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Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2015/May

Regarding the etymology of Kibosh
A source was asked for a Hebrew word Kbsh. It is found in Genesis 1:28, where God tells Mankind to "fill the earth and subdue it" Kbsh is translated there "subdue it."
 * We are not looking for a source for the Hebrew word itself, since we already know it exists. We need a source for the connection between this Hebrew word and the English word . --WikiTiki89 20:01, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

ღმერთი/ღორონთი/ღორმოთი/ღერბეთ
Since these are among the most important words in Kartvelian languages (i.e.: huge number of derivatives, etc.), a Proto-entry seems necessary here. Strangely, there are five main reconstructions of the Proto-Kartvelian stem and none of them are in agreement: As you can see, this seems to be an area of contention for these guys. Sometimes they don't even trust their own reconstructions (Klimov & Fahnrich). Which one of these do you think is more credible? Simboyd (talk) 19:36, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
 * *ɣarmat- by Marr in 1911 ("Еще о слове «Челеби»", p. 110)
 * *ɣermat- by Klimov in 1964 (see here)
 * *ɣrmat- by Klimov in 1998 (see here)
 * *ɣmart- by Fähnrich and Sarjveladze in 2000 (see here)
 * *ɣamort- by Fähnrich in 2007 (see here)
 * We don't know. Just pick one randomly and list the others under Alternative reconstructions with redirects, as in Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂eHs- or Appendix:Proto-Turkic/Kāŕ. --Vahag (talk) 20:36, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Alright. I'll just go with the newest one then. Simboyd (talk) 20:52, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

 * I would add the qualification that one shouldn't use an older one by an author who has subsequently offered a newer one, but other than that — yeah, just pick one and create redirects. - -sche (discuss) 20:27, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

placard
Is this word, if broken into pieces, equivalent to "plaque" + "-ard" (the nounal suffix)? Tharthan (talk) 20:22, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Looks like it, but it was put together in Middle French, not in English. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:31, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

niggard
New user changing the etymology in their first edit; what do you think? This, that and the other (talk) 10:17, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Very weird. Removed some information, added other, didn't actually change the content. _Korn (talk) 12:33, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The OED lists nig + -ard as a possibility. Etymonline lists both etymologies. I believe both should be listed as neither is certain. — JohnC5 23:43, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The real problem is that the nig that niggard might have come from is a Middle English term for miser, not the offensive Modern English term. The new editor tried to solve this by using a gloss to distinguish the two. I've always found User:Leasnam's practice of saying "equivalent to X + Y" annoying, since it categorizes the entry as if the compounding/affixation happened in Modern English, rather than in another language centuries before. In this case, it's simply wrong, because the Modern English and Middle English nig are two completely different words. What's worse, this gives support to the idiots that want to ban niggard as a version of the racist n-word, when it's nothing of the sort. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:53, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, the current etymology is simply inaccurate in that it doesn't mention the Middle English word. The etymology as it stands now implies that the word was formed in Modern English. I see no improvement Leasnam (talk) 01:51, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

 * I've had a go at combining the previous version's mention of the direct Middle English etyma with the new user's additions. Side note, the related term niggardise highlights an issue which we have discussed (without effect) from time to time, namely that the "words suffixed with -foo" categories sometimes conflate unrelated suffixes, like the Latinate suffix of niggardise (noun) and the Grecian suffix of realise (verb). - -sche (discuss) 00:55, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you ! It's perfect. Leasnam (talk) 21:38, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

elative
Please verify the etymology. The masculine gender (in other languaes) implies that it comes from gradus elativus, elativus [substantivated participle; gender: sc. gradus] or elativus (-a, -um) [participle]. -08:36, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Surely the noun and the adjective are from the same source. The Gaffiot gives . Is it really from elatus directly, not via elativus? Renard Migrant (talk) 14:10, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

vantage
Is vantage really from an unattested Old French (or seemingly unattested Old French) or just a Middle English (or modern English) clipping of ? Renard Migrant (talk) 21:22, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Apparently this said from Middle English vantage from 2008 to 2015 and was just changed in February to say from Anglo-Norman. Changed without a source and contradicting the evidence. Never mind, I will change back. Renard Migrant (talk) 21:28, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Is the Persian قاپیدن (qapidan) a cognate of the Latin capiō?
Is the purported Persian a cognate of the Latin, as claimed in ? Or, even less plausibly, is the same Persian verb the etymon of the Proto-Indo-European as claimed in User talk:I'm so meta even this acronym? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 00:21, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

 * The answer to second question is obviously "no", but I'm not sure they actually meant that. I'm skeptical about the first, but I don't know enough about the history of the Persian word, or about the history of the Persian "q" consonant, to be sure about the answer to the first. At best, it's just another cognate to add to the list. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:32, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

 * The revision in question is: . Note that they misspelled "Persian". I don't know much about transformation of Arabic borrowings, but looks like it possibly might be the source (though the Persian term with the same consonants argues against that), and it's from a Proto-Semitic root (see here. I suspect that Persian "q" is an Arabic borrowing, but what do I know?). The Germanic cognate  and Latin  are oddly similar to each other, in spite of being unrelated, so what's one more strange coincidence?... Chuck Entz (talk) 03:00, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

 * So that's a "no" on both counts, then. I figured as much. Thanks for the confirmation. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 13:57, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

 * Well in many Persian words, "g" or "k" consonants have turned to Arabic consonant "q" such as in which was "kahramân" or  which was "čaku" and earlier "čagug" or "čaguk", or also  which was "murg", so I bleive it is not odd to have "q" consonant in words with Persian origin. However, as I have read, it also relates to, which comes from the root "kap" itself, where the verb may actually come from. So if the PIE root has nothing to do with hand palm or hands at all, I believe it is indeed a coincidence and the book probably was mistaken, because I think both the meanings and the pronunciations are pretty close and I don't understand why it would not be plausible or "obviously" wrong. This would probably be the last thing I have to say, Thanks for the effort.

 * Ok, that was a mistake too. comes from Arabic . But there is a very small chance of an Arabic word changing while being used in Persian, and that with two changed consonants and one being changed to "p". Arabic loanwords in Persian doesn't usually change that much if barely at all (Even though because of the lack of consonants many of them are pronounced in another way, they are still written the same as Arabic.) Now even though I am sure that the verb has nothing to do with the Arabic word or hand palm, I still think there is a fair chance of it still being related to the PIE root (based on the argument before "kaf"). I must say, I'm fine with this not being on Wiktionary but I'm still interested in further information and research, to me, this still would be the best explanation. Thanks again.
 * Johnny Cheung's Etymological Dictionary of the Iranian Verb lists two roots with the shape √kap-, one glossed as 'to (be)fall, to strike (down)' (from PIE, cf. Albanian , Greek ); the other meaning 'to split, cut, scrape, dig' (from, oddly enough, PIE , cf. etc.) Neither of these mentions Persian qapidan. --Tropylium (talk) 14:20, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

According to, vol. IV, page 237, Persian qap zadan, qapīdan, kapīdan is either inherited from PIE and thus cognate with  or it is borrowed. The dictionary does not say borrowed from what, but I assume from Turkic, whence Turkish and the Kurdish borrowing. --Vahag (talk) 14:49, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I think you have to be careful with PIE not to go to far. To say that قاپیدن and capio are cognates makes it sound like a fact. It isn't, it's a hypothesis. And one I'd argue is not provable to a very high standard. Renard Migrant (talk) 15:06, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Sufi
I've worked on the French wiktionary on the etymology of this word. It seems to me that Arabic sufyy ("man of wool") is not the "ultimate" etymology but it goes back to Farsi and Arabic is most probably a popular etymology. Sufist movement and Safavid dynasty were founded by Safi al-Din Ardabili and Sufi and Safavid have the same etymon. In French (now obsolete) we have sofi ("Safavid ruler") borrowed from Persian صفوی, safawi which would(?) have been pronounced safwi. --Diligent (talk) 15:06, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
 * see etymology 2 of Sophy (title of a Safavid dynasty shah), I looked at this relationship and think that Sophi is not related to Sufi. You can look to my . fr:sophy is listed also a variant in the French wiktionnaire of fr:sofi. —BoBoMisiu (talk) 12:35, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Great work. I'll update the French page accordingly.

ἀθάνατος alpha primativum length
I fully believe that the first alpha in ἀθάνατος is long based on the accounts of LSJ and DGE, but my question is why. Is there pretonic lengthening occurring here or some other chicanery? Or is this just unknown? — JohnC5 00:58, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The LSG entry for the prefix ἀ- says that the alpha privativum is often long in adjectives starting with three short syllables, so presumably it's lengthened for metrical reasons (since most forms of Greek poetry don't allow three short syllables in a row) rather than for etymological reasons. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:20, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. Thanks! — JohnC5 12:58, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

PS *melko and PG *meluks
The etymology section at presents the problem of the lack of *-u-, and states "This would require an intermediary language that would drop the medial *-u- from Proto-Germanic". The etymology section at presents the problem of the *-u- that magically appeared. It seems to me that the solution is simple. Either PS borrowed the word from PG before the *-u- was added, or a form of the word without *-u- coexisted in PG for a while before it disappeared and that was the form borrowed by PS. Any thoughts? --WikiTiki89 20:24, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you have an opinion? --WikiTiki89 15:45, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Nothing that isn't already in the entries themselves. If it's Germanic in origin, then it must have been derived from the verb rather than the noun because of the lack of the -u-. What is the Slavic verb? —CodeCat 16:27, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure there is one from this source (there is instead). I can't really see a noun being borrowed from a verb. And if the Proto-Proto-Germanic [sic] noun had no -u-, why could the Slavic noun not have come from that form? --WikiTiki89 17:10, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * At first glance that seems possible, yes. But do we know that Slavs and Germans had contact that far back? We're talking at least 2000-2500 years ago here, long before Slavic was recognisably "Slavic". —CodeCat 17:14, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * But could the form with -u- and the one without not have coexisted for a while in PG? --WikiTiki89 18:08, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * In theory. But certainly the one without must have disappeared early enough for it to have left no traces, which is the time frame I gave. —CodeCat 18:42, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The Old Slavonic verb for the word in question would be, but that is for the most part unavailing. The *-u- is almost certainly, in my opinion, anaptyxis in conjunction with a velar umlaut attested in a handful of the Germanic languages. Consider also that the Germanic noun, being reclassified from a historical neuter to a feminine, is subject to become either a u-stem or an i-stem (and it has become the latter). While it is entirely possible that, as you say, two separate forms existed simultaneously in PG, I do not believe Proto-Slavic would have borrowed either one, whatever time period the two were in contact. --User:Colin Clout 4:30, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
 * In that case, where did the Proto-Slavic term come from? Also, it would be, which we even have an entry for apparently. --WikiTiki89 14:21, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

شنبلیله
Can we just drop the first two paragraphs? --WikiTiki89 15:45, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

 * No. The purpose of the etymology sections is to discuss all scholarly opinions on the subject, highlighting their strong and weak sides. But you can rearrange the paragraphs. --Vahag (talk) 12:34, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
 * What about putting them in a collapsible box? --WikiTiki89 13:03, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The purpose of the etymology section is to summarize the etymology of the term, not to discuss it. This is a dictionary, after all, not a journal. The part that's relevant to the etymology could be condensed into a single sentence, though I'm not sure if any of it is relevant: it could be summarized further as "Scholar A said blah blah blah, Scholar B said no, bla-bla-bla, but you just wasted your time reading these two paragraphs because they're both completely wrong". Chuck Entz (talk) 13:33, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
 * You are wrong. A lot of it was relevant. I have moved those parts to the main section. --Vahag (talk) 19:05, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
 * There is no such thing as "correct" or "wrong" in historical linguistics when dealing with prehistoric loanwords. It's all shades of grey since theories of origin are probabilistic and not reducible to a set of verifiable assertions. The only thing left to argue is whether the authors are fringe or not. Dunno about this Asatryan guy, but Ačaṙyan is a well-known figure. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 22:33, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Asatryan is the author of Leiden's Etymological Dictionary of Persian (work in progress) and the editor of Iran and the Caucasus. --Vahag (talk) 18:27, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

 * I think the arrangement Wikitiki just implemented, with the two paragraphs moved to the end and collapsed, is satisfactory. - -sche (discuss) 17:55, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I find it satisfactory as well. --Vahag (talk) 19:05, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Finnish etymologies by User:86.50.115.83
This user has been adding Germanic origins to a lot of words, but they often seem quite questionable or even downright impossible. I found one page, for example, where they claimed that a Proto-Germanic word was loaned into Proto-Uralic, even though Proto-Uralic is 2000+ years older than Proto-Germanic. —CodeCat 17:51, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
 * "even though Proto-Uralic is 2000+ years older than Proto-Germanic" … Has it ever occurred to anyone that the Germanic folks could have borrowed words from the Ugric folks? Why should a similarity between Uralic and German languages always be explained unidirectionally? The Ugric peoples have been the underdogs for at least 2000 years by now but that doesn't mean that it has always been so. --Hekaheka (talk) 21:42, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
 * On first glance it looks like the comparisons are mostly legit (in the sense of coming from released research), but the formatting and presentation seems to need cleanup. --Tropylium (talk) 19:23, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
 * User:85.76.105.60 seems to be doing this as well. Perhaps they're the same anon under two different IPs.
 * Here is a checklist of pages edited by the two of them (entries that I've cleaned up struck over)
 * ahdas, ahjo, aho, ankea, arina, arpa, asia, autio, hakea, halpa, hartia, hauta, heimo, heittää, helppo, hieman, hirvi, hoitaa, häiritä, into, juoda, kaarna, kaataa, kalpea, kari, karsia, katsoa, kelvata, kesä, kokea, kylmä, kypsä, kärsiä, käydä, laho, laita, lattia, mahtaa, myydä, nainen, nauttia, nukkua, nöyrä, osa, pilkka, pullea, puu, pyrkiä, raaja , rasia, ratsastaa, runko, ruoho, ruoste, räkä, saada, satama, sauna, sietää , sija, suku, suola, suoli, suoni, susi, syntyä, syödä, vara, vartoa, viedä, vitsa, väsyä
 * There's only some 2–3 words here that I do not recall seeing proposed to be loanwords, so clearly they know what they're doing. Almost all of them would need corresponding Proto-Finnic entries, though. --Tropylium (talk) 21:35, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I have proposed to this (or these) person that he should add references, but ha hasn't reacted. --Hekaheka (talk) 21:44, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Our new Finnish etymologist appears to have now registered as User:DeHanjas. --Tropylium (talk) 23:50, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

polymorphy
I seem to have gotten the etymology wrong here, can someone fix this? ---> Tooironic (talk) 10:08, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Fixed (by JohnC5). - -sche (discuss) 14:52, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/marḱ-
No consensus about the etymology Hirabutor (talk) 16:27, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
 * This page shouldn't exist in the first place since the word is generally not believed to have existed in PIE, but rather to have arisen somehow (presumably a loanword) in Celtic and Germanic alone. (And if the page is kept, it should be called Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/marḱos or /markos or /márḱos or /markos in accordance with our naming conventions.) —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:52, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I read Mikhailova's article. I find her arguments weak and not convincing. Still, I am in favour of mentioning Hirubator's fringe theories in the etymologies as long as they are sourced, properly formatted and come with a warning that those are tentative speculations. I don't trust Hirubator to do that, so I am also in favour of reverting him. Mikhailova uses a much more cautious language in her speculations than Hirubator has presented. --Vahag (talk) 13:30, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
 * In order to avoid putting too much emphasis on them, I'd only put them in the etymology section of (and  if and when that gets created) rather than in the etymology sections of the attested words. And I still see no reason to have an entry for a PIE word that apparently no one believes to have existed in PIE. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:45, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Two points:
 * Whether or not a reconstruction is generally considered to belong to "PIE proper" should not be a criteria for inclusion. The majority of reconstructed forms do not satisfy any stringent criteria for inclusion since they are based on reflexes of too few branches. (Similarly the shape of forms themselves is variable and dependent on subjective criteria not shared among authors.) Wikipedia has a criterion of notability not truth. The Wiktionary equivalent would be "Is this reconstruction sufficiently present in the literature". That the reconstruction itself is not strong enough and is disputed on various ground should be mentioned on its page. But its lack of wide acceptance is not a prerequisite for its dismissal.
 * EIEC:274 discusses various Altaic connections so it's obviously a mainstream opinion that should be mentioned in the entry. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:23, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * If reflexes come from geographically and phylogenetically widely separate branches, and alternative explanations such as borrowing can be excluded (regular reflexes, no foreign-appearing phonological, phonotactic or morphological structure), even two (primary) branches can be enough. For example, if a primary verb is only attested in Anatolian and Germanic, that probably suffices. Ultimately it's all a matter of probabilities and possibilities. If there is no reason to think that the etymon is not inherited and there are reasons to think that it is, even evidence from a single branch can be taken as pointing to a Proto-Indo-European form with a significant probability!
 * In this case, we only have reflexes in two neighbouring branches known to have borrowed lexical material like this among each other very early, even before the Germanic sound shift – usually from Celtic to Germanic –, so this isn't anything like Italic/Indo-Iranian or Balto-Slavic/Greek pairs. In fact, it appears extremely likely that Celtic *markos was borrowed into Germanic too (or perhaps the inverse, but the Celts are more likely to have had early contact with steppe peoples such as Scythians), and the presence of /a/ is indeed somewhat suggestive of a loanword (there being no obvious etymological derivation and *-arT- not even being a regular reflex of anything PIE in Proto-Celtic). This word would have reached Central Europe by the Iron Age – but the source remains completely obscure. East Asia is simply too far away and there are no known or plausible intermediates – which would have to account for the velar stop, too, which has, after all, no other explanation. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:32, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * If there are reliable sources that explicitly deny a PIE status for this root, that should be good enough to not have a PIE entry for it — unless someone has up their sleeves sources that on the contrary explicitly challenge the former sources and argue for PIE status. (On the other hand, mass lexical sources like Pokorny do not count as "explicit arguments" at all, if you ask me.) --Tropylium (talk) 13:24, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was only commenting on the methodical point Ivan made. Ultimately it's the quality of the evidence that counts, not the quantity; there is no need for reflexes to appear throughout the Indo-European languages (as Ivan seemed to suggest) for a PIE reconstruction to be justified. Our picture of PIE would be very poor if our standards for inclusion were that high, as it is extraordinarily rare for cognates to be preserved in all or virtually all (primary) branches.
 * I was speaking for the science here. As for Wiktionary, Ivan seems to suggest that the old policy on OR, which was in former years pretty liberal compared to Wikipedia (as has been pointed out explicitly sometimes), should be made more stringent. In this case, it's not our judgment call to make anyway whether the evidence for a PIE reconstruction is solid enough. If the reliable sources do make PIE reconstructions, we should too, if they explicitly deny PIE status, I agree we should follow suit.
 * I also completely agree that Pokorny is a poor source – his compilation was outdated even when it appeared, and now the laryngeal theory has been fully accepted by almost everyone in the field, usually in the trilaryngeal form, the only remaining value is as a database or quarry for inspiration, for use by an experienced researcher, who knows better than to trust any of the interpretations and reconstructions; even the raw material profits from cross-checking with more specialised sources because it is not always correct in my experience and some of the cited forms appear to be spurious. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:55, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

-rrhaphy
RFV of the etymology.
 * Representing the 🇨🇬, from.

If this actually existed in Ancient Greek ( as far as I can tell, it didn't ), the first ρ would surely have been the final consonant of the previous morpheme (generally -ς) assimilated to the initial ρ of (also non-existent) -ραφία.

It looks to me like this is from the application of Ancient Greek morphological rules to some kind of stem based on  (words such as  show the underlying form), and the suffix  tacked on at the end. I'm not sure how to represent that in the etymologies for the terms in Category:English words suffixed with -rrhaphy, though.

Ideas? Chuck Entz (talk) 23:48, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The only words on Perseus are:
 * For whatever that is worth. — JohnC5 00:22, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I did that very search and found nothing. I wonder what I did wrong? I just checked again, and got what you got.
 * That certainly complicates things. I still doubt that is the best analysis- one could just as easily say it was - but  and  don't seem to have any final consonant on the first morpheme (one could argue that  is based on the genitive, but that would exclude  and . It sort of looks like there's an underlying  combining-form affix. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:32, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry I wasn't paying attention. The rough breathing on a rho is represented word medially as, thus the second rho merely represents the rough breathing (I believe). A similar situation occurs with  and . — JohnC5 02:06, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I thought medial -ρρ- was always represented as -ῤῥ-. Shouldn't all these words be spelled with -ῤῥαφία, and instead of ? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:14, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Since is identical to, WT:AGRC says we don't use the breathing marks on double rhos. — JohnC5 18:08, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I've started a thread at Wiktionary talk:About Ancient Greek about the possibility of hard-redirecting such forms. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:41, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry I wasn't paying attention. The rough breathing on a rho is represented word medially as, thus the second rho merely represents the rough breathing (I believe). A similar situation occurs with  and . — JohnC5 02:06, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I thought medial -ρρ- was always represented as -ῤῥ-. Shouldn't all these words be spelled with -ῤῥαφία, and instead of ? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:14, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Since is identical to, WT:AGRC says we don't use the breathing marks on double rhos. — JohnC5 18:08, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I've started a thread at Wiktionary talk:About Ancient Greek about the possibility of hard-redirecting such forms. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:41, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

From which language are Bavarian and Alemannic descended?
Most of the appendices that I looked at (e.g. Appendix:Proto-Germanic/manniskaz, Appendix:Proto-Germanic/mōraz) sort Bavarian below Middle High German, but Appendix:Proto-Germanic/walhaz sorts it alongside MHG below Old High German, and Appendix:Proto-Germanic/ek sorts it below German. In my opinion, sorting Bavarian and Alemannic (and for that matter Silesian and Cimbrian) below MHG makes the most sense, but WT:AGEM suggests sorting them below modern German. - -sche (discuss) 15:49, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * They were clearly distinct already in OHG times. But OHG and MHG are still generally treated as one language, albeit with significant dialectal differences. —CodeCat 16:07, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Also see Upper German. —Stephen (Talk) 16:11, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Nocke, nokedli
Are / and related? - -sche (discuss) 16:48, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

 * and say  comes from German (Bavarian-Austrian)  (“dumpling”), the diminutive of Upper German Nock (“dense, rugged rock, reef”). Einstein2 (talk) 18:08, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

 * Thanks. I've updated the entry accordingly. - -sche (discuss) 21:32, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

note
For the general meaning of note, can someone find an Old English attestation of the word in the meaning of mark, symbol, sign or note (spelt as "not" or nōt?

I don't doubt that the word was attested in Old English, since there is silent attribution to it being used a little after 1000 AD. However, I cannot find any citations for this nor any other direct mention of Old English on any other site that is not mirroring Wiktionary.

Can anyone find attestations of Old English "not" or "nōt" in the meaning of mark, symbol, sign or note?

The note I refer to is listed under etymology three on our note page. Tharthan (talk) 17:14, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

 * Köbler's (German) dictionary of Old English has nōt as strong masculine noun meaning "Note, Zeichen", without an asterisk, indicating that it is attested according to him. Bosworth and Toller's dictionary has not as a masucline noun meaning "a mark, sign" with this citation: Mē þingþ wynsumlīc ðæt ic ðæra preósta notas ðām bōcerum gekȳðe [...], Anglia viii. 333, 17-19. (Another edition of the cited text has me þingð wynsumlic þæt ic þæra preosta notas þam bocerum gekyðe.) - -sche (discuss) 17:54, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

 * Semi-off topic: Is Köbler trustworthy? His outputs are incredibly rich, but I never could figure out what his qualifications or sources are. (Or what his annotational marks are supposed to mean.) Korn [kʰʊ̃ːæ̯̃n] (talk) 18:47, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Maybe see note, n.(3) in MED as "an abstract token or indication of essential form" and note, n.2 in OED as various senses. —BoBoMisiu (talk) 20:30, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Bosworth & Toller have it as well: Mé þingþ wynsumlíc ðæt is ðæra preósta notas ðám bócerum gekýðe ðé læs ðe hig witan ðæt ða rímcræftige weras sýn bútan cræftigum getácnungum, Anglia viii. 333, 17-19. I see that someone has already beaten me to it :-) Leasnam (talk) 22:29, 31 May 2015 (UTC)


text:
Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2015/June

Proto-Slavic
Maybe it should be ? Judging by descendants the word is probably made up of, and. Unfortunately i didn't find etymology in Russian dictionaries so i had to guess. — Игорь Тълкачь 00:07, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is unfortunate that this word does not exist in Russian and thus is not in Vasmer. Here is the entry in Aleksander Brückner's Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego, but it does not seem to say much other than + . This Croatian dictionary says "prasl. *tědьnъ", but this may just be a naive interpretation of the Serbo-Croatian phonemes. --WikiTiki89 16:03, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Reconstructed as by, vol. 5, page 565a. No comment on the correctness, Slavic isn't my strong suit. --Vahag (talk) 16:25, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * It seems the *-žь- part was optional. But how did the South Slavic form develop? It seems clear that it was not from *tě-, because seemingly even Ekavian and optionally Slovene has -j-. --WikiTiki89 17:43, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Perhaps vowel assimilation as in редрый (*ръдьръ > *рьдьръ). I hope could clarify it. Anyway thanks for the links, now protoform is pretty clear. — Игорь Тълкачь  23:03, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

gertcha
Any evidence that the etymology "Contraction of 'get you gone'" is correct? 86.152.161.103 01:58, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

 * Regular sound changes suggest that get you → gertcha is not entirely unreasonable: see for a similar related shift.  The  part is presumably elided in this contracted form, and just left implied.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 22:40, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Dropping the "gone" also seems plausible - people often drop the "lost" in get lost and just say "get!" when they want to tell someone to go away. Smurrayinchester (talk) 11:51, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Hawaiian Language
It would be good to treat _ha_, _ole_, and _haole_. I don't know offhand what references are good to consult on Hawaiian etymology. I understand (source amnesia) that _ha_ means 'without', and _ole_ means 'soul' (no doubt ignoring subtle differences between 'soul'-like concepts). Jack Waugh (talk) 05:39, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Not exactly. Before I get into details, there are a couple of things you need to understand: first of all, Hawaiian has a very small set of sounds, and very simple syllable structure. Syllables in native words can only start with h,k,l,m,n,p,w and ʻ, and end with a,ā,e,ē,i,ī,o,ō,u,ū, or a diphthong of those vowels. That means there are a lot of meanings squeezed into a fairly small number of words. Second, the writing system was devised fairly recently, so there hasn't been time for pronunciation to change much. Unlike English, where you can't really predict with certain what a letter will sound like, spelling is very accurate: there are no minor variations- if something is spelled differently, it almost always is different. Some older sources don't make distinctions between long and short vowels, or show the glottal stop/ʻokina (ʻ), but if a source has those features, it's very precise about their presence or absence in a given word.
 * There are quite a few meanings in the Combined Hawaiian Dictionary entries for hā: 'four', 'breathe', hoarse, leaf stalk, trough/ditch,a fruit tree (), an affirmative interjection, a sinker used in fishing, and the musical tone fa. None of them means anything remotely like 'without'
 * As for the second part, there are several similar words: 'ole means either 'fang/eyetooth' or 'twist/turn/fidget/etc'. ʻole means 'not/without' or 'certain nights of the month', ʻolē means 'conch/trumpet' or 'talk indistinctly or garrulously' or 'tapa beater', and ʻōlē mean (car or bicycle) horn. Again, nothing like 'soul'. The closest I can find is ola, which means 'life/health'- but the final vowel is wrong.
 * The only remotely-plausible way I can even come close to your derivation is if I assume you got things backwards: hā meaning 'breathe' and ʻole meaning 'without'. There again, though haole is definitely not the same as *hāʻole. I suppose vowel shortening and loss of a glottal stop aren't impossible, but there are plenty of examples where that doesn't happen in similar environments. 'Without breath' isn't that far, semantically speaking, from 'without a soul', but the Hawaiian term for soul is ʻuhane and the term for 'without a soul'' is ʻuhane ʻole. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:32, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

 * As I have understood it, haole means "no breath", because haoles do not follow the Polynesian custom of touching noses and foreheads as a greeting, while at the same time inhaling and sharing each other’s breath. —Stephen (Talk) 09:58, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

tangata tiriti
RFV of the etymology. A NZ IP changed the etymology from:
 * "The signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 can be said to have added this new class in New Zealand."
 * to:

 * "A modern term used by revisionists. The term is thought to have first appeared in mainstream new Zealand around about 2006 as part of a human rights commission document that makes some extraordinary claims about treaty matters. It's unknown who invented the term exactly."

The first version isn't exactly an etymology, but the second is rather POV, and I was able to find more Google Books hits from before 2006 than after (though only the earliest, dating to 1963, actually used it in running Maori text). I don't doubt that it's had some usage as a politically-correct buzzword in recent times, but this is the etymology we're talking about, not a critique on its use in recent times. The Google Books hits leave a lot to be desired- the 1963 one may just be the chance juxtaposition of the two words in the same sentence. Does anyone have actual (non-political) references to clear this up? Chuck Entz (talk) 04:08, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

 * On page 228 of An Illustrated History of the Treaty of Waitangi, it says that tangata tiriti gained currency during the late 1980s. As for the comment about revisionists, tangata tiriti was used by Edward Taihakurei Durie, Justice of the High Court of New Zealand . —Stephen (Talk) 04:57, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

-el
Runnel, shovel, chisel (etymology 1), cradle and the like contain a presumed diminutive suffix -el, but I have my doubts that this is from Old French.

Old English had something like this itself, but I can't recall the exact form it had.

Can anyone with more knowledge on the subject confirm that Old English had a similar or near-identical diminutive suffix itself?

If this is the case, then the page we have on -el should mention that the modern use might be due to (or influenced by) conflation with the native suffix. Tharthan (talk) 16:26, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * In all the words you've mention above, none of those suffixes come from Old French. They are native. Yet I am not positive that all mentioned are diminutives. It appears some may be agent suffixes (like shovel). The Old English diminutive you speak of is usually spelt (see Etymology_4), where a few forms in  are alternative spellings. Leasnam (talk) 08:03, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, but when a word in question says in its etymology that it is ____ + -el, it often does not specify (or cannot even specify) which -el is meant.
 * However, I don't think this is odd, as I am fairly certain that, when the suffix was still generally productive, both -els had been largely conflated. Now, with that said, there were still some who likelily differentiated the two, but that seems to be the exception rather than the rule. The fact that some words descended from Old English -el are spelt with -el and others are spelt with -le does not seem to be a preservation of the different Old English -el suffixes as much as it is different writers having different comprehension levels (and, perhaps more simply, different spelling styles). Look at grapple (the verb), guzzle, and scuttle for examples of why I think that these suffixes had been conflated.
 * Nowadays, the suffix isn't used much if even at all (I say that because it is possible that some Northern English or Scottish dialects still use it). So all we have to judge whether the two -els conflated or not are the relics of its use in the modern language. Tharthan (talk) 23:22, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

ti
There was a claim that ti was derived from a Latin word (as other solfege names except Do were). It was originally si (abbreviation of Sancte Iohannes), then changed to ti in English later. Removed the claim and put how to describe the etymology into discussion. Hillcrest98 (talk) 21:21, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Flesh
Old English cannot come directly from Proto-Germanic, because that would have given ×flāsc. The Old English word has to come from something like (or maybe, but neuter i-stems are very rare). What about the other old Germanic words? Do any of them prove it has to have been and not, or are they ambiguous? The Old Norse byform also looks suggestive. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:31, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The OED states:
 * “Common West Germanic and Scandinavian: Old English flǽsc strong neuter corresponds to Old Frisian flâsk, Old Saxon flêsk (Dutch vleesch), Old High German fleisc (Middle High German vleisch, modern German fleisch), of the same meaning, Old Norse flesk with shortened vowel (Swedish fläsk, Danish flesk), swine's flesh, pork, bacon < Old Germanic *flaiskoz-, -iz- (or possibly þl-).
 * No satisfactory cognates have been discovered either in Germanic or in the related languages. Some have supposed that the specific Scandinavian sense, which exists in some English dialects where Old Norse influence is out of the question (see, e.g., the West Cornwall Glossary), is the original meaning of the word, and that the occasional Old English form flǽc represents the primary word elsewhere replaced by a derivative with suffix -sk-. On this hypothesis the word might be related to Old English flicce, flitch n.1 But general analogy rather indicates the priority of the wider sense found in English and German; and it is most likely that the Old English flǽc is an inaccurate spelling, or at most a dialectal phonetic alteration, of the ordinary flǽsc. The shortening of the Old English long vowel before s followed by another cons. is normal. ”
 * Philippa seems to agree with *flaiska- and *flaiski-; though my Dutch reading is mostly approximation.
 * Apparently Watkins proposed *flaiskjan; though in what work I know not. Hope these help?
 * . --Vahag (talk) 22:38, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

 * Can anyone say if the Abkhaz initial "а-" is a prefix or something else? It's added to all nouns in dictionaries and it's always hyphenated for etymological reasons? I read somewhere that it works as a definite article, so should there be forms without "а-" (indefinite)? There is an online Abkhaz-Russian dictionary ]. Have a look at this article а-милициа where is written with the initial "а" with a hyphen - "а-милициа", it's obviously from the Russian ., can you comment on this? I am curious if the lemmas should be without "а-". It would also be good for the etymology of English adjika and Russian , derived from Abkhaz. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 04:22, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

 * а- is the generic/definite article. See here, page 22. The pure stem is rare. All serious dictionaries include а- in the lemma, but separate it with a hyphen. We should do the same. --Vahag (talk) 15:11, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

 * , thanks, ажакьа seems to follow this, so "а-" changes to other forms, why does the example sentence use "и" in "ижакьа ауишьҭит"? Is it the indefinite form (if you know)?, I don't remember where we talked about this but I was right about the definite article and you were right about including it in lemmas. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 06:48, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

 * I don't know what's going on in the usage example. I simply copied it from the dictionary. PS We talked about this in Talk:абанан. --Vahag (talk) 07:32, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

 * Yep I remember discussing this before. Good that things are getting worked out. Thanks for the ping. — hippietrail (talk) 15:35, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

hoofdstedelijk
The etymology is clear (derived from ), but I'm not sure how to describe the process exactly. The change in the vowel (a > e) is irregular and unique to the noun, and is clearly based on the adjective. So how would I indicate this in the etymology? would neglect the irregularity of the umlaut, while would not make any sense. But is going a bit too far I think. —CodeCat 17:26, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * How about " with vowel alteration taken over from "? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:54, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Or " with a vowel change due to influence from " or " with the vowel changed by analogy with "? Chuck Entz (talk) 01:26, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
 * How about ? Leasnam (talk) 05:50, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

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


text:
Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2015/July

crockard
A user tagged the etymology with, writing "absolutely not what OED says". - -sche (discuss) 06:26, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
 * So what does the OED say? --WikiTiki89 20:14, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

 * Merriam-Webster says it's from Middle English "crocarde", from Middle French "crocard", which is "perhaps from croc hook (of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse krōkr hook) + -ard". This Middle English Dictionary says "AF; ?cp. croquier break in pieces." - -sche (discuss) 19:54, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

 * The OED says it's "from Anglo-French crokard, of uncertain origin". I've updated the entry to note the various suggestions. - -sche (discuss) 20:44, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

study
Does the sense of "private room" come from Italian studiolo? Someone tagged the entry but never listed it here. - -sche (discuss) 06:34, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I've removed the claim. - -sche (discuss) 22:08, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

diu
I don't get the derivation from PIE *diwoh₁. After all, this would give †divō (or something else in -ō) in Latin, wouldn't it? A more obvious and regular derivation would be from PIE *dyow or *dyew.

In fact, in his Lateinisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, Walde says that diū in the sense of "during the day" could either come from the locative *dyéwi > *dyowi > *dyow (but in view of Iove, this appears questionable; after *w, *-i is usually preserved) or the endingless locative with lengthened grade *dyēw; however, diū in the sense of "a long time" is probably originally a different word *dū (as in dūdum), which was transformed into diū under the influence of diū "during the day".

(Just in case you are wondering, the usual explanation for the iou- vs. diou- difference is that iou- is from PIE *dyow- and diou- is from the PIE Lindeman variant *diyow-, which is thought to have originally been a sandhi variant used when the previous word in the sentence ended in a consonant.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:44, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

PIE root grades
Would it be a good idea to add an option to (and thus the module it invokes) for zero grade, o-grade, and lengthened grade on the headword line of the root? For example, the headword line of, instead of just saying:

could say:

In addition, the other grades could have their own entries as nonlemmas, with definition lines that say things like Do other people like this idea, and if so, would someone be willing to implement it? That would be way beyond my module-editing capabilities. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:14, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

 * What do we currently do with the other grades? --WikiTiki89 19:17, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, nothing. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:37, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Is it really necessary? All grades other than zero are trivially easy to figure out, and even the zero grade is not that hard once you know the syllabification rules. Making entries that direct the user to the main page aren't really all that helpful in the long run; the real problem is entries that cite nonstandard grades in the first place. Roots should always, and exclusively, be cited and linked in the full grade. —CodeCat 19:46, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * How is this different from any other inflectional information we have for other languages? --WikiTiki89 20:26, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Root grades alone are not inflectional information though. Rather, different inflectional or derivational formations induce certain grades. So the grades are a consequence of the inflection rather than inflection being derived from grades. —CodeCat 20:31, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * So how is this different from having, for example, and  or  and  and ? --WikiTiki89 20:37, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Let's look at it another way. Would we want different grades for Semitic roots? —CodeCat 20:44, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * What would different grades even be in Semitic roots? --WikiTiki89 21:02, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * i, a, u and zero, plus lengthened of each? —CodeCat 21:06, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Those are just vowels, can you apply them to a root as an example of what you are talking about (let's go with k-t-b)? --WikiTiki89 21:11, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The other ablaut grades may be easily derivable from the full grade, but the reverse isn't always true. If I encounter a zero grade *ḱun-, for example, I don't know if the full grade is *ḱwen- or *ḱewn-. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:15, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Ablaut grades seem like an odd an unsatisfactory compromise, and it's not clear what their purpose would me. Root grades are morphological units after all, not lexical ones; and root entries seem to me like they mainly exist to group together related forms. If this is to introduce non-lemma forms, why not go all the way down to specific inflected forms, as we do with all other languages? --Tropylium (talk) 16:31, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

*jьzkonь or *jьskonь
Etymology of Russian искони?

Latin phrase underlying Portuguese ontem
On Portuguese ontem "yesterday" (likewise Spanish anoche) it claims the underlying Latin is ad noctem "at night" but I think it rather should be hāc nocte "on this night". Compare Spanish hogaño which is clearly hōc annō "in this year" and hoje/hoy from Latin hodie from hōc diē "on this day". Benwing (talk) 08:16, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * At first glance, this seems somewhat unlikely to me. Looking at History of Portuguese (which specifically mentions this change) it appears that Latin words ending in -e tend to become -∅, whereas words ending in -Vm tend to go to -V (though the reäppearance of the -m in Modern Portuguese is odd. Perhaps etymological hypercorrection?). But taking the Old Portuguese onte, oonte, the etymology ad noctem > *anoite > *aõite > *oõte > oonte > onte seems very nice; whereas hāc nocte might give something like *anoit > *aõi > *oõ > *õ.
 * Also L&S nox shows that hāc noctu was more common than hāc nocte; though, by Vulgar Latin such a distinction may certainly have disappeared. Just a thought. — JohnC5 14:15, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Re “the reäppearance of the -m in Modern Portuguese is odd”: Portuguese is chock full of spontaneous nasalisation. The pattern /ˈV.Ce/ → /ˈV.Cẽ/ is an uncommon but well attested case . — Ungoliant (falai) 14:27, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * This could be a case of progressive nasalization assimilation rather than spontaneous nasalization, c.f. mim < *mi and minha < *mia. Benwing (talk) 08:51, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
 * That pattern of minha and mim is NV → NṼ (where N is a nasal consonant). — Ungoliant (falai) 16:23, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
 * lists both theories. — Ungoliant (falai) 14:22, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think there's any difference in outcome of final -e vs -em. The loss of both occurs after certain consonants but not after stops. Benwing (talk) 08:48, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Benwing (talk) 08:48, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

корабль
Vasmer says this is an early borrowing from Ancient Greek,. The earliness is evidenced by the /b/ rather than /v/. Would it be reasonable to say it was borrowed into Proto-Slavic? I compiled the following list of descendants based on Vasmer and want to put it at :

 * East Slavic:
 * Old East Slavic:
 * Belarusian:
 * Russian: ,
 * Ukrainian: ,
 * South Slavic:
 * Old Church Slavonic:
 * Cyrillic: ,
 * Bulgarian:
 * Serbo-Croatian:
 * Cyrillic:, , ,
 * Latin:, , ,
 * West Slavic:
 * Czech:
 * Polish: (genitive: korabia)
 * Slovak:
 * Sorbian:
 * Lower Sorbian:

--WikiTiki89 13:35, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

 * --WikiTiki89 14:25, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * , see .--Cinemantique (talk) 17:32, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks! That's enough for me to create the entry (which I just did). There is an overwhelming amount of information in that dictionary, such as dialectal forms in various languages, that I do not have time to go through and add. I would also like CodeCat's opinion from the point of view of timing and language contact between Ancient Greek and Proto-Slavic. --WikiTiki89 17:48, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Old Church Slavonic certainly had lots of loanwords from Greek, so having a few in Proto-Slavic really isn't that big of a deal. —CodeCat 17:57, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
 * But that's because of the Greek missionaries and because OCS was used to translate Bible from Greek. This word was before all that, but I don't know how long before and whether it would have been part of Proto-Slavic or entered later into each branch. --WikiTiki89 18:09, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
 * There definitely were ships in the mutual history of the Slavs and the early Byzantine Empire, for instance, in the constant trade between the two or in the innumerable sieges of Constantinople and other Greek cities by Avars and Bulgars. So my guess would be that the word should have already been known to Slavs by the end of VII century, when the first states with Slavic population were made, but the dialectal changes between the corresponding dialects have not yet shown themselves, so that the word could have been properly transmitted even to the northern boundaries of the people. - Myndfrea (talk) 18:51, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Right. So how do you explain the /b/ sound rather than /v/? At the end of the 7th century, the pronunciation of the Greek beta was already somewhere in between /β/ and /v/ (based on our entry for κάραβος). --WikiTiki89 19:05, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I think you have to look at Slavic rather than Greek for that. Proto-Slavic had no /v/ itself, and some Slavic languages still don't. The closest was /w/ ~ /ʋ/. We know that by the time Cyrillic was created, Greek /v/ matched with Slavic /ʋ/, but it didn't have to be that way in the past. Older Greek /β/ was still matched more closely by Slavic /b/ than by /w/. —CodeCat 19:10, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
 * That, and the fact that the loan could come through some obscure Balkan language (Gothic or Gepidic, for instance) or dialect of Greek, or even Latin, which was prevalent in the territories of early Slavic settlement. Ultimately, logic implies that the loan couldn't happen earlier than the times of Heraclius - early VII century, that is. - Myndfrea (talk) 19:23, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Bécs, Beč, Beç etymology?
What would be etymology of Bécs, Beč, Beç? any thoughts? 78.1.235.230 13:47, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * According to Wikipedia: "The name of the city in Hungarian (Bécs), Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian (Beč) and Ottoman Turkish (Beç) appears to have a different, Slavonic origin, and originally referred to an Avar fort in the area." That should give a place to start looking. --WikiTiki89 14:22, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

campso
The Latin verb campsō is given as the etymology for the Catalan, Italian, Occitan, Portugese, and Spanish verb cansar/cansare. Cansar in these languages means to tire, whereas the Latin campsō means I turn or sail around a place. How did turning/sailing around become to tire?

*gʷreh₂- or *gʷerh₂-?
The etymologies of, and  all say that the cluster was -re-. also has this form. But has the cluster as -er-. has only the zero grade, so is noncommittal. Which is it? —CodeCat 18:38, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Is it knowable? It looks like all descendants (those you mention as well as ) derive from the zero grade. Maybe this is one of those irregular roots like that didn't have a full grade. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:06, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * But if there is no evidence either way, why do some sources nonetheless commit to one particular variety? What do they base it on? —CodeCat 19:08, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Their preconceived expectations? Anyway, I just discovered, which looks like it has the full grade in the order -er-. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:16, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * If it's related at all, that is. —CodeCat 19:27, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, but it could be the reason why some authors committed themselves to . And if the full grade is *gʷreh₂-, it will be indistinguishable from the zero grade *gʷr̥h₂- in many languages ( Indo-Iranian, Italic, Celtic), which makes the decision more difficult. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:31, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Latin has a short "a", does that give any distinguishing information? To tell the two possible root shapes apart, we'd need either an attestation with a long ā or ō (indicating -re-) or a Balto-Slavic -er- or -ar- with an acute register (indicating -er-). I don't know anything at all about how syllabic sonorants develop in Indo-Iranian, especially not with laryngeals. —CodeCat 20:31, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I was mistaken about Indo-Iranian. I was thinking -r̥H- became -rā- before a consonant there, but it doesn't, it becomes (at least in Sanskrit) -īr- or -ūr-. But this root seems mostly to have -r̥H- before a vowel, which means H-loss doesn't trigger compensatory lengthening. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 05:01, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * BTW, Sihler reconstructs it *gʷr̥ru- without a laryngeal and just says "the obvious inference is that *gʷr̥- before a vowel gives L gra-". He also thinks that < *pr̥h₂ey shows a parallel change of prevocalic *pr̥- to pra- and suggests that  might also show *tr̥- to tra-. As for the reason why he reconstructs *gʷr̥ru- without a laryngeal, he just says "Evidence bearing on *gʷr̥Hu- is meager by comparison [to tenuis from laryngealless *tn̥u- rather than *tn̥Hu-], but the evidence against a laryngeal is better than the evidence in favor of one." Unfortunately he doesn't say what that evidence is. With or without a laryngeal, the problem is that there are so few instances of a syllabic sonorant before a vowel that it's hard to figure out what the "normal" outcome would be. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:32, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Proto-Indo-European generally did not have geminates. And if there was a geminate, why is there no trace of it in any descendants? I think his hypothesis is too far fetched. And there are certainly plenty of possible examples of syllabic sonorants before vowels in Germanic: just look for a zero grade -u- + sonorant + vowel, with related forms having -e- or -a- (and not -eu- or -au-). —CodeCat 19:22, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think he was actually proposing a geminate; at the same time he was writing *gʷr̥ru- he was referring to it as a syllabic sonorant followed by a vowel, so he was clearly thinking of it as *gʷr̥u-. Maybe he was thinking /gʷr̥u-/ phonemically and [gʷr̥ru-] phonetically, though he doesn't seem to come out and say that in so many words, or maybe it was a misprint. I don't know how old the Germanic -uRV- forms are; I can imagine many of them are analogical rather than inherited. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:26, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Back to the original question, looks like it can only come from *gʷreh₂-, since *gʷr̥h₂u- gave guru- and *gʷr̥h₂w- would have given gūrv-. So maybe this is a case of Schwebeablaut, with *gʷreh₂- in Indic and *gʷerh₂- in Germanic (assuming the "millstone" word is from the same root as the "heavy" word). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:50, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

satyr
Not sure if this is the right place to put a question of etymology, but it seems that satyr has been listed for over three years as being derived ultimately from Hebrew. I haven't found anything confirming such a derivation; I suspect this assumption was taken from the KJV rendering of Isaiah 13:21, which translates שעיר as "satyr." So do some Jewish Tanach translations. But the majority of modern translations have "goats" or some iteration thereof. In any event, it strikes me as incredibly unlikely that the Greek, a mainstay of Hellenic paganism, was a Hebrew borrowing, given both the phonetic difficulties of going from שעיר (śa‘ír) to σάτυρος (sátyros) and the lack of suitable horse-men in Jewish mythology (as far as I'm aware) to justify this origin for the Greek myth. Does this etymology seem plausible to any of you, or are there reputable sources giving such an etymology? Aperiarcam (talk) 05:10, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Looks like bullshit to me. Incidentally, the Etymology scriptorium is the usual venue for questions like this. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 05:12, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Makes no sense to me. Someone probably misinterpreted "used to translate" as "derives from". I'll remove it. --WikiTiki89 17:50, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

despedir
The term despedir is a Portuguese and Spanish word that comes from Latin de + expetere, from peto, according to some sources like the RAE. It can be confusing as it could come from Latin de + expedire, from pes, which gave out despir instead. So I'm looking for a clarification. :) Thanks. 2001:8A0:4300:B701:F482:A6EA:1705:BCF7 20:46, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * /t/ became /d/ after a vowel in Vulgar Latin, so de+expetere > despedir is expected; /d/ disappeared after a vowel in early Iberian Romance, so de+expedire > despir (with no consonant between the p and the r) is also expected. The only way de+expedire could become despedir in Spanish and Portuguese is if it were a learnèd borrowing from Latin rather than an inherited word. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:32, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Appreciated. It's just I was reverted (as in other edits) when fixing the etymology of despedir so I wanted to make sure. I then have to return to counter-argue the reverts...

*h₂erHdʰ-
and both give a very different reconstruction for this, based on a root  (De Vaan only gives the zero grade). I don't know what other sources say, or where this particular reconstruction came from. —CodeCat 13:28, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

/
Most sources point to Latin as the root of Portuguese  /, but I have also found one blog post linking the word to Phoenician ḥrph (youth) or rbh (procreate). Anyone familiar with this here who can comment? – Jberkel (talk) 10:58, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * You can’t trust these types of blog. Nearly everything he posted is nothing more than wishful thinking. — Ungoliant (falai) 14:16, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

*jьskati conjugation?
Can someone more experienced look if this conjugation is good. 93.139.150.107 17:37, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

 * What's wrong with using a regular template :

 * ? --WikiTiki89 17:55, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * *jьskǫ / *jьščǫ ! for OCS has iskǫ, 3sg. ištetъ, 3pl. iskǫtъ (also 1sg ištǫ, 3sg

ištǫtъ, with analogical spread of the palatalized root form išt-) That's problematic, it looks like *jьskǫ is original, and *jьščǫ is maybe a proto-slavized form from OCS innovation. 93.139.138.220 20:49, 1 August 2015 (UTC)


text:
Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2015/August

Palestine
RFV of the etymology.

User:Prinsgezinde removed all references to the Philistines in this and the following one. A quick check of Etymonline and in the New Oxford American Dictionary app on my computer supported the removed material. Does anyone have more information on this? Chuck Entz (talk) 02:49, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Among the more entertaining folk etymologies (if they can be called that) is the one advanced by James Silk Buckingham and Henry Welsford in the early 1830s and 40s, that "the etymology of Palestine is Sanskrit, from Pali, a shepherd, and Stan or Istan, place." - -sche (discuss) 04:58, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * That the word derives from the word  and is related to the word  is the generally accepted theory. In various fora across the internet, at least part of the (non-scholarly) disagreement with this theory comes from people conflating questions about origin of the word with questions about the ethnic origin of the Palestinian people and/or the history of entities called "Palestine". [//biblehub.com/hebrew/6429.htm Strong's] has more on the Hebrew word.
 * Is "unattested", as has been claimed? DTLHS (talk) 05:22, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
 * No, e.g. Exodus 15:14 has (KJV: "of Palestina", NIV: "of Philistia") and Isaiah 14:29 has  (KJV: "Palestina" NIV: "you Philistines"). - -sche (discuss) 05:48, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

 * My reasoning for it is that this particular word's origin and usage is extremely politicized. There is no certainty on the etymology, although many would like to claim there is a general agreement. I'd rather avoid it than potentionally supply false information. Also, see here.
 * More: Philistine - This has been used to mean "uneducated person" since the 19th century. That use in English originates with a conflict between university academics and the townsfolk of Jena, Germany, in the 17th century, apparently based on the Book of Judges phrase “the Philistines are upon you.” The Philistines - in Hebrew plishtim - were a coastal adversary of ancient Israel whose name simply meant "invaders."
 * -Prinsgezinde (talk) 16:35, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

 * The word Palestine and its etymology existed long before any political issues you may be referring to. --WikiTiki89 11:08, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

 * Can you point to modern scholarship that disputes the derivation of "Palestine" from ? The alternative theories I've seen are: (1) the spurious folk etymology suggested by Buckingham and Welsford in the 1830s and 40s, which merits no mention; (2) a theory by David M. Jacobson that "Palestine" is not just from but is a modification of it by the Greeks to incorporate a pun/folk etymology (but Jacobson notes that "modern consensus agrees with" linking "Palestine" to "Philistine"), which might merit attributed mention; (3) the theory mentioned at  that the Philistines take their name from Palaestīnī who take their name from  in Albania, which seems like an unlikely minority view. (I've also seen it suggested that the Plst mentioned in Ancient Egyptian records are not, as most scholars think, cognate to "Philistines" and hence "Palestinians", but rather Pelagesians who migrated eastwards.) The sources you link to which explain how "Philistine" came to mean "uneducated person" don't contradict or indeed have much to do with the cognancy of the place-names "Palestine" and "Philistia". - -sche (discuss) 18:49, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Avena is to sheep as Haver is to goats?
Different pages for Germanic words for "oats" (something like 'haver') claim that the etymology is from 'Kaper' because oats would have been fed to goats. Why oats would be especially distinctive of goats I'm not sure, but it occurred to me that "avena" sounded like "ovis", which was especially glaring when I stumbled upon Russian "овес" Just doing a little reading about goats and sheep, it looks like both are grazers, not regularly given grain. Sheep are a little more picky about what they can eat, but do better on grasses whereas goats apparently like vines and weeds best. If "haver" is "Kaper" why couldn't "avena" be a modified form of "ovis"? Then the association between the livestock and the grain would have been a (kind of) calque one direction or the other.

J'odore (talk)
 * Kluge's etymological dictionary also suggests a connection of (< ) with, but I'm unconvinced. It seems like wishful thinking to me. The PIE "goat" word is attested in Proto-Germanic . A connection of  with  seems even more far-fetched. I'm no zoologist, but I thought goats were browsers rather than grazers. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:22, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

yearhundred
RFV of the etymology:

From year + hundred. Cognate with 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬.

This looks to me like a self-conscious artificial calque from one or more of the "cognates". It has very limited usage, but it meets CFI, so it shouldn't be deleted, but, if I'm right, we should be honest about its unnatural origins. Is there any trace of usage outside of the past century or so, or any evidence at all that this was inherited rather than constructed? Bosworth-Toller doesn't seem to have anything like this- just SOP combinations of / and in sentences, i.e. the equivalent of "a hundred years" and not "a yearhundred". I suspect this is about as authentic as phony archaisms like "thee sayeth". Chuck Entz (talk) 01:47, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The way in which the Etymology is written doesnt suggest it was inherited. It suggests it was created in Modern English by combining + . ?? Leasnam (talk) 03:20, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Irish ól
Proto-Celtic had no long ō, but the PIE root page suggests that this form did have one. So what is going on? —CodeCat 16:38, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
 * This is usually said to be from with compensatory lengthening for the loss of the t, though I can't say where the short o came from since Latin  points to *pōtlom < . Maybe before ō became ā in Proto-Celtic it shortened to ŏ before clusters like tl? That's not an environment for, though. Hmm... —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:57, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
 * has this to say:
 * "The vowel *o in Celtic is unexpected, as the PIE laryngeal should have yielded *a between consonants. It is probably due to an early analogy with the full grade (*eh₃ > *ō > PCelt. *ā), or to vowel assimilation (*fatlo- > *fotlo-), or to Dybo's law (*peh₃-tló- > *pōtló- > *potló-). Original *peh₃-tlo- would presumably have given OIr. **ál."
 * In my opinion, the "analogy with the full grade" argument is weak, because what would be the source of the analogy? Vowel assimilation is possible, I suppose, but it's kind of a copout since there are so many words where a...o didn't assimilate to o...o. And I don't know what Dybo's law he's talking about since the only I've ever heard of applies only in Slavic and is an accent shift, not a vowel shortening. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:42, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
 * This Dybo's law refers to pre-tonic vowel shortening in Italic and Celtic. See and . Benwing (talk) 23:50, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Placement of the -l- in *pleh₂- and *pelth₂-
It seems that there can't be a single reconstruction for this root because there are two different forms: and.
 * Balto-Slavic must derive from a full-grade, as a zero grade  would develop into  or perhaps , and the full grade of  would result in.
 * Slavic on the other hand must derive from the  variant (in o-grade).

The synonymous root currently at suffers from the same problem:
 * Germanic requires, the reverse variant  would give.
 * Sanskrit appears to require.

And then of course there's the relationship between the t-roots and the t-less roots, which goes beyond a simple root extension. I'm not sure what the best way would be to handle this in the entries. Should we just have four separate pages? This might be difficult because the zero grades coincide: could come from both  and  as they have the same zero grade. —CodeCat 21:01, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Alternation *pel(t)h₂- ~ *ple(t)h₂- looks like an instance of Schwebeablaut. Roots appear to be unrelated. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 01:39, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

grem, greš, gre...
Etymology of Slovene grem, greš, gre...? 93.139.207.176 02:25, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

أرثوذكسي (orthodox)
I created this entry and put "Ancient Greek" for the etymology by force of habit, but I'm wondering if it should be listed just under "Greek." In particular, the seems to indicate a late derivation reflecting modern  instead of  ancient, but I suppose the Hellenistic (koine) pronunciation would have /ð/ for delta and still be considered "Ancient Greek." I have sought, with little luck, Arabic terms deriving from Ancient Greek words with intervocalic delta to see if they become or, excepting terms from Greek mythology or technical terms which are more likely to have been coined in modern times. This is really sort of a frivolous distinction but I would like to get it right, to the extent that there is a clear boundary between an Ancient or Modern Greek derivation, and I don't know nearly enough about Greek phonology, or even the evolution of the English word orthodox, to come up with a compelling answer one way or the other on my own. Any insight would be appreciated. Aperiarcam (talk) 04:52, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, you're right that δ was pronounced /ð/ already in Koine Greek, which is still well within what we consider Ancient Greek, so you can say the Arabic word is from . The code   can be used as the first parameter of etyl, but is otherwise not a recognized language code; use   instead. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:40, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Not so fast; a fricative pronunciation of delta already in Koine Greek is by no means proven, see Koine Greek phonology. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:00, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I would guess this word was borrowed in the 600-1000AD period, hence probably coming from Byzantine Greek. I think we still consider that to be Ancient Greek; certainly, for other Arabic words probably borrowed in the same period, we say Ancient Greek. Benwing (talk) 23:41, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually we have a separate code for Byzantine Greek, . —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:18, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
 * On the one hand, WT:AGRC (still) says to consider Byzantine as Ancient Greek, but (it says) only because that's convenient. On the other hand, there was a discussion where there was some support for treating Byzantine as its own language; WT:LANGTREAT says to consider gkm and grc separate languages; and we never did bother to delete Byzantine Greek's code, even when it was supposedly (quoth WT:AGRC) treated as Ancient Greek. Perhaps someone should update WT:AGRC. - -sche (discuss) 03:07, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

twin
Per this source, the Proto-Germanic reconstruction (and the variant *twinjaz) is wrong. Instead, the double -nn- of Old English getwinn is original and etymologically identical with English and German. The reconstruction should therefore be. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:53, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The link above doesn't show any information on the page... Leasnam (talk) 19:16, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

 * So what happened to the /z~r/ in and ? --WikiTiki89 19:17, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

 * According to Bosworth and Toller, it is correct. They reconstruct PGmc *tvina, *tvinia to support Old English twinn Leasnam (talk) 19:20, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * According to Philippa 2009, is from OHG, contracted and assimilated from , composed of / + . —CodeCat 00:47, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
 * My question was actually if they derive from then what happened to the  in Dutch and German? --WikiTiki89 01:17, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Long vowel in Latin īsse
I think the perfect infinitive of in Latin has a long vowel in the form, but is given as short in Wiktionary. I don't recall where I've seen it as long, maybe in Moreland and Fleischer? Benwing (talk) 23:58, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) Definitely long as it is a contraction of / . Aperiarcam (talk) 00:07, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Proto-Slavic adjective comparative forms
How do Proto-Slavic adjective comparative forms work?

For an example comparative of *vysokъ is *vyšьjь, or comparative of *soldъkъ is *solďьjь...

But what would be comparatives of adjactives ending in -st like for an example *čęstъ (similar adjactives are *pustъ, *gǫstъ, or *žestokъ) is it *čęstьjь, or is it *čęsťьjь or *čęščьjь?

Or adjactives ending with -s or z like *bosъ or *lysъ is it *lysьjь or *lyšьjь or is it something else? 78.1.228.34 05:07, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I fixed your links, that should answer your first question. As for, it would probably be , but I don't know if the comparative exists for this particular word (it doesn't in Russian, as far as I know). --WikiTiki89 15:28, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

 * OCS has čęstъ com. čęstie, also čęsto com. čęstie / čęšte. So what would be correct proto-slavic form *čęstьjь, or *čęsťьjь or *čęščьjь? 93.139.161.203 16:58, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

 * Check our entry for, the answer is already there. --WikiTiki89 17:04, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Did kebab come from Persian or Arabic?
Entry for the Persian lists the Arabic  as its descendent but according to Hans Wehr the Arabic term comes from the native Arabic geminate root ك ب ب (k-b-b), e.g. form II verb  means "to form or roll into a ball". may need some attention - plurals, inflections are not available in H.W. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 06:27, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

 * If I had to guess, the Arabic looks like a folk etymology; ar:w:كباب more or less dismisses an Arabic etymology. I would cast my stone in favor of a Turkish derivation, and apparently ultimately some sort of Semitic origin (Akkadian or Aramaic, neither Arabic nor a Semitic cognate of ). The English kebab seems to have come from Ottoman Turkish, if not Persian; it certainly did not come via Arabic. Aperiarcam (talk) 06:51, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, I haven't found a plural form for . The inflection is regular and triptote (here is an example of the accusative case being used). Aperiarcam (talk) 07:02, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

 * WP has this to say, with reference:
 * According to Sevan Nişanyan, an etymologist of the Turkish language, the word kebab is derived from the Persian word "kabap" meaning "fry". The word was first mentioned in a Turkish script of Kyssa-i Yusuf in 1377, which is the oldest known source where kebab is mentioned as a food. However, he emphasizes that the word has the equivalent meaning of "frying/burning" with "kabābu" in the old Akkadian language, and "kbabā/כבבא" in Syriac language. (Nişanyan Sevan, Sözlerin Soyağacı, Çağdaş Türkçenin Etimolojik Sözlüğü, Online, Book.)
 * Another reference claims the Kitab al-Tabikh contains an earlier mention of the dish. - -sche (discuss) 07:51, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the replies. I was more interested to know if the Arabic term was borrowed from Persian (or other language) or is native Arabic word. Hans Wehr dictionary doesn't specifically say the term is from native Arabic root letters but lists the term under the related root letters (as usually done with words from the same root). --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 23:31, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

 * I've modified the English, Turkish and Persian entries. - -sche (discuss) 20:32, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

 * Wikipedia is misrepresenting Nshanyan, who does not even mention the Persian word. See Nshanyan's website. There is no Persian word "kabap" meaning "fry". The languages of the region, including Persian, borrowed the word from Arabic. The Arabic itself may be a native formation or a borrowing from Aramaic. I have expanded with sources. --Vahag (talk) 20:56, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

ius
ius and Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂yew- say jus came from ævum, but ius says it came from jugum. Lysdexia (talk) 17:42, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * No one says that ius comes from aevum or from jugum; that would be silly. We do say that the PIE root that ius comes from itself comes from the same root as aevum. Cal Watkins, whose scholarship I tend to believe, takes it back only as far as, without claiming that comes from  as we do. I don't see any possible way it could come from , and I've removed that bit of nonsense from the Wikipedia article. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:06, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The etymology comes from De Vaan 2008, I've added that to the entry accordingly. —CodeCat 19:58, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I had expected you would say that. By a quoted word I meant its meaning, where the word's root's meaning is identical to the root's reflex's meaning. Lysdexia (talk) 02:02, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

blood
Why did the proto‐Germans invent a new word for blood? Why didn’t they use the ones from Proto‐Indo‐European? --Romanophile (talk) 12:49, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

 * According to Wikipedia (Germanic substrate hypothesis), some linguists estimate that a third of Proto-Germanic vocabulary is not derived from Proto-Indo-European. I think I remember reading a hypothesis that this new vocabulary was brought by sailors who spoke some other language. Maybe *blōþą was one of those borrowed words. —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 13:12, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Blood is also the sort of thing that could be subject to taboo avoidance and thus replacement by another word. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:50, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/blōþą suggests a possible PIE derivation which doesn't sound that implausible to me (although I'm no expert): that it derives from the same root as bloom (see Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/bʰleh₃-), presumably first as a verb describing the process of bleeding. Early PIE seems to have had two different roots for blood – *h₁ésh₂r̥ (the root of the Latin sanguis) for blood inside the body, and *krewh₂ (the root of raw) for spilled blood – so it seems plausible for a third root to emerge that covered both meanings (especially given that both roots eventually evolved distinct meanings in Germanic: *h₁ésh₂r̥ became iron, *krewh₂ became raw). Poetic use "bloom" to mean "bleed" is still quite common. Smurrayinchester (talk) 11:56, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Are we sure that sanguis derives from *h₁ésh₂r̥? The Wiktionary-voice etymology is clever but I've heard there is a dispute about this. References would be nice. Benwing2 (talk) 09:26, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/podъ
Is this in fact cognate to ? I can't find a source that links them, although chaff (German-language references which gloss *podъ as 'Boden') means I may have missed something. The editor who added that has been sloppy about linking German and Slavic terms in other places; see e.g. the recent edit history of and for that matter, where German is interpolated into the middle of a list of Slavic relatives. - -sche (discuss) 07:45, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * According to Vasmer, it's cognate to 🇨🇬. I see no mention of Boden.--Cinemantique (talk) 08:24, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * In fact, this user has been adding a lot of links that are distant at best and spurious at worst, e.g. to tâmara. - -sche (discuss) 09:58, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

ak, auk
Middle High German ouch, whence modern auch, is listed as deriving from ak via Old High German oh, but also as deriving from auk via ouh. None of the references I've found (see entries) mention the two roots merging (in OHG/MHG). Is that nonetheless what happened, or what's going on? - -sche (discuss) 03:20, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Seems to me more like a case of ouch displacing och. Benwing2 (talk) 09:22, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
 * OTOH ak -> oh seems strange, I'd expect ah. Benwing2 (talk) 09:23, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

boar
See Talk:boar. - -sche (discuss) 16:43, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Pussy
I heard someone trying to argue that the word "pussy", meaning coward, was not sexist because it was not derived from "pussy", meaning a woman's genitals, but instead from pusillanimous. Is there any evidence of this? It seems like it at least could be true, but I've never researched word etymologies, so I don't know how to find out. --Arctic.gnome (talk) 07:11, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

 * I think it's most likely to have come from the word for "cat", and the OED agrees . There is after all the similar (if less offensive) pussy-cat, and the English language associates cats with cowardice and meekness in quite a few ways - see kitten, scaredy cat, pussyfoot. pusillanimous isn't pronounced like pussy, which makes a clipping unlikely. However, trying to argue whether or not a word is sexist based on what it meant 100 years ago is what's known as the etymological fallacy – what matters is the way it's understood now. So for example, when Jay-Z raps "This ain't a ho in the sense of having a pussy [woman's gentials]/but a pussy [coward] having no goddamn sense, tryna push me"*, he's clearly linking the two meanings regardless of what the OED says. It ultimately doesn't really make much difference where it came from, if people now associate the word with women. Smurrayinchester (talk) 11:19, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * (*) Incidentally, that verse suggests a meaning of ho which we don't have, apparently meaning a cowardly or subordinate man. It would be difficult to cite though. Smurrayinchester (talk) 11:19, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I disagree that that quotations shows any connection between "pussy" meaning "coward" and women. It is no more than a pun on the other meaning. --WikiTiki89 18:56, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

"What matters is how it is used now." congratulations Smurrayinchester, you're an SJW using appeal to modernity. Some of us have linguistic integrity.--Sigehelmus (talk) 16:41, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Let's pretend that I accused you of name-calling and using acronyms to avoid content or logic, and that you responded with other insults and we had a long, pointless "debate" over nothing. That way we don't have to actually waste bandwidth or try anyone's patience with what you seem to be pushing toward.
 * I would contend that a language doesn't have much in the way of a reality independent of those who use it or have used it in the past, but is rather a working model that's the result of sort of a negotiation between speakers/writers and/or listeners/readers. That means that what you and I understand our words to mean can be completely different from what they used to mean, or what they mean somewhere else.
 * If I say "the exception that proves the rule", or that something is "nice", those will mean what my audience understands them to mean, regardless of the fact that the first meant something completely different a few hundred years ago, and the second's etymology can be traced back to a Latin word for "ignorant". Yes, words can retain their meanings, and yes, old understandings can prevail- but only if the people using the language are aware of those meanings, and are willing to accept them.
 * I'm sorry to have to inform you, but language change doesn't always make sense. I don't care how logical or historically-correct your understanding of a phrase is, if it's not part of the understanding of the person you're communicating with, it won't be understood the way you think it is. For that matter, there's nothing to stop you from speaking to your neighbor in Sumerian, but don't expect them to understand it. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:25, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

 * You sound like a cretin who is certainly not nice — which is to say, as you must know, a good Christian who is certainly not ignorant. ;) - -sche (discuss) 00:40, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Why are people whining about vulgar terms being potentially sexist? That's a laughable complaint. No kidding! They are vulgar; they aren't meant to be kind. Tharthan (talk) 20:00, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

typhoon
Not 颱風? —suzukaze (t・c) 07:22, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Merriam-Webster favors 大風, but they think the word is from and corrupted by the Sinitic root (the opposite of what most of us think). OED says "tai fung (big wind)"; presumably this is also a statement in favor of 大風, which is read "tai fung" in Hakka. Any phonetic evidence would be drawn from the southern Chinese dialects, so the superficial resemblance of the Mandarin form to the English word is a red herring. Personally, I find it all a bit dubious, because the Chinese word presumably went through Persian, then Arabic, and the resulting word was potentially influenced by  before it entered European languages, and certainly influenced after. I would give up on any phonetically-oriented etymological investigation and default to 大風 per the lemming rule. Aperiarcam (talk) 08:24, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure why the Chinese word would have to go through that many intermediaries -- the Portuguese were quite active in the Chinese-speaking world around the time of this word's first apparent use in English, listed by the OED as the 16th century. Also,  (specific to the “typhoon” sense, as opposed to just  in the “big wind; windstorm” senses) is also read in Hakka as thòi-fûng, and in Cantonese as toi4 fung1, raising the possibility that the purported Portuguese purveyors of this term might have confused the two Chinese terms, at least with regard to the initial vowel.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 21:15, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

From F. Corriente (2008), ''Dictionary of Arabic and Allied Loanwords. Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Galician and Kindred Dialects'', page 457a "tifò (Ct.), tifón (Cs.) and tufão (Pt.): was prob. first acquired by Pt. during the initial explorations of the Indian Ocean, < Ar. ṭūfān 'flood; hurricane', and phonetically contaminated by Gr. typhṓn, name of the mythical monster causing volcano eruptions and hurricanes." --Vahag (talk) 21:50, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

etymonline.com thinks Tiphon "violent storm, whirlwind, tornado" is attested in English since the 1550s (from Greek typhon), earlier than the "Asian hurricane" sense. I wouldn't take their word for it, but it's worth looking into. - -sche (discuss) 22:42, 30 August 2015 (UTC)