LL-L "Etymology" 2007.06.16 (01) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  16 June 2007 - Volume 01

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From: john welch <sjswelch at yahoo.com.au>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2007.06.15 (09) [E]

"Maybe just coincidental: "Tiljak" seems to be a south Slavic surname"--
Doug Wilson Is it possibly consistent with Frank "Merovingian"<merovich,
with Slav patronym suffix? John

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From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2007.06.15 (09) [E]

Beste Marcel and Douglas,

thanks for your suggestions around ' Am Tilljak', the name of a place in a
neighboured village.

Marcel, about 'till' >> 'Ziel': I'd already thought in the same direction,
though *today* in our Low Saxon (and I still guess 'Tilljak' to be of
LS-origin) it is 'Ziel' too. But we also have the word LS: 'Zill' in the
meaning of E: 'sluice', G: 'Siel', and even LS: 'Süll', meaning an
E: 'barrier'. Another similar word in Standard German is 'Tülle', denoting
the 'nozzle' of a can- it should be 'Tüll' in LS (but probably could be *
Till* as well!) and is related to E: 'dell'. Last but not least we have the
word LS: 'Tillen', spoken 'Till'n', meaning G: 'Zweig', E: 'twig'.
OS has 'til', meaning 'suitable', 'tila' for 'line (of shaves)' and 'tilon'
for 'acquire'- doesn't help, I fear.
Another idea: E: 'tilt' or 'to tilt' could be a hint for a special shape of
the landscape...

Hoyza! Just looking over the fence, into the *'Woordeliest'* of our
friend *Piet
Bult* I find the Stellingwarfs word 1. 'tille': NL 'bruggetje', E 'little
bridge' or 2. 'tille: NL 'doorwaadbare plaats', E 'ford', G 'Furt'; 3.
'tille': NL 'til', E 'to lift', G 'aufheben'.
'Little bridge' or 'ford' could both be of great plausability- could be a
forgotten (just me who forgot it?) word of our German Low Saxon or been
brought by Dutch settlers or engineers engaged to build the dikes and
drainage systems (we had/have a lot of both of them, in the past and still
today)!!
Piet also has enlisted 'jak' but his translation into Standard Dutch also is
'jak'- and I don't find it in any dictionary for NL>>G. (I'd *like* to
 guess it could be E 'jacket' in any very special, technical meaning!!??)
Indeed- the word reminded me of Dutch from the very beginning!

Douglas: a famous German admiral had the name 'Ciliax' and that one I guess
to  be related to your idea of a Slavic surname like 'potiljak' etc. But
remember: the name of the place is '*Am* Tilljak', *'At the* ...', and so I
fear it cannot be connected with the name of any person...

But what about John Welch's idea: a 'Tiljak' was a place for a tree with the
best twigs to herd a yak  >>'Till'n-yak' ;-)?

Allerbest!

Jonny Meibohm

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

Jonny,

> But what about John Welch's idea: a 'Tiljak' was a place for a tree with
the best twigs to herd a yak  >>'Till'n-yak' ;-)?

He may have been on the right track, except I believe it's where they used
to use yak as draft animals when tilling the ground, until the Brahmins got
wind of that.

> and even LS: 'Süll', meaning an E: 'barrier'

Apparently a cognate of English "sill" and German Schwelle 'threshold'.

But would that make "silly" the same as "on (or over) the edge"? Not!

"Silly" comes from "seely" which comes from Old English sǽliƽ (sæ^lig) which
is related to Old Frisian sêlich (> sillich, salig), Old Saxon sâlig (>
selig), Middle Dutch sâlech (> zalig), Old German sâlig (> selig)
'blissful', 'happy', 'giddy', from "sele" < sǽl (sæ^l) 'good', 'happy'.  In
other words, somewhere along the line happiness got frowned on in English
and people would say, "Don't be so happy!" (Some people still do that by
admonishing you, "Now you're getting giddy." -- not that that would ever
happen to me, mind you.)

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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