LL-L "Etymology" 2008.03.09 (02) [D/E]

[Lowlands-L List]

=======================================================================

 L O W L A N D S - L * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226

 http://www.lowlands-l.net * lowlands.list at gmail.com

 Rules & Guidelines: http://www.lowlands-l.net/rules.php

 Posting: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org - lowlands.list at gmail.com

 Commands ("signoff lowlands-l" etc.): listserv at listserv.net

 Server Manual: http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html

 Archives: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html

 Encoding: Unicode (UTF-8) [Please switch your view mode to it.]

 Administration: lowlands.list at gmail.com or sassisch at yahoo.com


 You have received this because you have been subscribed upon request.
 To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l" as message
 text from the same account to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or
 sign off at http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.


 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
 L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
 S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West) Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)

=======================================================================

 ========================================================================
L O W L A N D S - L  - 09 March 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: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2008.03.09 (01) [E]

Interestingly, people in English horsey circles almost never refer to a
"white horse";  it's a Grey.  The only exceptions seem to be the famous
Camargue white horses in France.

----------

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

Beste Ron,

You wrote:

And there's *blank*. In German it pretty much only means 'shiny'. In Low
Saxon it means that but also comes with the remnant sense of 'white' which
you still find in place names, such as Blankenese (now a part of Hamburg)
'white (shiny) promontory'. It is also found in the Low Saxon nickname for
the North Sea: *de blanke Hans* (probably originally *de blanke Jan*) "(the)
*blank* John." Apparently this is not in reference to shiny water but to the
white caps of the stormy sea, because this nickname connotes the dangerous,
stormy sea that claims lives and land.

See below.

My hunch is that *blank* used to be different from plain *wit* 'white' in
that it denoted 'sparkling white' or 'strikingly white (in the distance)'.
(Right now, as the morning haze is being burned off, I'm looking at the
emerging snow caps of the Olympic Mountains, and I'm thinking that in Low
Saxon they're *blank* even nowadays, not so in German.)

And apparently, *blank* came to be imported into some Romance languages (*
blanc*, *blanco*, *branco*, etc., but Romanian still *alb*) as 'white' with
the extended meaning 'empty', which English then borrowed, as in "blank
slate."

During the semantic transition white > empty there may have been
interference with "blak", which is found in Dutch expressions like:

   - de blakke zee: open sea
   - het blakke veld, de blakke kouter: open country, open fields

Dutch Etymologist Kiliaan (16th c.) still equated this word with "vlak", but
De Vries (20th c.) righteously makes a distinction (vlak has become "plak"
in dialect, not "blak"). Here's what he wrote:

*Blakstil:

*Het eerste lid is in het zuidndl. *blak* "effen, bloot, kaal", reeds
Kiliaen *black, vlak  *"aequus, planus" (vgl. ook de naam van een water *
Blaak*, dus: het rustige, stille water). Het is de vraag of er een hd. blach
bestaan heeft; het komt niet voor en Luther schijnt het uit
*Blachfeld*geabstraheerd te hebben, maar dit woord zal zelf uit
*flachfeld* gedissimileerd zijn. Overigens behoort *blak* bij *blaken *en
dan zou de betekenis "open, bloot, > "vlak" zich ontwikkeld hebben.

De verhouding tot lit. *blakas* "gelijk", lett. *blaks *"effen; zee bij
windstilte" is niet geheel duidelijk, ofschoon semantisch de woorden kunnen
beantwoorden aan elkaar. Maar mag men  voor een woord, dat alleen in het nl.
en het baltisch voorkomt, op een idg. wt. teruggaan? (vgl. Endzelin, KZ 52,
1924, 113). Toch is gelijkheid bet. bevreemdend; misschien uit een
substraattaal?

This interesting verb "blaken" is also cognate with "blikken", said in
Brabantish, when a player has to take the upper card of a deck and turn it
upside down in order to show which card it is. Blikken, in this sense, means
"shine, to make visible" (notice the relation with "blinken"). This
"blijken"-family is one of the few families in Germanic, that stems from
Indo-European root *bhel (shining, white). Examples:

   - bliss (E), blij (D)
   - blister (E), blush (E), blozen (D), older/dialectic Dutch
   "verblestern" (to singe)
   - blind, blond
   - Belarus
   - ...

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx

•

==============================END===================================

 * Please submit postings to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.

 * Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.

 * Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.

 * Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l")

   are to be sent to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or at

   http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.

*********************************************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20080309/47f70c94/attachment.htm>