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The protist Cyclidium is the type genus of the family Cyclidiidae. A priori it comes from the latin cyclus (circle), but I don't see anything circular in that protist. Have you another idea ? Gerardgiraud (talk) 15:30, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
Cyclidium looks like the straightforward Latinization of an Ancient Greek word *κυκλίδιον(kuklídion), which could be a learned neologism formed from κύκλος(kúklos) + -ίδιον(-ídion), which speakers of Ancient Greek would have understood to mean “little circle”, or, more generally, “little round thing”. I don't know what Müller saw, but in some preparations the appearance is rather round. --Lambiam19:26, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
Müller's original description here, says "Vermis inconspicuus simplicissimus pellucidus, complanatus orbicularis, vel ovatus (i.e. flattened circular, or ovate)." Gerardgiraud (talk) 13:33, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
The use of vel suggests that Müller considered complanatus orbicularis and ovatus to be synonymous. He adds Danish names, for Cyclidium bullaBOBLE-RUNDEREN, which may mean something like “the bubble rounder” (Latin bulla means “bubble”). All other Cyclidia he describes are assigned a Danish name of the form XXX-RUNDEREN. I don’t find a singular noun Runder in any Danish dictionary, so I’m not quite sure how to explain these Danish names. --Lambiam11:03, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
I guess that in Danish, the -er-ending might not necessarily indicate a doer, but can also just be a noun ending, like a "roundie". Then, I'm also a bit baffled by the coinage, anyway. Wakuran (talk) 15:56, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
Port wine became very popular in England in the 18th century, when, due to the Anglo-French wars, French wine could not be imported. England had much stronger ties with Portugal then than with Spain, even though Spain too sided with Great-Britain.
The Online Etymology Dictionary forwards the theory that the Portuguese form took hold in English through popular accounts of the executions following the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. Our article does not mention executions, but that on the Portuguese Wikipedia relates that the Inquisition burned an effigy of Francisco Xavier de Oliveira in an auto-da-fé. The Inquisition had condemned Oliveira in absentia (he lived in London) for publishing a pamphlet reportedly ascribing the earthquake to God's wrath for Portugal's Catholicism and its support for the Inquisition. --Lambiam11:31, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
porro filii Heli filii Belial nescientes Dominum (Latin Vulgate)
Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial; they knew not the LORD. (King James Version)
Now the sons of Eli were scoundrels; they had no regard for the LORD. (New Revised Standard Version)
The Hebrew בליעל(“b'liya'al”)בני(“b'ney”) seems to be analyzable as "sons(of)" . The Septuagint translates the second word as Ancient Greek λοιμοὶ(loimoì), a word for pestilence or pest. The Vulgate interprets it as a name, and the KJV follows suit. I included the NRSV to show how a modern Protestant translation treats it. Hebrew doesn't have a lot of morphology for adjectives and adjectival nouns, so having a noun phrase followed by a noun in the construct case followed by a compound adjective with nothing in between doesn't surprise me. I would interpret the Hebrew as saying "The sons of Eli were sons of worthlessness ".
We thus have a Hebrew figure of speech meaning "no good" (of men) (the female equivalent also occurs) being misinterpreted as "sons of Belial". That would be like interpreting "bitch" in "son of a bitch" as literally meaning "demon". Such is the nature of medieval biblical scholarship...
Fine, and thank you! My father was both a Greek and Hebrew scholar. Andrew H. Gray 17:16, 21 June 2024 (UTC) Andrew H. Gray 17:16, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
What Hebrew noun corresponds to use in this term, by itself, without בְּלִי? The entry mentions “ya-al”, which suggests יָעַל. There is יֹעַל(yo'al, “he is made efficient”), but this is a verb form. --Lambiam12:37, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
The same author (Andrew Jennings) has also published (according to his homepage) an article called "Hjaltland Revisited: The Place-name Shetland and its Celtic Origin", which implies that he believes the hypothesis (or did back in 2011). If there's no evidence of anyone else believing this, then we shouldn't put too much weight on what appears to be a fringe suggestion. I can't tell if the paper linked at the bottom of the entry has ever been published in a peer-reviewed journal or if it's only been uploaded to academia.edu by the author. It doesn't seem to have any date of publication. —Mahāgaja · talk20:33, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Searching for Shetland+Caledones is bringing up as little as searching for Shetland+kaletos did—only Jennings, AFAICT—so I've attributed his view to him; no objection if you or anyone else want(s) to reduce its prominence even further (say, move the whole suggestion to Further reading, or remove it). - -sche(discuss)20:55, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
I read the article. It is the author's preferred explanation and I find it a sound argument. The article was published in volume 87 of Norna-rapperter, which is peer-reviewed. The volume is titled Etymologiens plass i navneforskningen. Although I can't find it online, not even a table of contents, it must have appeared in it because there is what this review has to say about it:
Andrew Jennings bespricht die Möglichkeiten, das Erstglied des Namens Shetland auf eine Bezeichnung für die ursprünglichen keltischen Einwohner zurückzuführen.
Andrew Jennings discusses the possibilities to trace the first part of the name Shetland back to its original Celtic inhabitants.
Were the original inhabitants of Shetland even Celtic? I don't think Goidelic speakers ever settled there; are there traces of Pictish in the archipelago? —Mahāgaja · talk15:20, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
Jennings doesn't voice an opinion, but he discusses all the possibilities. He just calls them the pre-Norse inhabitants. That they were Celtic is an inferral of the reviewer. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 15:40, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
William Watson thought so in 1926, and he has a lot of academic standing. Watson argued for a *cat- origin rather than a *kalet- origin, but the Celtic origin of Shetland has been the mainstream view there for a century.
Specifically, where Latin forestis comes from. I'm not all that enamoured with the Latin-internal explanation, as far as the semantics are concerned, but at least it would explain the form forestis. Germanic seems more promising, though I don't understand @Leasnam's deriving the word specifically from Proto-West Germanic *furhiþi when that would not explain the /st/ in both Latin and Germanic forms like Forst. Coromines & Pascual (cited on the Latin entry) describe the origin as ‘perhaps from a Frankish *forhist, a collective of/from *forha "pine"’. I can't seem to find a Germanic collective suffix like -hist, so I don't know what to make of this. Whatever this source has in mind, if it does explain the form *forhist then that would strike me as the best proposed etymology. Also it'd be nice to account for the gender mismatch between Latin~Romance (feminine) and Germanic (masculine) if possible.
Old High German has both forstm and forstif (> Middle High Germanvorstef, perhaps > GermanFörste(plural)). The Proto-(West) Germanic *forhist has been around for some time if I'm not mistaken, and yes supposes an ending of -ist (not -hist, the h being part of the stem), but where this -ist comes from is also a mystery. If Latin foresta comes from Proto-West Germanic *forhu, the how is really unknown. The nearest thing is Old Englishfyrhþ and fyrhþe from Proto-West Germanic*furhiþi. I'm not saying definitively that I stand on this as a theory, but it hypotheticallymight possibly be arrived at (with lots of luck and magic), IF *furhiþi goes into Latin as *forisi- then back into Old High German where an excrescent -t is added then BACK into Latin...it'd be a mess. But thoughts are welcome Leasnam (talk) 22:22, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
@Nicodene: I think a Germanic etymology is the only reasonable explanation. Germanic does insert *s before *þ/t in some environments, but I think most likely is that WG *furhiþi merged with *hursti to form Continental WG *fur(h)isti. -- Sokkjō22:06, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
So a sort of blend. Interesting. Perhaps that deserves an entry of its own. What might explain the modern Germanic forms being masculine? Nicodene (talk) 22:19, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Interesting. I should’ve checked the gender of the descendants of *hursti.
It sounds like we all think *furhisti is the best (or least problematic) proposal? As for the *furhu + *hursti explanation, I don’t see how it is accounting for the first *i of *furhisti. Nicodene (talk) 22:55, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Shall we create an entry *fur(h)isti, then? The descendants seem to justify the form, and different possible explanations can always be mentioned in the etymology. Nicodene (talk) 23:39, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Indeed, a Germanic origin is likely considering it was first used in Francia. Any explanation should also account for the fact that Latin forestis specifically meant “king's forest”. I can't find a reference for this, but I wonder if the Latin is instead based on Proto-Germanic *furistaz(“first, ruler”), perhaps a contamination of an adjective Proto-West Germanic *furistī(“royal, the king's”) and *furhiþi(“forest”).
@Caoimhin ceallach I've not been able to locate any forms showing a reflex of */x/, which does seem problematic for the aforementioned theories.
I've no objection to adding your *furistī theory to the entry *furhisti and perhaps even renaming the entry as such, depending on what the other resident Germanicists think. Nicodene (talk) 08:46, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
If my understanding is correct, per the entry in Kiss Gábor's Etimologiai Szótár, it seems this is derived from obsolete verb töpik meaning something like "to wither up", by the addition of a frequentative -r suffix. We see a reflection of the resulting töpör- stem in reflexive / intransitive verb töpörödik(“to shrivel, to shrink”, see also the entry in the A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára). The term törpe arose as the present participle of the töpör- stem, by means of reduction of the second vowel to töpr-; addition of the (now-obsolete / dialectal) present participle suffix -e to töpre; then metathesis of the "p" and "r" to current form törpe.
That said, I don't entirely trust my grasp of the Hungarian, so I'll leave it to others more knowledgeable than I am to double-check the above and update the törpe entry as appropriate. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig21:24, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
It may be an easy one to solve, but I couldn't find any specific reliable data as for the 1st element of the brand name Nupedia. (This was the project Wikipedia grew out from.)
A project presentation probably written by co-founder Larry Sanger suggests (without explicitly stating it) a derivation from the yod-dropped pronunciation of new – /nu(ː?)/.
Joseph Janes from University of Washington derives it from GNU in a 2015 podcast, but I think chronology makes this unlikely, see e.g. w:GNE (encyclopedia).
A quote from How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia: “The computing power and capital to take on new projects at Bomis made it the right time to fulfill a dream of Wales's: creating an online encyclopedia. He wanted to call it Nupedia, again sticking with a GNU-inspired name, but without wanting to step on Stallman’s toes.” The book has a foreword by Wales, and the introduction states that the book would not have been possible without extensive interviews with “the principal enablers of Wikipedia”, including Wales. --Lambiam11:45, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
I dimly recall reading years ago something about German verb pairs centering around an umlauting mechanism, where the (usually transitive) one of the pair reflected some kind of ancient causal suffix or infix. Pairs like Germanfahren(“to go somewhere”, intransitive) and führen(“to lead”, transitive).
Is my memory correct on this kind of mechanism in certain German verbs?
Is this relevant for Germanfordern(“to demand, to require”) and fördern(“to support, to move something forward, to encourage”)?
Even if not relevant, are fordern and fördern related? If so, how?
We actually have entries for both verbs' Proto-West Germanic ancestors: *forþ(a)rōn for fordern and *furþrijan for fördern. They are related, because they both go back ultimately to Proto-Germanic *furþą(“forward”), but they're not an intransitive/causative transitive pair (not least because they're both transitive). —Mahāgaja · talk20:44, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
Thank you both!
@Mahagaja, setting aside this particular verb pair, is my memory about umlaut and a causative element at all on the mark, as part of the derivation of certain German verbs? Or have I gotten my wires crossed? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig00:41, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
Yes, a lot of pairs like that in German. They're most apparent in the basic verbs used to describe placement and position: legen/liegen (equivalent to lay/lie), setzen/sitzen (set/sit), Quite often, subsequent linguistic evolution mean this isn't immediately clear - see the long etymology on hängen (where the umlauted forms have merged in the present tense, but not the past forms)
My favorite is drink/drench (= cause to drink), which corresponds to trinken/tränken. One pair that's still transparently intransitive/causative is ertrinken(“to drown”, intransitive)/ertränken(“to drown”, transitive). The PIE causative suffix *-éyeti took the o-grade of the root, which became a in Germanic, which was then umlauted, which is why so many of these causatives or former causatives still have /ɛ/-vocalism to this day: fell/fällen, set/setzen, legen (with secondary lengthening), hängen, schwemmen, drench/(er)tränken. —Mahāgaja · talk07:54, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
We give hawk ("try to cough up something from one's throat") as onomatopoeic, whereas we give hock ("cough heavily, especially causing uvular frication") as a variant of hack ultimately from PGmc. hakkōną ("chop, hoe"). I suspect hawk and hock are actually related to each other. Merriam-Webster gives hawk as "imitative", and hock as a variant of hawk (see their entries, but also this discussion of hawk-vs-hock). - -sche(discuss)00:32, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
if MW is right then we should probably move hack(“cough”) out of the entry because it seems most likely to be imitative too. —Soap—20:03, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
When you say we should ‘remove hack out of the entry’, are you suggesting that we should remove the ‘cough’ sense of the word hack from etymology 1 at the hack entry itself, perhaps creating a new etymology in the process, or are you referring to a different entry altogether? Overlordnat1 (talk) 05:12, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
yes, remove it and add a new etymology for it as a variant of hock or perhaps hawk, as i find it unlikely the semantics shifted from the physical motion to the sound effect independently. (But if even a single other dictionary DOES say it happened independently then we can go with that.) —Soap—05:29, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
Good point, I think it would be safest to move the "cough" sense to its own etymology section and then explain the possible origins there (that it could be from the "chop/cut" sense, or could be imitative); I'll do that. Etymonline says the "cough" sense of hack is attested since 1802, "perhaps from hack (v.1) on the notion of being done with difficulty, or else imitative"; v.1 is the "cut/chop" verb, which they say is attested "with a notion of 'get through by some effort,'" since 1955, from hack after "keep working away at" which is from the 14th century. We should also examine to what extent hawk, hock and hack have different definitions, vs should be harmonized. - -sche(discuss)05:58, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
That sounds like a sensible approach. We could also do with adding some pronunciations and maybe regional tags as to ‘hawk/hock a loogie’ sounds very American, unlike to ‘hack up phlegm’ (often a precursor to ‘flobbing’). Also the pronunciation can vary wildly - some people actually say the words as ‘hock’ or ‘hawk’ but others say both as ‘hahk’ or say ‘hock’ (and occasionally ‘hawk’) so that it sounds closer to ‘hack’ in any case. Could flob come from phlegm+gob instead of simply being imitative btw? Overlordnat1 (talk) 06:47, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
I've consolidated hawk vs hock. If anyone thinks anything of value has been lost in the merger, please edit or comment accordingly. (I did drop the "cough while the vomit reflex is triggered, gag" sense during the merger; I'm not familiar with it; no objection if someone wants to take it to RFV.) - -sche(discuss)01:40, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
Etymology of "Alatri", "Alatrium", "Aletrium"
Clearly the word Alatri is the regular Alatrese development for what would have given Italian Alatrio (Alatrese has ´-i where Italian has ´-io, ´-ia, ´-i(i) or ´-ie), so Alātrium, a variant of Alētrium, but where does the Latin name Alētrium, whence Ancient Greek Ἀλέτριον (Alétrion), come from?
Antonio Sciarretta proposes that "The name seems to be built with an IE suffix *-ter-, which denotes an agent. Thus, the stem could be derived from the IE root *al- 'to grow, nourish', or even from a parallel root with a meaning 'to grind', from which the Armenian word alauri 'mill', originally reconstructed as *alatrio-".
just hoping someone can help with what i gather is meant to be a silly word ... Allerwertester ... it means bum, bottom, ass, rear end, but i cant really figure out what speech register it belongs to other than that it's obviously not vulgar. Google Translate says it means "best regards" and that sort of looks right for a literal translation of aller + wertester but it won't back-translate English "best regards" into anything even close to Allerwertester, space or no space. so Im hoping a native speaker here or a well-acquainted learner can give us a better etymology than the redlink we have right now. Best regards, —Soap—19:58, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
Not necessarily a native speaker, but the classifier "colloquial, humorous" looks about right. I'd say that it literally means something like "the most valuable", "the most worthy", but the exact connotations and semantic history eludes me. Wakuran (talk) 22:14, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
Correct. The literal meaning is "most worthy one", which was originally a polite address. For the further development, I would say that in polite speech it can be a bit awkward to mention other persons' body parts, especially of course with women. So I suppose people would add "your most worthy" when they had to refer to a lady's body parts for some reason. I could easily imagine a polite 19th-century gentleman say something like "Meine Dame, seien Sie vorsichtig, dass Sie sich nicht Ihr allerwertestes Bein stoßen!" (My lady, please be careful lest you should bruise your most worthy leg!), because only mentioning the leg would touch on the indelicate. And then obviously the need for such euphemism was even stronger in case of the bottom. -- In terms of contemporary style I would call it "colloquial, euphemistic, humorous" along with DWDS (umgangssprachlich, verhüllend, scherzhaft). 84.63.31.9107:18, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
so it's a nominalized adjective, not a re-singularized plural noun? OK. Even that much wasn't clear to me from my limited knowledge of German and Google Translate's attempt at figuring it out. If I decapitalize it on GTrans the meaning changes completely. Could we rewrite the etymology to say it's a nominalized adjective (even though we don't list that adjective yet), with a meaning like "most worthy"? Thanks, —Soap—08:37, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
The declension is exactly as one expects for a nominalized adjective, with strong/weak/mixed declensions. Without much effort I also find neuter nominalizations with apparently the same sense (Versorge Dein Allerwertestes mit Feuchtigkeit). For a literal translation, most precious seems better (to me) than most worthy, which would correspond to *Allerwürdigster, as in, Wer kann die Glorie Deiner Würde, o Allerwürdigster, erreichen? As always, take good care of your most precious. --Lambiam09:17, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
Although on second thought neither is perfect. "Wert" is not the same as "wertvoll". It kinda unites the meanings of "worthy" and "precious".84.63.31.9112:01, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
RFV of the etymology. @Benwing2 in diff removed the references I added, and called them "garbage etymology." Now there are no sources. Please also update Wikipedia if the source was wrong. 184.146.170.12700:17, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
Clearly, Plutarch cannot be considered an authority on Latin etymology. The source that was removed, The principal roots of the Greek tongue, a text from 1859, is also not up to present-day etymological standards. The etymology given for ovation (“sheep f. ὄϊς ιοςwhence ovation”) seems to imply that Latin ovis comes from Ancient Greek ὄϊς(óïs). These two terms are cognates, but only by having a common PIE ancestor. Claiming a Greek root for ovation is about as absurd as claiming that English ewe has a Greek root. The book is full of bloopers, such as deriving bias from βία(bía, “bodily strength”). De Vaan, who is an authority, does not even mention the imagined connection to ovis, but only remarks that the similar Ancient Greek verb εὐάζω(euázō, “to cry in honour of Dionysus”) comes from words like εὐαί(euaí), thereby suggesting that the Latin verb may have a similar onomatopoeic origin. If true, we can only guess what the Latin jubilant cry was. --Lambiam08:52, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
Oh sorry. I mistook it for a reliable and authoritative source just because it was a published book. I didn't read more than that page and the cover when copying from Wikipedia. Removed from Wikipedia. 184.146.170.12712:38, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
The descendants list (of various descendants that look about like soutien, with no hint of gorge, and mean "bra") is currently divided between the two entries, some on one and some on the other, some on both. I suspect they should all be on one page, either all derived from soutien (which has the right form, but as our entry currently stands, not the right sense—maybe it's missing a sense for use as a clipping of soutien-gorge?), or all derived from soutien-gorge (which has the right sense, but the languages must've all clipped off the second part)... - -sche(discuss)16:00, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
As soutien would basically just mean support in French, it'd appear as if the word was widely borrowed with the second part clipped. I can't find any evidence that soutien ever has been widely used with the sense bra in French. Wakuran (talk) 17:45, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
I couldn't find a source for that. I didn't see any listing in any major dictionaries. Not sure if it would be due mostly to rarity or poor searching. Wakuran (talk) 22:14, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
Still thinking about these. I mean, I've found 5 whole dictionaries with this root at this point, both European and American dictionaries. Am I missing something here? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 15:09, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
The only thing I can ascertain from this is that פּאָטעפֿאַלנאָסט(potefalnost) was probably derived from פּאָטעפֿאַלנע(potefalne), since East Slavic and Polish have a regular pattern of deriving such abstract nouns (-(н)ость(-(n)ostʹ)) from adjectives (-(н)ы(-(n)y)). In addition, the alternate forms suggest that this probably has non-negligibly unstressed vowels which is more typical of Russian or Belarusian than other Slavic languages. But that's all I got. I did find Тофалары, but that's a group of people in Irkutsk. What the hell would that have to do with Yiddish or even Jews?? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 17:20, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
-nost is surely Slavic and it is no problem to have both -nost and po- in a same word. Am sure it has nothing to do with Tofalars, but rather some Slavic or German word. F can sometimes interchange with KH in Russian and Ukrainian dialects, but "potekhalnost" is not a word neither in no language. @Vahagn Petrosyan it can not be related to Tefal (some people use it on their frypans), because Tefal was not existing in the times of Sholem Aleykhem, but honestly am was also thinking about it LOL. Can this word (ot its root) be from Hebrew? Like, תפל or טפל? Tollef Salemann (talk) 19:09, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
Initially, I'd have guessed that it could have been a Slavic-Germanic merger with a variant of German Teufel, but looking it up, it appears as if the Yiddish variant is טײַוול (tayvl), so it's most likely just a shot in the dark. Besides, the Devil might be less significant in Jewish circles than in Christian, anyway. Wakuran (talk) 11:53, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
Θούλη, Thule
I am exploring Thule, from Θούλη(Thoúlē), and I wish to bring up the idea that Proto-Celtic*tullos(“perforated”) (referring to the ragged shorelines of islands in that area) might be a possibility. Celtic languages have been spoken in that area since ancient times, and Celtic initial-mutation could account for the alternation between Θ- and T-. 24.108.18.8116:38, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
Celtic languages have been spoken in Britain since at leat 500 BCE, and probably before w:Insular_Celts#Linguistics. Thule is likely to have described a vague and extensive area - most of the northern North Atlantic has "perforated coasts". The name Ultima Thule would be given to the furthest known bit at any given time. 24.108.18.8117:39, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
The first account using the name, the travelogue On The Ocean by Pytheas, was written around 325 BCE. (Unfortunately, the work was lost; the earliest surviving text using the name is The Histories, written by Polybius c. 140 BCE, who is sceptical of Pytheas's account.) We don't know how Proto-Celtic was pronounced, but it was no longer spoken when Polybius was travelling. A Celtic language was then probably spoken in the southern part of Britain; it is not clear how far north it had spread. At that time, Ancient Greek Θούλη was still pronounced /tʰúː.lɛː/, with an aspirated /tʰ/ as in some pronunciations of tea, not with a /θ/ as in thin. Nothing suggests a leniting mutation. --Lambiam17:28, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
this is a companion post to the RFV i posted earlier today, but since this involves a separate word i figured it would be best to post here too. basically my question is, whether this word family is
a well-known children's language game (similar to Pig Latin and jeringonza) involving transformations like C1VC2C3-INFL > pVC2C1-INFL, which also produces other words,
a once-off formation that does come from sömn ~ sömnig but isnt an active word formation process even among small children, or
a word in its own right, that has nothing to do with sömn.
The question of how it got to mean "sexually exhausted" will probably be answered if and only if we can find actual citable use with that meaning, which i hope others will help with at RFV. Best regards, —Soap—12:38, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
Likely #3. I don't know of any common Swedish language games that would produce pöms- from sömn-. The sound -Vms- is fairly common among imitative words in Swedish, though, such as mums (yum), plums (splash), bums (immediately), grums (dregs), gramse (angry, grumpy), vimsig (scatterbrained) and trams/ flams/ jams (silliness, nonsense). Wakuran (talk) 17:48, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
There apparently exists a similar language game, P-språket, (P-language) but there, 'sömn' would become 'söpömn', also, the Disney comic character Eega Beeva speaks similarly, but in that case, 'sömn' would become 'psömn'. From what I can find out, pömsig is dialectal and/ or baby talk. Wakuran (talk) 23:26, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
According to this site, the word was popularized through a 60s' comedy sketch, which sounds plausible, but might require a better source. Wakuran (talk) 15:37, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
Pøms in Norwegian Glomdal dialect means a woman shoe of some kind. Also, should try to check out this word in Knoparmoj dictionaries and others jargons alike. Tollef Salemann (talk) 10:36, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
We currently say this was borrowed directly from Khitan 𘱿𘲫(*qid ún) under influence from Chinese 契丹(Qìdān), presumably as some kind of learned borrowing from the reconstruction, but the linked source doesn't really support that, as the reconstructed endonym would give something like Khitai. I can think of one instance where a reconstructed endonym has become the predominant term - Jurchen - and Khitai may be another instance, but it seems more likely to me that Khitan is simply a learned borrowing from Middle Chinese 契丹(kʰɨt̚ tɑn). I appreciate the line is quite blurry, though, since we're dealing with a Middle Chinese transcription of a Khitan term. Theknightwho (talk) 12:40, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
Such words are copied around by historians, journalists and other lesser-educated people, without investigating the linguistic points of departure, which is what we do as a first reflex to make sense of the world, and memorize the polyglot knowledge orderly. For them it contains -an from Latin -ānus as much as does Mayan, dovetailing with Cathayan in previous historic accounts. **Khitanan only exists not due to silliness. What the question then is, is indeed blurry. Fay Freak (talk) 17:35, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
Paramodita roughly means 'happiness' or 'delighted' in Old Sundanese according to (Coolsma, 1913). And I am very sure that this comes from Sanskrit, considering how classic the word is (dated from Carita Waruga Guru
in late 1600s) and how it sounds very Sanskrit-y. From what I've searched, this might came from Sanskritप्र-(pra-) and Sanskritमृडति(mṛḍati), based on the Palipamudita and Javanesepramudita. What do you think?
Udaradingin (talk) 15:45, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
@Fish bowl I did not find it in 奄美方言分類辞典 (Amami Yamatohama dialect ), or just about most Ryukyuan dictionaries I have. It only exists in Taketomi dictionary 竹富方言辞典 as ɕimautə and in the Hatoma dictionary 鳩間方言辞典 as ɕìmáʔùtà. Both refer to a folk song from Okinawa. I believe it is a recent local innovation, deriving from shima "community" and uta "song". Chuterix (talk) 01:56, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
Interesting, especially since the Japanese Wikipedia describes the term as originating from the Amami region, and since it seems to be one of the major cultural exports. Thanks for looking it up for me. —Fish bowl (talk) 02:41, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
@Munzirtaha probably because they were either borrowed from some other language, which got them (directly or indirectly) from Arabic, or inherited from Ottoman Turkish, which got them them (directly or indirectly) from Arabic. We only use "borrowed" to refer to a language getting a term directly from the other language. If you think about it, there's a big difference between a word like Turkish gitar, which came from Spanish (probably by way of French), which borrowed it from Arabic maybe half a millenium ago, and Turkish Dübey, which was borrowed directly from modern Arabic by modern Turkish speakers. Both were borrowed from Arabic and ended up in Turkish, but only the second counts as being a Turkish borrowing from Arabic.
If you think about it, the Turkish people have been in contact with people speaking Arabic or using Arabic words in other languages for so long that it would be really surprising if they hadn't picked up most of their Arabic vocabulary long before the creation of modern Turkish. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:09, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
I should add that all terms that come from other languages go into the "derived from" categories, including those that are also in the "borrowed from" categories. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:19, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. In this entry e.g. sur Inherited from Ottoman Turkishسور, from Arabicسُور(sūr). I meant to say the Ottoman Turkish is borrowed from Arabic not that the modern Turkish is borrowed from Arabic. Is this syntax correct? Or the order doesn't imply such a thing. What if I want to say word1 is borrowed from word2 or word3 where the order is not relevant? Is there a documentation for this? Munzirtaha (talk) 12:06, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
The Turkish < Ottoman Turkish stage would be inheritance, but the borrowing template would only be used on the Ottoman Turkish entry, not the modern Turkish one. {{bor}} and the "borrowed" category are only for direct borrowings, with no intermediary, even an older stage of the same language (if we treat it as a separate language on en.wikt). I'm not sure about your given example of word1 < word2 or word3 - do you have an example? Is it a case where it's not known which source is the correct one? — SURJECTION/ T / C / L /13:10, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
Thanks. An example is the Ottoman Turkish word ابراش which has two different meanings and seems to be borrowed from two Arabic words أبرش and أبرص. The 1st. meaning is a color and the 2nd. is a disease. Don't quote me for this since I am not an authority by any mean. So, assuming I understand the references correctly, what's the correct way to write this? Munzirtaha (talk) 20:12, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
Homonymous terms with different etymologies get two separate entries on the same page, with headings Etymology 1 and Etymology 2.
Do you have a source for Arabic أبرص meaning a disease (presumably scabies). At our page for Turkish abraş we only give the adjective, the colour sense (“dapple”), but in Ottoman Turkish the sense was more generally “speckled” and could also mean “leprous” (of a skin), so it is a small step from there to a disease characterized by a mottled skin. --Lambiam20:59, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
Actually أبرص is one with leprous disease and the two words sounds similar. What kind of source do you need? If you understand Arabic, check any Arabic dictionary (Kamus) for it. Now for the abraş entry, it's me who added it. But my question here is because I felt I did something wrong when I wrote "Inherited from Ottoman Turkish ابراش, from Ottoman Turkish ابرش". I now feel like I should say "Inherited from Ottoman Turkish ابراش or from Ottoman Turkish ابرش" or may be I should says "from ابراش or ابرش". Being new here, I need to know the correct syntax Munzirtaha (talk) 21:31, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
Ottoman Turkish was hardly a spoken language, and inasmuch as it was spoken, it was mostly not by native speakers, who spoke a language closer to both Old Anatolian Turkish and present-day Turkish, grammatically and lexically. There is no corpus of written texts in this language. For example, izlemek survived from Old Anatolian Turkish to modern Turkish; the Ottoman Turkish verb was تعقیب ایتمك (tʿaḳib itmek), which became takip etmek. For non-religious terms coming from Arabic, it is a safe bet though that they entered the modern Turkish lexicon from Ottoman Turkish, often with Classical Persian as a stepping stone. Hardly any Turk would have known the meaning of Ottoman Turkish عكسعمل, via Persian from Arabic عَكْس(ʕaks) + ال(al-) + عَمَل(ʕamal), which became Turkish aksülamel but led a dictionary-only existence. --Lambiam20:32, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
If two terms are homonyms but have different etymologies, we consider them to be different terms, listing them under separate Etymology headings, like Old French aloer § Etymology 1 (from Latin allaudāre) and aloer § Etymology 2 (from Latin allocāre). Very rarely, a term has dual etymological ancestry, resulting from the melding of two borrowed or inherited different terms, like these two Old French terms merged in Anglo-Norman, inherited on English as English allow. Such rarities apart, a term that is not newly coined is either inherited from an ancestor language, or borrowed from third language. So in an etymological chain, the first step is then either {{inh}} or {{bor}}. If it is {{inh}}, this step can be followed by a possibly lengthy sequence of further {{inh}} steps. After that, it can only be {{der}}.
Conventionally, if a modern Turkish term is attested in Ottoman Turkish, we say it is inherited from Ottoman Turkish, even if this may not be the whole story. For example, Turks who did not know Ottoman Turkish would nevertheless greet people with selamünaleyküm. Since “kaba Türkçe” has not been deemed worthy of being recorded, we have no reasonable alternative. In any case, it was not borrowed into modern Turkish.
It becomes problematic if a modern Turkish term clearly derives from Arabic but is not attested in Ottoman Turkish. We cannot know if it was inherited from earlier Anatolian Turkish, bypassing the Ottoman transmogrification. Also in this case, the only option is {{der}}. An exception is formed by terms that were recently borrowed, such as intifada --Lambiam11:25, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the clear explanation. Based on my current understanding, I edited the selamünaleyküm entry to reflect that it's derived from ota as an one intermediary language, at least, with a reference. Hope it's correct like this "even if this may not be the whole story". Munzirtaha (talk) 23:53, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
@Munzirtaha Regarding selamünaleyküm, I was just wondering how one can know that it went through Classical Persian, as the Persian term is without -un (Steingass also gives "salām ʻalaikum"). By the way, how do we know how it was pronounced in Ottoman Turkish (given that the dammatan for -un isn't written in most texts)? Exarchus (talk) 18:45, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
@Exarchus I don't know whether it went through Classical Persian and it's not me who added the Persian part. If there is no reference, I would say it went directly from Arabic to Ottoman Turkish because of what you said. Regarding the pronunciation, I think it's safe to assume Turkish modern pronunciation is the same as the Ottoman Turkish except when there is an exception with a reference. The alphabet reform primarily addressed the writing system, replaced many Arabic and Persian origin words but did not directly change the pronunciation of words. Munzirtaha (talk) 12:59, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
Hi! -ät instead of -ä(h) or -ätün, izafa instead of case endings, z instead of d for ض(ḍ): they were traditions followed by the Turks, borrowing words from a Perso-Arabic lexicon. I have no evidence on the single phrase, but considering the historical position of Persian in the Ottoman Empire I think I believe it. LibCae (talk) 10:19, 14 October 2024 (UTC)
I tried to add the Arabic root to aksülamel, though I understand it's not used nowadays. I don't understand why it's removed and whether I have done something wrong. I tried to contact the user who removed it but he doesn't respond till now. Can you please advice what's the problem? Munzirtaha (talk) 21:50, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
It is a term in Persian, fabricated by univerbation from Arabic components. Inasmuch as عكس العمل has a meaning in Arabic, it means something like “reverse work”, but it is not a term for a specific concept such as “reaction”. --Lambiam10:23, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
When was Antarctica discovered? Your first impression will be to say to me: "Google it my bro, it's like 1820 by some sailor." Yeah, I get that somebody saw something in 1820. I get that the Wilkes expedition discovered coastline in the 1840's. But couldn't those guys have been seeing a mere big island, as far as they knew? When was a solid concept of the modern scientific notion of the "Continent of Antarctica" in the works or actually established, such that citations we can find will be connected to the real actual concept of the real continent? I've got a book from 1891 by a respected geographer cited at Antarctica who was really doubting what Antarctica really was- was it a continent that had been bona fide established like the other continents? He writes: "The five largest islands or peninsulas in which the crests of the World Ridges break through the uniform covering of the hydrosphere are termed continents, and designated by the names Eurasia, Africa, North America, South America, and Australia. They are distinguished from other islands and peninsulas by size alone, Australia being ten times larger than New Guinea, and Africa ten times larger than Arabia, these being the greatest island and peninsula not called continents. The elevated region round the South Pole is crowned by the unexplored and scarcely discovered continent of Antarctica." after listing five continents two sentences earlier. You'd think he'd include Antarctica as a sixth continent if it had been scientifically established. I draw attention to the words "scarcely discovered". --Geographyinitiative (talk) 12:17, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
Be cause in 1891 they still had no clue about 60% of the coastlines, so many English maps from before 1900 are not using the name Antarctica at all (sadly, i cant find so many non-English maps from this time). Many maps (until 1890-s!) have ocean instead of land in the South Pole area, even when it is known about land around it. So your question is very fair. Tollef Salemann (talk) 13:08, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
Is this an issue of the etymology of the term? The Spanish explorers who named the North-American peninsula California believed it was an island. But the indigenous people had known for ages that it is a peninsula. So when was California “discovered”? When Francisco de Ulloa found out it was not an island, did he “rediscover” California? --Lambiam19:37, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
According to Dubrovin (Территориальное деление Антарктиды), the Antarctic peninsula was thought as an island archpelago until some expedition in 1937, but still was shown on maps as an island in early 1940-s. Also, see Buache who divided the main land of Antarctica into two parts (the one of them is shown as part of Australia pr New Zealand). Tollef Salemann (talk) 09:15, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
The term "Antarctica" as referring to the southernmost continent originates, as per the OED, in 1594. The earliest quote that establishes Antarctica as a sort-of-real-continent would be around or later than the 1850s, when ships when circling the new area. CitationsFreak (talk) 05:07, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
Seems like the same kinda story as with Anian strait, but if Anian strait has changed its name after its real discovering, the Antarctica is still named the same. Tollef Salemann (talk) 18:36, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
One is on the page, short for bull and/or bullsh*t session - a session where people sit around and (talk) bullsh*t...(?) Leasnam (talk) 01:39, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
I see it's written "Synonym of مَرْفَأ (marfaʔ, “port, harbor”)".
It's definitely not standard Arabic so you are not going to find it in a proper dictionary (kamus). But if you mean it's used in city names or nonstandard Arabic, then yes, it's either French or English, depending on the country. e.g. In Sudan, the city and famous port Port Sudan is named in the days of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Arabic countries still transliterate foreign names and use them. Port is just like that. I am a native Arabic speaker and don't understand why would they consider it Arabic in the first place. Munzirtaha (talk) 00:32, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
I came across this recently and initially assumed it was a printing error for commodious (as it means exactly the same thing), but it turned out to be really easy to cite. No other dictionary has an entry for it, and I suspect it probably originated as a misconstruction, but I don't know. Theknightwho (talk) 06:25, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
I think you're right that it's a misconstruction. Probably commodious blended with harmonious or something like that. —Mahāgaja · talk07:48, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, I think you're right. It looks like melonious(“melodious”) has been used in the same way (), though that one's also developed a humorous "melon-like" sense as well. Along with commonious, it looks like the misconstructed form starts appearing in print during the second half of the 19th century, though I've not checked in any detail; it could just be that the mass-proliferation of printed matter made it more visible, which is supported by the fact that a disproportionate number of hits for both are in newspaper classifieds (i.e. they've been sent in by ordinary people). Theknightwho (talk) 22:32, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
The possibility of assimilation also comes to mind.
Phonological: both commodius and melodious have a preceding /m/, and the nasal counterpart to /d/ is /n/.
Lexical: words ending in -onious occur more frequently than words ending in -odious.
Please leave the etymology as it was last edited, which is far better than my improvement. Reverting it to either of the past two edits in that section shall be pure vandalism; I can state that as being an etymology analyst. I would even suggest that it be locked as it is of this time. Andrew H. Gray 15:50, 21 June 2024 (UTC) Andrew H. Gray 15:50, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
An obsolete(?) term for watermelon, clearly related to Spanish sandía(“watermelon”). Is this borrowed from an old Spanish spelling, or is something else going on here?
On a separate note, should the label "US" be changed to "California" (or even "Southern California")? Of the four cites, the two which don't provide a gloss after using are both from SoCal, and - in the 1909 case - it's used in a pun in the LA Times, suggesting many people had everyday familiarity with the term.
As the -ll- is just pronounced similarly to the English "y sound", I guess it could have been either an English hypercorrection or a Spanish dialectal diminutive. Wakuran (talk) 18:05, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
Adding to this, this kind of misspelling is not uncommon amongst Spanish speakers in general but is especially common amongst Spanish speakers in the United States, as they often lack any sort of Spanish-medium schooling; because Spanish orthographical transparency is high, they are often literate "by default" in Spanish so long as they have learned the Latin alphabet for another language (English, in this case), but there are a few common sorts of errors that almost act as shibboleths for this kind of "accidental" literacy (initial h-deletion or insertion is another). If you search for #sandilla on TikTok you'll find quite a few examples of this misspelling (on other socials too, probably, but I haven't checked). Brusquedandelion (talk) 13:11, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
@Brusquedandelion Are you sure it's obsolete in Southern California, and not just a colloquial term? Most of the modern references I can find online refer to drinks (cocktails, smoothies etc), so it might have fossilised in that one specific context, but the results skew pretty heavily towards SoCal. Theknightwho (talk) 19:42, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
@Theknightwho: I can see a good bit of code-switching in those results: recipe titles in Spanish, followed by translations in English, with the English parts mentioning the Spanish terms in the process of translating them. Most of the dialects present in SoCal are characterized by Yeísmo, so a non-native speaker would have no way to tell whether the correct spelling was "-ílla" or "-ía". That makes the likelihood of a cross-linguistic misspelling fairly high- it's hard to be sure whether the term really exists as English, or is just a series of one-off bad guesses at the Spanish. There's also the matter of whether sandilla exists as a Spanish term, but I'll leave that for others. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:46, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
@Chuck Entz I'm confident that it definitely did exist in SoCal English at the turn of the 20th century, as the LA Times quote from 1909 is Besides the regular dividends the neat and interesting job of occasionally carving a surplus sandilla is performed, and the metallic chink of the resulting proceeds in the stockholder’s pocket gives forth a highly melonious sound. I initially mistook this as an instance of "melonious" being used to mean "melodious", but it's evidently a pun that relies on the reader knowing that a sandilla is a watermelon. Looking at the 1881 cite, the phrase bade Hercules Melendez go home and be a good boy, cultivate sandillas and have an ever open eye for jerked beef suggests that "sandilla" was being used in a slightly derogatory manner to evoke stereotypical ideas of Mexico; you could imagine the same sentence being written as "go home and be a good boy, put on his sombrero and eat some tacos" or something equally crass. In both cases, the meaning and subtext of the sentence can only be understood if you know what a sandilla is (or, in the second case, if you've heard the word in passing a few times). Theknightwho (talk) 23:07, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
Currently the "Donkey" page has several senses for the word, but to me, number 5 and number 7 seem much too similar to each other:
- (naval slang, dated) A box or chest, especially a toolbox.
- British sea term for a sailor's storage chest.
I don't know either sense, but I suggest that more information be added to show clearly why they are not the same thing, or that they be merged. TooManyFingers (talk) 14:40, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
I have some issues with "equivalent to theo + -log.", as "theo" does not mean "god" in English, so this surface analysis would be invalid. ୨୧17:32, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
Hi! Is Turkish fıskiye of Arabic or Turkish origin? The ending suffix -iye is definitely of Arabic origin but the rest is confusing. Nişanyan suggests that it is derived from the word fış or fıs, both from onomatopoeic origin as in "fışır fışır"/"fısır fısır" or "fışkırmak", and adds that "Modern Arapça fisḳiyya (aynı anlamda) Türkçeden alıntı olmalıdır" which translates to: "Modern Arabic 'fisḳiyya (of the same meaning) should be a borrowing from Turkish" . However TDK suggests that its borrowed from Arabic فسقية(fisqiyya), which is derived from فسق meaning "to come out of one's shell (for a ripe date)". Both origins are pretty solid I believe so I have to ask. In support of the Turkic origin, fış is directly related to a violent gushing out of water (as in fışkırmak) while Arabic origin is about coming out of shell (I don't know Arabic nor am I a linguist so take that with a grain of salt). Also there's a widespread variant of the word which is fışkiye which resembles fışkır- (this might also be caused by the confusion with fışkırmak) . The word may be confused with an Arabic origin which effected the Turkish pronunciation, or it may be derived from fıs instead of fış, both meaning the same thing. However Arabic origin also makes a lot of sense. For starters it's rare for Turkish to use an Arabic suffix on a word of Turkish origin. Moreover I heard that Arabic is a highly poetic language so "coming out of shell" might be used in a figurative way. I can't make any more claims on Arabic since I know nothing about it. Thanks in advance! Kakaeater (talk) 01:53, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
@Kakaeater: While it superficially could be right that the Arabic word is from Ottoman Turkish where it would have been artificially formed, particularly in view of the variant fışkiye, there are other like-suffixed Arabic examples for implements like قَمَرِيَّة(qamariyya, “vitrail”), شَمْسِيَّة(šamsiyya, “parasol”), حَنَفِيَّة(ḥanafiyya, “faucet, spigot”), and there are Middle Arabic attestations of it in Al-Andalus, Corriente, Federico, Pereira, Christophe, Vicente, Angeles, editors (2017), Dictionnaire du faisceau dialectal arabe andalou. Perspectives phraséologiques et étymologiques (in French), Berlin: De Gruyter, →ISBN, page 967 says somewhere in Los mozárabes de Toledo en los siglos XII y XIII—not knowing about the “lath” sense—, and derives from Aramaic; I derive the “lath” sense from another Aramaic word. So the only reason why we don’t read it often from Classical Arabic sources is that it was a vulgar word. It was in Turkish then secondarily connected to Turkic stems, for ideophony also, like the Arabic itself appears a phono-semantic matching according to an Arabic root. Fay Freak (talk) 22:15, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
Here it says the ultimate root is Proto-Indo-European*smel-(“to burn, smoke, smoulder; tar, pitch”). However, in its etymon of Proto-West Germanic*smallijan(“to glow, burn, smoulder”), the ultimate root is Proto-Indo-European*(s)meld-(“to burn, smoulder, smoke; tar, pitch”). Which one is correct, or both are (*smel- is linked to *(s)meld- anyway)? Additionally, the only sense given in the root *(s)meld- is "to soften, to melt", which seems hardly related to any of the senses above. Duchuyfootball (talk) 05:50, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
Seems to be more or less the same etymology given at Etymonline (with a caveat that it is uncertain). Proto-Germanic *reukaną shows a similar semantic shift from smoke to smell. Wakuran (talk) 11:04, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
That's beside the point. I'm confused that ultimate PIE root seems different. Also, while PWG *smallijan says that it's from PIE *(s)meld-, the PIE root itself does not include PWG *smallijan as a descendant. Duchuyfootball (talk) 04:26, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
@Wakuran Etymonline does not mention *(s)meld- in the entries for smell (n. and v.) or smolder, but it does mention it in the entry for smelt.
Furthermore, the etymology for the Proto-West Germanic entry *smallijan currently defines *(s)meld- as meaning "to burn, smoulder, smoke; tar, pitch". This is, however, at odds both with the Etymonline entry and with the page for *(s)meld- itself, both of which define the word as meaning "to soften, to melt" (well, technically, the OED entry defines it as the adjective "soft" but close enough).
To make things even more confusing, the entry for smell derives the word ultimately from the PIE root *smel- (redirect to *(s)meld-), defined here as "to burn, smoke, smoulder; tar, pitch". Now this definition concurs with its definition given, for *(s)meld-, in the etymology for the Proto-West Germanic entry *smallijan, as mentioned above. But, once again, this is at odds with the actual definition given in the actual entry of *(s)meld- itself: "to soften, to melt", with no mention of burning or smoking.
I noticed that when I said *smel- is linked to *(s)meld- anyway, but I don't know why it happens nor how to fix it. Plus, I wonder why should *smel- be linked to *(s)mel- when their definitions also differ. Duchuyfootball (talk) 05:11, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
I stumbled across the etymology for Polish Antarktyda: "Internationalism; compare EnglishAntarctica." This is also the exact same explanation offered at Polish Antarktyka. The few analogous entries in other languages which attempt any further explanation just derive it vaguely from Latin or Greek and leave it at that, without any mention of the change (or constancy) in form. Whilst none of these statements are exactly wrong, I find it quite unsatisfying since I am interested to know how and when the 'd' got there and why it doesn't appear to just be an alternation since many languages appear to have both forms with a distinction in meaning). This 'd' is obversvable in a wide variety of languages globally, admittedly a large chunk of which likely borrowed it directly from a regional/colonial lingua franca such as Russian, Spanish or Portuguese, just as the spread of the 'c/k/que' form was surely helped by English and French in the modern period. According to Antarctica#Translations, approximately 50 languages have the 'd' form, whereas approximately 120 have a variant of the 'c/k' form. Around 10 languages in that list have both terms (and this number may be actually much higher since I already several missing during my digging around the site), with around two thirds of those containing qualifiers indicating that the 'd' form signifies the continent (i.e. Antarctica) and 'c/k' form the region (i.e. the Antarctic).
Since it is technically a prefixed term, perhaps one could look at words for the Arctic using a 'd' form. The only ones I could find are: Italian Artidem (alongside Articom), Catalan Àrtidaf (alongside Àrticm), Czech Arktidaf, Slovak Arktídaf. This may have already been touched on here at WT.
I think it would be interesting to attempt to narrow down:
a) approximately when the term in -d first appeared
b) whether the continent/region distinction always existed or arose later, and
c) its likely source, i.e. if it's (New) Latin, what is the relevant suffix which could account for the -d (or -is, see below), or if it is an early modern Romance formation/dialectal alternation, which varieties could be likely candidates for a form *antarctida and which at the same time could have spawned a far flung global borrowing spree? The only modern Romance lects I could find which still preserve the word internal -ct- are Romanian and Aragonese, both admittedly unlikely candidates as the ultimate source. That said, I'm not familiar enough with historical sound changes here to be able to make any judgement.
As for the actual data, it is notable that Slavic languages appear to be approximately divisible into thirds: one third with 'd' form (mainly West Slavic), one third with 'k' form (Sorbian + most of South Slavic), one third with both (bit of everything, but especially East Slavic). For the Romance languages the situation is more interesting. Whilst I presume that our coverage is far form complete, going off the information we do have, it appears that despite 'c/k' form being in the clear majority worldwide, and also the only form we have listed for the Latin ancestor, the 'd' form appears to be dominant within the Romance family. I note that many languages also have related words in 'c' (such as Spanish antártico(adj)), and it is quite possible that many languages may have/have had both and we just don't have a record of this yet.
We also have the two forms in German, where, at least in strict usage, 's' is for the region and 'k' is for the continent (an apparent reversal of case in Slavic):
Hungarian has the same two forms Antarktisz vs. Antarktika but it's unclear whether or not there is any difference in meaning. Pfeifer claims that the Arktis / Antarktis first appeared in 19th c. German. One can speculate that they probably spread from there into neighbouring languages in northern European (Scandinavian, Finnish, Estonian, Võro and Northern Sami) as well as Hungarian in central Europe, however the etymology at Swedish Antarktis derives it straight from New Latin without any explanation for the ending or why it appears in so many languages in exactly the same derivation (which exception of Hungarian, which however reflects the s pronunciation). Are we simply missing a New Latin form here?
Depending on what arises from this discussion, it may be worth consolidating the translations at Antarctic and Antarctica on the relevant page and perhaps also linking to each translation section (for translations referring to the region, see here) since it appears most entries are merely ending up at Antarctica. Helrasincke (talk) 12:10, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
How are we distinguishing between the ’region/ecozone’ of Antarctica and the ‘continent’ of Antarctica? We make no such distinction at Antarctica itself, despite doing so for the German, Russian and Polish translations. Overlordnat1 (talk) 13:31, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
Neo-Latin has had both Antarctis and Antarctida as variants of the name. Compare Atlantis and Atlantida, from the Greek nominative and accusative respectively. Nicodene (talk) 13:44, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
The various -ica tails ultimately come from the Ancient Greek suffix -ικός(-ikós), used to form the adjective ἀρκτικός(arktikós), used in πόλος ἀρκτικός(pólos arktikós) (North Pole), with the counterpart πόλος ἀνταρκτικός(pólos antarktikós) (South Pole – the pole opposite the μεγάλη ἄρκτος(megálē árktos) and μικρά ἄρκτος(mikrá árktos), the Great Bear and the Little Bear). Of course, the Ancient Greeks had no notion of a continent there. Likewise, the -ida tails ultimately come from the Ancient Greek suffix -ις(-is), with stem -ιδ-(-id-), which can be used to form nouns for regions, as in Ἀτλαντίς(Atlantís) from Ἄτλας(Átlas) + -ις(-is). For an earlier discussion, see Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2017/April § Антарктика/Антарктида. --Lambiam17:05, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
Etymology aside, it looks like Antarctica is an entry in need of improvement, as the translations saying ‘region/ecozone of Antarctica’ are actually referring to the Antarctic, which I’ve only just learnt is technically slightly different to Antarctica the continent. The looser layman’s definition of Antarctica, equating it to the Antarctic, could be listed as a separate definition and perhaps labelled as ‘proscribed’ or ‘sometimes proscribed’. In fact both entries could be improved so that the translation tables in both of them agree with each other. It looks like only French, Manx and Welsh make no official distinction between the two places judging by the tables as they currently are. The distinction is made clearer in Wikipedia (Antarctic) Overlordnat1 (talk) 00:35, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
@Helrasincke Spanish should be both, with both Antártida and Antártica referring to the continent Antarctica (though the former with the -d- is more popular) and antártico/antártica meaning Antarctic (the adjective). At least, this is the normative prescription, per the RAE in their Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts; however, the very existence of such a prescription implies at least some natives likely do mix up those two usages.
More importantly, for the purposes of your investigation, on that same page the RAE claims the form "Antártida" arose "by analogy with other toponyms like Holanda (Holland), Nueva Zelanda (New Zealand), Atlántida (Atlantis), etc." ("por analogía con la terminación en -da de otros topónimos como Holanda, Nueva Zelanda, Atlántida, etc."). Not sure how likely that is given this same -d- appears in many other languages, but it's a data point, for whatever it's worth. Although, most of those languages did get the term from a colonizer Romance language, so perhaps this is not altogether farfetched; perhaps the -d- arose by analogy to the above toponyms in Spanish, Portuguese, and French, and then spread. French is a crucial link here since, unlike any other Romance language, it is a plausible source of loanwords for Slavic languages, as it was the prestige language of many Eastern European courts till the 20th century. It doesn't seem like a form with -d- is used in modern French, anyways, but it does appear in various other Gallo-Romance tongues (e.g. Occitan); does anyone know if, perhaps, such a form was once current in Standard French as well? Brusquedandelion (talk) 16:06, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
- First thing to note: I corrected the Vedic accent of यम(yama) in the senses of 'twin' and 'Yama' to "yamá". Because of this long-standing error, the accents on the reconstructed terms might be wrong, but I'm not really familiar with these proto-languages.
- Second question: are PII *yamHas and *Yamas (with whatever accent) really two different terms or simply the same? Exarchus (talk) 21:08, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
The homelands of the speakers of Proto-Turkic and of Proto-Slavic were separated by some 2000 to 3000 km, so borrowing is unlikely. If these languages have a common ancestor (Proto-Eurasiatic), nothing is known about it. Across long distances in time, superficial sound similarities are not a significant indication of a relationship. --Lambiam11:43, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
Probably not publishable anytime soon, but oh for the heck of it: I would suspect a more likely external connection for *burun is as a loan from early pre-Hungarian *wuru (whence orr(“nose”); Proto-Uralic reconstruction is unclear in several details but initial *w- is clear). Still needs more attention to Turkic morphology though. --Tropylium (talk) 01:04, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
Sakki in Finnish
The etymology of sakki in the meaning "group of people" doesn't seem to be supported by the pages linked to in the etymology section. Could someone else confirm this is the case? Jonsku99 (talk) 22:16, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
I deny that this is the case. Where do you think groups of men in the mining or underground engineering industries worked? The German term metonymically refers to anyone working in an excavation. Fay Freak (talk) 23:52, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
Is the derivation from Latin jocus legitimate?
Accordant to Etymonline and the iPhone dictionary, joke originated as a slang term, and borrowings in the colloquial lexis are rare, especially those from extinct languages. Of course, there are exceptions, such as c(h)rony from A. Greek, but neologisms prevail. I do not propose an alternate etymology for joke, but to ponder on a part, I assume, as the letter J is rare in English, it was used to draw attention (vide jive).
Any ideas? This probably isn't a copyright trap, since I saw this word on JNW the Dutch-Yiddish dictionary as well (albeit I think marked with the wrong gender), and even the Belarusian-Yiddish dictionary under "xrondje". The Belarusian dictionary speculates it to be of Slavic origin, but didn't provide much else beyond that. Could it be some dialectal Polish/Kashubian word that starts with chrzą-? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 11:52, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
Yiddish doesn't work that way. I'm pretty sure its only Germanic-derived diminutive suffixes are -l and -ele; otherwise it has some borrowed from Slavic. —Mahāgaja · talk14:58, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
Echoing what Mahagaja has said there - it's not a diminutive suffix. ־דיע(-dye) in particular hints at either Polish -dia (in foreign words) or -dzie (in native words), Russian -дье(-dʹje) or maybe even Belarusian -дзе(-dzje). But I couldn't find any Polish *chrządzie, and as far as Slavic borrowings go, ־אָנ־(-on-) is hard to explain as anything other than Polish ą (cf. בלאָנדזשען(blondzhen) from Polishbłądzić). Found one result for chrzędzie (there have been cases where Yiddish borrowed an -ę- form rather than an -ą- form), but even then from the context of the sentence, it was in the locative rather than nominative, and Yiddish typically doesn't borrow Slavic words from individual inflections. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 16:02, 30 June 2024 (UTC)