LL-L "Etymology" 2005.04.07 (03) [D/E]

Thu Apr 7 16:17:26 UTC 2005

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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
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From: heather rendall <HeatherRendall at compuserve.com>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology " 2005.04.05 (07) [E]

Message text written by INTERNET:lowlands-l at LOWLANDS-L.NET
>Originally a call of recognition in one of the eastern
Australian indigenous languages, it was borrowed into Australian English
and, because of the British Army, soon became part of general imperial
slang*.
<

OED has that cooee  = call used as a long distance signal by Australian
Aborigines 19th century and that  'cow-ee' was given in a vocabulary of
1790 as meaning 'come'.

It was still very prevelant in the 1950s in Southern Engliand among
children - especially when playing Hide and Seek: one called 'cooee' from
one's hiding place to tease the finder. With voices calling 'cooee' from
all directions, the finder was often at a loss as to which direction to go
in.

It is still used  in plays and soaps by older characters  for example when
a friend comes into your house: they knock, open the door and call Cooee to
announce their arrival.

Heather

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From: jean-luc.detilleux at skynet.be <jean-luc.detilleux at skynet.be>
Subject: Etymology

Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2005.04.03 (04) [E]

Dear Lowlanders,

As soon as I read  Jonny Meiboom's remarks about "Wettern"

> Well- indeed there exists another, but very special word tight to E: 'wet'

> in our LS-dialect: "Wettern" (same way used in High German), meaning

> something like  D:"Gracht", E: "canal".

I immediately thought of a place name of West-Vlaanderen, Wetteren. The fact
is, the town is far from wet, being built on a hilltop! So I went to search
for a possible etymology on the web, and this is what I have found:

> De naam Wetteren

>

> Vuethre nomen est uille" = Wetteren is de naam van een dorp, schrijft
> Nodkerus,

> bisschop van Luik in zijn 'Vita Sancti Landualdi', gedateerd 19 juni 980.
> De bisschop

> verhaalt de overbrenging van de relikwieÃ«n van de heilige Landoaldus en de
> Gezellen

> van Wintershoven naar de Sint-Baafsabdij te Gent.
> De naam Wetteren is af te leiden uit het Germaanse haar of haruf = zandige
> heuvelrug

> en hwata = scherp. Het centrum van Wetteren ligt inderdaad op een
> heuvelrug die naar

> de Schelde toe steil afbreekt.

> http://www.wetteren.be/gsnaamframe.htm

Later on, Henno Brandsma wrote that

> Wetering" is indeed a Dutch word, and "wjittering" in West Frisian.

> This suggests that the e: is old, and maybe an ablaut variant of

> "water" (WF wetter) or an old Ingvaeonic form, with e < a.

and this seems to make perfect sense. So, could there be a collision of two
different terms for Wetteren? Or does the explanation of *hwata* run in the
wash? Over to you, the scholars.

Jean-Luc Detilleux

(Oufti! KÃ©n' affaire Ã  Lidje!)

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From: Elsie Zinsser <ezinsser at icon.co.za>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2005.04.06 (06) [E]

Hi all,

Ja, Ingmar, there are quite a few Malay originating words in Afrikaans
but I will have to get to my library at home to give you a listing.

Grammatically, Afrikaans has repetitive forms originating from Malay,
such as:
Ons speel huis-huis,
Die kinders loop lag-lag winkel toe
Sy het hink-hink daar aangekom

Regards,
Elsie Zinsser

PS: I know 'baie' is from Malay 'banya' much, many, a lot. Are there more
common Malay/Javanese/Indonesian/Malagassy loans in Afr.?

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Etymology

Ingmar:

> PS: I know 'baie' is from Malay 'banya' much, many, a lot.

Actually, it comes from Malay _banyak_.  In Malay/Indonesian (and most other
language varieties of Southeast Asia, irrespective of genealogy) final stops
are not released (i.e., the mouth/tongue remains in the position until the
next sound is formed).  To people who are not used to this phonetic variant,
these sound either like glottal stops or like nothing, especially so in the
case of unreleased /k/.

For Malay/Indonesian, nominal reduplication tends to be explained as
plural-forming, but I have the feeling that it implies variety more than
that, as does partial reduplication in Philippine languages (which are also
Malayo-Polynesian), varieties of Micronesia, the Americas and parts of
Africa, as well as Turkic "plural" _-lar_ ~ _-lÃ¤r_.  In some North American
languages, such as the Salishan ones of the Pacific Northwest, variety
expression by way of reduplication has been formally recognized.

By default, plurality of nouns in Malay/Indonesian is not morphologically
expressed; e.g., _gosok gigi_ (not *_gosok gigi-gigi_) 'brush one's teeth',
and _banyak anak_ (not *_banyak anak-anak_) 'many children'.

It makes perfect sense to assume that Afrikaans received reduplication from
Malay varieties, not only because of strong similarities, but also because
it was in the main Malay slaves or Malay-speaking slaves (some of them
having other native languages, such as Javanese and Sundanese) that raised
"Dutch" children "on the Cape."

However, I'm still not fully informed about the full extent and the shades
of meaning of reduplication in Afrikaans.  So, folks, here are a few
questions.

Is there any nominal reduplication, and, if so, what does it express?

Does _huis-huis_ ("house-house") in _ons speel huis-huis_ imply variety, or
does it express iteration > continuation ("we go on and on playing house"),
as do reduplicated verbs in adverbial expressions (_Die kinders loop lag-lag
winkel toe_ "The children run laugh-laugh to the shop" = 'The children run
laughing to the shop', _Sy het hink-hink daar aangekom_ "He has limp-limp
there arrived" = 'She arrived there limping')?

>From what I can tell, reduplication of adjectives/adverbs and also of verbs
in Malay/Indonesian matches Afrikaans usage very well:

* double verbs expressing repeated action
* double adjectives/adverbs expressing intensity
  (e.g., _gou-gou_ 'very fast', _nou-nou_ 'right now')

The thing about reduplication in Afrikaans is a bit of a cross-over between
"Etymology" and "Grammar."

So here is an etymological question to end with.

In Afrikaans, _Maleis_ means 'Malay' (adj./adv.), as does _Slams_.  Am I
right in assuming that the latter comes from _Islams_ 'Islamic'?  If so,
this would be rather interesting, aside from the fact that it would show
that the earliest notable Islamic population of the "Cape" was Malay.  (And
we know that the earliest extant written texts in Afrikaans are in Arabic
script.)  It is interesting also in that this would mean that the word has
been borrowed twice: (1) _Slams_ (~ _Maleis_) 'Malay', (2) _Islams_ (~
_Mohammedaans_) 'Islamic', 'Moslem'.

Groete,
Reinhard/Ron

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