LL-L "Etymology" 2008.04.11 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

=========================================================================
L O W L A N D S - L  - 11 April 2008 - Volume 02
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please set the encoding mode to Unicode (UTF-8).
If viewing this in a web browser, please click on
the html toggle at the bottom of the archived page.
=========================================================================

From: Jorge Potter <jorgepot at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Etyhmology" 2008.04.09 (03) [E]

 Dear John Howland and rest of Lowlanders,



I do indeed have my dictionaries all around me, tried to scan out the entry
in the American Heritage Dictionary for "bhel-1)  and failed totally in
editing the thing, the lines hopelessly overlapping. Then I started  to copy
it out straight out for 2/3 of an 8-pt. column—just too much work! You are
absolutely right about "bald", first item in the article.



bhel-1. To shine, flash, burn; shining white and various bright colors; fire
*I.  1*. Germanic **bala-* white mark, Old English **bællede*, bald ( <
"having a white head"): BALD.  2.  Celticà



Just let me type the other English derivatives listed:



beltane

beluga

phalarope

blue     (*aha!*)

flavo-

bleach

bleak

blaze

blesbok

blemish

blind-

blend

blende

blond

blench

blank(et)

blink

blush

black

all derivatives of Latin fulgere,

flamma, Greek phlegein, phlox



"gloaming" is from "ghel2."  To shine; with derivatives referring to bright
materials, probably "yellow metal" and to the bile or gall.



Now isn't that an interesting? And that bhel-1 led to "blue" and ghel2 to
"yellow". Again pointing to a unitary language theory?



Jorge Potter

You wrote:

>  This got me to wondering, as I watched a family of bald eagles circling
> over my house, about two more words with the meaning "shining or blazing
> white." The first is "bald" which I take to mean "shining" and I have always
> imagined must be related to the origin of *Baldr, *the Norse god of
> daylight. The second word brought to mind is "blaze" as in a flaring flame
> or the white marking on the faces of horses or cattle. Could both of these
> words be related to the I-E root *bhel that Luc mentioned? And is *blank*in the same family?
>
> Sorry, I don't have my dictionaries with me or I would do my own homework.
> I hope this will stimulate some discussion about cognates in other lowland
> tongues. What interests me is how important the idea of
> shining/blazing/burning/glowing appearance must have been to our distant
> ancestors as reflected in speech, e.g., "brand" as a kenning for "sword" in
> Old English poetry. Other words for radiance or qualities of light such as
> *blink, glimmer, glisten, glow, shimmer, shine, sparkle, twinkle, dim*,
> and *flash. *Perhaps also: *morn/morwen/morgen *and *dusk*. And I love the
> word *gloaming.*
>

----------

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

Cool! Thanks, Jorge.

> Again pointing to a unitary language theory?

It would be so if we could trace it outside the Indo-European family while
discounting that it is an Indo-European loan in members of other families.

What it does seem to show is that the native lexicon (i.e. vocabulary) of a
language family can indeed be traced back to a pool of relatively few "base
words." This is one of the most thrilling parts for me, in great part
because it requires real detective work. Original words, such as this **bhel
*, very often shrunk down to being one- or two-sound sequences buried within
derived words (in this case *bl-*).

This detective work can be complicated by many other factors as well, most
importantly by multi-stage semantic shifts over thousands of years. In most
cases we can catch merely glimpses of these shift processes, there being
missing links and such. The end results of such shifts oftentimes seem
semantically so far apart that we are led to assume we are dealing with
different etyma. The **bhel* group is a good example. We end up with an
array of colors: white (Slavonic **bel-*), blue and black (and blush =
reddish).

Or just look at the small and rather simple example of English "blaze" (Old
Norse *blesi*, German *Blesse* etc.), and let me present it in a way that
could be leading:

   - *blaze* n. 1 : pale spot on the head of an animal
   - *blaze* n. 2 : torch, firebrand, flame
   - *blaze* v. 1 : to burn with a bright, fervent flame; to cause to
   burn with a bright, fervent flame
   - *blaze* v. 2 : to mark a tree by chipping off a piece of bark

(In order not to confuse the issue I deliberately left out the verb "blaze"
in the sense of "blow" since it is obviously (?) unrelated, being related to
"blow", German *blasen* etc.)

If in the last entry I had left out "to mark a tree" and had simply written
"to chip a piece of bark off a tree" I would have steered the reader in the
direction of assuming this word is unrelated to the rest. Had I written "to
chip a piece of bark off a tree to create a light spot as a mark" I would
have led you in the direction of seeing the relationship, certainly with the
noun "blaze" meaning "pale spot on the head of an animal." So it seems that
the lexicographer's glossing and his or her own bias can play a leading
role.

Etymological research (which looks for clear patterns rather than for
occasional instances) involves (or ought to involve) a good number of
approaches and skills that in formal education seem to be scattered over
various linguistic, anthropological and historical disciplines. I am in
favor of advanced-level courses in etymology (generally applicable theory
and skills) with some background in the named disciplines as a prerequisite
for participation. I don't think there are a lot of these types of courses
offered so far. I see a lot of etymological discussions in which
genealogical relationships are proposed or debunked on the basis of a
handful of words with little or no pattern. And even where patterns are
fairly obvious there are always those that will try to debunk a hypothesis
by dismissing clear patterns as involving loans (as has been going on in the
are of Altaic).

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20080411/be3eea43/attachment.htm>