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Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2015/September

chow mein
Is "chow mein" from Mandarin or from Taishanese? According to the Wikipedia article, it's from Taishanese. Justinrleung (talk) 01:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I think that version of the etymology dates to when we split Chinese into all the dialects, and changed Chinese to Mandarin as the default when we didn't have any dialect specified. It looks like the etymology originally said "Chinese", and pinyin was used as the romanization just because we did that for all the Chinese entries. I'll leave the question of which lect the English word came from to others who know more than I do. I will say that The Mandarin form doesn't fit all that well. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:57, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I replaced it with zh, which at least isn't inaccurate. The OED doesn't specify, and Wikipedia doesn't have a source for saying it's from Taishanese; from sound alone, I reckon Taishanese or Hakka would be good bets, but I don't know. As an added problem,  (for Taishanese) doesn't even seem to work as an etymology-only language.  —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 20:28, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Taishanese seems right: [tsɔu55 mein32]. Wyang (talk) 04:00, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * You might have better luck with  instead of  . Either that or change the language name to Toishanese so they match... ;-p Chuck Entz (talk) 06:34, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The langrev subpages were what had that error; I have now fixed them and updated the entry. Thanks, Wyang. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 00:08, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Illyrian entries
There are a few recent entries in the as yet uncreated Category:Illyrian lemmas, but I'm a bit leery of entries in a basically unattested language like this. Yes, there are mentions and other indirect means of reconstructing terms in the language, but I'm not so sure that the person who added these knows anything at all about the language, let alone can sift through the uncertainties associated with indirect attestation. Probably the most clear-cut example of what I'm concerned about is Dalmatae, which may be based on an Illyrian demonym, but which looks very Latin to me.

I should mention that this person has been adding a lot of etymologies to Albanian entries that seem to be somewhat indiscriminately pulled out of various references. Given that the question of whether Albanian is descended from Illyrian is rather emotionally loaded, I'm concerned: I don't know much about Albanian etymology, but the pattern makes me nervous.

I realize that it only takes a mention to verify one of these, but I would like to know if there's anything reliable that corroborates them as they're currently constituted. Thanks! Chuck Entz (talk) 03:28, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The user who created these, 8mike, seems to be a problematic editor. : What is the story behind his edits? Is he as relentlessly POV-pushing as he seems to be? If so, he should be warned that he will be blocked if he continues; I don't know the linguistic context well enough to judge.
 * As for the entries: I made Dalmatae into a perfectly good Latin entry, which is of course what it should have been. I'm not clear how the other two are sourced, so I'm going to RFV them and see what happens there. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 05:12, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

 * I appreciate that he's added a lot of Albanian entries. I can't speak to the accuracy or inaccuracy of the etymologies in general (in the case of adur specifically, I'll comment on RFV), but hopefully we can resolve this in such a way that he gets to continue adding Albanian entries/translations. - -sche (discuss) 06:52, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

 * I have interacted with the editor in question. I don't think he is a relentless POV-pusher but his (good-faith) etymologies are unreliable original research and should be removed. The Illyrian entries too are probably unreliable and hopefully will fail rfv. --Vahag (talk) 08:03, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

 * What is it with Albanian editors recently? — JohnC5 12:54, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

 * Probably something in their water. --Vahag (talk) 14:06, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

 * Not just recently. Albania is in a part of the world that's been through a lot of ethnic conflicts where they haven't fared too well, they're still recovering from an extremely harsh, isolationist dictatorship, and they belong to a very distinct branch of the Indo-European languages with no sources going back very far and relatively little attention from scholars. The latter factor means that there's an obvious void that it's tempting to fill with guesswork, and the rest means that there's an emotional vested interest in connecting to something grand and glorious in the ancient past. There have been problems with all of the more prolific adders of Albanian etymologies that I can think of Chuck Entz (talk) 14:26, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

 * Very interesting. I wish I knew more about Albanian so that I could help. I just have a copy of Orel and this, which are useful from a PIE standpoint but not from an adding entries standpoint. — JohnC5 01:17, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I honestly don't know. I went through this user's contributions, but I didn't find emotional writing (perhaps some unreferenced etymological explanations which smell of folkish), perhaps you could bring some examples that I have overlooked. Some of the entries and edits are not referenced (pishë, llohë, haromë, kursej, kërnalle), others are, some others seem quite arbitrary or dubious (brerore, katërshor, ish, ëzë), some even wrong (tokë, prrar, mpiks, vervele), while others look ok. As far as the toponym Dalmatia (or Delminum) goes, there are many scholars who have linked it with Albanian delme, as with other toponyms related to animals and vegetation throughout the Balkans which are better explained through Albanian (Ragusa, Ulqin, Dardania etc), BUT, considering the lack of Illyrian writings and the dearth of inscriptions, these are to be considered only as assumptions, not facts, and this should always be mentioned. Etimo (talk) 19:28, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

因特網
The etymology of 因特網 in Chinese is currently as follows:
 * Transliteration of English Internet + 網 ("net")

However, 因特網 comes from the transliteration of "inter-" (not "Internet") + the translation of "net". Is there a special term for this type of translation? Justinrleung (talk) 02:06, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * A partial calque. DTLHS (talk) 02:59, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * We have a template calque, maybe we should have one for partial calques, or modify calque so it accommodates partial calques. A famous English example is, where we translated the part of  but borrowed the  part. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:26, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
 * And conversely, Germans might wash their Wurst down with a glass of . Smurrayinchester (talk) 15:33, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Old English þon
Campbell´s Old English, love it though I do, seems only to say of this form that its 'classification as instrumental is traditional, but reflects neither its origin nor prevailing use.' Perhaps he finishes his thought elsewhere in the book, but I have no patience to scour it. Am I correct in assuming the following: þon < earlier þan < *þáne (unaccented Indo-European final 'ĕ' lost in Germanic, cf. G οἶδε, Goth wait) < IE *to(i)ne (whence Sanskrit तॆन tēna, OBulgarian тѣмь tēmĭ)?

A trifling question, I know, but when I can't find it on this site I have no other recourse. —Colin

Puerto Rico
Why is "Puerto Rico" borrowed from Spanish and pronounced as if it were Portuguese or something? ばかFumiko￥talk 01:43, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Probably because monolingual English speakers recognize puerto as a cognate of port, and pronounce it like the latter. Besides, the normal US English way of sounding out spellings would probably produce something pronounced like pure + toe, which is kind of odd, and the original Spanish pronunciation doesn't fit very well with English phonotactics. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:20, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It even used to be spelled ; see note a at Puerto Rico. And it still is spelled that way in French, Italian, and Portuguese, of which it could be considered a translation only in Portuguese (to be a translation in French it would have to be "Port-Riche" and in Italian it would have to be "Porto Ricco" with a double c). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:25, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't buy the phonotactic explanation; it could easily have been pronounced p-ware-to. It must be a historical reason. Perhaps (I'm 100% speculating here) the dialect of Spanish that was first brought there pronounced the word more like puorto or porto. Do we have any experts here on historical Spanish dialects? --WikiTiki89 15:41, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Some Asturian dialects have puortu. — Ungoliant (falai) 15:44, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, I noticed that (some apparently even have puorto), but it would have to match up historically, and I'm not an expert on the history of the settling of Puerto Rico. Another theory I just thought of is that it was meant to be pronounced /pwɚ-/, which could much more easily have morphed into what we have now, but this does not explain the spellings in other languages that Angr mentioned. --WikiTiki89 15:57, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * FWIW, the island of Vieques (administered as a county of Puerto Rico) has a distinct accent where they drop a lot of "s" sounds, perhaps via a process similar to what happened in French. For instance, the island's name of Vieques is often pronounced (and has been written historically) as Bieke.  The common Spanish verb form  comes out more as .  I've been told that this accent is a remnant of the Asturian accent of the island's Spanish settlers.  I note too that the  WP article mentions that Asturians were a sizable proportion the Spanish migrants to the islands.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 08:55, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
 * For what's it worth, the few times I've heard the name said by British English speakers, they've pronounced it the Spanish way. Smurrayinchester (talk) 15:31, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
 * If you pronounce the t in the British way, it is not difficult to say puerto like the Spanish. But if you use the American pronunciation of the t, it is difficult to pronounce that word in English. I speak Spanish (I have a degree in Spanish), and I have no problem saying Puerto in Spanish; it is difficult for me to say puerto in English, however, and I would never use that English pronunciation unless I was pretending to be pompous and pedantic. In English I say porto, regardless of the spelling. —Stephen (Talk) 16:40, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

 * In older books, other Puertos are (not always consistently within a work) also rendered Porto, including Porto Bello (Portobelo, Panama, but with older works giving Puerto... as the Spanish name), Porto Cabello (Puerto Cabello, Venezuela), and Porto Principe (Puerto Principe = Camagüey, Cuba). This suggests a general process may have been at work on Porto Rico, rather than one-off Asturian influence. That process might have been anglicization, or the 'levelling' of the Spanish Puertos and Portuguese Portos to one word.

 * American:

 * 1836, Encyclopaedia Americana : a popular dictionary ... on the basis of the seventh edition of the German Conversations-Lexicon, volume X: Porto Bello (properly Puerto Velo); a harbor and city of New Grenada ... / Porto Cabello, or Puerto Cabello; a town of Venezuela ... / Porto Rico, or Puerto Rico; an island belonging to Spain,...
 * 1866, A dictionary of the English language ... by Noah Webster, tenth edition: Pōr'to Bel'lo (Sp. Puerto Bello, pwèʀ'to bèl'yo). / Pōr'to Cạ-bel'lo (Sp. Puerto Cabello, pwèʀ'to kà-vèl'yo). / Porto Praya, pōr'to prī'à. / Pōr'to Prin'cĭpe. See Puerto Principe. / Porto Rico, pōr'to ree'ko (Sp. Puerto Rico, pwèʀ'to ree'ko).
 * 1919, The Encyclopedia Americana, page 791: PUERTO CABELLO. Venezuela, port and capital of... / PUERTO RICO, See Porto Rico.
 * British:

 * 1817, The British Critic, and Quarterly Theological Review, page 616: General Miranda was shortly after made a prisoner, thrown into a dungeon at Puerto Cabello, afterwards sent to Puerto Rico,...
 * 1834, Martin Montgomery, History of the British colonies, volume 2: Porto Bello, ... Puerto Bello, ... Porto Rico (never has *Puerto Rico)
 * 1859, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 8th edition, volume 18: Porto Rico, a Spanish possession, ... / Puerto Cabello, a town on Venezuela, ... / Puerto Principe, a town of Cuba, ...
 * 1863, The History of the British Navy, volume 1: Puerto Rico, Porto Rico, Porto Bello, Puerto Cabello

 * - -sche (discuss) 19:23, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

arrop i talladetes
Can anyone reference or confirm this etymology? A direct borrowing from Catalan seems more likely. — Ungoliant (falai) 03:47, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Icelandic from ?
I don't pretend to know much about Proto-Germanic, but looking at the descendants in other languages from one would expect an Old Norse/Icelandic form. There is such a word in Icelandic which is nowadays only used in the set phrase. It doesn't seem too unlikely to me that a figurative meaning such as this could have arisen from an original meaning of "to stick". Opinions? BigDom 07:58, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Icelanidic klifa comes from the Old Norse, which seems indeed to come from . Leasnam (talk) 20:39, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * added. Leasnam (talk) 20:44, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * FYI, "to climb" is (from ), not . BigDom 06:24, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't quite see how any of the attested forms could have come from . Where did the -j- go in Old Norse? Shouldn't it be klifja? And why no gemination in West Germanic? Shouldn't it be clibban in Old English? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:13, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The reconstruction of class 3 weak verbs is not really settled. The forms we have are based on Ringe's reconstruction, which admittedly leaves a lot of question unanswered. But the most common alternative, to reconstruct -ēną as the ending, is equally puzzling as the long ē apparently fails to become ā in West Germanic. Also, some class 3 weak verbs do have a clear -j- in both Old Norse and West Germanic, such as . —CodeCat 23:38, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
 * This verb is iterative, meaning 'to repeat' as BigDom mentioned (from Vigfusson-Cleasby). It is, then, in all likelihood a class 2 weak, especially because it lacks the features pointed out by Angr. The Proto form would be, and so by regular rules Norse would lack the -j- ("blocked" by the bimoric vowel) and, therefore also, the geminate -f-. If it really derives from the mentioned , it was perhaps removed early to this class in ON because of its meaning, as sometimes happens. —Colin
 * I have updated the entry to show that klifa may not be a direct descendant Leasnam (talk) 18:17, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Gerhard Koebler's Old Norse dictionary has this: klif-a, an., sw. V. (3): nhd. wiederholen. So the "repeat" sense dates to Old Norse, but it was also still a class 3 weak verb. It must be a direct descendant. —CodeCat 18:23, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thats what I used in the first place...okay so the parentheses can come off (barring any objections, of course). Excellent. Leasnam (talk) 04:11, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

mee
I believe this should be Min Nan, not Cantonese. (see 麵)—suzukaze (t・c) 06:50, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
 * This seems possible, since it is pronounced as mī in Min Nan. Justinrleung (talk) 22:46, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree. In Cantonese the word is pronounced "meen". Smuconlaw (talk) 20:41, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Nigeria
The etymology section (English) is confusing and reads like it was written by several arguing people (who have nothing but contempt for each other). WurdSnatcher (talk)
 * Pretty dreadful - and also most of the "information" pertains to Niger, not Nigeria. I've shorn it down to a barebones "From Medieval Latin" etymology, and directed people to Niger for further information. Smurrayinchester (talk) 09:40, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks! WurdSnatcher (talk)

Proto-Germanic *ēlaz
Why do we reconstruct an e-vowel when all the descendants seemingly have a reflex of an a-vowel? --WikiTiki89 22:02, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * If this is a general rule, then let's say this question is about Germanic phonology in general. --WikiTiki89 22:08, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I believe the *ē derives from PIE *ē / *eh₁ and is continued in Gothic as ē; though not for this etymon (See ). — JohnC5 22:51, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, more information here. — JohnC5 23:00, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * In all the descendants, the vowel is long. That points to an original long ē. There was no long ā in Proto-Germanic. —CodeCat 23:08, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
 * If this word were attested in Gothic it would be els (e is always long in Gothic). The vowel that shows up in Gothic as e and in North and West Germanic as ā (but ǣ in Old English and ē in Old Frisian) is usually reconstructed as *ē, sometimes written *ē₁ or *ǣ. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 06:18, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * For words like this where there are clear differences, it might be useful to list the reconstructible Northwest Germanic form (*ālaz) somewhere, perhaps in the list of descendants, or under a ===Reconstruction=== header.
 * (Also, PGmc did have *ā, from earlier *aja, in e.g. .) --Tropylium (talk) 15:05, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Is there a case of this *ā that has a Gothic descendant? We don't seem to have one listed at . --WikiTiki89 19:33, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It's an invention particular to Ringe, used to explain these verbs along with class 3 weak. So the only descendant of ā would be in the class 3 weak verbs in Gothic, if this explanation is valid. Other than that, the only source of Gothic ā is the sequence -anh-. —CodeCat 19:39, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * So you're saying that the Gothic reflex of this hypothetical *ā is ā? --WikiTiki89 19:55, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes. —CodeCat 21:07, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

lupus
RFV of the Latin etymology.
 * This shows signs of too much rearranging by people who didn't understand what they were rearranging. As User:Dave crowley pointed out on the talk page, the un-metathesized hypothetical Latin equivalent isn't compatible with the metathesized Proto-Italic form, and the current wording is very confused about what changes happened when and why. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:54, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Besides the incorrect *volquus, I don't see much that's wrong. I cleaned it up a bit and added a reference for what I changed. (The putative form that should have come about would be *luquus/*lucus, but I don't see much point in mentioning it. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 07:40, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Terms with both known and unknown etymology
We normally categorize words in multiple etymological categories if their history can be traced thru multiple languages (e.g. Category:Spanish terms derived from Latin has, or at least should have, substantial overlap with Category:Spanish terms derived from Proto-Indo-European).

However, this practice might not work very well when it comes to "non-source" etymology categories, e.g. Category:Spanish terms with unknown etymologies. Consider : the page presents several possible etymologies, two from Latin and one from Arabic. Yet it is also classified together with words like, with no known origin. But clearly we're dealing with two different things here: actually unetymologized words, and words with competing etymological proposals. (We do have e.g. Category:Spanish terms with multiple etymologies, but this appears to be actually for etymologically distinct homonyms, not for cases of disputed etymologies.) — Another type of example: Finnish, which derives from a Proto-Finnic root; but it is also categorized as being of unknown origin (since the PF root is as well).

I suggest that the use of should be restricted for terms whose origin is actually non-trivially unknown: ("Non-trivially" in that we do not know the "ultimate" etymology of most words; all non-neologisms can at best only be traced back to oldest known proto-languages like Proto-Indo-European.)
 * if a single term has multiple etymologies, we could bring in a category like "LANG terms with disputed etymologies" (or, I guess, leave the conflict only in the text).
 * if a term in a parent language is of unknown origin, only that entry should be categorized as being of unknown origin, not the descendants in the daughter languages.

I'm not sure if any editors are actively following either of the usages I'm questioning, but I'll raise this here for the record, before editing the template documentation and/or WT:ETYM. --Tropylium (talk) 15:05, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I definitely agree on point 2. All words can only be traced so far, so there is always a point where we don't know anymore. As for point 1, I think "uncertain" or "unclear" is better than "disputed". —CodeCat 15:09, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

dog
This is so obvious it discredits professional etymologists for not figuring it out. It is related to Latin digitus "finger" and Greek deiknumi "show." So dog originally meant "pointer."
 * Ho ho. We have a place for these but I've forgotten what it's called. Anyway, since most etymology is makebelieve I might as well leave it. SemperBlotto (talk) 14:09, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
 * It's called WT:BJAODN. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:49, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Funnily enough, these words do appear to have common relatives in modern English... but these are teach (*taikijaną), token (*taikną) and toe (*taihwǭ). There was a strong tendency for the d sound to become t – hence why we say two when the Romans said duo. Smurrayinchester (talk) 15:21, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Not so much a strong tendency as a law. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:59, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

spill
(see this rather hasty example of Australian politics)

Noun sense 8 is:
 * A declaration that the leadership of a parliamentary party is vacant, and open for re-election. Short form of

Which sense of spill does this derive from? I've found this memo from February 2015, which talks about "a motion to spill the leadership positions [of the party]", which sounds like it's a reference to throwing away the current leadership. But that still doesn't really explain why the word "spill" is used, rather than, I don't know, "election"? Any Aussies know where this jargon comes from? Keith the Koala (talk) 15:58, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Could it have something to do with take a spill? Chuck Entz (talk) 01:51, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

 * My guess would be noun-sense-2: "A fall or stumble." (same sense as take a spill). If it was called an "election" that would imply a public election, but the election was internal (voted on by elected members of the party), so it's a spill. A public election is not a spill. No idea where it originates. Didn't realise it was an Australian thing, and really I'm not even sure any more which part of the process gets called a spill or how broadly the term can apply. Also I notice there's also an obsolete sense of "spill" meaning "to overthrow a person" listed in OED which might be related, but might be a coincidence. —Pengo (talk) 15:26, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

 * Our definition probably needs some work. Neither OED nor Macquarie definitions even mention re-election or leadership. OED: "A vacating of other posts after one important change of office." Macquarie: "the declaring vacant of a number of positions when one above them falls vacant" These definitions make it sound like "spill" refers to the change "spilling over" to the less senior positions, though I don't feel like any of the news coverage was really referring specifically to this. It was more about the contest ("Turnbull wins spill"), and treating the spill as the overall event rather than just the declaration ("Tony Abbott's love of onions recalled on social media during leadership spill") and to refer to the subsequent change of leadership ("the spill changes nothing"). But overall I'm more confused now than when I started looking into it. —Pengo (talk) 15:55, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

source in Appendix:Proto-Slavic/sinjь
I find most interesting and credible the explanation for the meaning of Ἄξεινος as "Black sea" and I am quoting it on French wiktionnaire, Ἄξεινος, but it lacks a source... --Diligent (talk) 13:37, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The source is Max Vasmer, but his explanation is possibly wrong. Read The Name of the Black Sea, an article by De Blois. --Vahag (talk) 17:13, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

booyakasha
A lot of craziness was going on in the etymology, so I notched it all down, but it would be nice to have something that could be referenced. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 17:46, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Proto-Germanic entries of 81.108.27.72
This IP obviously knows a thing or two about the sound changes between Proto-Germanic and Old English, but a significant number of their Proto-Germanic entries have exactly one descendant, which doesn't exactly inspire confidence. I hope they're not going through an Old English word list and running the sound changes backwards to arrive at a "Proto-Germanic" reconstruction- but that's exactly what it looks like. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:37, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

 * Having only a single descendant doesn't automatically invalidate an entry — if there's a higher-level i.e. 'parent' i.e. PIE root with other descendants, then the Proto-Germanic step probably existed, unless loaning happened — but if there's no 'parent' root and only one descendant, it is suspicious, and it becomes downright implausible when there's ae process that would have created the form within the 'descendant' language. The scattered references I looked at analyse botettan as a compound formed in Old English, suggesting the Proto-Germanic page bōtatjaną should go. The situation is similar for Grīmaz (Köbler's etymological note on is to see ), and I can't find evidence of aikulaz either, nor ballukaz, baswaz, bōkōną, hampijaną or snigilaz (though I can find references for snagilaz), only some of which assert (without citing references) descent from PIE. þrawwaz is interesting (not necessarily invalid) in that it doesn't list regular descendants, only loans. - -sche (discuss) 17:44, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Proto-Slavic *velťi or *velkti?
See Russian (source: Vasmer) and, Polish  (source: Derksen). Pls fix appropriately. (I used *velkti from the Polish entry in влечь). --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 13:25, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
 * ť and kt are essentially equivalent in Proto-Slavic. We used to use kt, but a while ago we switched to using ť. --WikiTiki89 14:49, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

fuck
Where did you find fokka? I’m having trouble finding it anywhere. --66.190.99.112 05:30, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

 * I sometimes wonder about etymologies marked "dialectal Swedish" (it sometimes seems to be a way for the linguist to give an otherwise obscure Germanic term a root), but in this case it's in Merriam-Webster, and I did find a couple of books that make the same claim: 1, 2. I don't know enough Swedish to verify whether it existed (if a dialectal word for "fuck" would be recorded hundreds of years ago), but it seems plausible - the closely related language of Danish has the cognate fokken. Smurrayinchester (talk) 20:54, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Verifiable from Svenskt dialektlexikon (1862-1867), p. 188 ("Bhl." = Bohuslän). --Tropylium (talk) 15:34, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Good find! Smurrayinchester (talk) 17:25, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

I made the Swedish section for it recently. fokka --Romanophile (talk) 11:51, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * "Bahusia"? Can we use common terms please? I've never heard of this one. —CodeCat 18:31, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Indeed, that context label bordered on the useless. After poking around Wikipedia a bit, I think I've fixed the label.  Or, I've completely screwed it up.  Someone more familiar with Swedish should please have a look.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 23:58, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

*vesti vs. *vezti
A while ago CodeCat decided that the infinitive of Proto-Slavic should be spelled  rather than  claiming in this discussion that "z automatically devoiced to s before t in Proto-Slavic". Only now I realize, how do we know that this is true and that devoicing didn't occur at later stages? Old East Slavic spelled this word as, unlike Old Church Slavonic, which spelled it (at least based on our entries that was the case), indicating that it may have been pronounced with a [z], and Ukrainian still pronounces it with a [z]. So why are we so sure that it was devoiced in Proto-Slavic? --WikiTiki89 19:22, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

 * Re-pinging people, since no one responded. --WikiTiki89 18:12, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * You're right. Vezti and vesti are two related but different verbs with different senses, inflections, descendants and pronunciations, including the infinitive. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 21:53, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * That wasn't the point. The question was only about the infinitive and only about how it should be spelled, which for a reconstruction reflects how we think it would have been pronounced. For example, if we were reconstructing Russian, we would spell both infinitives as vesti, because вести and везти are pronounced exactly the same. --WikiTiki89 22:28, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Then the modern Ukrainian pronunciation should be taken into account. Why the two inflection paradigms shouldn't matter? The two verbs should be split in any case. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 23:36, 28 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The two verbs are split (see the entry), and if you read my original post, I already did mention Ukrainian. --WikiTiki89 02:47, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

 * You can't pronounce [zt] without some kind of (glottal) break, which either Ukrainian inserted (by analogy to present stem or under the influence of written forms) or the reconstruction of Proto-Slavic is wrong with respect to voiced-unvoiced sequences (which are unassimilated in uk in general). Another possibility is that uk (or perhaps OEsl.) recreated the form везти after that kind of assimilation ceased to be functional). Historical grammars of uk should be consulted if anyone has access to one. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 08:53, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * No, it's phonetically quite pronouncable, especially if you admit a degree of variation in where the voicing switches exactly (ranging from [z͡st] to [zd͡t]). --Tropylium (talk) 09:50, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that it is very possible that OES used везти as an etymological spelling, rather than a phonetic one, and that Ukrainian may have extended this to the pronunciation as well. Strong evidence of voicing in PS would be if we found a word with root-internal [zt] in OES or Ukrainian. If no such word is found, we are left to speculate. Do we know what respective infinitives of and  would have looked like in PIE? --WikiTiki89 14:59, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * PIE possess no infinitive form. Many descendant, including PS, take their infinitives from the PIE nominal suffix . This is, however, misleading because the descendants of original *-tis-stems all have the stressed zero-grade root in all of their descendants (e.g. > *mń̥tis > PS,  > *uh₁ítis > PS ). If we found the PS descendant of *wédʰ-tis (which does give PG , we would expect to see *wédʰ-tis > *wét-tis > *wétstis > *útstis > PS ?*ъsti. In this situation we would not only see a different root grade in the stem but also dental assimilation and assibilation in PIE. Similarly *wéǵʰ-tis should probably produce PS ?*ъzti, though I do not know whether the *z should assimilate in this case. As such, either form *vesti or *vezti should be a PS formation. — JohnC5 15:43, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The intent of my question was to determine whether voicing assimilation occurred before PS in each case. You seem to be saying that with *wédʰ-tis it occurred early on, before the frication of the *-dʰ-, while for *wéǵʰ-tis, it may be that no voicing assimilation occurred at all before PS. Is that correct? Also, why do you suggest *weC- > *uC- > *ъC-? There is no word-initial ъ in PS. --WikiTiki89 15:59, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) There was voicing assimilation already in PIE. Anything spelled -ǵʰt- for morphological reasons would have been pronounced -ḱt- in PIE and would (barring analogical re-formation) have developed exactly like any other -ḱt-. If any Slavic language truly has phonetic [zt] in this (or any other) word, it can't be very old, but must be a relatively new case of analogy/paradigm leveling. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:02, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * P.S.: word-initial ъ got prothetic v in PS, so *ъsti and *ъzti would be *vъsti and *vъzti respectively. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:04, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the confusion on my part. My guess of word-initial *ъ stemmed from a lack of knowledge of how word initial PIE *u descended into PS. My long-winded and tangential answer was to say that the full-grade stem form prevented either infinitive from being a direct PIE descendant regardless of PIE assimilation rules. Also, Aɴɢʀ is absolutely correct that *-ǵʰt- would become *-ḱt- in PIE. — JohnC5 16:15, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * There is no evidence that assimilation occurred in PIE already. In fact, Bartholomae's law requires its absence. —CodeCat 16:47, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * …yes. Regardless, the point about the root grade still stands. — JohnC5 16:57, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * But *vъsti / *vъzti > *vesti / *vezti through leveling is also possible. Anyway, the change *ved-ti > *vesti could not have occurred within PS. --WikiTiki89 17:30, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

sulfur
Claims that it came from PIE, but it did not name a specific root. Hillcrest98 (talk) 21:52, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * According to zolfo (Italian), it's from, from the root . Sounds plausible (it would correlate with Proto-Germanic *sweblaz) - any PIE experts able to back that up? Smurrayinchester (talk) 13:39, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * According to Kroonen, we are dealing with a pre-IE Wanderwort reflected in Latin, Germanic, Armenian, Hebrew, Mongolian, Turkish. --Vahag (talk) 14:36, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * So De Vaan would like to derive the original form from an unattested ablaut r/n-stem *sólp-r from  and compares it to . This root does have an s-stem *sélpos that gives AG /, Albanian , and Tocharian A/B /. Also *solpéh₂ > PG , a secondary -ís formation > Sanskrit , and *sl̥prós > . Beekes, however, does not believe that ὄλπη and ἔλπος are related, though the LIN derives ὄλπη from *solpéh₂. None of the sources discussing *selp- derived sulpur from it except De Vaan, though the semantics of fat, oil, ointment > sulfur do not seem plausible to me. With this information, I am more inclined to trust Kroonen's claim that it is a non-IE Wanderwort. — JohnC5 16:18, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Let's try to map this out. So far, this is mostly guesswork, so feel free to add to it or modify it:
 * Around Asia Minor?:
 * Armenian:
 * Serbo-Croatian:
 * Central Asia?:
 * Mongolian:
 * Persian:
 * Turkish:
 * Europe:
 * Germanic:
 * Latin:
 * Middle East: I'm guessing borrowed as *guprīt much later than Proto-Semitic
 * Arabic:
 * Maltese:
 * Aramaic:
 * Hebrew: גָּפְרִית
 * Still not sure where to put Slavic forms and OES  (and whether they belong here at all). --WikiTiki89 17:30, 1 October 2015 (UTC)


text:
Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2015/October

Is Crimean Gothic descended from Gothic?
Regarding, is Crimean Gothic descended from Wulfilan Gothic? I thought it was a separate East Germanic language. Pinging as the one who made the edit in question. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:13, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It is currently described in Wikipedia as a Gothic dialect, although this had been changed a couple of times. At least my source supports that claim. --Ivadon (talk) 20:31, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

φέρω - suppletive forms
Can the source of the 2-3 suppleted roots of this word can be found? I ran into this on WP while searching for suppleted words in IE languages. I haven't really studied ancient/proto- languages unlike many of you (I use pure lookup to get etymologies), but this sort of word origin stuff interests me. Hillcrest98 (talk) 23:42, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

camera obscura
I tried to use the proper formatting for the etymology here but stuffed up, could someone fix it please? Thanks. ---> Tooironic (talk) 13:39, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Angr fixed it (see his edit for how to do it). —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 15:47, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * But make sure that my change is really what you want. I wasn't sure what fix you were going for. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:56, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Pretty much, yes. Does the term originate from Latin or New Latin? ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:42, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * As a phrase meaning "dark room", I'm sure it goes back to Classical Rome. As a device for seeing an image projected on a surface, I believe it only goes back to the Renaissance (the concept behind the device goes much farther- but apparently not with that name). Chuck Entz (talk) 02:41, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

rob Peter to pay Paul
RFV of the etymology.

Tagged mistakenly as an rfe by an IP, who posted an explanation on the talk page. It does, indeed, look like a folk etymology/guess of the type that tends to float around from one general interest book to another and here and there on the web without much grounding in actual etymological research. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:40, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

 * It seems that etymology has been floating around for some 350 years, but the phrase existed before then. See www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/rob-peter-to-pay-paul.html. —Pengo (talk) 23:02, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

adoxography
Would someone kindly check the etymology? I'm not sure if I got it right, or why the category "English twice-borrowed terms" is appearing. Thanks. Smuconlaw (talk) 20:37, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Fixed (after a couple of absent-minded missteps). You missed out on some of the details in the Ancient Greek, which is understandable if you're not familiar with the language or with the references available.
 * The categorization problem is due to using en: although it does display Wiktionary's name for the language referred to by a given code, the main purpose for etyl is to add the right derivational categories, based on the language codes given.
 * Simply leaving out the second parameter leads it to assume a second parameter of "en", since English is the default at English Wiktionary There's no good reason to categorize an English entry as derived from English unless it's a borrowing of a non-English term that has an English term in its history, so it calls it a "twice-borrowed term"- borrowed into another language, and later borrowed back. To avoid categorization, you just use "-" for the second parameter. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:56, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi, and . I know nothing about Latin or Greek, and had just copied the etymology from other entries in the dictionary, so thanks for fixing it. Just wondering, though: does ádoxos mean only "unexpected, unlikely", or does it also have the sense of "dishonourable, ignoble"? I noticed that one of the senses of dóxa is "honour, glory", and World Wide Words suggests that this is the relevant meaning of ádoxos, that is, writing about ignoble (rather than unexpected) things. (See also the 2008 quotation.) Smuconlaw (talk) 08:03, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It can also mean 'disreputable; ignoble'. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:06, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, thanks. Can I leave it to one of you to update the entry? Also (although this isn't etymology related), is the pronunciation of the word likely to be "ay-dock-SAW-gruh-fee" or "uh-DOCK-so-GRUH-fee"? Smuconlaw (talk) 09:23, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I've never heard the word pronounced, but my instinct says it should have same stress pattern as photography, i.e. main stress on the "sog". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:26, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * That's what I figured too. Smuconlaw (talk) 11:06, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure any of the existing entries needed to be updated, though an entry should definitely reflect the "ignoble" sense, since it seems to be the primary one.  shows a common semantic progression: from opinion to good opinion to outstanding opinion/glory. You can see traces of this kind of progression in fame/defame and esteem/estimate. The other meaning of  can been seen in paradox, from, which Liddle & Scott consider  to be a synonym of, in this sense.  There may be a better way to show it in the etymology, but this term definitely descended from the rare "unexpected" sense, not from the more common "ignoble" one. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:14, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * You're the expert, so I've adjusted the etymology as you suggest. Thanks! Smuconlaw (talk) 18:49, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, Angr's the expert, if anyone here, but I figured he just didn't have the time to get up to speed on the issues I had been looking at for a while. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:29, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, thanks very much to both of you. By the way, ἄδοξος is red-linked but I notice that άδοξος ("inglorious, without fame, without glory, without pride") exists. Is this the same word? Smuconlaw (talk) 22:28, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Sort of. It's the (modern) Greek descendant of the Ancient Greek word. Ancient Greek has a diacritic that modern Greek doesn't use, otherwise they would have been spelled the same and ended up on the same page. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:46, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for clarifying. How does one tell whether a word is derived from Ancient or modern Greek, actually? Smuconlaw (talk) 10:30, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It's very rare for anything not specific to modern Greece to be derived from modern Greek. Scientific, technical, religious and similar terms are all from Ancient Greek. I've seen a couple of phobia names that were derived from modern Greek, but that's about it. The reason is that Ancient Greek is part of the history of European civilization and, until recently, was among the subjects an educated person was often taught, but modern Greek is just one of the many languages spoken in Europe, so most non-Greeks don't speak it. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:09, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

pringoso
Are there any possibly related words in Latin, or in other Romance languages? DTLHS (talk) 23:16, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The obvious one is Latin pingue, which has a noun sense meaning"fat, grease" (not covered in our entry, but it can be seen in the Lewis & Short entry for pinguis). For instance, the plant genus got its name because the leaves look oily or greasy. Of course, that would require an explanation for that "r", and why it didn't come out more like pingüe. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:57, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The adjective is from the noun, itself probably deverbative from . Beyond that the etymology is unclear. Latin  has been suggested as the etymon, via Vulgar Latin . --Vahag (talk) 08:50, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Tucci
Anybody know the etymology of this Italian surname? This says "one who made sausage and cut up meat. but has no source. This looks more authoritative but I'm not sure I get what it's saying, it seems to say its original form, Tuccio, is a use of the diminutive -ito but of course it doesn't have -ito in it. Does it mean to imply it was originally Tuccito? So it was the diminutive of a hypothetical given name Tucc? WurdSnatcher (talk)
 * is "patronymic or plural form of " and is "from a short form of any of various personal names ending with the hypocoristic suffix -(t)uccio, for example Albertuccio, Robertuccio". Source: . --Vahag (talk) 06:06, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, interesting, thanks! WurdSnatcher (talk)

Sinograph interpretations redivivus
Hello all. Etymology Scriptorium readers who frequented the Beer Parlour back in 2013 may recall two threads that year dealing with Sinograph etymologies, here and at much greater length here.

I had visited the parlour with the intent of creating uniformity for and expanding the breadth of material of mine that was being used in Wiktionary's Sinograph etymologies. Several editors were welcoming and offered constructive suggestions, but they were outnumbered by others who revealed themselves as unaware of important relevant research, assumed bad faith, treated the newbie as a suspect on trial, pressed arguments tainted with rhetorical artifice and logical fallacies, and conjured policy out of thin air to suit the purpose at hand. It was not, I daresay, the Beer Parlour's finest moment.

Now, two years on, I find that the state of the etymology section of the Sinograph entries makes a mockery of the stated objections to my contributions. Interested parties may wish to peruse the earlier discussion and familiarize themselves with these objections in the editors' own words and to review the pertinent section of Wiktionary: References.

Many of the interpretations in the etymology section of Sinograph entries are, as it happens, unattributed. That does not necessarily make the interpretations inadmissible, for as stated in W:R above: "When there is a single source for etymology, or the etymology is widely accepted (so that author's name doesn't matter) it is not necessary to mention the author of the etymology."

However, neither of these exemptions apply to the interpretations in question because 1) There are multiple sources of etymology for Sinographs and 2) No compelling case can be made that interpretations such as those for 真 染 or 因 (as retrieved in mid-October 2015) qualify as widely accepted.

Moreover, even in cases when attributions are provided, these are often to sites that are of contestable value as reliable sources. To take but several examples, 炭 goes to yellowbridge.com, 且 報 辛 不 可 亡 乙 to hanziyuan.com (in Mandarin to begin with, and all in any case currently redirecting to a "This domain may be for sale" page), and 失 異 民 岡 玉 者 奇 不 夕 眔 身 犬 幸 to Richard Sears' Chinese Etymology. (The sources upon which Sears relies for his reproductions of ancient forms make him an acceptable handy online reference for the graphic aspects of the characters, but nothing about his academic background qualifies him as an authority on interpretations of Sinographs.)

In short, I find that the Sinograph entries are riddled with interpretations that fail to meet Wiktionary's standards for inclusion, and I call this situation to the attention of scriptorium readers for consideration and input. Also, I urge those editors who went on the record against inclusion of my contributions to square that opposition with the silence they afford the problematic interpretations noted above. Thank you. Lawrence J. Howell (talk) 03:30, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Maybe there are problems with our current etymologies (I'm not qualified to say), but that's an argument for improving our etymologies, not for giving up and letting you do them. Whatever may be said about their current state, the very clear consensus was that your approach would be worse. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:57, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

 * Hello again, Chuck, and thank you for your reply.

 * Please reread my post. Nowhere did I propose that Wiktionary give up on the etymologies and allow me to do them. What I did was to alert the community to a certain issue: The etymology sections of many of the Sinograph entries contain interpretations that fail the requirements set forth in Wiktionary: References. That should be a matter of general concern for the community and of particular concern for the contributors who edit the Sinograph entries, and I am urging input here from all parties. Simultaneously, I am asking to be apprised of the rationale according to which certain interpretations judged not to conform to Wiktionary standards (namely, mine) are excluded while other non-conforming interpretations gain inclusion.

 * As for the consensus you mention, I have a very different take on what ultimately was demonstrated by the earlier debate. For the moment, however, let's focus on the issue at hand. Lawrence J. Howell (talk) 00:58, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

 * "rationale ": Simple: the other ones haven't been judged and scrutinized. Yours have. Is this a good thing? In my opinion, no. But at the moment that's how it is. —suzukaze (t・c) 01:08, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

 * A week later. Nobody has attempted to rationalize continued inclusion of interpretations failing to conform to Wiktionary standards. Nobody has argued in favor of loosening the standards. Nobody has moved to bring those interpretations into conformity with standards or, alternately, to excise them. The Herculean efforts of Editor Nobody in this connection are duly noted.

 * My initial foray into Wiktionary provoked a number of editors tone deaf to the phonesthemic tendencies in Old Chinese identified by Axel Schuessler, Marjorie Chan and Gilbert Roy into making intemperate comments. This followup visit has produced silence and inaction. Tin ears and inertia certainly create a daunting environment for editors keen on improving the dictionary.

 * I'll swing by again in a few years and, providing the editorial climate has changed enough to permit it, make two types of improvements, outlined below. I heartily encourage contributors who perceive the merits of the blueprint to get started without me.

 * The first improvement is with respect to the Sinographs that are now categorized as 會意文字 ("ideogrammic compounds," "compound ideographs" inter alia).

 * For decades, informed students of the Sinographs have known of major analytical weaknesses in the traditional 六書 liùshū categories, one category of which is the alleged 會意 characters. However, it wasn't until two years ago that this knowledge began percolating into general awareness. The sea change was launched on 22 June 2013, with this landmark edit. Ever since, en.wikipedia has been enlightening those interested in Sinographs that, "Many characters formerly classed as compound ideographs are now believed to have been mistakenly identified."

 * Unfortunately, Wiktionary's treatment of these alleged 會意 characters suggests that word has yet to reach editors working on Sinograph entries. Contributors miscategorize obvious phono-semantic compounds (導 便 形 健 房 港 字 客 ...), merrily continue decomposing compound ideographs as though their present-day forms actually correspond to the thought processes according to which the characters were originally devised (設 "Ideogrammic compound (會意): 言 + 殳 – speech and acts"), and are nescient of the palaeography that enables us to identify the now-disappeared phono-semantic elements in these supposed 會意 characters.

 * I will improve the entries for these characters by properly categorizing them as phono-semantic compounds and interpreting them according to the particular ancient form(s) bearing most directly on the meanings the characters convey at present.

 * The second improvement will be to add meaningful interpretative data to the etymology sections of entries already correctly categorized as phono-semantic compounds (at present, the totality of the etymology section of the entry for 暮 is "莫 + 日").

 * This situation can, should and will be ameliorated by presenting exegetical material drawn from reliable and accessible English-language references sources such as Chinese Writing (the Mattos/Norman translation of Qiu Xigui's 文字學概要) and Schuessler's ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese.

 * The utility of Wiktionary for its users will increase exponentially, as can be illustrated by the following scenario. Users learn that Schuessler, in his entry for 莫暮, suggests a relation to the notions "dark, cover." Then they wonder about the function of 莫 in other derivative characters (募 墓 模 幕 寞 摸 漠 獏 慕 膜 蟇 謨 鏌 驀). The more astute among them ponder then conclude, "Meanings of the derivative characters tell me the conceptual influence isn't 'dark, cover': It's 'concealed.' Now it all makes sense. Man, I remember back when all Wiktionary gave us for 暮 was 莫 + 日. The dictionary is so much better now." Arrivederci. Lawrence J. Howell (talk) 02:07, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

stap (Crimean Gothic)
I have a source that claims it to be a loanword from “magyar. czáp”, which I guess should mean csáp, but the listed definition is not appropriate. Is there maybe something missing?

In search for other possible etymons I found Slovak, Romanian and notably Albanian , which gave me the hint to a possible Scythian origin and to sheep.

While that is my personal research, since there are quite a few Crimean Gothic words of ultimately Iranian origin, a link to Scythian *čapi would be strikingly accurate except for the sex of the animal—unless we can find more information about czáp or csáp and its own etymology.

The question is now whether the Crimean Gothic term might be directly derived from one of the mentioned languages or if it is inherited from Proto-Germanic, and if we should make mention of one of these theories. — Ivadon (talk) 13:31, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

tangram
Need someone who knows Greek to check the Greek part of the etymology. Thanks. ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:48, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

While you're at it, please check zoetrope as well. ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:54, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I've fixed them. Neither are from Greek, but instead from Ancient Greek, but the suffixes are not used with their strict original meaning, but instead as English suffixes. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 05:37, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Many thanks! ---> Tooironic (talk) 16:03, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Proto-Slavic second palatalization
Anyone know why we reconstruct, but simultaneously , ? Surely these have to be from two different stages of Proto-Slavic, with the second regressive palatalization changing >  and  >  but (except in West Slavic)  >  and  >. I note that Dirksen does the same as us in his etymological dictionary but gives no rationale; is this simply a convention of some kind, or is the second palatalization theorized to have occurred separately (later) before v? Kortlandt has it applying universally but simply being later reversed before v in West Slavic, which seems to indicate the former. —Vorziblix (talk) 12:18, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * According to Wikipedia, the lacks the second palatalization even in root-initial position (where it's unlikely to have been undone by analogy), suggesting that the second palatalization was not complete in Proto-Slavic. If that's so, we should move  to  and  to  (apparently attested as  in Old Novgorodian), and keep  and  where they are. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:26, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The real solution would be to move to,  to ,  to , and  to . That is the only solution that does justice to every descendant of Proto-Slavic. --WikiTiki89 15:13, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's necessary to put palatalisation marks on those letters as the palatalization was implied by the following front vowel anyway. That said, since we've now voted to become pedantic about sourcing reconstructions, it's going to be hard to source these alternative forms. It appears that our new-fangled policy disallows us from renaming these pages. Yay. —CodeCat 15:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * There is nothing preventing us from changing spelling conventions if we source a different spelling. We need the palatalisation marks because of the progressive palatalization, which was not completely predictable as far as I can tell, but since its result merged with the result of the second palatalization, we should treat them the same way. --WikiTiki89 19:36, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, and we already use palatalization marks for the result of the progressive and second regressive palatalizations acting on h > ś: thus we have vs. . With our current notation the progressive palatalization is indeed unpredictable; see e.g., where in the inflected forms -ikomъ, -ikoma, -ikomь, -iku, and -ika the k might be expected to palatalize but does not. This is apparently because the progressive palatalization failed to take place after old diphthongal ei > ẹ > i but did take place after i derived from other sources. Since we reconstruct a later stage of Proto-Slavic when ẹ had already merged with i, we can’t predict the palatalization from the forms we give.
 * The new reconstruction sourcing policy isn’t a problem, as it states: »Allowing appendix pages on reconstructed protoforms (e.g., *h₂ŕ̥tḱos) only if they have references to sources (scholarly work) that... b. provide evidence that supports the form (e.g., sound changes that would create it)«, and references for the sound changes involved are plentiful. —Vorziblix (talk) 22:54, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, but we do not indicate the result of the progressive and second regressive palatalization on k and g, which seems like it would be a good idea. Anyway, ḱ, ǵ, and x́ make more sense to me than ć, dź, and ś. --WikiTiki89 00:44, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
 * If the issue is merely notational, then can't we just keep things as they are? *c merely denotes the archiphoneme that appears as k in Old Novgorod and c in the rest of Slavic. Just like we use *ť to denote the archiphoneme that becomes c in West Slavic, č in East Slavic, and variously č, ć, ḱ or št in South Slavic. —CodeCat 23:04, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Do *c and *dz ever come from anywhere other than the progressive and second regressive palatalizations? If not, then indeed there is no problem, but then should be moved to  and  to  with the simple rules *cv > *kv and *dzv > *gv in West Slavic. I also wish there was a single letter we could use for *dz... --WikiTiki89 00:44, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
 * A later *c and *dz arise from *ť, *ď and other sources as PSl disintegrates, but we needn’t be concerned with them, as our reconstructed forms are earlier; just using *c, *dz, *ś would work well as far as I know. Actually, looking over About Proto-Slavic, that seems to have been Ivan’s intention: *c and *dz are listed as »palatal alveolar«. For *dz, the literature traditionally uses *ʒ as a single letter. —Vorziblix (talk) 01:02, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok, so you agree with moving to  and  to ? --WikiTiki89 15:13, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't know about anyone else, but I don't agree with it. It's highly improbable that the West Slavic forms are derived from forms with alveolar affricates that turned into velar stops in West Slavic; rather, they stayed velar stops in West Slavic and never got affricated in the first place. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:48, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter what they were, the question is just how should we write them. It is entirely possible that they were [kʲ], [gʲ], and [xʲ], or [c], [ɟ], and [ç]. --WikiTiki89 15:59, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure where you are getting the idea from that these are alveolar affricates. We've been discussing the very point of how to represent phonemes. —CodeCat 15:52, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
 * WT:ASLA calls them "palatal alveolar consonants", and it's disingenuous to pretend we can use the symbols c dz for a Slavic language and have readers interpret them any way other than . If the problem with using k g is that there's no progressive palatalization after the i that comes from an older diphthong, then we can write that vowel as i₂ (as some authors already do, so that's not an invention of ours) to distinguish it from the i < ī that does trigger progressive palatalization. Or, if absolutely necessary, ḱ ǵ (as well as x́ rather than ś, cf. Old Novgorodian ), but using c dz is simply misleading, no matter how much we tell ourselves that they're purely algebraic symbols with no phonological interpretation. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:25, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
 * There are other issues with ignoring the progressive palatalization as well. The consonants that were affected by it in turn fronted the vowels that followed them. So there's a three-stage process: *vĭxo > *vĭśo > *vĭśe. Since there is no progressive palatalization in Old Novgorod, there can't be any fronting either. Does Old Novgorod display fronting after *j? That is, is there a distinction between hard and soft inflections? —CodeCat 16:31, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't know. All I know about Old Novgorodian is what's in the Wikipedia article. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:43, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, c and dz are the accepted symbols used by most lexicographers of Proto-Slavic. --WikiTiki89 17:44, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Except before v, where most lexicographers of Proto-Slavic use k g. Following most lexicographers means keeping the status quo. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:17, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
 * You're right, but then we're back to square one. --WikiTiki89 02:43, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Precisely. So if we feel we do have to deviate from the majority of lexicographers in order to make correct predictions, then in my opinion we should follow the principle of least astonishment and use the symbols k g x (or at least ḱ ǵ x́) to indicate sounds that uncontroversially come from PBSl. k g x and that remain k g x in Old Novgorodian and, before v, in West Slavic. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:01, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Civilocity
The exact definition of civilocity is literally, behaving in the dwelling. Civilocity is derived from the Latin term civilis and the Medieval Latin term civitat in the early of the 21st century AD to improve the political systems existing in some American city-states, notably Washington, DC

kachakbar
How is this written in Dari Persian? And what exactly does that etymon mean? —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 19:10, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Compare Persian DTLHS (talk) 23:14, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

aislacionista
The RAE calls this a calque from English. Is it still a calque if just the pronunciation is copied? DTLHS (talk) 16:07, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It’s not a case of the pronunciation being copied, it’s +  + . — Ungoliant (falai) 16:09, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Right, thanks. DTLHS (talk) 16:13, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
 * It's not unusual for a language to pick a calque that's phonologically reminiscent of the source word. Irish has several examples; the one that stands out in my mind most is, which is morphologically +  + , but it was clearly picked for the similarity of sound (it sounds roughly like "telly-fee-shawn") to English television; there would be no other reason to use such a rare and archaic word as  for the "vision" part instead of one of the usual words like  or , nor for using  instead of the native . —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:36, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
 * That would fall under Phono-semantic matching. —CodeCat 16:40, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Mencius
I made the assumption that, like Confucius, Mencius orginates from Latin, but someone schooled in the language might want to run a check on this. ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:01, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

dhampir
Can we reference the first part of the Albanian etymology? Given that the second part is referenced and plausible, the second part seems like a folk etymology. - -sche (discuss) 00:15, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Cornish

 * Requirement for Urgent Corrections on some edits on Talk Pages, to correspond with *Dr. Ken George KESVA Breton orientated Unified Cornish Dictionary.

My due apologies for presenting some Cornish synonyms without tracing their etymologies first. This message is urgent for both Users and Administrators, hence this edit here. I shall correct them as quickly as I can; since the more changes made even on the Talk Pages, the more the Users' confidence is undermined! However, am determined that all my etymologies on the Talk Pages shall present true and reliable origins; or where this is not possible, due to uncertainty - to downgrade such connections by code accordingly. Andrew H. Gray 12:47, 20 October 2015 (UTC)Andrew

To all Administrator Etymologists
Please be free to add any comments or corrections to the contributions on the Talk Pages; and comments on my Talk Page as to any misgivings you may have regarding the need for any unbiased number code that you might feel needs to be changed! Andrew H. Gray 10:22, 29 October 2015 (UTC)Andrew

A PGM *krīgaz as added by would not produce a southern/MHG /kriəg/, nor an Old High German chrēg that Duden mentions, nor a modern northern /kriːg/. But I don't remember where I got *krē²gaz and whether that source was trustworthy. Korn [kʰʊ̃ːæ̯̃n] (talk) 13:11, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Dutch does have ī though: . —CodeCat 13:16, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
 * A loanword from Low German, perhaps? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:37, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

 * The only Proto-Germanic forms I've found mentioned or hinted at so far are:

 * 1979, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur (edited by Helmut de Boor, Ingeborg Schröbler), page 20:
 * [...] Lüdtke (1957, 171) notes that OHG ia often corresponds to ī in the more northerly dialects: he compares Goth. skeirs, OE scīr, OS skīr ›clear‹ with OHG skēri, skiaro, OE wīr with OHG wiara ›(gold) wire‹, and Dutch krijg ›war‹ < *krīg with OHG chrēg ›obstinance‹, NHG Krieg ›war‹. Thus ē2 is apparently primarily a southern development of ēXi, while ī is dominant in the North. This accords perfectly with the fact that Xi only occasionally appears as e in the North, while in Old High German, e is more common than i before low vowels (see Connolly 1977, s 51).
 * and

 * Edgar Charles Polomé, Diachronic stratification of the Germanic vocabulary, in Methodology in Transition:
 * The terms of the Frankish administrative nomenclature do not spread over the whole Germanic territory, [...]. This does not apply to words like Old Franconian *werra 'war' [...] which spread far and wide into the western Romance languages [...] whereas the same concept is expressed by new coinages elsewhere in Germanic: [...] *krē2g- (OHG krieg) — originally 'obduracy, stubbornness, stress, strain'.
 * - -sche (discuss) 14:48, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
 * What's ēXi? Korn [kʰʊ̃ːæ̯̃n] (talk) 13:17, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
 * The -ī- in Dutch krijgen is not from Low German. There are two forms of this word in continental West Germanic: one with -ī- and one with -ia-. In Central Franconian, Ripuarian has forms going back to -ī-, while Moselle Franconian has forms going back to -ie-. Kolmiel (talk) 22:40, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Rheme, rhematic
Would someone knowledgeable please create the etymologies for rheme and rhematic? They appear to be related to ῥῆμα (see "Talk:rheme"), and may be modelled upon theme and thematic: see the 2007 quotation in rhematic. Smuconlaw (talk) 18:43, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Done. They're from two full-fledged Ancient Greek words, though the meanings are different. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:00, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Smuconlaw (talk) 19:05, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

iron
I tried to ask this on another discussion forum but deriving it as is right now is a piece of trouble.

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/282139/etymology-of-iron-semantic-change

Right now Wiktionary derives it from *h₁ésh₂r̥.

OED suggests either *h₁ésh₂r̥, *ish₂ros, or *áyos; but it states all of them pose unexplained phonological problems, and that some people resolve it as by calling it a non-IE borrowing.

Etymonline supports *ish₂ros.

Hillcrest98 (talk) 16:42, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Polish loch
I was under the impression that German came from PGmc, but what is currently there seems very plausible. Is there a different word Loch in German that I am missing, or is this the same one meaning "hole, cavity"? Leasnam (talk) 19:23, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's plausible at all. The semantics "site, situation, camp" > "hole" are not obvious, nor is the sound change g > h in High German. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:13, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
 * That's what I was thinking, the modern outcome of is, but I wanted to make sure there wasn't a different word. I'll fix it. Leasnam (talk) 00:45, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
 * All dialects of Central German pronounce word-final g as [x]. And so do even the Upper German ones of northern Bavaria. So phonetically it does indeed make perfect sense. -- But since phonetics isn't everything, you two are probably right to derive it from Loch. Kolmiel (talk) 22:55, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

한글, 조선글 - hangeul
Native Korean sources say that the first part is Sino-Korean - 韓 for the South Korean and 朝鮮 for the North Korean form  but the 글 part is a native Korean word. So, both terms are a blend. Some users claim that 글 is now written out using a hanja character 㐎 (specifically designed for this purpose?). I don't see any reliable sources confirming that claim. Wikipedia's now uses made up 韓㐎 and 朝鮮㐎, which are only used, well in Wikipedia. Total Google hits for "韓㐎" is 236, no Google books hits at all, except for Wikipedia. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 21:25, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

 * It has since been deleted by Atitarev. Hillcrest98 (talk) 14:01, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

masturbor
This page gives manus + stupro, while the page masturbate gives manus + turbo. --kc_kennylau (talk) 16:12, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Both are labeled as speculation, so they're not mutually exclusive. I don't have any decent references on Latin etymology, but, semantically, the stupro etymology looks much better, and the metathesis VprV -> VrpV with assimilation of voicing seems plausible. There's also turpo to throw into the mix- if nothing else, the semantic parallels with stupro suggest there's more here than meets the eye. Chuck Entz (talk) 17:02, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Etymology of Hungarian
and anyone else who knows their way around Hungarian etymology:  (U+F062) is not a valid Unicode character (I think it's in the user-defined range). What letter is it supposed to represent? It was added in. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:29, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

dépriver
The Old French form is identical but for the accent. Was this really borrowed from English rather than inherited? - -sche (discuss) 06:21, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
 * CNRTL http://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/d%C3%A9priver doesn't even list this as a French word Leasnam (talk) 14:41, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Cognates of hall and Saal (German)/salle (French)
I was looking at etymologies of 🇨🇬 and, thinking that they may be cognates. They seem to have diverging roots:  traces to  whereas  goes back to  (see also, which lists  as a cognate although the page for  doesn't list  - maybe it should).

A curiosity to me is that is listed as a cognate of  and not, whereas its meaning seems closer to  than to. Is this correct? If so, how do we know? A.tikuisis (talk) 18:40, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Languages undergo changes following certain rules, like one sound always changes into another. It's not predictable what the rules are, but by comparing words you think are related, you can find out. In the case of Sanskrit, there is a rule that a Proto-Indo-European *ḱ (not *k) becomes ś, while *s stays as it is (at least at the start of a word). This means that the Sanskrit word, starting with ś, can't have its origin in a word that started with *s, it must be *ḱ. For the Germanic languages, both *k and *ḱ become *h at the beginning of a word, while *s again stays as it is. —CodeCat 18:58, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

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