LL-L: "Etymology" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 08.OCT.1999 (05)

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From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Etymology (was "Help needed")

Dear Lowlanders,

This is going to be all about crustaceans, or "shellfish," and I wonder if
some of you would care to give me some input.

In Low Saxon (Low German), and under its influence also in Northern German
dialect, there have been a couple of shifts in the terminology of 'crab' and
'shrimp'.

A common word for 'crab' (_Decapoda - Brachyura_) appears to be represented by
ModLS _Kreevt_ ~ _Kreeft_ ~ _Krääft_ [kre:ft] (cf. German _Krebs_).  In some
dialects it seems to mean both 'crab' and 'cancer', in others it appears to
mean only 'cancer', and 'crab' is represented by what I assume to be a
descriptive replacement word: /dvars-löüper/ _Dwarslöper_ ['dva:s,lœIpV] ~
['dva:s,lOIpV] "sideways walker."  Are there any relatives of _Kreevt_ and
_Dwarslöper_ in other Germanic languages?

English _crab_ comes from Old English _crabba_ and is related for instance to
Dutch _krab_, Swedish _krabba_ (< MidLS?), Danish/Norwegian _krabbe_(<
MidLS?), all with the same meaning.  In Modern Low Saxon (and in Northern
German), however, _Krabb(e)_ means 'shrimp'!  What happened there?

And what about English 'shrimp' (_Decapoda - Natantia_)?  Various etymological
references point to the possibility of Middle English _shrimpe_ being a Low
Saxon loan.  What was the Middle Low Saxon donor word?  Might there be a
connection with the verb 'scrimp' ('economize severely', sometimes assumed to
be of Scandinavian origin -- or could it be of LS origin too?), considering
that 'shrimp' also has the connotation of 'tiny', 'puny', etc., and we should
reconstruct the Low Saxon donor word of 'shrimp' as something like _schrimpe_
~ _scrimpe_ (since _sch_ competed with _sc_ at the time).

The more "sophisticated" German word for 'shrimp' is _Garnele_ (cf. Dutch
_garnaal_), but Northern _Krabbe_ seems to have spread southward.

Oh, and by the way, North American friends, when in the famous or infamous
Australian TV travel commercial the actor Paul Hogan said, "Put another shrimp
on the barbie!" it wasn't Australian English at all, although it sounded like
it on account of his "accent" and the word "barbie" (['ba:bIi] = "barbecue
(grill)").  "Shrimp" was a replacement for the sake of the "Yank" target
audience.  In non-American English "shrimp" only refers to the tiny critters,
the kind you find in shrimp cocktails, the kind that would fall right through
the grill's grate and burn up in about two seconds.  The real word is "prawn"
([pro:n] in Australian) for the bigger kind (_Palaemonetes_), the kind that in
America tends to be called "jumbo shrimp" lately, "prawn" very rarely and then
mostly in "snooty" types of restaurants and gourmet shops.

Thanks for your input, and best regards,

Reinhard/Ron

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