LL-L "Etymology" 2012.04.09 (01) [EN]

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 L O W L A N D S - L - 09 April 2012 - Volume 02
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From: Paul Finlow-Bates wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2012.04.08 (01) [EN]

According to OED, "badger" is a late (16th C) creation, possibly related to
"badge", from the pattern on its head - but it says "badge" is late Middle
English, of unkown origin!

I don't know what it is about this animal that made people in the British
Isles need to borrow or make up new names for it. Presumably both Celtic
and Germanic people were familiar with the beast in Europe so why not keep
on calling it what they always did? Then why, in the case of English, make
up a completely new name a thousand or so years later?

Incidentally, I always understood Afrikaans "das" to be a rabbit or hare
(there was a kids' TV character called Haas Das). The diminuitive form
"dassie" is the Rock Hyrax.

Paul
Derby
England
(but just back from Copenhagen!)

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From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <roerd096 at PLANET.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2012.04.07 (01`) [EN-NDS]

My first thought was that Low Saxon "Tacks" is a Frisian loan, because as
you said, Proto Germanic *þahsu should have yielded "Dass" in Low Saxon,
but "taks" would be the regular outcome in Frisian (and Scandinavian). The
funny thing is now that West Frisian uses the Dutch or Low Saxon loanword
"das", and Low Saxon in Germany uses the Frisian word "taks".

I find it striking that the name of this beautiful animal seems to be
borrowed from other languages so often: in Low Saxon from Frisian, in
Frisian from Dutch/Low Saxon, in English from Celtic and even Older Modern
English "dasse" which is obviously from Dutch too, probably Flemish. Could
that have to do with some sort of taboo, or was the badger a very rare
animal, or does it have to do with other things such as its role in the
Reynard the Fox tales. I guess at least Early Modern English "dasse" is
probably from those tales, as they were translated from Dutch/Flemish.

Ingmar

Btw I don't know "taks" from Low Saxon in the Netherlands, only "das",
where exactly is "Tacks" used,  .

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at 6ayoo.com>
Subject: Etymology

Dachs [daks] for 'badger' is (High) German. Low Saxon ("Low German") tends
to have Tacks [tʰaks], and Dutch, Afrikaans, Limburgish and W. Frisian have
das.

LS t- is somewhat surprising here. Proto-Germanic *þahsu- should have
yielded *dahs > *Dass. I assume that (older) Danish and Norwegian
(svin-)toks go back to a Middle Saxon loan. (Modern Standard Danish uses
grævling, Norwegian grevling, Swedish grävling ("digger"?).) Early Modern
English has dasse, Old English brocc, Scots brock, from Proto-Celtic
*brokko.

The *þahsu- group appears to go back to Proto-Indo-European *tek'- "to
construct."

Happy Easter and Passover (Pessach)!

Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

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