LL-L "Etymology" 2007.10.13 (08) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  13 October 2007 - Volume 08
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
=========================================================================

From: Lee Goldberg <leybl_goldberg at yahoo.com>
Subject: Names

The Yiddish for "to look" corresponding to German "gucken" is "kukn"
(regionally "kikn"), with a clear "k" distinct from a "g", so I don't think
Yiddish could be the source of "google".

Ingmar wrote:

From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder
<ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL<http://us.f367.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=ingmar.roerdinkholder@WORLDONLINE.NL&YY=67476&y5beta=yes&y5beta=yes&order=down&sort=date&pos=2&view=a&head=b>
>
Subject: LL-L "Names" 2007.10.02 (08) [E]

I thought it could be a Yiddish word, something like "guckeln" derived
from a diminutive of German "gucken", but then it would rather
be "gickeln" of course, which would have given "Giggle".

----------

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

Hi, Lee! Good to hear from you again.

I haven't been able to come up with anything remotely related in Yiddish
either.

I don't see why we should not accept the theory of "googol" with
"cross-fertilization" from "googly" (as in "googly eyes"), which appears to
be related to "goo-goo" (as in "goo-goo eyes"), which may be related to
"goo-goo" in reference to baby behavior < baby talk.

In early Germanic verb formation, the suffix /-l-/ added a frequentive or
iterative aspect, as in "many/frequent ("small") actions" (which may have
been related to the nominal diminutive /-l/). So you get, for instance,
"jiggle," "juggle," "piddle," "handle," "stumble," "giggle," "hobble,"
"bumble" and "dribble."

Latin, for instance, has /-it-/ as a frequentive aspect marker (as in vēndit
āre 'to (try to) sell over and over again' from vēndēre 'to sell', also vom
itāre 'to keep on vomiting' from vomēre 'to vomit'), possibly derived from
intervening /-t-/ with /i/ as an epenthetic vowel.

Incidentally, there are traces of the early frequentive (or "intensive")
aspect markers /-l-/ and /-t-/ in Altaic, which are particularly well
preserved as such in Northern Tungusic languages such as Evenki, Even and
Nanai. Furthermore, you seem to find both of them in the Uralic languages,
where /-t-/ is an intensive and /-l-/ is a frequentive or iterative, as in
Finnish ampua 'to shoot' > *ammahtaa* 'to shoot up', *ammuskella* 'to go
around shooting'. This type of thing, by the way, together with certain
lexical items and the astonishing similarities of the basic pronoun systems,
makes the Altaic, Uralic and Indo-European languages look as though they
have common ancestry way, way back. But I digress ...

Back to German gucken versus Yiddish קוקן kukn 'to look' ... Most North
Germans write gucken (because it's the standard) but pronounce it kucken,
most likely because of the substrate of Low Saxon which has kyken (kieken),
with the same pronunciation as Yiddish קוקן kukn outside the Northern or
Lithuanian (Baltic) dialect group (which has preserved the [U]
pronunciation). A long [i:] sound used to apply also to Dutch kijken (once
written kÿken or kyken > Afrikaans kyk) before it turned into a diphthong.
The old [i:] is still found in Western Flemish (kieke, as well as in some
Brabantish dialects I believe), and that's probably whence Scots got its a
keek 'a look', namely from Flemish textile workers immigrating to medieval
Scotland (hence the surname Fleming, like you know who), often via Wales
(hence the surnames Walsh, Welsh, etc. among British Flemings).

Many German dialects also have kucke(n), including many of the Rhenish area,
which is where Old Yiddish was born.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20071013/d4af9f35/attachment.htm>