LL-L: "Etymology" LOWLANDS-L, 14.DEC.1999 (02) [E]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 14.DEC.1999 (02) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Carl Johan Petersson [Carl_Johan.Petersson at Nordiska.uu.se]
Subject: LL-L: "Etymology" LOWLANDS-L, 13.DEC.1999 (01) [E]

Hallo allemaal,

Yesterday I wrote:

>This is also the source of the Swedish verb _pracka_ (Danish _prakke_),
>which is generally assumed to be a Low German loan in the Scandinavian
>languages. Niels Åge Nielsens Danish etymological dictionary quotes the
>Polish dialectal word _pracharz_ 'beggar' as a possible source for the Low
>German noun.

I've done some more checking on this. The Dictionary of the Swedish Academy
(SAOB) also asserts Low German _prachen_ as the source of the Swedish word.
However, they also list an East Frisian _prakken_ 'press, push' as a
possibly related word. The meaning of _pracka_ in older Swedish was 'to
obtain something through begging or persuasion' - in modern Swedish the
meaning is 'to foist something on somebody' or 'to persuade someone to buy
something'.

Does anybody of you know if _prakken_ is spread outside the East Frisian
area? Does it occur in modern Low Saxon varieties? There is apparently a
Dutch _prakken_ 'eten met een vork fijnmaken' that seems to be related to
the East Frisian word (so according to De Vries' Etymological Dictionary).
Is there a chance that _prakken_ and _prachen_ might be related?
Semantically, it seems plausible that the meaning of a word could evolve
from 'press, push' to 'zudringlich betteln', but I'm not sure how to
explain the sound shift kk>X unless we assume some kind of influence from
the High German sound shift (which definitely can be ruled out, or?).

regards

Carl Johan Petersson

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