LL-L "Etymology" 2007.12.05 (03) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  05 December 2007 - Volume 03
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
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From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2007.12.04 (02) [E]

Beste Ron,

you wrote (continuing our researches for LS: 'Botten'/E: 'boots")

> And this takes us to an Indo-European diminutive version: "bottle", Low
Saxon *boddel* ~ *buddel* (*bottel* ~ *buttel*), etc., apparently from Old
> French *bouteille* (in Middle English also *botel*), related to Italian *
bottiglia* , Spanish *botella* , Portuguese *botelha* , etc., apparently
from Latin *> buticula* 'small vessel', diminutive of Late Latin *butis ~* *
buttis* 'vessel', which is related to ... tadah! ... our old friend the *
butt*, cognate of
> French *botte* ~ *boute* , etc. However, the *Oxford English Dctionary*says it's
*not* related to "boot" and that its origin is unknown ...
 The French word for 'boot' *is* 'botte' (or did you say so??), as I just
found out, so I think we have reached the end of the tunnel here- it's a
French loan as we know many of them in LS, and this time obviously much
closer (because it came later?) to its French original than in E: 'boot'.
But then I am getting into some trouble. What kind of 'good old friend
_butt_' do you mean?? The E: 'fleshy part of the human body that you sit on
*(WordWeb)*' or the fish LS/G: 'Butt', E: 'flounder'?

DUDEN says to the latter:
*quote*

*Butt*

»Flunder, Scholle«: Der Fischname wurde im 16. Jh. aus dem Niederd. ins
Hochd. übernommen. Niederd. butt, mnd. but[te], niederl. bot gehören zu dem
Adjektiv nd. butt, niederl. bot »stumpf, plump« (vgl. Butzen). Der Fisch ist
also nach seiner plumpen Gestalt benannt.(...)

Duden - Das Herkunftswörterbuch, 3. Aufl. Mannheim 2001 [CD-ROM]
*unquote*

I'm not totally convinced by DUDEN, because we know another similar sounding
word dealing with fish: if in any lake there are too many fishes of one sort
they degenerate to very *small* individuals, and this phenomene we call
LS/G: 'ver-_butten_'. And- isn't a 'Butt' (fish) anything else than a *small
* flounder? And the above in DUDEN mentioned 'Butzen(-Fenster)' are
*small*windows, aren't they?
And so we could go back to our LS: 'Buttje[r]', who from this point of
cognisance could denote a *little* rounder, tramp, just the way it does
indeed...

But just to put some more confusion into the whole matter: 'Buttjer' also
denotes a grown-up beggar, 'Stromer' in our LS.

Continuum of mysteries...


Allerbest!

Jonny Meibohm

----------

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

Hi, Jonny!

I suppose you're right. We can at least see some light at the end of the
tunnel. I guess I was just tired when I wrote that, wouldn't have been able
to find my way out of a paper bag, leave alone a tunnel.

But there's always more in etymological tunnels.

Here's an extension, a cross-over to "Morphology," prompted by the Low Saxon
word *buttjern* (> Missingsch *butschern*) 'to walk about wearing (big)
boots', 'to stomp around'. (By the way, folks, this is the type of word
that's impossible to render in German as "elegantly," which is why casual
Northern German has borrowed many of them via Missingsch.)

Do you remember what I said about the frequentative or iterative suffix
/-l-/? In short, by adding it (on the lexical level) to verb, adjective or
noun roots verbs are derived that express frequent, repetitive and usually
"small," i.e. iterative actions, as in (hand >) "handle", (fond >) "fondle",
(jig >) "jiggle", (tick >) "tickle", (cob >) "cobble", (tink >) "tinkle",
(jug >) "juggle", and (hack > heck >) "heckle". I am fairly confident that
there is a relationship between this, which is common Germanic, and the
common Germanic nominal diminutive suffix, which is also found in Romance (
e.g., Latin diminutive *-ul-a*) and Baltic (e.g., Lithuanian *-el-*).

(A connection between this type of frequentative and nominal diminutive can
be shown in Romance where the diminutive suffix *-it- * is also found in
frequentative verbs, as in Latin *vend-* > *vendere* 'to sell',
*venditare*'to go around selling', 'to try to sell'.)

Another type of frequentative is marked by /-r-/. My hunch is that this one,
at least originally, indicated habitual action (rather than iterative
"small" actions). English examples are (spat >) "spatter" ( e.g., Frisian *
spatterje*, *spettere*, W. Flemish *spetteren*, but Dutch and Low Saxon *
spatten* 'to burst', 'to spout'), (scat >) "scatter", and (tink >) "tinker".


A Low Saxon verb example with /-r-/ is (*klap-* 'clap' >) *klapper-* 'to
rattle', 'to chatter', 'to keep knocking'. You also find it in (**ra(a)t-*>)
*roeter-* 'to rattle', in other dialects *roetel-* with the iterative
aspect.

Apparently, this is the type we are dealing with in the Low Saxon verb *
butjern* (*buttjern*) with the addition of an inserted diminutive /-je/: *
but*("boot")*-je-r-*, where the diminutive does not modify the root noun but
indicates the aspect of the verb: "small," iterative action, in this case
"to walk around wearing (big) boots" or rather "to take (many) steps in
(big) boots."

Here is another one of this sort: (*put (~ pot)* 'pot' > *püt (~ pöt*)
'pots' >) *p**ütjer-* (*p**üttjer-*) 'to tinker about', 'to busy oneself
with small tasks' (> Missingsch > casual Northerrn German *p**ütscher-*).

Here another one: (*wit* 'white', 'whitewash' >) *witjer-* (*wittjer-*) 'to
whitewash' (> Missingsch > casual Northerrn German *wi**tscher-*).

Furthermore, I believe that this /-r-/ is related to the deverbal noun
suffix /-r/ that denotes habitual agents; e.g., (*bake >*) "baker", (sing >)
"singer". This is not only common throughout Germanic but also, at the very
least, in Romance (e.g., French *boucher* 'butcher', *chanteur* 'singer',
Spanish *panadero* 'baker') and Slavonic (e.g., Russian *пекарь pekar'*,
Upper Sorbian * pjekar*, Loweer Sorbian *pjakaŕ* 'baker').

I would be interested in additional information and alternative theories.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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