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Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2012/July

vinum
I was under the impression that this was a very early borrowing from an unknown source shared with Ancient Greek, Hebrew , etc rather than inherited from Proto-Indo-European. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:25, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Here is what Beekes says under :

"With agree, except for the gender and auslaut, Lat. (if from *u̯oinom; Umbr. etc. vinu then Lat. LW [loanword]), Arm.  (< *u̯oinii̯o-), Alb.  (< *u̯oinā); an IE word for `wine', reconstructed from this, may together with the related Lat.  and many others (s. on ) belong to the group . As the wild vine a.o. was at home in southern Russia and certain parts of middle Europe, this assumption is acceptable also from the aspect of historical facts. As however the cultivation of the vine has started in the Mediterranean lands or in the Pontus area and in the south of the Caucasus, most scholars incline, to look for the origin of the word in these countries, what would point to non-IE origin. But if we put the homeland of viticulture in the Pontus and the northern Balkan, the word for `wine' might come from there. From this IE source would then come not only the words mentioned from Greek, Lat., Arm. and Albania, but also Hitt. u̯ii̯an(a)-, Hier. Hitt. wa(i)ana-, and also the relevant Semit. words, e.g. Arab., Hebr. (common *wainu-?). Thus Beekes, MSS 48(1987)21-6, who points out that the Hitt. form requires *u̯ih₁on-. From Lat. vīnum further the Celt. a. Germ., from Germ. or Latin again the Slav. and (indir.) Balt. wine words; from Arm. gini e.g. Georg. . -- Lit. with further details in WP. 1, 226 (IE, resp. PArm.), Pok. 1121, W.-Hofmann s. vīnum, Schrader-Nehring Reallex. 2, 642 ff., Vasmer s. vinó. Cf also Kronasser Vorgeschichte und Indogermanistik (Symposion 1959) 122 f.. Page in Frisk: 2,364-366"
 * --Vahag (talk) 10:43, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

 * The Hebrew is not Weinum, but Yayin יַיִן or in ancient pronunciation: 'Yine' - still close enough. It is probably an ancient word coming from the yells of a drunkard, Yay! Yee! and Nnnnn!! It also plays with water מים - "Mime" except with a nasal sound. So perhaps its "the drunkard's water".
 * If we are already at that, drink has the same root as the hebrew ינק - Yanaq (or Yanak when pronounced without the guttural sound in the Q) which means to suck (notice the same sound there too). Obviously this comes from the sound: Yenugku Yenugku or as written in English: "Gulp". There is another Hebrew word: גמע Ggammaa' for drinking water which preserves the exact sound of water being swallowed in large gulps.
 * Both Mime and Yine may be heard as gulping sounds when repeated: My my my mime mime mime ... or the sound of flowing water. The letter M is the ancient Phoenician way of depicting water (also found in Hieroglyphs - but commonly transliterated as N) and is called Mem meaning water. (Or Nun - meaning fish) Pashute (talk) 11:58, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Interchange of y and w in words anciently borrowed to or from Semitic languages isn't limited to this term. As for your other, rather fanciful, speculations: deriving everything from onomatopoeia like that is kind of silly, and quite unnecessary. The word for water goes all the way back to Proto-Afro-Asiatic, which should be explanation enough. As for drink: the dr part isn't the sort of thing that just materializes in words- you haven't explained where that came from. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:06, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Romanian "substratum" word etmyologies and Albanian cognates
A user has been recently editing all the Romanian words which have Albanian cognates, usually presumed to be from a substratum (i.e. Dacian, Thracian, Illyrian, etc) source, and indicating that they're all "borrowings" from Albanian instead. Of course I don't mind suggesting this as a possibility in the etymologies; that's one thing, but actually completely deleting the old ones and stating that they're all without a doubt from Albanian seems a bit too much, and sounds like some nationalist bias is being introduced. As far as I know there isn't any definitive proof that they are later borrowings from Albanian rather than having an older relationship; the alternatives should at least be mentioned, because it sounds like there are no substratum terms anymore now and can all be explained as Albanian. In some cases, they have even edited words that are probably of Latin origin and twisting them to make them derived from some hypothetical and speculative "Proto-Albanian" source that doesn't even correspond that clearly with any modern Albanian terms, so there seems to be some agenda here.

I will admit in certain cases there are a few words I believe are more likely to be later borrowings, and some of the new etymologies may well be correct, but how this happened is uncertain. Maybe during the Ottoman era, perhaps, though I find that highly unlikely as the majority of these are very common basic words deeply ingrained in the language that don't seem to be relatively recent introductions. If referring to very ancient times then for all we know they could be of common origin as there's no way to prove they came from one or another with the limited information we have now, and how can the language even be rightfully called Albanian at the time if it wasn't around as we know it back then, or at least documented? Unless they are advocating the "medieval migration from Albania" theory for Romanians, which is a whole different story, I don't see how these people would have been in close enough contact historically for this borrowing to happen, and why they didn't impact any other Balkan people between them like South Slavic speakers who are geographically closer to Albania.

There are other theories also, in some cases some linguists and etymologists have suggested the other way around even: that some were borrowed into Albanian from early proto-Romanian from the local Vlach people, though I'm not personally suggesting this is the case. The origins of the words are as of yet still mostly shrouded in mystery anyway, and I wasn't aware there was now an academic consensus that they were loan words. And since the Paleo-Balkan languages of Dacian, Thracian, and Illyrian and the relationships between them are so poorly attested, I am certainly aware it's hard to compare them to these modern languages and definitively say they were derived from any of them, so I'm not saying they necessarily did come from that source, just that they are most likely very old words which have been in both languages for a long time. I have a feeling this is going to turn into a back and forth edit war eventually.

Word dewd544 (talk) 17:47, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Which user has been adding them? Have you talked to them about it? 21:33, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

 * Not yet. I just wanted to check first if anyone had any news about these, in case there was some new research that I missed recently before I started jumping to conclusions. It's not that big of a deal to me but I guess I should ask about it. They're named Torvalu4, I believe. I'll see what I can find out. Word dewd544 (talk) 21:52, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

I noticed this too, and as an Albanian speaker and contributor, I don't see strong reasons to consider these words Albanian borrowings into Romanian, perhaps just a couple of them. Considering the origin of the two languages, I think one should consider the substratum option more seriously. Etimo (talk) 11:17, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

yellow yolk
Anyone out there know what the -ca is doing (and additional examples of it) in the Old English word geoloca 'yolk', derived from geolo 'yellow'? Tibetologist (talk) 09:38, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

 * The following table is an empiricist or positivist note of the relevant Translations:

 * You may note the suffix -ca of Old English "yolk" from  "yellow" looks like the eastern ones.
 * --KYPark (talk) 23:49, 19 July 2012 (UTC); Expanded the table --KYPark (talk) 03:11, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

 * The Slavic suffixes are diminutives. Because of Grimm's Law they, and the Kurdish, can't be related to the -ca found in Old English. The non-Indo-European forms are not demonstrably related. —Angr 12:29, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

 * Isn't this total denial of my note (rather than thesis) too hypersensitive? First and foremost wanted here is any explanation or answer to the question, I guess. I've tried after almost 4 days of nothing, while wishing mine better than nothing. Perhaps most wanted here may be the Indo-European explanation. Do it yourself, or help do it anyway!
 * The yolk in itself is a part or diminutive, if you like, of an egg.
 * I wouldn't believe in Grimm's law too much, which is only phonetic.
 * Whether Indo-European or not, it would not apply anyway in case of a calque, say, of a Korean word where no theory would work!
 * Should you be not terribly confined within PIE or the like, you may reasonably assume from the above information that Korean 노른자 (noreunja) "yolk" might be the origin! Why not at all? From linguistics? Just nonsense! Should I say 귀띔 (gwittuim) vitally, you would do your best to translate it into English, or simply find the best calque, while no Grimm's Law may come in!
 * --KYPark (talk) 15:50, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Not hypersensitive at all. Nonsense is worse than nothing.

 * It's true that English does have a diminutive suffix that might explain this, as can be seen by pairs such as bull and bullock, but this can't be related to the diminutives in Slavic languages, because regular sound changes would have made the Germanic and Slavic forms completely different. I don't know enough to rule out borrowing, but it would have had to have happened at a very early stage.

 * Are you suggesting borrowing between Korean and Old English? I don't think anyone has ever even suggested that there was any contact between the two a millennium and a half ago. There are just too many intermediate peoples and languages in between for this to make sense. Besides, Wanderworter are almost always for items that don't have names in local languages because they come from somewhere else. Chuck Entz (talk) 17:50, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

 * Again and again I wish you do not behave as if you were omniscient but do suspect you may be a victim of mass obscurantism.

 * As if you were omniscient, you make such a hurry from the beginning as to try to conclude and suggest that all that I empirically note as above is just nonsense as worse than nothing. Such are propagandas, brainwashes, personal attacks, and so on.

 * Instead, you'd better offer your constructive view perhaps based on PIE, regardless of mine, so that readers could compare and make a choice for themselves. This is so called the "readerly" or "user-centered" way in vogue since the late 70s, hailing the death of the author and reader-response criticism.

 * The valid explanation after all has to do either with or without such an empirical note, no doubt, which thus should remain the sole source of inference until one after another competent alternative comes in.

 * There would be no folk having no word for fire. Why then did Germanic folks borrow the Greek word into Danish, Deutsch , Dutch , English , Frisian , etc., almost certainly in addition to their own? I wonder how you could explain this mysterious loan in Proto-Germanic and PIE terms.

 * It is quite valid in science, esp. from the rationalist perspective, to assume the significant Euro-Korean contact without any historical evidence, as far as it can explain the relevant phenomena, and until it is fully falsified.

 * Nonetheless, in Europe "a millennium and a half ago" Huns centered around Scythia. So Romans called them Scythians. Anglo-Saxons back then must be closely related to them, as usually were other Germanic folks wandering around Europe and North Africa with them, often storming even the Roman Empires, like Germanic langobards. History has it that AS in Britain needed reinforcement from Scythia so far away. A 2005 documentary of ZDF has it that Huns came "from the end of the world," suggesting the Korean peninsula and Manchuria. Most strikingly, the Hunnish traits may be found most in Korea!

 * I do like you to also "see lots of [Euro-Korean] connections others might miss."
 * --KYPark (talk) 06:40, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Korean 노른자 (nolunca) is an abbreviation of 노른자위 (noluncawi), from nol- ("yellow") + -un (의) + 자위 (cawi, "part of eyeball or egg (of birds etc.) differentiable by colour" 눈알이나 새 따위의 알에서, 빛깔에 따라 구분되는 각각의 부분). Only noluncawi is attested in Middle Korean. 60.240.101.246 23:41, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

 * The biblical Hebrew color of red was called Shannee Tolaa, or Yellaa, תולע - which means worm, and shannee means double, because the worm that this color was extracted from, would fold itself in double.
 * I wouldn't be surprised if the color is connected to a type of worm. Pashute (talk) 11:52, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * All of the ancient animal-derived red colors that I know of are from scale insects, not worms, and scale insects are incapable of bending like a worm does. As for being the origin of yellow, the y is just local to English: related languages have g. Your derivation is simply impossible. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:25, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

set
(I hope I'm not adding this in the wrong place, i.e. on the main WT:ES page if it should be a subpage or vice versa.) Should the poker sense of [[set]], "Three of a kind in poker", be under etymology 2 rather than etymology 1? - -sche (discuss) 03:11, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I moved it. I'd split it into two etymologies, but ran out of well-functioning brain time before finishing. I was BOLD based solely on my own intuition, but would be surprised if the OED disagreed. MWOnline doesn't put much stock in the connection of Ety 2 to Latin BTW, not showing any etymology for the noun before Middle English and not splitting the noun by etymology at all. DCDuring TALK 10:15, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

maski
Can anybody tell me about the alleged German idiom in this word's etymology? Meaning? Idiomatic? Definitely related to ? --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 16:03, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Macht nichts or es macht nichts is a real German idiom which means "it doesn't matter" or "don't worry about it". It was also borrowed into English as the now rather old-fashioned slang mox nix, which we don't have but Urban Dictionary does. I can't say whether actually comes from it, though. —Angr 17:41, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I checked a reference book which confirms it's from German. Anyone up to adding these terms, then? --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 17:45, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I see we do already have, and I've just created from it. —Angr 18:18, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I'll do . --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 18:30, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

The etymologycal connection with Proto-Indo-European bʰedʰ 'to dig', originally noted in Pokorny, however, only phonologically plausible, is today not generally accepted: The "Concise Oxford Dictionary" prefers to end with the Germanic term, and the German Kluge/Seebold notes, "Die traditionelle Erklärung ... als »Schlafgrube« (zu l. fodere »graben«) ist von der Sache her unhaltbar." As far as I know, there is no culture or ethnos in the world really digging out their beds. Who ever is better experienced, is asked to give linguistic parallels or archaeological findings, before reverting my change. Thank you.HJJHolm (talk) 07:36, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I do not have any issue with it deriving from bʰodʰo- "plot, patch, bed" from bʰedʰ- "dig". The original sense is still preserved in "flower-bed" meaning an area that has been dug in the earth. Leasnam (talk) 15:39, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

 * Just guess that English could be cognate to, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and so on. The sea is the greatest basin and body of water!

 * Best guessed here may be the common factor of bearing or receiving, mostly relating to water!
 * --KYPark (talk) 08:09, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

 * Again, I still believe it to come from "dig". The original sense being "a plot or patch of ground dug out". It wasn't until the PGmc forebears began sleeping in these 'beds' that the association to "a place to sleep" came about. I would like to reconnect it to its former PIE root. Leasnam (talk) 03:00, 2 August 2012 (UTC)


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Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2012/August

contubernal
Can somebody please check that the etymology I gave here is correct? I suppose means "tent" in this context, but I would like a reference to a trusted source to be sure. Thanks! --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 02:49, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The word was not formed in English. It was in Latin and borrowed already "pre-packaged". The tubern- is an alteration of taberna "tent". Leasnam (talk) 03:13, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see. I'm glad I checked. Thanks! For some reason I wasn't familiar with that word. Does that mean that was once *tuberna? --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 05:04, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I believe the change from a to u was probably due to lack of stress on the syllable, similar to how a in capere reduces to i in -cipere, etc. This owrd has an uncertain origin. Some tie it to tabula, others to trabs. Leasnam (talk) 14:55, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
 * That's very interesting. I don't believe I can think of another example of an unstressed vowel becoming a back vowel in Latin (although I could be forgetting something really obvious). --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 16:08, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
 * There are lots of examples. Short unstressed vowels in word-internal open syllables regularly become u before dark [ɫ] (e.g. in + salto > insulto, ob + celo > occulo, *tetolai > tetuli, con + solo > consulo) and before [w] (which then wasn't spelled after the [u], e.g. ex + lavo > eluo), and irregularly also before labial consonants, of which con + tabernalis > contubernalis is one example (others are ob + capo > occupo and several forms that had u in older Latin and i in later Latin, such as sub + rapuit > surrupuit (> surripuit), proxumus/optumus/maxumus (> proximus/optimus/maximus), aurufex/pontufex (> aurifex/pontifex). But it stays i in probably the majority of the cases before labial consonants. Source: Sihler's New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, pp. 61–64. —Angr 19:51, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
 * My ignorance of phonology comes out to the light! I wasn't aware of *tetolai or some of the Old Latin forms, but I can't believe I forgot . Thanks so much as always! --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 20:04, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

inquam
I've been looking around for etymologies of this word but I don't have anything beside Google so it's not easy. The few sources I have found mention that it is from the Indo-European root, and is an "aorist-present verb" (a verb that is historically aorist but present meaning). That second part is at least plausible because of the ending -am, and one characteristic of the aorist in PIE was that it was unspecific for tense, which the Latin verb also seems to be. But if that is true, it is only half the story because where did the s- go? Why not *insquam? 11:17, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Refer to de Vaan. --Vahag (talk) 11:35, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

matahari
Anyone have a source for the Indonesian being derived from the Malay? --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 00:50, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, Indonesian is a dialect of Malay. 01:16, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I always looked at it as three very closely related languages: Classical Malay, and its derived modern tongues Malay and Indonesian. Wiktionary evidently treats it as two languages, Malay and Indonesian. After a quick cognate check, it would appear that we ought to merge the two, presumably under the L2 header 'Malay'. --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 01:31, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia states that the grass is named after Karl von Zois on his page: and is sourced here:. Wikipedia also states the IPA pronunciation of zoysia as /ˈzɔɪziə/ on its page:

Should I just add this information to the definition, or is there some fact-checking procedure to follow here? How do you all manage quality control if most definitions aren't sourced?

Hopefully I've put this in the right section, It seemed to me the talk page would be unlikely to get checked in any sort of timely manner on a somewhat uncommon word.Forbes72 (talk) 00:19, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

 * We don't have any pre-editing procedures, you just enter the information. There are people who check edits by new accounts, so any obvious errors tend to be corrected pretty quickly, though. The zoysia page is for the English word, which is named after the genus, which was named for Karl von Zois (spelled "Carl von Zoys zu Laybach" in the original publication of the name online here). Most people would just put "From Zoysia" in the etymology section, and save the real etymology information for that page, put it wouldn't hurt to put ", named by Carl Ludwig Willdenow in honor of Karl von Zois, in 1801 " after that (or something along those lines). Creating the Zoysia entry would be a bit tricky, since we really haven't arrived at a complete consensus on how to do scientific name entries, but that's another story. As for whether this is the right place: the Information desk (WT:ID) would have been a better choice, but it's not a big deal. If you had posted this on the talk page, it would probably have been answered about as quickly (due to the checking of edits by new accounts that I mentioned above) so that would also have been a good choice Chuck Entz (talk) 05:26, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Does anyone know where comes from and whether its similarity to  is a coincidence? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 20:06, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Coincidence seems very unlikely. I could speculate that this is a very old loanword from Greek, from a time when word-initial consonant clusters were prohibited in Hebrew, hence the /i/ at the beginning (just like Spanish and Turkish İzmir < Smyrna. The צ could be from assimilation to the following ט at a time when it was a pharyngealized [sˁ] rather than an affricate [ts]. But all this is pure speculation on my part, not usable in the entry. —Angr 20:36, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
 * But then why would ט [tˁ] be used in the first place? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:47, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmm. When Hebrew words are transliterated into Greek, I think they use τ for ט and θ for ת. Maybe the reverse is true for Greek loanwords in Hebrew. Another possibility that occurred to me is that the Hebrew word may not have been borrowed directly from Greek, but from some intermediate language that borrowed the word from Greek. The obvious candidate is Arabic, but the problem is that the Arabic word for stadium uses nonemphatic [-st-] rather than emphatic/pharyngealized [-sˁtˁ-], so that doesn't help us. —Angr 21:49, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Unlike many loanwords from Greek, I rather doubt that itstadín can easily be identified as coming via another Semitic language, simply because I expect that Even-Shoshan would have known and mentioned if it did. —Ruakh TALK 23:51, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Even-Shoshan says that itstadyón specifically is a Modern form, but gives a citation of itstadín from 4:4. He derives it without comment from Greek stadion. Browsing through the words that begin alef-tsadi-tet, I find that he derives itstabá, itstagnín, itst'lá, and itst'rubál (all attested from the Talmud) from Greek stibadion, steganos, stole, and strobilos, respectively, so there seems to be a small pattern. (Of course, browsing through the words that begin alef-samekh-tet, I also find some — istvanít, istasít, istratyá, from Greek stoa, stasis, stratia — plus astratilatís if we allow initial /a/, istom'khá if we allow via-Aramaic, etc.)
 * So there's no explanation of why these words were pharyngealized? --WikiTiki89 07:30, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
 * No idea, sorry. —Ruakh TALK 14:42, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

urus
The entry itself claims that it's from Ancient Greek οὔρος, but Appendix:Proto-Germanic/ūraz seems to claim otherwise. Can anyone shed light on this? --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 21:18, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
 * At Perseus, Liddell & Scott has "Lat." in the definition for, and Lewis & Short say is from Celtic, though these are both old sources. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:55, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The Online Etymology Dictionary says the Greek and Latin words are both loanwords from Germanic, and the Germanic word is of unknown origin. In fact, lots of Germanic words are of unknown origin, so that's no surprise. —Angr 23:05, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I added an etymology at . Leasnam (talk) 15:35, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2012/September

object for cognates
Hello hello,

I would like to know if there is already a template for an object that could show cognates (pan-lingually), e.g. in the article for chary there would be a "cognates" box somewhere, perhaps near the "translations" box, and in that box there would be links to cognates of chary, such as care or karg.

thanks--Dixfranke (talk) 20:06, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Cognates are usually listed in the etymology section of an entry. See chary for example. —Angr 20:35, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

own
We are the only modern dictionary that has own. Bogorm took it from Webster 1913. But MW3 and MWOnline don't follow MW1913. Does anyone? DCDuring TALK 20:14, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Gothic
My Latvian Etymological Dictionary cites this word as meaning "cliff, rock"; a quick search in the Gothic dictionaries at Lexikologs confirms that. However, the romanized form hallus is apparently not attested (hallu is attested, but the entry doesn't say what it means) -- it is not here at Wiktionary, and someone told me all Gothic forms from Ulfilas' bible (the only source for Gothic, right?) are listed here. How come this one isn't then? Is it an inflected form (in which case the LEV forgot to mention this fact)? Should an entry for the romanization be created (and perhaps a main entry for the Gothic script version)? --Pereru (talk) 13:01, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, not all we know of Gothic is from the bible, there's also the Skeireins which I think is some commentaries about the bible. All romanizations on Wiktionary come from, but those are literal romanizations of the words found in that text. So if a word only occurs in a certain inflected form then we will not have a romanization for its lemma form yet. I looked in Gerhard Köbler's Gothic dictionary, which lists all attestations for each word form, and it says that only the accusative hallu is attested, which is the form you found. So hallus is just the nominative form that goes with it but it's not found in any texts. 13:15, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

chop-chop
Is this really derived from Mandarin? This blog post suggests it comes from Cantonese gāp (急), which sounds more plausible. ---> Tooironic (talk) 12:02, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Certainly the current derivation from Mandarin kuai-kuai or even Cantonese faai-faai seems very implausible. Merriam-Webster and AHD agree that the "chop" of "chop-chop" is the same as the "chop" of chopstick, and the Online Etymology Dictionary derives that from Cantonese kap "urgent", which I assume is the same thing as 急 gāp. —Angr 15:23, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I have changed the entry to reflect this — revert me if you know better. --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 06:08, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

saltchuck
Our entry says this is from Chinook Jargon; the only support I can find for that is the website of a company called Saltchuk. Dictionary.com derives it from entirely English roots. - -sche (discuss) 05:53, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
 * OED: "Chinook jargon, < salt adj.1 + chuck n.6". "Chuck" meaning a body of water. DTLHS (talk) 16:56, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
 * And I'm not saying that's correct, but that was my source. DTLHS (talk) 16:57, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Aha, thanks for checking! I'll add the OED as a reference for the Chinook etymology, and add the English etymology with its references as another possibility. - -sche (discuss) 18:49, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, it seems I was just misreading (mis-cross-referencing) Dictionary.com's cornucopia of English dictionaries, the sense of "chuck" I now see they're actually referring to is given as a derivative of this word meaning "any body of water". - -sche (discuss) 19:03, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Telugu etymology template
Can someone help me in preparing the etymology template for Telugu wiktionary, which will work in Sanskrit, and English in the beginning. Later on we can expand it to other languages. Thanking you.Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 13:15, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

nein
Does anyone know how the word came about? How closely related is it to ?
 * German Wiktionary claims it was originally a contraction of +  "not one". -- Liliana • 09:40, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Could it be from OHG + ? Or else how would the 'cht' disappear? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 09:53, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Duden agrees it's + . Smurrayinchester (talk) 10:40, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It is closely related to, in fact, cognate with, (=not any, none), as in I have no money, being analogous to it in construct (both from the Ur-Germanic *ne ainą). Otherwise, where  (=opposite of yes), it is only marginally related. Leasnam (talk) 18:48, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

From ni/nei + ein? Similar (and perhaps cognate) to the English formation "none", no + one! Etimo (talk) 11:21, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

no go
Seems extremely ungrammatical in English... the similarity to made me think that it might be from Chinese Pidgin English, as a calque of 不去. But could it be imitation CPE, or unrelated? I'd like it if someone could shed light on this. --Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 04:47, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I would guess it originated as the opposite of go. Ex: "It's a go." "It's a no-go". --WikiTiki89 (talk) 10:27, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * If so, the rhyme is probably responsible for it not being "non-go" Chuck Entz (talk) 19:39, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Calque? No way. DCDuring TALK 17:27, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

See anon comments at Talk:naked. (Note that the anon has already modified naked in accordance with his/her views.)

Proto-Slavic *rьtǫtь
One of the etymology dictionaries says that Proto-Slavic *rьtǫtь (and Polish [[rtęć]]) could be of Turkic or Arabic origin. Do you know any similar Turkish, Ottoman Turkish, Arabic or Persian word that could be an ancestor for this? Related to mercury or Mercury. Maro 12:25, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Yes, please also see Russian "". I imported the etymology from a Wikipedia article, which mentioned "*rьtǫtь". --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 12:31, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes what? :) I'm looking for a Turkic ancestor for these. Maro 12:40, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Sorry, I meant I was also interested in this :) --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 13:28, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

 * The words are a participle of Proto-Slavic *rьtǫtь 'to roll, to rotate', inherited from Proto-Indo-European. Vasmer mentions the theory of derivation from Turkish, Arabic , but dismisses it on phonetic grounds. --Vahag (talk) 15:08, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Thanks, Vahag, so Turkic or Arabic origin was just a theory? What could I use as a reference? Do you have a link or is it in a book? The etymology of "" must be correct then. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 04:46, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

 * I added a link in ртуть. --Vahag (talk) 07:02, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


text:
Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2012/October

jinx
Does anyone know of the origin of this word? etymonline.com says it comes from Latin, which in turn is from Ancient Greek. But etymonline.com isn't always so reliable so does anyone else have anything about this? 12:06, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I haven't found etymonline to be unreliable, and it does only say "perhaps ultimately". He doesn't just make shit up; he uses an array of reliable sources for his etymologies. At any rate, both iynx and ἴυγξ are real words, and both Merriam-Webster and American Heritage agree with the possibility/probability of this etymology. —Angr 12:59, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, my experience is that the Germanic etymologies are somewhat outdated at least concerning the reconstructed forms of Proto-Germanic words, not taking account sound laws that are considered well-established in modern linguistics. So maybe not unreliable, but certainly a bit outdated at times. In any case thank you for helping. 13:31, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I think he just goes by what the established dictionaries say rather than keeping up with the bleeding edge of historical linguistics. (That's our job!) —Angr 13:33, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The OED vaguely thinks it comes from the Greek for "the wryneck, a bird made use of in witchcraft; hence, a charm, a spell", via modern Latin and jynx (a much older version), but the OED is not always best for modern American words (only a hundred years old). What is the alternative theory of "the bleeding edge of historical linguistics"?    D b f i r s   09:58, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The Scottish (variants, ), used as an expletive (like damn, shit, fuck), or the Scottish  to avoid, dodge, cheat, trick; >, might also be candidates we are overlooking. We just do not know. I am rather leery about an ancient Greek and Latin origin for a word which shows up as American baseball slang...Is there any historical or mediaeval use of  used in a similar way? The wryneck allusion to charm, spell is akin to calling a jinx a "newt" :\ , it's sorta weak. Leasnam (talk) 16:07, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I suppose it could have a connection with the much older Scottish and northern English "jinked" (crooked), but "jynx" or "iynx" or "iyngs" has been used for a charm or spell since 1693 according to the OED. Has anyone found a usage of "jinx" before 1911?    D b f i r s   22:12, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, does jinx really mean "spell" per se? I am not even sure about that as a definition, especially as the first sense. Does it not rather first mean "bad luck", with the verb to jinx being an extension of this to mean "to put bad luck on"? Leasnam (talk) 17:13, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I've always heard it used with the implied meaning of a spell or hex or some such dark purpose behind the bad luck. How do you put bad luck on someone without some supernatural powers?    D b f i r s   17:26, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, this might come down to a matter of which came first--the noun or the verb. If ti's the noun, then when one calls someone a jinx (eg. That man's a jinx.), does it really mean that that man is a spell/hex? Leasnam (talk) 17:32, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the noun usage came first as a wryneck, but there seems to be an unexplained gap in usage before the word suddenly reappeared (probably first as a noun) just over a hundred years ago. Are you able to research the baseball usage before 1911?  There's a Mr Jinx in Ballou's monthly magazine - Volume 6 - Page 276 in 1857, and a poem: "Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines" in 1868.  I wonder if these are the source of the re-introduction of the word. Jinx was also a name for Linaria vulgaris (Common Toadflax) in the mid-1800s, but that's not a likely source.    D b f i r s   20:15, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

holy cow
I highly doubt it comes from Hinduism, as it says on the page. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:53, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It didn't come from Hinduism. but I wouldn't be surprised if it were a dismissive reference to the reputed worship of cows in Hinduism. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:10, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

grossus
See Talk:grossus. - -sche (discuss) 19:24, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

discard
See Talk:discard.

amongst, whilst, amidst, etc
I've always been curious as to whether there was ever any actual distinction between these terms and the ones without -st. The relevant entries say that the -s indicates genetivity. The pages don't assign any semantic meaning to the -t, so I'm assuming that it is the result of some sort of sound change or analogy?

Anyway, why did Old/Middle English put these words into the genetive? Was it once invariable that they were genetive, or were their specific circumstances where they were supposed to be genetive and others where they weren't? (I may be looking for more material for annoying pedantry around my office :P).

Hope that I'm not using the scriptorium incorrectly

Furius (talk) 10:20, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The -t is excresent and adds nothing but a style in pronunciation (perhaps to keep the s from sounding like a z, which might get confused with a plural [?]). It probably resulted due to a following th-, as in amonges the  => amongest the. The Middle English ending was -es, which was used to create adverbs, a trait inherited from Old Enlgish. I wouldn't say that the -s is genitive though; rather adverbial derived from the adverbial use of the oblique genitive. Today, it is a dialectal, or stylistic variation--I often use both forms with and without -st in different settings. Leasnam (talk) 17:06, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

a
Are we sure this is from de, rather than (like à) from ad? - -sche (discuss) 21:54, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not convinced of, but is plausible. Semantically,  doesn't fit the "from" sense (I'm not positive about the "by" sense). Chuck Entz (talk) 01:54, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The "by" sense is also more plausibly from Latin, , which is also used to indicate the agent of a passive verb. —Angr 21:34, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Various etymological questions about Lithuanian
From now on, I will try to ask my questions here rather than on talk pages.

 * , "to laugh", seems related to . Is it ?
 * , "to kiss", seems related to Latin, English . Is it ?

Thank you, --Fsojic (talk) 19:49, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/99.68.148.226
Modified several etymologies to claim that a certain group of words came to Arabic from Persian, rather than the other way around; can anyone confirm or refute that? (If the claims are correct, then the etymologies also need cleanup, but it seems pointless to do that cleanup before confirming their basic accuracy.)

Thanks in advance!

—Ruakh TALK 17:30, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

 * I undid this edit simply because it was ill-formed ("from From"). - -sche (discuss) 22:41, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Earlier I undid an edit someone made to . Could it be the same person? 22:45, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

lapereau, lapin
lapereau claims that it derives from lapin + suffix. lapin claims to be a variation of lapereau. Er... - -sche (discuss) 02:17, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

 * Historically, came from, but in Modern French  is indeed . (Our etymology for  needs work, but I think we'd be remiss if we completely removed mention of , because I think the existence of  is the main reason that  still exists.) —Ruakh TALK 02:40, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

in
According to D. Ringe this goes back to PIE. However, other sources seem to include a laryngeal,. Ringe says there is no evidence for a laryngeal, but he doesn't say what evidence there is against one either. I don't know what evidence there could possibly be for a laryngeal in this case. Note that there are also related forms, (Latin ) and zero-grade  for which an entry already exists. Which of these two forms has better support, and which arguments are there for each form? Does anyone know more? 16:21, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I suspect Ringe simply means that if there's no positive evidence in favor of a laryngeal, we shouldn't reconstruct one. I don't think he means to suggest there definitely wasn't a laryngeal there. I think that's a valid argument for function words, but it does seem that lexical words couldn't be vowel-initial, so that (pace Ringe), *alyos, *eḱwos, etc. should really be *h₂elyos, *h₁eḱwos, etc. —Angr 20:57, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Guys, I got an idea: let's record a native speaker pronouncing the word and see whether the laryngeal is there or not. --WikiTiki89 21:07, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Excellent idea! Please do so ASAP. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:13, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * But when is something a functional word and when is it a lexical word? *ályos is considered a determiner in PIE and has a distinct inflection to reflect that (pronomial inflection, with masc. n.pl. in -oy and neut nom/acc.sg. in -od). To me, reconstructing a laryngeal based on "all other words have an initial consonant" when there is no evidence for one, seems a bit like putting the cart before the horse, if not plain circular reasoning. 21:16, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Since a reconstruction is a hypothesis, anyway, it would seem reasonable to me to incorporate hypothesized phonotactic constraints. I'm not sure how to formulate it, but there seems to be a difference of type based on the degree of words' independence from other words in use. It certainly affects accentuation and vowel quality, so a difference in which initial sounds are allowed might be plausible. Difficulty in pinning down the membership of some marginal cases wouldn't necessarily invalidate the categories. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:23, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Honestly guys, I think the best option is to create both entries, have one be an alternative form of the other or something, and explain the whole situation in a usage note. --WikiTiki89 23:00, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * But then which should be the main entry? :) Personally I would prefer naming the entry (h₁)én. On the other hand, that solution works here, but it doesn't work for initial a- or o-. So we'd need a different approach for that. 23:43, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * This may seem rather esoteric, but a proto-language reconstruction is a tool of historical linguistics created using rules derived from that discipline. It's inherently a theoretical and hypothetical abstraction, so theoretical and abstract considerations are important to getting it right. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:03, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Since there is no evidence for the laryngeal, I would say just make the main entry without one and explain that there could have been one in a usage note. --WikiTiki89 09:34, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

-self
Etymologically speaking, why is there a discrepancy between // (using the dative/accusative case) and //// (using the genitive/possessive case)? And which group does belong to? --WikiTiki89 10:02, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * According to and, the dative/accusative case was the original form, but this was apparently reinterpreted as the possessive because of sound changes in the word. This might have then given rise to  and  analogically. Having , which could be either, would certainly have helped with that. I wonder if we can find any citations for , , ,  and ?  12:20, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, meself conflicts with a dialectal pronunciation of myself (where my is frequently shortened to me), youself happens to be a common misspelling of yourself, theeself conflicts with the incorrect modern archaic-sounding usage of thee for all forms of thou (get's hits like "thee is but a dog theeself"), and usselves seems to be used in AAVE but is unlikely to be a remnant of the original. So real remnants of the original form are going to be hard to find. --WikiTiki89 14:12, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
 * In Middle English we find pairings like: ȝe self ("ye self"), þu seolf ("thou self"), he self ("he self"), heo seolf ("she self"), þi self, þe seolfe and þe selve ("thee self"), mi selven and me seolven ("me self"); where the word for "self" follows either a subject or object noun or pronoun [I have listed only pronomial examples here], and appears to be translated as "xxx-self" (i.e. ȝe self = ye yourselves; þu seolf = thou thyself; etc). Leasnam (talk) 01:21, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * That reminds me of the Dutch situation. In Dutch you can still combine with any kind of pronoun, subject or object. Does modern English have any traces of this, perhaps in dialects?  01:31, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

 * I don't know the answer, but this is a really interesting question; commenting to remind myself to look into it later. Ƿidsiþ 08:06, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Interesting enough, but a gbSearch for "heself", "weselves" and "theyselves" returned a good number of hits. Whether or not these are recent creations or carry-overs from previous times I do not know... Leasnam (talk) 19:05, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

gero
The Latin verb. Does anyone know where it comes from? It looks like it should be from an Indo-European root *ges- or something similar (to explain the participle gestus), but does anyone have better information? 00:01, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Etymonline provides the less than satisfactory "of unknown origin"(http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=gest&allowed_in_frame=0). I can't find anything on JSTOR, except for an 1860 article claiming that it has cognates in Chinese! Furius (talk) 08:28, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Sihler's New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, p. 171, says "of obscure etym[ology] but transparently ges-", so internal reconstruction gets us as far as *gesō but beyond that, no one knows. I'd be disinclined to accept the hypothesis of cognates in Chinese. —Angr 20:10, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Whatever it is, the fact that it has formed a perfect and perfect participle with an original PIE formation does suggest that it is probably quite old, of Pre-Italic date. 20:39, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't know about that. Both the perfect in -sī and the past participle in -tus are quite productive in Italic; they could have been formed at any time before rhotacization. —Angr 21:01, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Rhotacization happened within Old Latin, so it wasn't really that long before the classical period, maybe a few hundred years. I wonder how productive they really could have been, though, considering that the 3rd conjugation as a whole was unproductive since it consisted of PIE primary verbs (compare the Germanic strong verbs, which are historically identical). As far as I know, newly formed verbs always ended up in the other three conjugational classes. 21:11, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I did say "productive in Italic", not "productive in Latin". The fact that it has these forms doesn't mean it has to have been PIE, since both forms spread beyond their original verbs. Now if the perfect were reduplicated (gegerī?) or if the present had a nasal infix (gēnsō?) or something like that, I'd say it must be IE somehow. But not just on the basis of having an s-perfect and an athematic past participle. —Angr 22:50, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I didn't mean to say that it had to have been IE, just that it was probably already a part of the language before the split-up of the Italic languages. 22:53, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I find it interesting that two very semantically-similar words like and  would also be as morphologically-similar as they are. I wonder if either one influenced the other... Chuck Entz (talk) 05:13, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It's doubtful. They only came to be similar because of rhotacization, so before that they were more different in form. 12:10, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * And because fero is irregular, they're not even that similar post-rhotacization. In the present, they don't rhyme in the 2nd person singular and plural or in the 3rd person singular, nor do any forms based on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th principal parts rhyme. —Angr 21:15, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

hummock
A blend between hump and hillock? I'm not so sure. After all, -ock is a diminutive suffix inherited from Old English, so this could easily be simply a diminutive of hump or a similar word (perhaps holm). That's what other dictionaries say, too, by the way. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:00, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Sense 2 of hammock (really US only?) might be the same or a similarly formed word. It's certainly etymologically unrelated to hamaca, considering the divergent meaning; see also Wikipedia. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:40, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

 * Definitely not the blend, since the earliest spelling was hammok (1589). The "u" appeared with hummocke in 1608, and the word hump not for another hundred years.  Hillock is much older, appearing in Wycliffe's bible of 1382.  It's possible that the origin is Low German humpel (via Dutch?), but the derivation is unclear.  We do need to change our entry.    D b f i r s   21:43, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

 * I've removed the wrong etymology, but I can't convince myself of a correct one.   D b f i r s   21:55, 11 November 2012 (UTC)


text:
Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2012/November

Russian бульба cognate with Greek βολβός ?
Good night,

do you think these terms are cognates ?

Thank you. Regards, --Fsojic (talk) 23:16, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
 * First, a little lesson in English: good night is what you say when someone is leaving. Good evening is probably what you wanted to say (a completely understandable error).
 * Thank you, I am never sure when I can use good night, good evening and so on ! --Fsojic (talk) 13:29, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't know remember enough about Slavic sound correspondences to rule out common inheritance, but it's the kind of word that gets borrowed a lot between languages, and its connection with a plant introduced from elsewhere within the past few centuries (the potato), makes me suspect even more that it may be a borrowing. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:44, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I would say most likely Russian (and then Belarusian and Ukrainian) borrowed it from French, which ultimately comes from the Greek. --WikiTiki89 20:04, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

flag
Our current etymology seems to have been first added by an anon in this diff and it contradicts Online Etymology Dictionary. --WikiTiki89 14:09, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The Dutch etymology dictionary says that the word is not attested until early modern Dutch, but there is a late Middle English attestation as well. It suggests that the Dutch word is possibly borrowed from English, rather than the other way around, but that the Scandinavian terms probably come via Dutch or Low German. 14:18, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * That's pretty much what the Online Etymology Dictionary (I really want to abbreviate that, but "OED" is very misleading) says. I just wonder where this anon got his information. --WikiTiki89 14:25, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * OEtD? 14:32, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * That anon was me (before I created an account). I got the etymology more or less from Century Dict. Leasnam (talk) 20:15, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The experts seem to be baffled by the origins of various versions of this word. The big OED (Oxford English Dictionary) thinks that it might go back to "Old English flacg ‘cataplasma’ (Wright-Wülcker 386) and flage, recorded in 1139 as an English name for a baby's garment", but also offers other possibilities.    D b f  i  r  s   21:49, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

-aticum
This seems like it is probably the 2nd conjugation participle -atus + -icum. If that is so, are there also varieties from the other conjugations? 19:18, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

amarsir
This seems like it ought to be a pun of some kind... why else would they coin a word such as this? I came across as a likely source, but I don't know if it is true. Does anyone know? 00:41, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't know, but it could also be some kind of punning reference to avenir and Vénus- even though the meanings aren't even remotely analogous. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:37, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 * avenir isn't even a verb though, at least not according to our entry. 01:41, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I keep thinking about the George Carlin suggestion that there should be something called "cheese fon-don't" for people who don't like cheese fondue- puns don't have to make sense. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:03, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Maybe not, but seems much more likely as a source than .  02:07, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 * It was probably on the analogy of alunir (see etymology there), which was itself from the idea of atterrir (literally, to "earth"). This, that and the other (talk) 10:25, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, I remember a huge discussion about the term on fr.wikipedia see here. And a verb  exists, but only at the past participle, avenu (and has actually been replaced by ). amarsir definitely doesn't come from it. --Fsojic (talk) 00:25, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

dodo
I see the marks of several competing etymologies at dodo and Dodo that point to various words in European languages, native terms, onomatopoeia, and other sources. Should we list every one of these etymologies, or are there some that can be eliminated? Etymonline unambiguously claims that it's from Portuguese, but are they necessarily correct? What does the OED say? —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 15:43, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

 * The OED says "Portuguese doudo simpleton, fool, as adj. silly." and cites a letter written on June 18th, 1628, from Emmanuel Altham (1600 – 1635) to Sir Edward Altham (published in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society in 1874 page 448) "A strange fowle: which I had at the Iland mauritius called by ye portingalls a DoDo.". This origin is later confirmed by Sir Thomas Herbert, 1st Baronet in the 1638 edition of A relation of some yeares travaile into Afrique, Asia, Indies (page 347): "DoDo ... a Portuguize name it is, and has reference to her simplenes".  The other suggestions in Wikipedia seem to be etymologies of "Dodar".    D b f  i  r  s   12:30, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

קרויט
Yiddish for "cabbage" - I can't find anything, not even a single cognate, in any language. Anyone have a lead? —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 21:09, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

 * I image it's from 🇨🇬, cognate to 🇨🇬. Is there reason to think otherwise? - -sche (discuss) 21:17, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

 * That's pretty funny — I saw Kohl and thought that was it for German (royt kroyt sounds a lot better than Rotkohl...). Thank you for rescuing me from my epic fail. While you're at it, what is the difference between Kohl and Kraut? —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 21:23, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Kraut literally applies to greens or herbs of any kind, but also can mean cabbage. Kohl refers specifically to cabbage (I'm not sure if it also refers to cole crops such as broccoli, cauliflower, kale, etc.). Chuck Entz (talk) 21:40, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * No problem, that's what WT:ES is for. And yes, a Kraut is a "useful plant", in contrast to an Unkraut = "useless plant, weed". In the south of the German Sprachraum, the preeminent useful plant is Kohl, hence Kraut can also mean "cabbage" there. Other members of the genus Brassica are also kinds of Kohl: broccoli rabé is Stängelkohl, there's Kohlrabi, etc. (Incidentally, I was wondering just yesterday what the "cole" in "cole slaw" was. Now I know.) In the northwest, "Kraut" can refer to a sort of fruit syrup, which I'll have to see about adding to our entry. - -sche (discuss) 22:13, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you! —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 23:23, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The kraut in sauerkraut is specifically cabbage, but in the plural, Kräuter means herbs as a group. —Angr 00:44, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

?
It is not really a question, but I would just say I find funny the similarity between and  compared with German  and. --Fsojic (talk) 00:12, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

buckle
Etymonline.com gives a very different etymology for etymology 1, and derives it from (Older) French, itself from Latin. Obviously these two etymologies can't both be right, but it's possible that the Germanic verb (listed in the current etymology) interfered with the French loanword and caused conflation of the two meanings somehow. Does anyone know more? 01:01, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The verb etymology in Etymology 2 is basically the same as Etymonline's etymology for Etymology 2. When added Etymology 1 in this edit, they moved it to Etymology 2, where it didn't belong.

 * The derivation of {term|bocler|lang=fro}} in the sense of "bulge, curl" in the etymologies looks a little suspicious. Is it possible that it was really a Germanic borrowing? Or is it possible that there was borrowing the other way? The presence of both voiced and unvoiced forms in buck Etymology 2 (Verner's Law?), and both etymologies for bow muddle things up even further. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:11, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Verner's law causes alternation between h and g, not between k and g. There are some cases of alternation between a single voiced consonant and a geminated voiceless plosive; they are not fully understood but are thought to be the result of a still-controversial sound law called Kluge's law. On the other hand, etymonline.nl for notes that the gemination is also present in the Celtic forms and even a Sanskrit cognate, which have no such law.  19:33, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

and
Good evening. It seems that these terms come from two completely different roots. Is it correct ?

Thank you, --Fsojic (talk) 17:11, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Quite right. For the former, refer to PIE ; for the latter, . —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 19:46, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

rakne
Can anyone work out the etymology of this word? Neither we nor the Norwegian Wiktionarians have an entry for rak, the first thing it refers to, and the Norse word it refers to (rakr) does not derive from Low German or Dutch. The Norse verb reikna (which has the variant spelling rakna) does derive from Middle (not modern!) Low German, but the etymology doesn't mention it. - -sche (discuss) 06:14, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I've reformatted it to assume that the Norwegian verb came from the Norse verb, rather than from a noun. - -sche (discuss) 08:46, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Hindi, Urdu, and other modern Indo-Aryan Indian languages and Sanskrit
This may have been brought up before, and I'm not sure if it goes here best or in the policy section, but what's the official policy for handling Etymologies and Descendants when it comes to languages like Hindi and Sanskrit? Some believe that Hindi and such should count as essentially being descended from Sanskrit, but technically it seems they are descended from other vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan "Prakrit" languages, and whether these came from what is regarded as actual Sanskrit or from other earlier vernacular languages closely related to it spoken around the same time is still debated somewhat from what I've read. I suppose it has some similarities to the situation with Latin; the Romance languages are descended from vernacular, popular Vulgar Latin as spoken by the people as opposed to the literary Classical Latin, and Sanskrit seems to hold a similar place as a special language like that. But of course Romance language words are still listed as descending from Latin, and it's not exactly the same situation. So should Hindi words (unless in the many cases where they are explicitly borrowed from Sanskrit) be listed alongside Sanskrit as opposed to actually descended from it? Thanks Word dewd544 (talk) 18:56, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Romance languages technically descend from Old Latin, and the equivalent for Sanskrit is Vedic Sanskrit. But I don't know if it really makes a difference. Are there any modern words that descended, without a doubt, not from classical Sanskrit but from a stage before it? 19:27, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * It seems to be almost universal practice among dictionaries to use Sanskrit as a stand-in for Old Indic, with maybe a paragraph or a footnote somewhere to inform readers of that fact, just as classical Latin is used as a stand-in for whatever combination of vernaculars gave rise to the Romance languages and the Wessex dialect is used as a stand-in for the dialects that gave rise to Middle English and Modern English.

 * With the extreme unevenness of attestation of ancient dialects, I don't see much choice: the alternative would start to resemble all the fine-print legal disclaimers that you see in some print advertising: your mileage may vary, this may be a different dialect than the actual one that it really came from, void where prohibited by law, etc. It should say something about it in WT:ASA and other relevant places, but it would seem a bit much to have it everywhere.

 * Any time you have an artificially preserved standard language like Sanskrit or Latin, there's bound to be some confusion, since the "parent" language and its "descendants" may coexist for centuries, and a term may even go back further in the vernacular than in the standard (I believe Latin aurantius is such a case). I just don't think we even know enough about the history of most terms to be sufficiently accurate with our disclaimers to make it worth the clutter most of the time. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:18, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * In a way, you could even argue that English is not really one language. Yet it would be hard, if not impossible in some circumstances, to say which specific kind of English a word in a language came from. Even if you could narrow it down to, say, a small village in East Anglia, there would still be several registers within the language there, one of which would be "standard formal written English". No doubt Sanskrit was the Old Indic equivalent of that. 22:34, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the closest thing we have in English is biblical/King-James-Version speech. It's full of fossilized Early Modern English archaicisms that no one would use except in prayers and religious discussions or sermons: a very specific register that's kept unchanged because of its religious associations. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:07, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I agree with what's been said. I guess there's not much that can really be done about it, because putting a little note or disclaimer on each etymology or page would be going overboard and clutter things too much I think, and deriving them directly from Vedic Sanskrit isn't the best solution either. I suppose the same could go for the Romani language? It may seem somewhat strange to some to have it it listed as being descended from Sanskrit, but it's the closest thing there is, since there isn't Old Indic as a language here. By the way, I've noticed a few etymologies just skip the Sanskrit "stage" and go straight to Proto-Indo-Iranian, but is this a good idea?

Word dewd544 (talk) 01:06, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * But anyway I agree with putting a note either in the about Sanskrit page or for Hindi about the technical fact regarding these "descendant" languages. Otherwise it would seem to contradict what is said in the sister project, Wikipedia in statements like "Along with other Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, Bengali evolved circa 1000–1200 AD from the Magadhi Prakrit, which developed from a dialect or group of dialects that were close to, but different from, Vedic and Classical Sanskrit." on the Bengali language page, and "The Indo-Aryan languages are commonly assigned to three major groups - Old, Middle and New Indo-Aryan. And a number of their morphophonological and lexical features betray the fact that they are not direct continuations of Ṛgvedic Sanskrit, the main base of 'Classical' Sanskrit; rather they descend from dialects which, despite many similarities, were different from Ṛgvedic and in some regards even more archaic. MIA languages, though individually distinct, share features of phonology and morphology which characterize them as parallel descendants of Old Indo-Aryan. Various sound changes are typical of the MIA phonology" on the Magadhi Prakrit page, both of which are cited with reputable sources. So at least some seem to think that it doesn't even apply that Vedic Sanskrit was truly an ancestor to these languages, let alone classical Sanskrit Word dewd544 (talk) 07:18, 1 December 2012 (UTC)


text:
Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2012/December

rugelach
Etymology section says it came from Hebrew. Wikipedia etymology section says it came from Yiddish. Anyone know which is correct? --Yair rand (talk) 01:29, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It definitely came from Yiddish, although it is plausible that the Yiddish word itself came from Hebrew. I don't really know, but the Wikipedia etymology sounds pretty believable. --WikiTiki89 07:44, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

micto-
I have just added the terms and. I can't find any other English words beginning with this prefix. Any ideas? (I assume it has something to do with "mixing") SemperBlotto (talk) 10:43, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I think so - the Greek adjective μικτός means "mixed/blended" Furius (talk) 10:54, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * More common as a suffix . See, et al. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 20:45, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

γη
"From Ancient Greek γῆ (gē) / γαῖα (gaia), other details uncertain."

Could γῆ's root be, along with χθών's? Lysdexia (talk) 00:20, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It seems quite improbable, as far as I know. --Fsojic (talk) 00:34, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Frisk 1960. Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch refers one to γαῖα, of which he says "Unklar. Vielleicht Kontamination von αἶα, μαῖα, γῆ"
 * αἶα is an epic form of γῆ / γαῖα, which he derives from μαῖα
 * μαῖα is "old mother", which he considers "Grammatische Erweiterung eines Lallworts durch das ia-Suffix wie in γραῖα." (old women)
 * Both of these are presumably responsible for creating γαῖα as an alternative form of γῆ - the derivation of γῆ would remain unclear. Furius (talk) 10:33, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, LSJ doesn't mention an accentless variant of γῆ - should this be an entry at all? Furius (talk) 11:22, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Not as Ancient Greek, but Modern Greek has different rules as far as accents go. The entry should be rfved Chuck Entz (talk) 14:11, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Even if one could explain the loss of aspiration using Grassman's Law, that still doesn't explain what happened to all the other consonants and vowels (η in the main Attic-based dialect usually comes from a long α) Chuck Entz (talk) 14:30, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The etymology of is very obscure, but the accusative plural is attested in Arcado-Cypriot as ζᾶς, so this is a case of Attic-Ionic η coming from ᾱ. Some have speculated the first syllable of  (Doric etc. Δαμάτηρ) may be the same word. A connection with *dʰéǵʰōm is very unlikely; it's much more likely γῆ/γαῖα is a non-Indo-European word that was borrowed as a proper name for the Earth goddess, or just as the common noun for earth. —Angr 22:47, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
 * To say "The etymology of γῆ is very obscure" is to say that that etymology is very unsure, I assume. Then, we may better begin simply with 地 (ji, "earth," in Korean reading), whether well or ill. --KYPark (talk) 14:58, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Highly unlikely. For that matter, since the Greek is attested so much earlier, one could just as easily say that the Korean came from the Greek (or from the Flying Spaghetti Monster...). Chuck Entz (talk) 15:19, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

attaboy
Can anyone confirm this is an alteration of "that's a boy!" or "that's the boy!". I always thought it was from "at it boy". Mglovesfun (talk) 11:14, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I always thought it was from that a boy (or is it thataboy or that-a-boy?), which for some reason we don't have. I've never heard of "at it boy". I've also never heard of "that's a boy". --WikiTiki89 11:51, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I too have always thought it was from that-a-boy, which is a childlike pronunciation/immitation of that's a boy. Leasnam (talk) 19:41, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * According to the OED - "Said to represent careless pronunciation of that's the boy! - as an expression of encouragement or admiration". SemperBlotto (talk) 16:11, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

human resources
Using the word resource for people is rather shocking. But I guess that the use of this word is related to the use of resource in project planning softwares, where resource applies to anything required to perform a task, including people. Am I right? Do you know more about this etymology? Lmaltier (talk) 21:05, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

root of "stroppy"
Do you consider that there is chance that the word "stroppy" can come from the greek word "http://el.wiktionary.org/wiki/στρυφνός";

Evangelia Pliakou
 * Nah! Abbreviation of . SemperBlotto (talk) 16:13, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

-stachion
Hi there. Does anyone have a clue about the origin/meaning of this "suffix" in terms such as and  - used in the taxonomic names of some grasses/cereals. SemperBlotto (talk) 16:06, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes. Although Perseus has Ancient Greek, it looks very much like a misspelling of distachyon and polystachyon, both from Ancient Greek . For instance, Google searches bring up both Bromus distachion and ''Bromus distachyon" in reference to the same plant (see w:Bromus distachyon). Chuck Entz (talk) 17:09, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'll let somebody else add the Ancient Greek word. SemperBlotto (talk) 17:29, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Browbeat - possible etymology
No one seems to know the origin of the word browbeat, but I think it may be from the nautical terms "brow," meaning gangplank, and "beat," meaning to tack back and forth (usually in order to sail upwind). To browbeat, meaning to intimidate, bully, may have originally referred to a practice of intimidating and punishing someone by making them walk to the end of the gangplank and then tacking the ship back and forth, causing the gangplank to swing violently while the person being intimidated or punished is forced to hang on in order to avoid falling into the sea. Is there a place to post this idea on the entry to this word? If so, how do I do that? Thanks.
 * This doesn't belong in the Grease pit. You should post this in the Etymology scriptorium. --WikiTiki89 08:55, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I've moved it. Cheers, - -sche (discuss) 01:03, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The OED has not found any evidence for this origin. They suggest that the brow is on the forehead of the beater.  Your suggestion should not be inserted in the entry unless you have evidence, but you could post it on the talk page (talk:browbeat) and ask there for evidence.    D b f i r s   11:35, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

koomkie
Tagged but not listed. Is the term indeed from Bengali? Yule+Burnell's 1903 Hobson-Jobson: a glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words does say "Koomkee, in Bengal, is the technical name of the female elephant used as a decoy in capturing a male." Anyone have a more recent reference? - -sche (discuss) 18:20, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

puer
Tagged (with the wrong template) but not listed. The whole entry is doubtful, and I've RFVed it, but the etymology is especially confused. - -sche (discuss) 20:05, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

 * I have changed the etymology from the dubious and contradictory "alternative spelling of pure, from Latin puteo" to "from French". - -sche (discuss) 22:08, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

yhdeksän
Tagged (with the wrong template) but not listed. See the talk pages. - -sche (discuss) 20:09, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
 * As far as I know there isn't actually any suffix -deksan. The -de is just part of the stem of the numerals yksi and kaksi (genitive yhde-n and kahde-n). So these are probably really yksi+ksan and kaksi+ksan. 19:13, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

 * I've changed the entries accordingly. - -sche (discuss) 22:56, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

вокзал
The etymology, tagged in this edit, seems plausible, but Wikipedia devotes several paragraphs to saying it's uncertain. Anyone have any references supporting or opposing the current etymology? - -sche (discuss) 23:32, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The Vauxhall etymology belongs to Vasmer. I don't know the source of the Volk + Saal theory. --Vahag (talk) 13:58, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

δεύτερος
The part of this entry which claims it derives from a word meaning "lack" or "come here", rather than "two", was tagged but not listed. - -sche (discuss) 00:29, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

giraffe
I highly doubt that Syriac is the ultimate origin of this word (giraffes tend to be rare in northern Mesopotamia ;)) or that the Somali word derives directly from Syriac. The Syriac transliteration also does not match the Syriac spelling, it should be something like zārīfā rather than zarāfa. The variant comes from Persian, so zārīfā is most likely foreign as well. --334a (talk) 18:15, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

 * The OED doesn't trace the history any further back than Arabic. Etymonline suggests they got it "from an African language", but possibly no-one knows definitely which?  Presumably, the word zarāfa goes back to Ancient North Arabian, but I suspect that the true origins are lost in the mists of time.  Have we any experts on ancient languages of Arabia and North Africa?  If not, then perhaps we should be careful about making claims about where Arabic got the word from.   D b f i r s   19:08, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

 * This etymology still remains a great mystery. Once upon a time there was quite a long talk on this agenda, as follows, whether useful or not now. It's up to you to waste your time upon the following:
 * Talk:기린
 * User talk:KYPark
 * --KYPark (talk) 09:42, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
 * No, those are on a completely irrelevant side issue. We're talking here about where the term originally came from, not about the relationship of later descendants/borrowings to each other. Chuck Entz (talk) 10:52, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
 * As I suspected, the Somali part was erroneously inserted later in the middle of the Syriac-to-Arabic etymology. The idea of a Syriac origin for the term would indeed be ludicrous, if the term always meant the same thing. If, however, it had some other meaning that was applied by the Arabs to a new referent (along the lines of mockingbird coming from mock, for instance), then it's at least plausible. While Arabic does have quite a few borrowings that ultimately came from Aramaic, I have no idea whether it borrowed this term from it, let alone whether it was from Syriac as opposed to some other Aramaic lect. We still need some source to support and/or elaborate on the etymology- particularly with time periods addressed. Chuck Entz (talk) 11:23, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

 * The current Etymology as descending "from Arabic زرافة (zarāfah), from Somali Geri, from Classical Syriac ܙܵܪܝܼܦܵܐ (zarāfa)," ridicilously sandwiches Somali Geri (instead of geri the proper) only to result in unreasonable and indecent editorship hanging beyond corrective adminship. There was also an edit war between the Persian and Semitic supporters. This state of the art looks ugly and poor.

 * Compare 기린 of my initiative, where I explicitly took as the most likely origin. In this process, I was toughly, unjustly  "censored" as shown by Talk:기린. Using this talk page in addition, I was answering Dbfirs who elsewhere would boil me down by saying "There is no campaign for personal attacks on you."
 * --KYPark (talk) 14:39, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Alright, so I've removed the Syriac and Somali points and opted for a Persian compound origin. It still needs and English-language citation, though. --334a (talk) 18:32, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

The etymology section claims this is a compound, from *dr̥ḱ-h₂eḱru- "eye bitter" (actually "bitter eye", I suppose). Presumably, h₂eḱ-ru- is the part that means "eye", but Proto-Indo-European for "eye" is listed here in Wiktionary as, with a different laryngeal and a labial, not a palatalized, k. What gives? Is the difference the result of compounding, or the effect of some (not mentioned) extra morphology? Or maybe it is a different root? Or is it just transcription inconsistency? I don't have any PIE dictionaries with me, so I can't judge; but maybe you guys know what is going on there? --Pereru (talk) 13:49, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It may be just a case of linguists wanting to explain terms so badly that they come up with rather dodgy ideas. That does happen occasionally. 13:58, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Not to endorse the etymology (which strikes me as unmitigated bullshit), but h₂eḱru- would be the part that means "bitter" (cf. Latin ), while dr̥ḱ- would be the part that means "eye" (cf. Greek ). —Angr 14:13, 31 December 2012 (UTC)


text:
geruhen

Etymology
From, from , , from.

Verb

 * 1) to deign, condescend

title: geruhen


text:
Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2013/January

give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime
I imagine this may have originally come from a Chinese proverb, but I may be wrong. ---> Tooironic (talk) 06:55, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Unlikely. Variously attributed to Confucius, Laozi, Marx, and several other people. It seems that none of these is true, because I can't find an older or more authoratative version of the quote in Mandarin or German. It appears to have been coined in English and put in someone else's mouth, AFAICT. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 07:03, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

"I've said it once, and I'll say it again. KYPark is a troll. It would be best simply not to engage with him. ---> Tooironic (talk) 06:57, 2 January 2013 (UTC)  So true, so true. At least he's just discussing it. If he continues to make disruptive edits based on his spurious theories, a block will be in order. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 07:09, 2 January 2013 (UTC)  Not really. A troll is someone whose goal is disruption. KYPark's seems to be self-aggrandizement. The former is solely destructive, but the latter can be beneficial at times. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:55, 2 January 2013 (UTC)"
 * --KYPark (talk) 17:24, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

 * Give him a fish and you do him good daylife. Give him how to fish and you do him good lifetime. (my wording, whether good or bad)
 * --KYPark (talk) 17:50, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

 * Etymology

This saying was coined by Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie (1837–1919) in her novel, Mrs. Dymond (1885):

 * "I don't suppose even Caron could tell you the difference between material and spiritual," said Max, shrugging his shoulders. "He certainly doesn't practise his precepts, but I suppose the Patron meant that if you give a man a fish he is hungry again in an hour. If you teach him to catch a fish you do him a good turn. But these very elementary principles are apt to clash with the leisure of the cultivated classes. Will Mr. Bagginal now produce his ticket—the result of favour and the unjust sub-division of spiritual environments?" said Du Parc, with a smile.

It is sometimes mistakenly believed to be Chinese in origin.

This entry may show how untidy Wiktionary is, in more than one, etymological, respect.

To Wiktionary's, I'd rather prefer the tidier BrainyQuote's: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. -- Maimonides"

I'd not say this would be the ultimate but intermediate etymology. Then, the above, present is almost nonsensical. So funny is to deny absolutely the likelihood of oriental origin. Who on earth would deny the likely oriental origin?

--KYPark (talk) 09:50, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

whelp
Are senses 3 and 4 in fact from the same source as 1 and 2? What is the connection here? Is there a separate etymology? DTLHS (talk) 08:34, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Apparently so. I cross-referenced with various sources. Leasnam (talk) 17:35, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

gargantuan
How could a sixteenth century French author derive a word from (then undeciphered) ancient Egyptian? Moreover, Gargantesi is not an Egyptian word, but a demotic transliteration of the Greek κολοκύνθη (Gourd). Furius (talk) 09:15, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Etymonline says “supposedly from Spanish/Portuguese garganta "gullet, throat,"”. — Ungoliant (Falai) 21:41, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I've removed the bit about Egyptian. - -sche (discuss) 22:51, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Nike
While nḫt is an Egyptian word, with the meaning attributed, I also find this unlikely (Unless someone has a source). Furius (talk) 09:37, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

snake, thnegël
As pointed out on the talk page, these entries conflict regarding the derivation of the Albanian word. - -sche (discuss) 01:11, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Why do you say that? I think phonetics sustain that! Etimo (talk) 11:29, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

तक्षति, τέχνη and texō
What’s the PIE thorn supposed to be? — Ungoliant (Falai) 21:54, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * It is a special kind of sound that developed from the metathesis of -tk- into -kþ-, which is called a "thorn cluster": Thorn cluster. I don't think thorn clusters ever appeared in bare roots though, and *tetḱ- (the pre-form of *teḱþ-) is not a valid root because roots can't end in two stop consonants. On the other hand it looks like some kind of reduplication from *teḱ-... 22:00, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. — Ungoliant (Falai) 22:06, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Watkins' American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots reconstructs this as teks-. The Sanskrit and Latin can come straight from *teks-e/o- and the Greek can come from *teks-neh2. There's no reason to assume a thorn cluster in this root. —Angr 22:11, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

To whoever may be concerned
"14:14, 11 January 2013 CodeCat (Talk"

This way of doing looks too hypersensitive, childish, far from the global standard, esp. in doing with this great global collaboration. This looks like doing evil to pagans, hence greatly endangering such globalism on an egalitarian basis.

The deletion of this very thick thread is such an extreme exception as to require a wide consensus in advance, not to mention the participants' agreements, or otherwise as to acquire a high hand in essence. Wiktionary should avoid shameful and shameless high-handedness or arbitrariness as far as possible.

Absolutely untrue about this deleted thread as a whole is CodeCat's arbitrary, high-handed reason ("Doesn't seem relevant to Wiktionary, mostly monologuing and original research, not a discussion.")

The last, so-called "monologuing" part of this thread may or may not need discussion as it is simply more of hard, objective evidence to be added up to the previous, concerning the likelihood of deeper, synthetic etymology than the analytic Proto-Germanic level at Wiktionary at present that looks like grouping the graphic and phonetic variations of a Germanic word, quite overlapping with "Translations."

In the beginning, all disbelieved in deep etymology out there, but I showed it up indeed, from case to case, perhaps to their dismay, esp. of CodeCat, who might fear it might undermine his/her Proto-Germanic base. Personally, CodeCat could disbelieve in it, and get a research done, peer-reviewed and published to upset it, but should not formally oppose to it until then, imposing an original research ironically.

For a while, I would sit back and watch what steps Wiktionary will take on this queer occasion of sheer injustice.

--KYPark (talk) 04:38, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

 * As much as my interiour intellect would, simply put, adore the permission of pioneering etymologistic inquiry on the entries of this online experiment on volunteer lexicography (which not only bypasses linguistic limitations, but also completely and utterly extirpates the walls posited by the borders of countries, states and other geopolitical subdivisions), so that those who peruse our grandiose lexicon may marvel at the innumerable possibilities and theories for the derivation and evolution of vocables, we, as a community, must confront the issue of any contributor, experienced of not, being able to concoct their own etymologies which agree only with their own expectations, regardless and irrespective of to what degree they are familiarised with the concept of phonetic, phonemic and phonological development of sounds within the words of a lect. This, I’m afraid, is your case, and therefore I must stand by CodeCat’s side in this necessary, though controversial, move. In the opinion of my humble self, the best way of circumnavigating this problematic situation is to have a complete prohibition of original etymological research. But lo! Not all is lost! There is such a website which allows anyone, regardless of their beliefs concerning etymology, to create wikis, and this website is http://wikia.com. All I can do, without jeopardising the high standard of quality we have committed ourselves to, is recommend that you create a wiki at wikia.com, where not only you will be allowed to add whatever etymology as you desire to its entries, unimpeded, but also be able to recruit those share your views on deep etymology and wish to spread its word to the greater public to aid you in the compilation of a “Deep etymology wiki” (or whatever its name be). — Ungoliant (Falai) 05:20, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

"we ... must confront the issue of any contributor ... being able to concoct their own etymologies which agree only with their own expectations, ... irrespective of to what degree they are familiarised with the concept of ... phonological development of sounds within the words of a lect. This ... is your case ..."

 * This is not my case at all indeed. Thus I wonder if you had really carefully read through the very thread and the one-year long prelude, before you wrote the above.

 * Notoriously, I used to be so suspected and blamed when I was comparing European with Korean words. The above excerpt from you matches with that case so exactly that I fear you made such a wrong step on this occasion. The very thread was not such a case at all. I was not one of those who "concoct their own etymologies" but one of those out there who in fact connect and  with PIE root *wegh-, whether in deliberation or in effect.

 * This objective connection has been simply ignored or unnoticed here, hence a shame anyway, until this thread showed it up. Doubly shameful and shameless is still to disbelieve in the hard evidence of deeper etymology than "Etymology" at WT at present.

 * CodeCat and perhaps some others do not end with such disbelief but go on to delete and keep the thread itself from the global readership, hence a triply shameful and shameless injustice at least the world including you need to know.
 * --KYPark (talk) 06:36, 12 January 2013 (UTC) Marginally modified --KYPark (talk) 07:02, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Estonia
The etymology here doesn't seem very plausible, and if it is true then it is very incomplete. Why, if Danish is the origin, was it not borrowed directly as "Estland" in English? 14:05, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * According to Bosworth-Toller, the Estonians were known by Ēste in Old English, so modern Danish is out as the source. According to Estonia, the Aesti were mentioned by Tacitus in his Germania in 98 CE. I don't know where the modern form Estonia came from, but it seems to be widely used in various modern languages. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:47, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * It is the modern form of specifically the country that I am referring to. It seems very unlikely that Estonia came from Danish Estland rather than from some other language that already had Estonia as the name. New Latin seems like a possible source, or some Romance language. fr:Estonia says it is from Latin. 17:09, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Note that we do have an entry at Estonia. Also, Estonia did used to be part of the Russian Empire and the Russian name is also (spelled  back then). --WikiTiki89 17:18, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

 * All these are aimed namely Toward deep etymology (removed here), aren't they?
 * --KYPark (talk) 09:19, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Category:Frequentatives by language
This generic category may well be needed for etymology in parallel with Category:Reduplications by language, which are related but different. The following red links, if clicked, will be found to contain some examples already:
 * Category:English frequentatives,
 * Category:German frequentatives,
 * Category:Korean frequentatives.

Cheers! --KYPark (talk) 10:19, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Reduplication is a process of word formation, so it is etymological. But frequentative is a semantic category; it relates to the meaning of the word rather than to the way it was formed. 14:12, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I don’t see why not. — Ungoliant (Falai) 02:57, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I think it should be called "frequentative verbs" though. 03:17, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah. — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:27, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

With Korean, I think it is better to simply have two separate categories corresponding to 의태어 and 의성어, in addition to Category:Korean adverbs. 129.78.32.21 03:49, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I keep supposing that CodeCat may keep opposing me mainly for the opposition's sake. The quotation on the right may be enough to show or back it up.

Etymology should have it that the frequentative verb, say, descends and inherits from its root or origin, say,.

English, rooted in PIE root *wegh-, in turn gives birth not only to such frequentatives as and , if not ,  and , but also to such a reduplication as.

The table at Frequentative  contains a horde of English frequentatives along with their respective etymological roots, longing or waiting for the proper category.

In a loose or common (rather than technical) sense, the itself, together with, , , , etc., is a frequentative in itself, making sense of "repeated action," as focally noted by all dictionaries!

Wiktionary defines so radically, otherwise than most other dictionaries that bear on "repeated action." Hence less neutrality.

My point is that we may have no reason whatsoever for denying the titular category, whether etymologically or not. Should it be not etymological at all, I am to blame for asking for it in the wrong place. But isn't this just a matter of strict formality?

--KYPark (talk) 08:04, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

May I ask any expert concerned what a frequentative form of a word, say, which indicates frequentative action or "repeated action" in itself should be called, in comparison with "a frequentative form ... of a word is one which indicates repeated action" as quoted (q.v.)?

--KYPark (talk) 08:41, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Interested in frequentatives in principle, see also Appendix:Korean frequentatives in practice.

--KYPark (talk) 13:52, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

 * Request for reconsideration

"Reduplication is a process of word formation, so it is etymological. But frequentative is a semantic category; it relates to the meaning of the word rather than to the way it was formed. —CodeCat 14:12, 15 January 2013 (UTC)"

From the Wikipedian perspective on the right, CodeCat's above reason sounds a mere point of view, even if not false, so that s/he is wanted to get it undone and the categorizing job done as requested, whether etymologically or otherwise. May I take this opportunity to ask who is the admin responsible for quality control and quality assurance of Korean entries? I may have something fatal or vital to report to her, whether etymological or not.

--KYPark (talk) 02:56, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

It may be that frequentative is to know-what while reduplication is to know-how. --KYPark (talk) 13:33, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Reduplication is not always but mostly a frequentative of interest. The former is narrow, while the latter is broad. The former always takes the explicitly repetitive form, while the latter does not. It is frequentative to wiggle and waggle without any obvious sign of reduplication. Frequentness may be implicit, while reduplicateness is explicit by definition. --KYPark (talk) 14:19, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Could or would you convince me that Wiktionary would surely get better and better anyway regardless of new entries? --KYPark (talk) 14:56, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

llenar, rellenar, etc.
People have been posting etymologies deriving these directly from Latin verbs like or  (the latter seems to be a bad guess). Judging by the etymology at, it looks more likely to be from re- + a more recent verb formed from or a descendant. Is there any evidence for a Vulgar Latin/Proto-Romance development of this verb, or did it emerge independently in more than one of the daughter languages? Chuck Entz (talk) 22:28, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I think the initial ll- shows that it can't be a reborrowing, at least. So either it was inherited, or it was formed from another word that itself was inherited. 22:42, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

 * The Romance for “to fill” seems to descend from . Llenar could be + . — Ungoliant (Falai)

Appendix:Korean frequentatives

 * See also: (just ahead of the last agenda )

"01:30, 22 January 2013 Metaknowledge (Talk"

May I cordially ask the community members, especially concerned with etymological frequentatives and reduplications, to vote here if they agree or disagree with the above quoted deletion from the Appendix namespace? Thanks a lot in advance.

--KYPark (talk) 05:58, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

 * Well, I would sure welcome information about Korean frequentatives in the appendix (though probably as a subsection Appendix:Korean verbs), but your page was written more like a personal essay or analysis thanks to sentences like “Should every of the above, say, 35 differenes be worth an entity at all?” and the use of Wiktionary terminology like “Related terms” and “Derived terms”. The appendix should explain to the user how Korean frequentatives work, not question whether it’s worth an entity or talk about how they should be regarded in entries (this WT:AKO’s job). — Ungoliant (Falai) 06:14, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot for your generally welcoming stance. While that page is evolving anywhere anyway, we could discuss anything in the Talk page, including yours as said above! --KYPark (talk) 06:42, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Such a reason as "Not Appendix material" is presupposed implicitly for deletion from the Appendix, hence needless to say explicitly. It is not really informative but maybe deceptive, I fear, not to leave it blank, not to be suspected of no reasonable reason. It should be suspected, convinced, and formally accused of doing perhaps such evil injustice as quoted on the right. --KYPark (talk) 02:13, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

 * One question: Why does the ablaut column have ablaut+nonablaut forms rather than ablaut+ablaut forms? 129.78.32.24 03:08, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this column may look somewhat tricky between two aims:
 * One is to show the well-established, ablauted or, more precisely, high-low voweled reduplication such as 싱숭생숭 (singsung-saengsung) remindful of English sing & sang.
 * The other is to show the high voweled form (in front in black color) of the low voweled entry stem. Both may fail to make up an idiom, but are closely related.
 * Just ignore the same as the (high-voweled) entry stem, which is technically needed for sorting and grouping of related words.
 * I wish such things could be discussed in the Talk page when the removed page at issue gets back to the Appendix namespace. --KYPark (talk) 04:44, 23 January 2013 (UTC) -- marginally modified --KYPark (talk) 05:44, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Experiment with the following (to know if I'm really joking here, as strongly suggested here by some maybe unfair people):
 * 싱글
 * 싱긋
 * 싱숭
 * 술렁.
 * --KYPark (talk) 05:12, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
 * A definitely mischievous one, the very one who deleted that Appendix, cut in and broke the right links. So experiment with the following links instead:
 * 싱글 instead of 싱글 degraded
 * 싱긋 instead of 싱긋 degraded
 * 싱숭 instead of 싱숭 degraded
 * 술렁 instead of 술렁 degraded.
 * Very sorry for all this unexpected inconvenience. --KYPark (talk) 10:48, 24 January 2013 (UTC) instead added --KYPark (talk) 11:39, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Long live Wiktionary with such mischievous adminship! --KYPark (talk) 11:06, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I support keeping this in the appendix, but I'd like to suggest some revamping to be done. The list should be sorted by the hypothetical *roots (etymons) on which the ablaut, tense/lax forms are based, eg. 까닥 (작은말) ~ 끄덕 (큰말) ~ 까딱 (센말), 꾸물 ~ 구물 ~ 고물(?) ~ 꼬물, each variant having its own (-ida, -hada, -georida, -daeda, reduplicated) derivatives. The roots like 싱글 (cf. zh:싱글) should instead be non-redirects, categorised into a separate category (probably interwiki-links to ko:분류:어근). 129.78.32.21 05:25, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks Anonymous 129.78.32.21 for your support. But I'm not sure, so advise me, which is the root(etymon), 구물 or 고물 of 꾸물 and 꼬물. Meanwhile, you may be happy, I hope, to have 구물 and 고물, and 고물 and 꼬물 nearby by clicking on the Ablauted and Tensed columns, respectively. --KYPark (talk) 09:51, 24 January 2013 (UTC) --KYPark (talk) 10:20, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
 * This is not a place for talking about Korean entries in the main namespace, but for voting for or against formally having a list of Korean frequentative stems and their etymological derivatives in the Appendix namespace instead of an informal userpage. To show their formal usefulness, I just offered some REDIRECT's to the listed items, just as a shift, just in case the main entry is yet unavailable. Such should be better than nothing!
 * This lists 29,015 candidates for Korean frequentative or imitative entry. Wiktionary must go a long way to make 1% of it, I bet, regardless of relatedness among them. Meanwhile, my sortable relational database, simply table, could be built up very easily and used very usefully, I hope. I cannot help but wonder why this job should belong to my personal page at all. --KYPark (talk) 14:53, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

layer
"From, , from + ". How is Middle English leyar or leyare from lay + -er? I suspect something needs fixing here. —msh210℠ (talk) 15:40, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

 * I think the usual phrase is that the term is "equivalent to" a combination of such-and-such modern English terms. - -sche (discuss) 09:49, 5 February 2013 (UTC)