LL-L "Etymology" 2009.11.17 (04) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 17 November 2009 - Volume 04
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From: Jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2009.11.17 (02) [EN]

 Dear Heather,

you wrote:

*>>My question is: why do you have ' Nach-' and not 'Efter- when both
English and Lowland languages seem to >>have retained the '-math' bit.*

In LS we have "*achter*" for areal and "*nao*" for chronological sequences.
It's the same like in German "*hinter*" vs "*nach*": 'Er läuft *hinter* mir
her' vs 'Es ist schon *nach* 19:00 Uhr'. This would be in LS 'Hey löppt *
achter* mii her' vs 'Dat is all *nao* Klokk soyben'

*>>[One of the things I like about this forum is it makes you look up word
origins you have never *
*>>thought about.]*

I fully agree!

With kind regards!

Jonny Meibohm
Lower Saxony, Germany

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From: Marcus Buck <list at marcusbuck.org>
 Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2009.11.17 (02) [EN]

From: heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <mailto:heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk> <
heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <mailto:heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>>

> Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2009.11.16 (03) [DE-EN]
>
> from Heather Rendall heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <mailto:
> heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
>
> re the discussion about Nachmahd / Nahmadd
>
> In English we have 'Aftermath' with the same meaning = ' a second cutting
> of grass' . However I doubt whether the majority of English speakers know
> this original meaning; rather they use it to descriobe the results of any
> action. e.g. " In the aftermath of 7/11 security was tightened throughout
> the county."
>
>  My question is: why do you have ' Nach-' and not 'Efter- when both English
> and Lowland languages seem to have retained the '-math' bit.
>

Part of the answer may be this (I translate the German text about "Grummet"
on <http://wiki.marcusbuck.org/Namad.jpg>):
 ----
Among scientists it's controversial whether the Germanic people already
mowed the grass twice. It's known, that the Romans did, but there is some
evidence, that mowing twice only became common among Germanic peoples in the
time of the Carolingians or even later. For the first time of mowing ("Heu"
[eng. "hay"]) there is a common Germanic word: Old High German 'houwi',
'hewi', Anglo-Saxon 'hîeg', Old Norse 'hey', Gothic 'hawi', which are based
on a meaning "something hewn". The diverse German synonyms for "Grummet",
which are all compound nouns and only attested from Middle High German on,
indicate that the words were created much more recently.
----

So the dtv-Atlas suggests, that the word is much younger than the word for
the first time of mowing. The word(s) only came into existence long after
the separation of Anglo-Saxon from the continental varieties. The relative
similarity of "Namadd" and "aftermath" is not based on a common ancestor
word, but were coined independantly.

(But, independant from the linguistic stuff, I wonder what's the reason that
the Germanic people only mowed once? I don't know of any major improvements
in agriculture back then that could have improved the grass growth that
much.
And to come back to Jonny speaking about it as a moribund word: It's one of
the examples where not language decline is the cause for a word
disappearing, but where the word just became unfit to represent reality
anymore. There's no use for a word meaning "second and last time of mowing"
if agriculture has improved thus far that modern farmers can mow five times
a year.)

Marcus Buck

•

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