LL-L "Etymology" 2007.07.18 (02) [E/German]

Wed Jul 18 23:42:06 UTC 2007

L O W L A N D S - L  -  17 July 2007 - Volume 02

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From: Luc Hellinckx <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology"

Beste Ron,

You wrote:
> I wonder if there's a Middle Saxon connection, but right now I don't
> have access to a dictionary. In Modern Low Saxon you can say mag sien
> or mag wesen ("may be," also mag angahn "may be the case").

August Lübben has attested "mach-schên" and "mach-schein" for Middle
Saxon with the meaning, "es kann oder mag geschehen, vielleicht". Guess
it was wiped out when the southern bulldozer started rolling ;-)
...giving way to "villicht".

In this light, it would be interesting to track how "for example" and
cognates have spread across Northern Europe, versus "zum Beispiel" (and
similar constructions). This is wat Kluge writes about "Beispiel":

*Beispiel* Sn std. (12. Jh., Form 15. Jh.), mhd. bīspel, andfrk. bīspil
"Gleichnis, Redensart". Ebenso ae. bispell, eigentlich "das dazu
Erzählte", zusammengesetzt aus bei und g. *spella- n. "überlieferte
Geschichte, Mythos" in gt. spill, anord. spjall (meist Pl.), ae. spell,
as. spel, ahd. spel, das sich bei gleicher Lautform (*spel-) nur mit
arm. ara-spel "Sage, Sprichwort" vergleicht; weiter vielleicht mit s
mobile zu den unter befehlen aufgeführten Verwandten von l. appellāre.
Der Vokalismus ist seit spätmittelhochdeutscher Zeit sekundär an Spiel
angeglichen worden (vgl. Kirchspiel).
Die heutige Bedeutung "Beispiel, Muster, Vorbild" beruht auf einer
Lehnbedeutung von l. exemplum, das u.a. "Gleichnis" und "Vorbild,
Muster" bedeutet.

I wonder who actually introduced this "Lehnbedeutung", given the fact
that German and Dutch both now have it in their standard varieties ("zum
Beispiel" and "bij-voorbeeld"), but English and Southern Dutch don't
("bijvoorbeeld" is a "schoolwoord", and traditional dialect still has
"per exempel", even though it becomes outdated now). I have this feeling
that the "example"-set is older and neutral whereas
"Beispiel-bijvoorbeeld" may have had religious overtones. Could it be a
(protestant) church word? Again, this is just a wild guess.

Off record: Looking up characters, I came across some funny "sounds"
(hope they will come through):

ʭ stands for "audible teeth gnashing" and ʬ is an "audible lip smack"

Wonder in what language they are used :-D .

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx

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From: Marcus Buck <list at marcusbuck.org>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2007.07.18 (01) [E]

> From: Elsie Zinsser  <ezinsser at icon.co.za <mailto:ezinsser at icon.co.za>>
> Subject: LL-L "Etymology"
>
> Hi all,
>
> Ron used the word 'maskee' as in 'Maskee you likie' the other day and
> it reminded me of the Afrikaans 'miskien' and Dutch misschien. So
> Luc informed me that older folks in Brussels still say "maskien" for
> Dutch "misschien", and that it comes from
>
> < mag-schien = mag-geschieden.
>
> Now, are there cognates in other Lowlands languages of the Afrikaans
> interjection "allemaskie"? Other interjections still used by older
> folks are "allemintig" and "allemapstieks". The "alle" –part possibly
> comes from 'almagtig', and is used euphemistically.
>
> Elsie Zinsser
>
> ----------
>
> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com <mailto:sassisch at yahoo.com>>
> Subject: Etymology
>
> Hi, Elsie, Lowlanders!
>
> Let me just add a few footnotes to your post.
>
>     * I said it in a message to the Travel Team, i.e. off-list.
>     * The language I used was China Coast Pidgin, now extinct. (It's
>       the language from which English got expressions like "look-see"
>       and "long time no see.")
>     * In Tok Pisin (Neo-Melanesian, which, like many other
>       English-based pidgins and creoles drew heavily from CCP) maski
>       developed to mean 'although', 'never mind', 'forget about it'
>     * For "maybe," Danish has måske, Swedish the variant kanske (can
>       happen).
>
> I wonder if there's a Middle Saxon connection, but right now I don't
> have access to a dictionary.  In Modern Low Saxon you can say mag sien
> or mag wesen ("may be," also mag angahn "may be the case").
There is a middle Saxon connenction. Look at
<
http://drw-www.adw.uni-heidelberg.de/drw-cgi/zeige?db=dig&darstellung=v&index=buecher&term=schiller-luebben+iii&blaettere_g002-003=+%3C+&seite=g004-005
>.
mnd. machschên. Gyldendals Etymologisk Ordbog says: måske,  efter mnty.
machschên, egl. 'måske', det kan ske'.

The same for  Dansk, Svensk  'kanske'.

Marcus Buck

----------

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

Thanks a lot, Luc and Marcus!

This is very interesting.  But how did maskee (= maski = ma-si-ki) get to
the Chinese coast?

The core of the language is English on Chinese (originally Cantonese)
substrate, and it contains some Portuguese-derived words (e.g.,
pequeno'small (one)' >
pikanini 'small', 'child'), which is understandable considering historical
contacts (such as in Macau, e.g., late 18th century: Carey grandi hola,
pickenini hola? < Port. Quer uma grande puta ou uma pequena puta? "Do you
want a big or little whore?"). Later on, other dialects were developed from
this, such as in multinationally occupied Shanghai (with Wu admixture) and
in German-occupied Tianjin (Tientsin) and Shandong (Shantung).  I am
wondering if maskee was imported by English speakers from another colony
which had had direct or indirect contacts with Dutch, perhaps Sri Lanka
(Ceylon) or Malaya, or somewhere in the Caribbean area.

It is interesting to note that English-based pidgins and creoles of Asia and
Oceania share a common basis that underlies strata of mixing of English and
the specific local languages. For instance, most of them have variants of (
pequeno >) pikanini ~ pikinini for 'child' > 'small' and of  (fellow >) fela~
pela as an adjectival marker (e.g., Tok Pisin em i naispela 'he/she/it is
(a) nice/beautiful (one)', tripela bikpela haus 'three big houses'), in
Asia, Papua New Guinea, Melanesia and Australia. So this had been carried as
a lingua franca base  from colony to colony, probably mostly by Europeans,
in part also by Chinese and other non-Europeans that were in European employ
or followed Europeans to other colonies.

In the creoles of Suriname we get these of "maybe":
Aukan (Ndyuka): kande
Saramaccan: kandë́
Sranan Tongo: kande
(I wonder if they are influenced by Carib ka`tu 'maybe'.)

It's an interesting mystery.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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