LL-L "Etymology" 2012.04.12 (01) [EN]

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 L O W L A N D S - L - 12 April 2012 - Volume 01
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From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <roerd096 at PLANET.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2012.04.09 (01) [EN]

Does someone know the Nord Frisian (or Saterland Frisian) words for Badger?
I'm curious whether my theory that North Low Saxon "Tacks" instead of
expected "*Das(se)" is a Frisian loan is supported by Modern Frisian data.
West Frisian "das" is obviously a loan from Dutch or maybe even from Low
Saxon in the Netherland.
Ingmar

From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <[log in to unmask]>
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 <[log in to unmask]>
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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