LL-L "Etymology" 2007.11.02 (01) [D/E]

Fri Nov 2 15:16:43 UTC 2007

L O W L A N D S - L  -  02 November 2007 - Volume 01
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
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From: wim <wkv at home.nl>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2007.11.01 (04) [D/E]

Ja leuk!

[Wim Verdoold]

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

Beste Jonny,

You wrote:
> thanks for all your interesting thoughts and informations about the
> mystic development of 'to dwell'.
> Meanwhile I'm becoming suspicious that in ancient time there may have
> been two similar words which melted at any point but the etymologicans
> didn't realize.

Yep, etymologists also err sometimes (pun intended :-D ).

Something similar was probably also the case in a Brabantish word for
"wandering":

"(rond-) ra(n)ddolen"

which could be a contamination of:

   * randuinen: Kiliaan (1599) has "randuynen", Currere cum impetu:
     effuse vel profusè currere. /gal. randonner
     /http://www.dbnl.nl/tekst/kili001etym01_01/kili001etym01_01_0026.htm
   * dolen: to wander about

French "randonner" < Germanic "Rand"
http://francois.gannaz.free.fr/Littre/xmlittre.php?requete=r589

Further research brought up that "rand" (border, margin, edge) would
still be in use in some English dialects and "random" (E) is a first
cousin. Also note the South-African currency "rand" < Witwatersrand ~
White-waters-ridge.

Enough "ranting" already...oops, "to rant" may also be related: <
"rand(t)en" (Dutch) < rennen (plus t-suffix), "to run" (E)

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx

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

Beste Paul,

You wrote:
>
>     Here is one of the cases where English is richer than Afrikaans in
>     an ancient survival. Mind you, we have kept 'woon' & its cognates
>     in all the other Lowlands languages including the Anglo Saxon  &
>     Modern English hasn't.
>
>     Yrs,
>     Mark
>
> We haven't completely lost it, though it's pretty rare now.  The word
> "wont" as in " He was wont to visit the pub on Sundays" actually comes
> from /wunian/; it now means "accustomed to" or "in the habit of", but
> it earlier meant specifically "accustomed to a place". I had an uncle
> who, on moving to a new house after decades in an ancient terrace
> house, said was "gettin' wunted" to the new one.

In Brabantish, we would say that your uncle was "zijn oud huis nog niet
ontwoon". "Gewoon" is an adjective that means "being used to", whereas
"ontwoon" is quite the opposite, "having lost the habit" (note: wonen >
gewoon and (in)habit > have the habit, usus).

The standard noun "gewoonte" often becomes "gewente" in many (Southern)
dialects (< p.p. of "wennen" ?~? wonen).

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx

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

Beste Ron,

You wrote:
>
> Luc:
>
> OK, I digress, but can the Ural-Altaic language family also be explained
> in terms of one common prehistoric activity?
>
> Wow! "Ural-Altaic"?! Some people still reject the Altaic hypothesis.
> The Ural-Altaic hypothesis, which was en vogue in the early part of
> the 20th century, was at one point deemed "debunked." Despite
> sometimes astonishing morphological similarities and apparent remnants
> of a sound correspondence system, some people vehemently resist any
> type of "unification" attempts, even more so when it involves alleged
> Indo-European connections and older researchers of European descent.
> (I guess you can imagine what happens when unification hypotheses
> involve both Indo-European and African languages, such as the
> Nostratic hypothesis that seeks to link Altaic, Uralic, Indo-European,
> Semitic and Bantu, many including Kartvelian and Dravidian as well,
> leave alone hypotheses that go way beyond that.)

Very interesting articles in "Eurasisches Magazin" on this matter:

   * http://www.eurasischesmagazin.de/artikel/?artikelID=713
   * http://www.eurasischesmagazin.de/artikel/?artikelID=30603
   * http://www.eurasischesmagazin.de/artikel/?artikelID=121003
   * http://www.eurasischesmagazin.de/artikel/?artikelID=101703
   * http://www.eurasischesmagazin.de/artikel/?artikelID=20040313

Too bad they still use the term "Indogermanisch" though; or would that
be 'cause some view it like a brandname, once tagged by German scientists?

One of the articles reflects on what could possibly be the "Urheimat" of
all Germanic peoples. Prof. Jürgen Udolph considered names for rivers to
be the oldest linguistic layer and apparently found the biggest density
just north of the Mittelgebirge (and not in Scandinavia or
Schleswig-Holstein). If this is true, it would mean that Scandinavia got
populated by people migrating from south to north (and not the other way
round like I had always believed)!

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx

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

Hi, Luc!

Thanks for those interesting links. I looked at them briefly, will have to
read them in detail later, and I hope other that read German will too. As
you can see, I am not the only person that talks about Eurasia.

You wrote:

The standard noun "gewoonte" often becomes "gewente" in many (Southern)
dialects (< p.p. of "wennen" ?~? wonen).

Yes, this is interesting, isn't it? In Low Saxon, the root of the verb
meaning 'to reside' is waan- (wanen, wahnen, wohnen, waonen, etc.), to that
of 'to accustom' is wen- (wennen).

Ik waan achter d'n dyk.
(Ik wahn achter'n Diek.)
I live behind the dike.

Sey wil geyrn in dey stad wanen.
(Se will geern in de Stadt wahnen.)
She'd love to live in the city.

Hey har lang up'n landen waand.
(He harr lang up'n Lannen wahnt.)
He had lived in the country for a long time.

Daar bün ik nich an wend.
(Daar bün ik nich an wennt.)
I'm not accustomed to that.

Dat schulst d' dy af-wennen.
(Dat schullst di afwennen.)
You ought to kick that habit.

So there seems to be a disconnect. Right? Different vowels, which could be
the result of umlauting, and a long vowel versus a short vowel.

Old Saxon has wonōn as one of the verbs for 'to reside'. It has giwono for
'accustomed' and giwono or giwonohêd for 'habit', but then it has wennianand gi
wennian for 'to accustom'. This looks like umlauting and shortening. Compare
German wohnen 'to reside', Gewohnheit 'habit' versus gewöhnen 'accustomed',
but Old German giwonan 'to reside', giwona,  gewonaheit 'habit', and wennenand
giwennen 'to accustom', Old Low Franconian wonen 'to reside' versus wennen
'to accustom', and Old English wuna, gewuna 'habit', gewuna 'acquired
habit', wun, gewun, gewuna 'accustomed', wennan, wenian, gewennan,
gewenian'to accustom'. Old Frisian may be shedding some more light on
this:
wennia, wunia 'to reside', wana, wenhêd, wenichêd, wenithe, wunichêd'habit',
wun, wunich 'accustomed', wenna 'accustom', similarly Old Norse (which does
not have a cognate for 'to reside') vandi, vani, venja 'habit',
vanr'accustomed',
venja 'accustom'.

This makes it look as though some sort of ancient vowel alternation applied,
also that within this group "custom" and "habit" preceded "residing."

Have a nice weekend!

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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