "bi(d/r)ahana" if that is the case but this is the closest word in terms of meaning. साधन (sādhana) also means accomplishment, completion, realization, result. Ysrael214 (talk) 02:32, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

There seems to be contraddicting etymologies for this word. The Latin entry and most of its Romance descendants cite *méh₂-r̥ ~ *mh₂-én-, the Proto-Italic and French entry cite *(s)meh₂- ("to beckon") and Portuguese cites *meh₂- (presumably a confusion with mānus with long ā, meaning good). There's no PIE entry linking to the PIt or Latin page. From the M. de Vaan dictionary:

PIE *mon-u- 'hand'. IE cognates: Olr. muin 'protection, patronage', Hit. manii̯ahh-i 'to distribute, entrust' < *mn-ieh₂-, OHG munt, OIc. mund 'hand', OIc. mundr 'the sum which the bridegroom has to pay for his bride' < *mn-to-.

The Proto-Italic entry (see) has the M. de Vaan as its only reference, though it seems to completely ignore it. Catonif (talk) 20:36, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Other than manus and Proto-Germanic *mundō and descendants, I see no other terms derived from *(s)meh₂- whose meaning refers to the body part instead of the gesture, which makes (IMO) derivation from *(s)meh₂- somewhat less likely. The evidence for the reconstruction *méh₂r̥ appears flimsy. But where does de Vaan get his *mon-u- from? Any relation with *mon- (“human being”)? (He also has *mon-i- (“neck”) for the etymology of monīle and *mon-eie- (“to make think of, remind”) for the etymology of moneō.)  --Lambiam 10:38, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Apparently there's also Greek μάρη (hand, seemingly rare) and εὐμαρής (easy, convenient), although the connection seems to be disputed. Wakuran (talk) 12:04, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

If we are hedging bets, the isolated Anatolian numeral four may be derived from finger counting because that's typologically likely, but it has no secure etymology.

The vowel quantity alone is no reason to reject *(s)meh₂- or *meh₂- by the way. See the note on mās (“man”) about that. 93.241.89.153 17:41, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

What, Anatolian?

Anyways, there doesn't seem to be a consensus between linguists. I shortened the etymologies of the Romance entries down to Latin, and left the Latin and Italic entries as confusing as I found them. Catonif (talk) 13:55, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

See Alwin Kloekhorst (dissertation) for Hittite me(i̯)u- / mei̯au̯- adj. "four" and so on, Cuneiform Luwian māuu̯a- and so forth. The reconstruction *méh₁-u-, *méh₁-eu ? may be rather mechanical and the reading of the mostly Logographic character is difficult. About manii̯aḫḫ- he concures in following Oettinger that it belongs with manus, correcting *mən-i̯é to *mn-i̯-eh₂, because "assuming “-ə-” (i.e. -h₂-) is unnecessary: Schrijver (1991: 458) reconstructs Lat. manus as mon-u-." 141.20.6.67 14:42, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Fulk relates that "High-frequency u-stem ‘hand’ would have been used frequently in the dual;" (§ 7.25 FN 3), refering to uncertain origin of Old English nom.pl. -a, OFris. -a beside -ar, -an, -en, by which he may have meant *handuz, but see i. Old English mund ~ pl. munda, munde. For dual inflection in counting see *oḱtṓw and *dwóh₁. 141.20.6.61 14:03, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Originally created without an accent by @Rua, it was moved to the accented form thrice (!) by @Gnosandes (which was reverted twice by @Victar who has apparently become inactive before the third move). If somebody experienced in PBS can have a look and find out which editor is right, that would be good. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 12:08, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

@Fytcha: I have already explained to him many times why this is so. But apparently it was useless, it's like I'm talking to a tree. Gnosandes ❀ (talk) 12:14, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

I'll acknowledge that this is not my area of expertise, so I'm posting here in the talk to invite discussion rather than attempting an edit. On the page quesadilla, my edit adding "(El Salvador) quesadilla salvadoreña" was edited to read "(El Salvador) Ellipsis of quesadilla salvadoreña." "Ellipsis" implies to me that Salvadorans originally called this a "quesadilla salvadoreña" then shortened it to just "quesadilla". However, my guess would have been that Salvadorans originally called the cake a "quesadilla" and non-Salvadorans later extended that to "quesadilla salvadoreña" to disambiguate it from the tortilla-based quesadilla; this would be the opposite of an ellipsis. Does anyone know what the actual situation is?

I note the commment on the edit was "Standardized formatting" and not "incorrect etymology". This might mean that the editor made the opposite assumption I did about the etymology and applied what they believed to be the appropriate template. Is there someone who knows the actual direction for the two terms?

(their edit:) "quesadilla salvadoreña" begat "quesadilla" (my edit:) "quesadilla" used in El Salvador begat "quesadilla salvadoreña" used elsewhere (although I didn't make this explicit as a pathway because I don't know what template to use to indicate that)

I guess the term as used in El Salvador would not fit the candidate etymology shown on the quesadilla page, "Possibly a portmanteau of queso and tortilla, though this is not substantiated and several other theories exist." as the El Salvadoran quesadilla is closer to a sweet bread per Wikipedia entry on quesadilla salvadoreña so would need its own etymology.

Thisisnotatest (talk) 06:43, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

My guess is that "quesada" is formed along the same lines as "frijolada", which is a bean stew, or "mariscada", which is a seafood platter: something full of, or characterized by, queso/cheese. Add to that the diminutive suffix -illa, and you get "quesadilla"- etymologically speaking, sort of a "little cheesed (thing)". I note from the Wikipedia article that the Salvadorean quesadilla is made with a type of cheese, so it makes sense. I don't think you need to bring "tortilla" into the picture, because that's just derived from torta in a similar manner. As for needing a separate etymology- you wouldn't. The foods so named may be quite different, but their names were evidently formed in the same way. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:25, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Sorry about the red herring re tortilla; I got that off the quesadilla page. The purpose of this discussion thread is actually to attempt to discover whether or not the word "ellipsis" belongs in the gloss "quesadilla salvadoreña". I suspect it doesn't, and that use in El Salvador of "quesadilla" to mean the food that is referred to in Wikipedia as "quesadilla salvadoreña" predates the expanded term, which would disambiguation by others, not ellipsis by Salvadorans. That is, I believe the introduction of "ellipsis" into the gloss to be an accidental mistake. But I'm not editing because I don't know that to be the case, thus this thread. Thisisnotatest (talk) 05:29, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Ah, I found what I was looking for. There doesn't seem to be a template for it.

In the entry for muffin we find:

# {{lb|en|British}} A type of ] bun, usually cut in two ], ]ed and spread with butter, etc, before being eaten; an ].

so if I'm correct about the origin of the El Salvadoran term "quesadilla" I would expect to replace:

# {{lb|es|El Salvador}} {{ellipsis of|en|quesadilla salvadoreña}}

with something like:

# {{lb|es|El Salvador}} A type of ] made with rice flour and ] and topped with ]; a ].

Thisisnotatest (talk) 06:10, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Actually, based on the Help FAQ Starting Out section which encourages me to do my best with what I have, I'm going to go ahead and make this change. I have had this term spoken to me in this way in real life, without definition, so I believe in good faith that my interpretation is accurate. Thisisnotatest (talk) 06:18, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Hello @Thisisnotatest, I think you've pretty much hit it on the nail. I think the idea that the sense was an ellipsis of quesadilla salvadoreña is frankly absurd in retrospect. I think your explanation is much more likely and using the entry for English muffin as a guide makes a lot of sense. As for the etymology put forward by Chuck Entz, I find it well supported in a number of sources including the Oxford English Dictionary and the Diccionario de la lengua española and think our etymology section's should reflect that this explanation is widely accepted (pinging @Lambiam who recently edited the etymology). —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 18:28, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

As far as I’m concerned we can just scrap the farfetched portmanteau theory and use the OED as reference for the quesada + -illa derivation. The RAE dictionary appears to give quesada as a synonym of quesadilla, although not in a very clear way. I see no etymology given there.  --Lambiam 19:29, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough about the RAE, basically what I was trying to say is it also records quesada as a real term and links it with quesadilla, even if it doesn't lay out the etymological relationship. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 19:34, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you all for your comments and edits. I would not be surprised to learn that the Salvadoran and non-Salvadoran terms have independent etymologies, with *quesada + -illa for the Salvadoran one and queso + tortilla for the non-Salvadoran one; that said, this is complete speculation on my part. I note the Diccionario de la lengua española gives the two sweet definitions before the definition that would be well-known in English and does not add any usage labels. This might imply a slight English Wiktionary bias toward non-English definitions that have been absorbed into English when defining non-English words; microscopic sample size, I know, and not accusing, just something to consider if we are trying to build to a world view. Thisisnotatest (talk) 03:36, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

The link goes to quesada, but I suppose you meant to link to quesadilla. Only the second definition implies sweetness, and may be the Salvadoran sense.  --Lambiam 20:40, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

I doubt the etymologies given on these pages: Scorpios90 (talk • contribs) claims that the last three are from cinor, a variant of canor; but I cannot find any attestation of cinor, and the vowel "i" can be much better explained as a reduction that took place in the development from Proto-Italic to Latin (compare faciō and afficiō); the first word is claimed (by Urszag (talk • contribs)) to have been a product of the suffix -cinor (whose existence I doubt), which is then left unexplained. --kc_kennylau (talk) 12:20, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

There is some cleanup needed, for sure. I don't think there is a fundamental difference here: the evidence is consistent with the verbs in -cinor having the structure of compounds ending in an element derived from the root of the verb canō, canere (“sing, recite, foretell, sound”), with reduction of the short vowel a to i, as seen also in nouns ending in -cinium (e.g. gallicinium or sincinium) or the oblique stems of nouns in -cen. The details seem difficult to describe accurately though so I'd be glad to hear suggestions. The line between suffixes and compounds in Latin is not always clear: since compounding was not an extremely productive word strategy, we often can identify a small number of roots that occur much more frequently than others as the second elements of compounds (e.g. a great many compound words ending in the suffix -ium end more specifically in -loquium and -cīdium; we have an entry for the second as a suffix, but not the first). The verbs ending in -cinor, -cinārī do not appear to be formed directly by prefixation of canō, canere the way that incinō, incinere and concinō, concinere are: we see a change in conjugation class from consonant stem to ā-stem that suggests there might have been some kind of suffixation as well as compounding going on. I wonder whether the development would have gone from the consonant-stem verb to the compound adjective vāticinus (compare fāticinus) to vāticinor as a denominal verb, with the ending then spreading from vāticinor to other verbs by analogy. I think that this analogical spread, if it is an accurate description of what happened, would be the basis for arguing that -cinor came to function as a suffix. It has been identified as such in some places outside of Wiktionary, e.g. Latin Suffixes by John Tahourdin White (1858, page 134). The Form of Nominal Compounds in Latin, by George D. Chase (1900) says of latrōcinium, lenōcinium, ratiōcinium, sermōcinor, tirōcinor that "In these words the unexplained -cinium seems to have sunk to the force of a suffix" (page 70).--Urszag (talk) 03:09, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

In Michiel de Vaan's entry for cano (page 88), he wrties "Following Ernout, Leumann 1977: 551 argues that the compounds in -cinōr stem from vāticinōr, built on a noun *vāti-cinium 'what the soothsayer sings'". So I would propose adding an entry for -cinor as a suffix with this information and then marking the -cinor words other than vāticinōr as ending in this suffix.--Urszag (talk) 03:14, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

RFV of the etymology (Reisende). – Jberkel 21:44, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

@Jberkel See w:Sinti#Name, namely "he origin of the name is disputed.". --kc_kennylau (talk) 21:56, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

I does not make sense in the form this is presented. Obviously, English Sinto is borrowed from Sinte Romani sinto, an endonym. Presumably (this is not clarified), the putative etymology of Romani sinto is that it is a semantic loan of German Reisende(r) (“Traveller”).  --Lambiam 06:35, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Pinging @YukaSylvie, ManFromSuceava who have worked on Romani entries. – Jberkel 10:47, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Seconding what Lambiam says, this (and several entries connected to it) need to be cleaned up. Most entries in other languages are most likely derived from the endonym, sometimes via German Sinto/Sinti; further etymology should most likely be explained at the Romani entry, or possibly the German entry. Venetian sinto says to compare Italian zingaro, which has a very different etymology; most likely that comparison should be removed. - -sche (discuss) 22:07, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

It might be related to Sindhi سنڌ and therefore come from Sanskrit सिन्धु, probably indicating the origin of this Roma group.  -- ManFromSuceava 08:44, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

RFV-etymology. Claimed to be from habal (a crass word), but most likely from Hubble as in Hubble Space Telescope, reanalyzed into habal and reduplicated.TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 22:37, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

The mode of transportation on Earth does not vividly evoke the image of the telescope in space. I find the theory extremely unlikely. Note that the dictionary linked to only states “”. The English word hubble means “a heap”, “a lump”. It is not a very common word, and this theory is (IMO) barely more likely.  --Lambiam 08:18, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

@Lambiam: What do you think of the original theory? (a derivation from habal) PUC – 09:13, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

I suppose being transported this way across less well maintained roads can result in a climactic experience. I’m insufficiently versed in the study of the Cebuano mindset to assess the plausibility of this underlying the proposed etymology.  --Lambiam 10:17, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Initially, the seating positions lead at least my mind more into the area of copulation. Wakuran (talk) 11:55, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for giving much thought on this, but I think both etymologies can be valid.

Maybe the usual habal-habal is just a motorbike for hire with the passenger holding to the back of the driver in a position that kind of evokes the position of animals copulating, but there's a common rural variant which have the pillion extended to the sides by fixing wooden crossbeams and boards. Such are mostly known as skylab, from their crude resemblance to the space station it was named after, but sometimes the wooden extensions runs to the Front and back, and evokes the solar panels of the HST. That's possibly how the writers of KWF Diksiyonaryo got that etymology, from the sight of those modified bikes.

At last, I'll bring up the reason for posting here. There was an IP who edited the Cebuano to removed the alternate etymology (even worse, they called the KWF names; such comments targeting KWF have something to do with the controversies surrounding its predecessors such as the Institute of the National Language and some residual negative feelings toward it). Even then, the alternate etymology after Hubble would still be plausible with the kind of bike that would be otherwise called skylab, but it's kind of questionable phonetically speaking, as schwas (which are in Hubble) would normally turn into Cebuano /o~u/. Here goes the possible etymologies:

• Reduplication of habal, that referring to the position of the pillion passenger behind the driver that kind of resembles animals copulating.
• Reduplication of Hubble, referring to the shape of some variants of the vehicles which have wooden crossbeams fixed to the pillion, some of which would crudely evoke the shape of the telescope. Phonetically speaking, Hubble, observing a common schwa to /o~u/ change, should generally result to initial habol, and with reduplication, habolhabol. If that would be the only valid etymology, the change to habal would obviously involve the application of folk etymology.-TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 13:35, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Maybe keep both etymologies by now, and add photos especially those that feature those crossbeams. So far, most Cebuano dictionaries don't list etymologies (not even Wolff's dictionary); KWF Diksiyonaryo, though largely for Tagalog (nonetheless, it also have entries for the numerous Philippine regional languages, which includes Cebuano, plus English), does give etymologies. The thing here is the real source of habalhabal is kind of intriguing.-TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 23:29, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

RFV of the etymology.

• From Old Turkic 𐰋𐰏 (b²g /⁠beg⁠/, “chief, titled man”). Cognate with Turkish bey, Kazakh би (bi)

I don't know a lot about Turkic etymology, but isn't this just a case of mistaking Old Turkic for Proto-Turkic? Old Turkic is a Siberian Turkic language and Kyrgyz is a Kipchak language, so the common source should be farther back. @Almanbet Janışev also added a Descendants section at Old Turkic 𐰋𐰏 (b²g /⁠beg⁠/), which may have to be fixed, as well. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:18, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

@Allahverdi Verdizade Thadh (talk) 15:55, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I was wondering what Proto-Indo-European "अचल" (Sanskrit) is derived from. Cheesypenguigi (talk) 22:11, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

I would think this is a compound of अ- (a-, “not”) + चलति (calati)/चरति (carati), both of which have something to do with going or moving. The first part is from Proto-Indo-European *n̥-, which is the source of the alpha privative in Ancient Greek and English un-. The second part may be from Proto-Indo-European *kʷel- (“turn, revolve”). Chuck Entz (talk) 00:08, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

We're missing an entry, but don't let that stop you: what's the etymon? (Presumably Chinese, but what dialect?) - -sche (discuss) 07:56, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

The Cantonese pronunciation of 米粉 (mǐfěn) looks closest to the English spelling. The Mandarin and Hakka pronunciations aren't far either, while the Min languages diverge considerably. It seems to be from Southern China, which could suggest Cantonese (or potentially Hakka, but much less likely). I'd guess Cantonese. 98.170.164.88 08:57, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

@-sche: It's definitely Cantonese 米粉 (mai5 fan2). — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 17:20, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Seems as if the main English entry is under bee hoon, by the way. Wakuran (talk) 19:07, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

@Wakuran: That's from Hokkien, so it's more like a doublet than an alternative entry IMO. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 19:12, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: So, they're still considered different dishes, although they derive from the same root words? Wakuran (talk) 19:46, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

@Wakuran: They probably refer to the same thing, but they would be synonyms, possibly with regional implications (bee hoon is more Southeast Asian or wherever Hokkien communities might be, mai fun more Hong Kong or wherever Cantonese communities might be). — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 19:53, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you both. I've created the entry. - -sche (discuss) 02:17, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Could it be related to 潰? A split between devoice+rising tone isn't unheard of, cf 近(kan5/gan6) (though I'm unsure about the shift between the light dark tone categories) -- Wpi31 (talk) 16:25, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

@Wpi31: I think it's highly unlikely to be from 潰. The Cantonese reading kui2 is irregular; the expected reading is wui6. The tone would match gui6, but I think it's unlikely for 匣母 to give a /k-/ reflex. There are also problems with the semantics. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 17:35, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

潰 in 崩潰 seems to begin with kʰ- in the majority of Chinese lects. I'm interested in knowing the explanation for this irregularity. RcAlex36 (talk) 03:22, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Originated in 1995 to describe a complete ass, by David Hamilton 2600:100b:b007:ef32:1dc8:5dd2:9ac2:30b (talk) 00:31, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Is it a widespread variant, or just another of the many variations of douche / douchebag? Wakuran (talk) 02:05, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

We have an entry douche canoe, and one for the spaceless variant douchecanoe. Where is the evidence that David Hamilton coined it in 1995? 98.170.164.88 03:35, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

This is a Tagalog word. The etymology here says "pam+bagat" and bagat means appointing someone to be a babaylan. I think bagat is highly probably correct. According to Vocabulario de la lengua Tagala, pamagat is listed as "Apodo, mote. Vide binyag." or translated to "nickname, see binyag." In Philippine history, islanders that get to be baptized changes their name to be more Christianized. For example, Rajah Humabon, was later called "Don Carlos" after baptism. By analogy, "bagat" is the ceremony of appointment or baptism, pamagat/pangbagat (literally "something for the bagat") is the name given after the said ceremony. Therefore, the pamagat of Rajah Humabon is Don Carlos. Ysrael214 (talk) 23:23, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

What is the purpose of {{root|en|ine-pro|*bʰer-}} ? Why isn't it visible in the UI?

{{der|en|la|trānsferō|t=I bear across}}

Shouldn't this be {{bor ? Espoo (talk) 18:17, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

The purpose of {{root|en|ine-pro|*bʰer-}} is to categorize the entry in CAT:English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *bʰer-. According to etymonline, transfer might be from Old French transferer or it might be directly from Latin trānsferō. Our current wording hedges its bets by not specifying whether it comes from Latin directly or indirectly. —Mahāgaja · talk 18:25, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

What does 'Tiananmen' mean? The conventional interpretation is 'gate of heavenly peace'. Cool. But the 1930 Manchu scholar says no, fools, it means 'gate of heaven's peacemaking' as in 'peace via military conquest by the divine'. Is there a historically accurate (correct) interpretation? Is the popular understanding ('heavenly peace gate') yet another Orientalist-style myth about China? --Geographyinitiative (talk) 20:28, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

From my limited Chinese, I believe the Hanzi just mean heaven-peace-gate, although you could argue on how they should be interpreted. (I doubt there would be a definite answer outside of context.) Wakuran (talk) 00:11, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

There is a longish explanation on Wikipedia in the section Tiananmen § Name.  --Lambiam 01:42, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Spanish. See . The cited Latin word is basically a hapax legomenon in Plautus. --kc_kennylau (talk) 02:41, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

For some reason, the Latin word listed in the Spanish and Catalan entries is different. Possibly just an error. Wakuran (talk) 11:55, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

@Wakuran alapārī is the present infinitive of alapor. --kc_kennylau (talk) 19:37, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

@Kc kennylau, Wakuran: No, the Latin word does not even occur in this hapax. If you just read alapa about which I have written an explicit etymology, this base word is attested from two centuries later. Accordingly, it does not occur in the cited Plautus locus but is a corruptela, the transmitted text is †nihili phiari†; later glossators read it into it. So it was a word in Late Latin, attested in Commodian’s Carmen apologeticum 457, and in one translation of the Epistle of James 3, 14 quid alapamini? Fay Freak (talk) 09:11, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

@Fay Freak: And what of this attestation? --kc_kennylau (talk) 10:37, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

@Kc kennylau: Of course is also none. The correct reading is held halophantam, a word, like others, humorously made up by Plautus in analogy to sycophanta and therefore later copied in various variants since scribes did not know the nonce word. Fay Freak (talk) 10:49, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Is the Chinese word related to 元 Immanuelle (talk) 09:20, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Latin fīdūcia. This suggests the existence of *fīdūx, *fīdūcis or *fīdūcus, -a, -um? --kc_kennylau (talk) 11:50, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I created the diatom family WP page Gossleriellaceae. But impossible to know the genus Gossleriella etymology. I guess it's a tribute to a certain Gossler but who is him?
I searched in vain in this publication but it does not allow search by keyword. Thanks for your help. Gerardgiraud (talk) 13:42, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

It probably is an honorific directed to the w:Gossler family of Hamburg or to a specific member of that family. They might have been patrons of the sciences or some member of the family gave up banking to be a naturalist. DCDuring (talk) 15:24, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

That Wikipedia page doesn't exist and there's nothing in the deletion log. Strange. 98.170.164.88 15:27, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

You mean the w:en Gossleriellaceae page, not the Gossler family page. Gerardgiraud meant the w:fr page Gossleriellaceae. (Why Gossleriellaceae is italicized I don't know.) DCDuring (talk) 15:39, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Was it discovered in w:de:Goßlers Park (Hamburg)? 109.40.241.47 16:31, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I think it was discovered in a marine expedition, these diatoms being marine AFAICT. Evidence that it was discovered in the ocean off the east coast of Honshu (Japan). DCDuring (talk) 17:32, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Gossleriellaceae is italicized since all latin scientific word must be. Gerardgiraud (talk) 10:54, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

@Gerardgiraud: Taxa higher than genus are not italicized (at least in English). J3133 (talk) 11:12, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

There are exceptions. Higher taxa of prokaryotes and viruses are also italicized, but not those of eukaryotes, not even unicellular ones. DCDuring (talk) 14:19, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

@DCDuring: I am aware but decided to not include the exceptions in my reply. J3133 (talk) 14:31, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I try to avoid incomplete as well as erroneous information about taxa because I am usually the one cleaning up. DCDuring (talk) 14:40, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

The thesis Kieler Meeresforschung im Kaiserreich: Die Planktonexpedition von 1889 zwischen Wissenschaft, Wirtschaft, Politik und Öffentlichkeit (Marine research in Kiel in the Kaiserreich: The plankton expedition of 1889 between science, business, politics and the public) is behind a paywall, but Google Search reveals it contains these passages: (1) ein Botaniker, der Assistent am Botanischen Institut Franz Schütt (1859–1921), der bereits erwähnte Geograph Krümmel und der weitgereiste Marinearzt und außerordentliche Professor der Hygiene Bernhard Fischer (1852–1915) (a botanist, the assistant at the Botanical Institute Franz Schütt (1859-1921), the aforementioned geographer Krümmel and the well-travelled naval doctor and associate professor of hygiene Bernhard Fischer (1852-1915)) and (2) an der Finanzierung kam es durch die engagierte Vermittlung des amtierenden Kultusministers Gustav von Goßler (1838–1902) (the financing came through the committed mediation of the incumbent Minister of Education Gustav von Goßler (1838-1902)). I see more expressions of gratitude for Goßler’s role in making a plankton expedition possible, like here, p. 99: Darum zolle ich Sr. Excellenz, dem Staatsminister a. D., Herrn Dr. v. Gossler, noch nachträglich den wärmsten Dank dafür, dass er auf meine Darlegungen hin eine Subvention des hiesigen Forschungsinstituts aus Staatsmitteln bewilligte. (I therefore additionally pay my warmest thanks to His Excellency, former State Minister Dr. v. Gossler, for the fact that he approved, in response to my presentations, a subsidy for the local research institute from state funds.).  --Lambiam 22:41, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @Lambian. But, how did you get the full text of Die Planktonexpedition von 1889 zwischen Wissenschaft, Wirtschaft, Politik und Öffentlichkeit? I can only read the Summary here Zusammenfassung. Gerardgiraud (talk) 11:10, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

See Google-fu. I did not gain access to the full text, but by searching using plausible fragments, such as "Franz Schütt" "Goßler" and repeating the search using the results returned by Google, you can sometimes eventually piece enough together to find the answer sought.  --Lambiam 14:53, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks a lot @Lambian Gerardgiraud (talk) 15:55, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I have the following protologue (Latin obviously) of the diatom Stephanopyxis diadema (Stephanopyxidaceae family):
STEPHANOPYXIS Diadema: St. testula hemisphaerica, cellularum seriebus rectis parallelis ornata, disci medii depressi annulo dense denticulato, cellulis in 4"13-14, denticulis in tota corona adulti 30. Diam. Fossilis ad Hullis Cliff Virg.

Do you know, in this biological context, the meaning of the abbreviation "St." ? Thanks Gerardgiraud (talk) 16:01, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

@Gerardgiraud: Here is a link to the original book page for convenience. I notice that the descriptions later on in the book follow a similar pattern: the description for Campylodiscus hibernicus starts out with C. testulae, Discoplea mammilla has D. testula, Gallionella calligera has G. testula, Hyalodiscus patagonicus has H. testula, Mastogonia discoplea has M. testulae, and so forth.

So that leads me to believe that St. is an abbrevation for Stephanopyxis, perhaps in this example the genitive inflection. 98.170.164.88 21:02, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

You are completely right. Am I so stupid for not noticing this? Thanks. Gerardgiraud (talk) 06:24, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Pinging User:Mahagaja or anyone else with knowledge/resources on Celtic etymologies. The Irish entry initially said it was "possibly a borrowing from Proto-Brythonic *brɨɣėnt (“high, noble”)." When the name came up at WT:Etymology scriptorium/2021/August#Bryan, the sources I found (looking at the English surname which is related to the Irish given name, and secondarily at the Irish name itself) said Brian was unknown in Ireland before Brian Boru and that he probably got it from Breton given his family's contacts (his relatives traded with and named some descendants with names from Breton noble families and vice versa, I recall reading in one of the books cited in the earlier discussion). However, an editor in May (see entry's edit history) and another now on the talk page point out that Brión is found earlier, for Brión mac Echach Muigmedóin. So is Brian being from Breton wrong, or do Brian and Brión have distinct etymologies, or what?
If anyone has more information on the English surname than was findable last year, that'd be neat, too; Tharthan asked about that, and some sources say some bearers of the English surname get it from Norse, but I wasn't able to find how this could've happened, as all the earliest bearers I could find got it from Norman-Conquest Bretons. - -sche (discuss) 19:45, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, Brión and Brían aren't the same; the former is disyllabic and the latter monosyllabic. It's possible that the previous existence of Brión helped the popularity of Brian after Brian Boru, but I suspect the two names do have different etymologies. I have no idea where Brión comes from. Some sort of connection with *brigantī is of course tempting, but the intervocalic g should not have disappeared yet at the time of Brión mac Echach Muigmedóin, so it may be unrelated. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:12, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

French Wiktionary doesn't have anything for the origin of the sheep-goat hybrid sense, but attributes the human racial sense to the Chavín culture of pre-Columbian Peru. That seems a little questionable to me, especially since the term doesn't refer to Native Americans and isn't used in Peru, although it obviously wouldn't be the first time in history a demonym gets applied to the wrong group. Isn't it at least as plausible that the sense development was similar to mulatto ("mule, a hybrid animal" => "mixed-race person")?

As for the ultimate origin of the animal word, all that came to mind for me was Latin caper/capra, but the French descendants look pretty different, so this idea is quite probably wrong. Any suggestions? 98.170.164.88 20:43, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Books that speak of chabins (in the racial sense) also speak of câpres as another racial classification. On the surface, this latter word looks awfully similar to the Latin word you mention, and the idea that it would derive from that Latin word for "goat" and that the word chabin for "sheep-goat hybrid" would then also come to denote a racial classification (and could even derive from the same Latin word via some intermediary, as the reflex chevron shows the same shift to ʃ) seems plausible. However, TLFi asserts that câpre, câpresse, as a racial classification, derives from câpre (“caper”) "probably by analogy to the colour". Of course, chabin might still have its roots in a "goat" word if the sound changes could be explained (maybe contact with a Spanish reflex like cabra/cabrón, the influence of the other animal/word in the hybrid, mouton, or changes in Kwéyòl?)... - -sche (discuss) 21:33, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

As a chimera, cryptozoological chupacabras should come to mind. 109.40.242.217 06:51, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, chupacabra just means "goat-sucker". Chewbacca, on the other hand... ;) Wakuran (talk) 12:14, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

It must be from Latin caprinus, like Bourbonnais-Berrichon chabin (“laine longue et grossière; esp. de fourrure; sobriquet d’une personne aux cheveux frisés”), for which see FEW. Probably because brothers have curly hair. Vahag (talk) 14:49, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Sorry? "Brothers" as in "blacks"? Wakuran (talk) 21:30, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Fo shizzle. Vahag (talk) 21:49, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Sho' nuff! Wakuran (talk) 22:00, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Anyone knows the root word (possibly Malay or Sanskrit) of this Tagalog word? panukala. This word means proposal. Thanks. Ysrael214 (talk) 19:09, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

@TagaSanPedroAko, Mar vin kaiser. –Austronesier (talk) 19:53, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Rfv of the etymology. Wikipedia says it's borrowed from Dutch Waalstraat rather than being a formation at the level of English, and that this Dutch etymon could either mean "Walloon Street" or "Wall Street". (Which of those two is most plausible?) 98.170.164.88 19:47, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Since wal has a short vowel, I'd initially go for "Walloon", unless it'd be related to the Wallkill river. Wakuran (talk) 21:37, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

On the Wikipedia article Wallkill River#History, it is claimed that the river was named after the Waal river in the Netherlands, which has the same vowel. But Wall Street isn't anywhere near the Wallkill River. 98.170.164.88 21:46, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

This historic map of New Amsterdam shows a huge wall all along what is now Wall Street, sealing the city off from the rest of Manhattan, clearly erected as military defense. This is one of the senses of Dutch wal.  --Lambiam 17:26, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

The street names aren't inscribed in this map. There is no telling what road networks existed earlier. If nl:waal is a kolck, which may be a mile out, then wall is a calque from after the construction of the rampart. 109.40.240.25 08:07, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Huh, why is the link to nl.wiktionary's entry "waal" not displaying? 109.40.240.25 08:09, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

You have to put a colon before it, otherwise it simply creates a link under "In other languages" on the left-hand side of the page. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:30, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

There are no other maps that date from the Dutch colonial period, but the area was not a settlement before the Dutch settled there, so there was no pre-existing "road network". Any named paths would have had indigenous names. The meaning of waal or kolck is a stagnant pool remaining as the result of a breached dyke. Manhattan's bedrock juts out above the water level, so the colonists did not built any dykes that could suffer breaches. It is not obvious that the path along the city wall already had a street name during the Dutch colonial period.  --Lambiam 14:15, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

RFV of the etymology (etymology 4, From Hokkien sihⁿ). Seems strange for this to be adapted with if it is from Hokkien. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 18:46, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

We describe the surname Rice as being of Welsh origin (related to Rhys) and some websites say it’s Irish, though apparently only because of Welsh people of that name settling there a long time ago, but the surname is actually a lot more prevalent in England. One website claims that it can come from the same root as our second sense of rice (a now mainly Scottish dialect word for a twig or a thicket) or may indicate that someone’s ancestor sold or cooked rice. It also claims that it may come from an old French word for laugh, no doubt related to rire, and often appears in America as an anglicised form of the German Reiss. Other websites also have maps showing that the surname appears far more often in many parts of England than it does in most of Wales, Ireland or Scotland (,,). Surely we should incorporate this information into our etymology and in fact give priority to this over the claim that the surname stems from Rhys (though I’m sure that is sometimes true). Overlordnat1 (talk) 00:55, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

I expanded the entry, but you're right, man...surnames that match English words are tricky since they can be Anglicized from so many different sources. DJ K-Çel (contribs ~ talk) 17:55, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! Overlordnat1 (talk) 18:04, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Are Proto-Indo-European *h₂mergʷ- (“dark”) in Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/merkuz and *merkʷ- (“dark”) in μόλυβδος trying to refer to the same PIE root? --Espoo (talk) 14:18, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Anyhow, the hypothesis seems to contradict the theory that μόλυβδος and plumbum are related, and borrowed from a Pre-Indo-European substrate. Wakuran (talk) 14:38, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

The Leiden school agrees on *mergʷ- with various comparanda, thus murk. Beekes refers μόλυβδος to a Lydian loan into Greek, having noted that "A connection with Lat. plumbum cannot be substantiated". Our entry relies on Hajnal and Melchert specifically for the Lydian connection, which I cannot access to check *merkʷ-. Kloekhorst does not mention it but gives an interesting Luwian derivation, "a mineral imported from Cyprus". The Anatolian reconstruction, which is not strictly needed to make a loanword of μόλυβδος, hinges on a chtonic theonym of uncertain significance in any case. Wolfgang Hock tentatively agrees about Lithuanian margás with the Germanic evidence, noting that the Balto-Slavic evidence does not uniquely prove *g^(w).

*h₂mergʷ- seems to based on the initial vowel of ᾰ̓μορβός (amorbós) instead, which is absent from Beekes as far as I can see. Hock has ἀμορβός (amorbós) glossed '?' refering to Frisk (1.94) where no sense of "dark" can be found. L&S link a variant to ἀμολγῷ (amolgôi, “dark, darkness”). That Beekes has but without said variant, a possible substrate nonetheless. S.v. μόρφνοσ (mórphnos), refering to όρφνοσ (órphnos, “dark”) etc. and, citing Pisani, a reconstructed Aeolic *μόρβο-φν-οσ (*mórbo-phn-os), apparently following Sanskrit mr̥gá- (“big bird”), which is not readily accepted, directing the reader to μορφή (morphḗ), ἀμορφύνειν (amorphúnein), in which a comparison to *mergʷ- is formally ruled out by morphonology. The introduction notes, in general, that prothetics are common in the pre-Greek material. 2A00:20:6087:43FF:69AA:31CB:CD3C:4DFC 04:40, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Hajnal rests on Anatolian *morkʷ-, not as far as I can see PIE. I haven't read Melchert in detail but it does not look like he set-up a PIE root. 2A00:20:D04B:9259:610C:6C03:4B3A:53AB 10:47, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

There remains *mer- in the Lydian entry. The RfE is by the same IP who added it. 109.43.115.182 13:05, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Oh man, there's more. Bianconi (2019) and Yakubovich agree (2021, ed. Michele Bianconi, pg. 240):

The Mariwda-deities were identified with the Luwian Marwaya-deities, companions of Santa (Melchert 2008: 153). the simplest solution is to assume that the inherited Lydian mariwda- < *morgʷ-iyo- 'dark' was secondarily deployed as a theonym, calquing the usage of Luw. marway(a/i) < *morgʷ-oyo- 'dark'.

As shown in Melchert 2008, the earlier form of this adject-ive was borrowed into Mycenaean, where mo-ri-wo-do was used as the metal name 'lead' (cf. Classical Greek μόλυβδος).

—Ilya Yakubovich

Y. refers to Simon in the same volume, who voices doubt in a footnote because the loan is too early. Hajnal though is dating bronze age contacts carefully and needs molybden as evidence. The Lydian-Luwian contacts must be dated elsewhere. At least, *-iyo vs *-oyo show that the words aren't inherited from exactly the same word. Some conjecture is even concerned with a nebulous Balkanic substrate, which is reminiscent of the western route into Asia-Minor. Lydian -d- may develop from *i (how?).

At any rate, Melchert takes PIE **morgʷ- to Neumann (1973, Review: Das Ritual der Malli aus Arzawa gegen Behexung), Pokorny IEW 734.

UTexas have #734 3. mer-, mor-(u-) "to blacken; dark color, dirt spot". Helsinki has it too:

PIE √mru- √moru- √meru- (a.) ‘rot, braun, dunkel’

• √moruoi-, CLu. maru̯ai- (vb.1.) ‘rot erhellen (Blitz)’, CLu. maru̯ai̯a- (a.) ‘(BW. von Erdgottheiten (HHand. 102))’ &c.,
• √morugɑɦ- (Bernabé Pajares 1973:433) PIE *mémorugɑɦ-, Gr. μέμορυχ- (pf.) ‘(rauch)geschwärt, beschmutzt sein’ (Gr. μεμορυχμένος ), &c p. p.

Hock argues that IEW 733-34 *mer- of colorful phenomena can be held distinct. 109.40.241.160 06:48, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

This was also picked up by Manco, who argues for μορ- in dealing with μόρφνος (mórphnos) and περκνός (perknós) (2010, Indogermanische Forschungen 115, pg. 143):

Among those scholars who have rejected any explicit link be-tween μορφή and μόρφνον, Brugmann suggests the association “*mork^u̯snos: aisl. miǫrkue “Finsternis“”²⁵; Hirt himself puts forward a few solutions including – depending on the languages in which the outcome is to be found – values such as “sombre”, “obscurité”, “big-arré” or “scintiller”, “cligner les yeux”, “mort”. While still excluding any possible cognation with μορφή, he mentions other hypotheses allowing for I.E. *mer-g^u̯, *mer-q^u̯ and *mer-g^u̯h, all affected by a value extension in base *mer- “briller” (which, incidentally, is associated in Greek with the outcome μᾰρμαίρω).

—Alberto Manco

Cf. Köbler (2014, Altnordisches Wörterbuch), mjǫrkvi, myrkvi, mørkvi. Manco further cites Windekens assuming "a blending between the extremely rare ὀρφνός and *μορυχος “sombre”". He also mentions Pisani with "mr̥gʷo-gʷhno, the first part corresponding to O.Aisl. mr̥ga “wild beast, game, gazelle, bird”, and the second being an agentive name of root *gʷen-".

Oreshko disagrees with the Greek borrowing from mariwda- (2018, Journal of Language Relationship 16/2, pg. 107, 108), missing, apparently, any means for relative dating:

To begin with the Greek part, μόλυβδος represents only the standard and the most frequent form, while dialects show many other variants Despite the fact that the Mycenaean mo-ri-wo-do is the oldest form, there are actually no special reasons to proclaim it ʻmore correctʼ, since there are a priori no objective criteria of this ʻcorrectnessʼ.⁵³ The variation clearly shows that the word is originally non-Greek. In view of this variability, the connection with Latin plumbum, Bask berún or German Blei (OHG blīo/blīwes), suggested earlier, does not seem too outlandish (see also the variation μ/β in Greek itself, seen, e.g., in βλῶσκω and μολεῖν). On the other hand, one should clearly realize that we do not have the Lydian word for ʻleadʼ; the only known Anatolian word for the metal is Hitt. šulāi. As for the Lydian Mariwda-, there is every reason to see in it a Luwic borrowing. The scarce evidence which we have on the reflection of PIE *gʷ in Lydian suggests that it de-veloped either to simple tectal k (as in kãna ʻwifeʼ < PIE *gʷen-eh₂) or to voiceless labiovelar kʷ (-qãn- ʻstrike/hitʼ < PIE *gʷen- ʻstrikeʼ), as admitted earlier by Melchert (1994: 357). Consequently, PIE *mergʷ- should have reflected in Lydian as *marq- (or, less likely, *mark-). Marwā(y)a on the other hand represents a specifically Luwian form reflecting the development gʷ > w. Thus, Lydian cannot be the source of Greek μόλυβδος; nor is it likely to see it in Lu-wian, as marwa- proves to be rather far phonetically from any of the forms attested in Greek. As a result, the Anatolian origin of the word proves to be quite unfounded.

—Ostislav Oreshko

The dieties are also visited by Virgilio and Trabazo in comparison with mr̥ga (2017, Journal of Language Relationship 15/1), in which they suggest *mr̥-gʷ(h₂)-ó- < *m(e)r-gʷ(e)h₂- on the basis of mārga, "der Weg des Verschwindens", " etwa wie in *m(o)r-dʰh₁-ó- ʻtodbringendʼ > lat. morbus ʻKrankheitʼ (Bammesberger apud Wodtko & alii 2008: 491)" parallel to स्वर्ग (svarga) (cf. स्वर्गमन (svargamana)), ᾰ̓ᾱ́ᾰτος, "not ha-ving sunlight", and, for good messure, Avestan xᵛarənah (Old Persian *farnah (“glory”)). Since this is contested, I find it remarkable seeing փառք (pʻaṙkʻ) < Old Persian *farnah (“glory”) on the one hand, in contrast with the aquiline περκνός, though this may be, like most of the above, sheer coincidence. Also, discussion of *(s)mer- (e.g. by Kimball 2017, Indogermanische Forschungen 122) holds it separate from *smer- and *mer- in any shape or form. 141.20.6.61 15:14, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

More, there already is Adams and Mallory as referenced for *(h₂)merh₂gʷ- (“dark”) > *mr̥gás, reminiscent of older *merə-, cf. Manco *merəgᵘ̯-, s.v. Köbler: :

• germ. *merkwō-, *merkwōn, *merkwa-, *merkwan, sw. M. (n), Finsternis, Dunkelheit; s. idg. *merəgᵘ̯-, *mergᵘ̯-, V., Adj., flimmern, verdunkeln, dunkel, Pokorny 734; vgl. idg. *mer- (2), *merH-, *HmerH-, V., flimmern, funkeln, Pokorny 733; L.: Vr 390b

141.20.6.61 16:56, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

I know that this is not exactly the right place to ask this kind of question but I'm just asking it in case anyone has an idea. In this old botanical protologue for example STEPHANOPYXIS Diadema what do the dimensions mean: 1/96'''13-14 or -1/48''' or 1/66''' or 1/50'''. How to understand them in micrometers (μm)? Gerardgiraud (talk) 06:14, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

The entry ‴ suggests that these measurements could be lines, and that entry in turn states that a line is "Any of an ill-defined set of units of length". Based on Line (unit), my guess would be 1/12 of an inch, although I don't know for sure (and the definition of an inch could vary a bit too).

Btw, should ''' somehow point to ‴? I would have never found the entry if I had not remembered the term 'prime'. 98.170.164.88 06:32, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

The most likely meaning is the Paris line, given on Wikipedia with a ridiculous precision as 2.2558291 mm. This is 1/12 of a Paris inch, which was about 6.6% longer than the modern inch.  --Lambiam 09:09, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks all. You're right for " Paris line" since I have found a paper which do such conversion here : Typification of seven diatom taxa described by Ehrenberg. Gerardgiraud (talk) 18:56, 6 August 2022 (UTC)