Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2015/May

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← April 2015 · May 2015 · June 2015 → · (current)

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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 כָּבַשׁ (kavásh, kāḇaš) itself, since we already know it exists. We need a source for the connection between this Hebrew word and the English word kibosh. --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:

• *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)

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)

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

Discussion moved from WT:RFV#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 elativus. 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) *vantage or just a Middle English (or modern English) clipping of avantage? 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?

Discussion moved from Wiktionary:Tea room#Is the Persian قاپیدن (qapidan) a cognate of the Latin capiō?.

Is the purported Persian قاپیدن (qapidan, “snap”, “snatch”) a cognate of the Latin capiō (“I seize”), as claimed in this edit? Or, even less plausibly, is the same Persian verb the etymon of the Proto-Indo-European *keh₂p- as claimed in User talk:I'm so meta even this acronym#Capio - qapi? — 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: diff. Note that they misspelled "Persian". I don't know much about transformation of Arabic borrowings, but قَبَضَ (qabaḍa) 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 *habjaną and Latin habeō 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)

@Chuck Entz: 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)

@Chuck Entz: Well in many Persian words, "g" or "k" consonants have turned to Arabic consonant "q" such as in قهرمان (qahramân, “hero”, “champion”) which was "kahramân" or چاقو (čâqu, “knife”, “champion”) which was "čaku" and earlier "čagug" or "čaguk", or also مرغ (morq, “hen”, “chicken”) 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 کف (kaf, “hand palm””), 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. کف (kaf, “hand palm””) comes from Arabic كَفّ (kaff, “hand palm”, “floor”). 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 *kop- (“to chop”), cf. Albanian kep, Greek κόπτω (kóptō)); the other meaning 'to split, cut, scrape, dig' (from, oddly enough, PIE *skobʰ- (“to scrape, shave”), cf. shave etc.) Neither of these mentions Persian qapidan. --Tropylium (talk) 14:20, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

According to {{R:ira:ESIJa}}, vol. IV, page 237, Persian qap zadan, qapīdan, kapīdan is either inherited from PIE *keh₂p- and thus cognate with capio or it is borrowed. The dictionary does not say borrowed from what, but I assume from Turkic *qap- (“to seize by teeth; to bite”), whence Turkish kapmak and the Kurdish borrowing qap (“bite”). --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

Ismael rex, sophy of Persia.

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)

@Diligent: 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 older revision with detailed parsing into references. fr:sophy is listed also a variant in the French wiktionnaire of fr:sofi. —BoBoMisiu (talk) 12:35, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

@BoBoMisiu: 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 *melko 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 *meluks 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)

@CodeCat 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 *dojiti (“to milk”) 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 *mlēsti, 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 *melsti, 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

@Tropylium 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 *marhaz (and *markos 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 Ancient Greek -ρραφία (-rrhaphía), from ῥάπτω (rháptō, “I sew”).

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 ῥάπτω (rháptō, “I sew”) (words such as ῥαφεύς (rhapheús, “one who stitches”) show the underlying form), and the suffix -y 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:

• δικορραφία (“preparing a lawsuit”, literally “stitch together a lawsuit (δίκη)”)
• δολορραφία (“artful contrivance”, literally “contriving of traps (δόλος)”)
• γαστρορραφία (“sewing up of a belly-wound (γαστήρ)”)
• κακορραφία (“contrivance of ill, mischievousness”, literally “contriving of evil (κᾰκός)”)

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 -ρραφία (-rrhaphía) is the best analysis- one could just as easily say it was -ορραφία (-orrhaphía)- but δικορραφία) (dikorrhaphía)) and γαστρορραφία (gastrorrhaphía) don't seem to have any final consonant on the first morpheme (one could argue that γαστρορραφία (gastrorrhaphía) is based on the genitive, but that would exclude δολορραφία (dolorrhaphía) and κακορραφία (kakorrhaphía). It sort of looks like there's an underlying -ος- (-os-) combining-form affix. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:32, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Sorry I wasn't paying attention. The rough breathing on a rho ῥ (rh) is represented word medially as -ρρ- (-rrh-), thus the second rho merely represents the rough breathing (I believe). A similar situation occurs with διάρροια (diárrhoia) and ῥέω (rhéō). —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 διάῤῥοια (diárrhoia) instead of διάρροια (diárrhoia)? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:14, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Since -ῤῥ- (-rrh-) is identical to -ρρ- (-rrh-), 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#Double rhos 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 w:Upper German. —Stephen ^(Talk) 16:11, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Nocke, nokedli

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

{{R:Zaicz 2006}} and {{R:TotfalusiEty 2005}} say nokedli comes from German (Bavarian-Austrian) Nockerl (“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)