LL-L "Etymology" 2009.03.02 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 02 March 2009 - Volume 03

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From: Mark Dreyer <mrdreyer at lantic.net>

Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2009.03.02 (01) [D/E]



Beste Roger:



Subject: LL-L Etymology



You wrote:
On the website of the Belgian newspaper het Laatste Nieuws an article from
the Sunday Telegraph is translated/summarized, stating that the origing of *
cricket* is [West-] Flemish (as spoken at the French border). The origin
refers apparently to "*met de krik ketsen*", krik being the *sheperd's crook
or sheep-hook* (in modern Dutch: herdersstaf, herdersstok; in German:
Hirtsenstab; in French: houlette, baton de berger) &c.


Fascinating point you've raised here: A good string...



Herewith my pennyworth:

>From my Chambers etymological, 'A bend or anything bent, such as a
shepherd's staff or a bishop's crozier... from a root common to Teutonic &
Celtic as in Welsh 'crwg,' = a hook, Icelandic 'krokr' & Dutch 'kroke'
(never heard of *that* myself).

I have seen an old print of an early form of cricket, played not with the
bat we know, but something more like a hockey stick.



While we're about it what about the Afrikaans & Nederlands 'kruk' =
'crutch', the latter plainly the Anglo-Saxon cognate?



Many games of today are a survival of an almost endless variety of both
solitary & team sports dating back no doubt to prehistoric times, all played
with a hooked club. Consider the Scottish sport 'golf' played with what the
Afrikaner, & how many other LL-L folks, would call a 'kolf' = 'club'.



Anyone for ice-hockey, hey, Canadiens? There is an etching of Hollanders
playing it in the 17th Century. The Tuareg play a form of hockey they call
(English orthograpgy, I think) 'gerubgeh'. with a club of such a shape
nobody in the World wouldn't recognise it or its purpose. I have no reason
to suppose they learned it from anyone else.



Cuchulainn killed the blacksmith Colainn's dog with one such club when he
was a child, which to my memory makes it the the only incident in record
that it was actually used as a weapon, or for protection. Other than that it
strikes me it was only ever a sporting instrument, not a tool of war.



One more thing in closing, I'm not surprised all these diversions came to
the English at second hand. Through a significant block of the Middle Ages
the menfolk were forbidden to play anything but longbow!



Yrs,

Mark

•

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