Author Topic: The random etymology of the day (Read 220624 times)

pooka · « **Reply #50 on:** December 21, 2005, 09:38:21 AM »

Are tush and touch related?

Jonathon · « **Reply #51 on:** December 21, 2005, 11:26:57 AM »

Nope. Tush ultimately comes from Hebrew via Yiddish. Touch comes from Old French.

pooka · « **Reply #52 on:** December 21, 2005, 01:09:52 PM »

Tuckus. How interesting.

rivka · « **Reply #53 on:** December 22, 2005, 06:57:36 AM »

I had no idea that tuchus came from tachat (although it makes perfect sense)!

Jonathon · « **Reply #54 on:** December 23, 2005, 09:26:37 PM »

I, pers. pron., 1st sing

Old English ic, cognate with Gothic, Old Frisian, Old Low German (Frisian, Low German, Dutch) ik, Old High German ih (Middle High German, modern German ich), Old Norse ek, eg (Norwegian eg, Swedish jag, Danish jeg).

From the Old Teutonic *ek, ik, cognate with Old Slavonic azu, Lithuanian az, Latin ego, Greek ego(n), Sanskrit ahám: from Proto-Indo-European *egóm, *ego.

So the evolution of I in English is ego > ek > ik > ich > i > ai. The g devoiced and the ending dropped off, the vowel destressed, the k palatalized to a ch sound, the ch dropped off and the vowel lengthened, and then the vowel diphthongized. Just goes to show how words can become unrecognizable after a couple thousand years.

Jonathon · « **Reply #55 on:** December 29, 2005, 01:04:12 PM »

The word how always bugged me. All the other question words start with wh, but this one breaks the pattern. However, the key to fitting it in the pattern lies with our modern pronunciation of who. It's the only wh question word wherein the w is not pronounced. This is because of the /u/ vowel in it, which is a result of the Great Vowel Shift. When the vowel shifted and changed the pronunciation to /hwu/, the /w/ merged with the /u/.

In Old English, how was hu, which means that it was pronounced as who is today. This means that it could have undergone the same process of losing the /w/. And when you look at other old Germanic words for how, you find things like the Old Saxon hwo and Old High German wuo. This shows that other languages kept the /w/ that English evidently lost.

Brinestone · « **Reply #56 on:** December 29, 2005, 01:13:08 PM »

It's always bugged me that the German words for who, where, and how don't seem to line up with English like I think they should.

Who is wer; where is wo; and how is wie. How does this make sense?

rivka · « **Reply #57 on:** December 29, 2005, 01:16:28 PM »

In Hebrew, hu means "he" and hee means "she" . . . and it gets worse . . .

(Yes, I know they are not etymologically related. But it can lead to some funny conversations. Although not as funny as when someone yells DAI!)

Jonathon · « **Reply #58 on:** December 29, 2005, 01:49:02 PM »

Quote

It's always bugged me that the German words for who, where, and how don't seem to line up with English like I think they should.

Who is wer; where is wo; and how is wie. How does this make sense?

Who and wer are cognate; compare the English/German pairs he/er and ye/ihr. The others are not directly related. They come from the same interrogative stem hwa but have different suffixes.

Brinestone · « **Reply #59 on:** December 29, 2005, 01:56:55 PM »

Quote

Who and wer are cognate; compare the English/German pairs he/er and ye/ihr.

Fascinating! Care to elaborate?

Jonathon · « **Reply #60 on:** December 29, 2005, 02:05:24 PM »

Um . . . apparently the Germans like to put rs on the end of words. Or something. I don't know enough about German historical linguistics to give you a better answer than that.

pooka · « **Reply #61 on:** December 30, 2005, 02:28:40 PM »

Makes me wonder what was going on in Europe before the Romans conquered a lot of it.

Jonathon · « **Reply #62 on:** December 30, 2005, 04:51:35 PM »

Lots that we don't know, probably. There were whole languages that were wiped out by the Romans—Etruscan, all of Latin's sibling languages, about half of the Celtic languages—so there are a lot of blanks left to fill in.

pooka · « **Reply #63 on:** December 31, 2005, 08:25:58 AM »

Well, that's one thing to look forward to the resurrection for. The Lord needs valiant linguists.

Jonathon · « **Reply #64 on:** January 02, 2006, 11:19:44 AM »

know, v.

From the Old English (ge)cnáwan, related to Old High German cnâan, Old Norse present indicative kná, Gothic *knáian. Cognate with Old Slavonic zna-ti, Russian zna-t, Latin cognoscere, Greek gignoskein, Sanskrit jna. From Proto-Indo-European base *gno-.

Related words: can, ken, connoisseur, reconnaissance, agnostic.

The verb can, now reduced to a modal verb, comes from the sense "to know how to," which then evolved into "to be able to."

Ela · « **Reply #65 on:** January 04, 2006, 09:35:12 PM »

Quote

I had no idea that tuchus came from tachat (although it makes perfect sense)!

I knew that.

*smug*

Jonathon · « **Reply #66 on:** January 19, 2006, 01:44:10 PM »

So would anyone like me to keep doing this? I felt like no one was really reading it, so I stopped.

Porter · « **Reply #67 on:** January 19, 2006, 01:46:58 PM »

I was just thinking last night how I've missed it.

What brought that on? I was wondering about the etymology of...

...of...

Ah! Of the word "carnival". I was wondering if it had anything to do with "festival of the flesh"

Jonathon · « **Reply #68 on:** January 19, 2006, 01:56:07 PM »

carnival

From Italian carnevale, carnovale (whence French carnaval), evidently related to the medieval Latin (11-12th century) names carnelevarium, carnilevaria, carnilevamen, cited by Carpentier in additions to Du Cange.

These appear to originate in a Latin *carnem levare, or Italian *carne levare (with infinitive used substantivly as in il levar del sole "sunrise"), meaning ‘the putting away or removal of flesh (as food)’, the name being originally proper to the eve of Ash Wednesday. The actual Italian carnevale appears to have come through the intermediate carnelevale.

So the flesh part is right (apparently referring to meat, not the body). The rest seems to have undergone some funky metasthesis (sounds changing places) and assimilation (the r at the end becoming an l). The OED gives some parallel words that show the same sort of phonological development.

Porter · « **Reply #69 on:** January 19, 2006, 02:04:25 PM »

Carne levare sounds like a good description of Lent, but not Carnival/Mardi Gras.

Huh. Definitions certainly can change.

Brinestone · « **Reply #70 on:** January 19, 2006, 02:04:34 PM »

You know I love this. But then, if no one else does, you could always tell me the random etymology of the day over dinner or something. I have priveleges like that.

Porter · « **Reply #71 on:** January 19, 2006, 02:08:47 PM »

As I was reading Guns, Germs, and Steel, I realized I could have really enjoyed myself studying linguistics.

sarcasticmuppet · « **Reply #72 on:** January 19, 2006, 07:19:29 PM »

How is that book? It's on my list of books to read some time in the future.

Porter · « **Reply #73 on:** January 19, 2006, 07:24:55 PM »

That book is one of the most fascinating books I've ever read.

sarcasticmuppet · « **Reply #74 on:** January 19, 2006, 07:49:07 PM »

Cool!

*moves it up on the list*