<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">L O W L A N D S - L - 17 July 2007 - Volume 02</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">=========================================================================</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">From: </span><span id="_user_luc.hellinckx@gmail.com" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28); font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Luc Hellinckx</span><span style="font-weight: normal; font-family: arial,sans-serif;" class="lg">
<<a href="mailto:luc.hellinckx@gmail.com">luc.hellinckx@gmail.com</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "Etymology"</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><div style="direction: ltr; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Beste Ron,<br><br>You wrote:<br>> I wonder if there's a Middle Saxon connection, but right now I don't<br>> have access to a dictionary. In Modern Low Saxon you can say mag sien
<br>> or mag wesen ("may be," also mag angahn "may be the case").<br><br>August Lübben has attested "mach-schên" and "mach-schein" for Middle<br>Saxon with the meaning, "es kann oder mag geschehen, vielleicht". Guess
<br>it was wiped out when the southern bulldozer started rolling ;-)<br>...giving way to "villicht".<br><br>In this light, it would be interesting to track how "for example" and<br>cognates have spread across Northern Europe, versus "zum Beispiel" (and
<br>similar constructions). This is wat Kluge writes about "Beispiel":<br><br>*Beispiel* Sn std. (12. Jh., Form 15. Jh.), mhd. bīspel, andfrk. bīspil<br>"Gleichnis, Redensart". Ebenso ae. bispell, eigentlich "das dazu
<br>Erzählte", zusammengesetzt aus bei und g. *spella- n. "überlieferte<br>Geschichte, Mythos" in gt. spill, anord. spjall (meist Pl.), ae. spell,<br>as. spel, ahd. spel, das sich bei gleicher Lautform (*spel-) nur mit
<br>arm. ara-spel "Sage, Sprichwort" vergleicht; weiter vielleicht mit s<br>mobile zu den unter befehlen aufgeführten Verwandten von l. appellāre.<br>Der Vokalismus ist seit spätmittelhochdeutscher Zeit sekundär an Spiel
<br>angeglichen worden (vgl. Kirchspiel).<br>Die heutige Bedeutung "Beispiel, Muster, Vorbild" beruht auf einer<br>Lehnbedeutung von l. exemplum, das u.a. "Gleichnis" und "Vorbild,<br>Muster" bedeutet.
<br><br>I wonder who actually introduced this "Lehnbedeutung", given the fact<br>that German and Dutch both now have it in their standard varieties ("zum<br>Beispiel" and "bij-voorbeeld"), but English and Southern Dutch don't
<br>("bijvoorbeeld" is a "schoolwoord", and traditional dialect still has<br>"per exempel", even though it becomes outdated now). I have this feeling<br>that the "example"-set is older and neutral whereas
<br>"Beispiel-bijvoorbeeld" may have had religious overtones. Could it be a<br>(protestant) church word? Again, this is just a wild guess.<br><br>Off record: Looking up characters, I came across some funny "sounds"
<br>(hope they will come through):<br><br>ʭ stands for "audible teeth gnashing" and ʬ is an "audible lip smack"<br><br>Wonder in what language they are used :-D .<br><br>Kind greetings,<br></div><div style="direction: ltr; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span class="sg"><br>Luc Hellinckx<br><br>----------<br><br></span>From: <span id="_user_list@marcusbuck.org" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Marcus Buck <<a href="mailto:list@marcusbuck.org">list@marcusbuck.org</a>>
</span><span style="font-weight: normal;" class="lg"></span> <span style="font-weight: normal;" class="lg"></span><br>Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2007.07.18 (01) [E]<br>
<br><div style="direction: ltr;">> From: Elsie Zinsser <<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:ezinsser@icon.co.za">ezinsser@icon.co.za</a> <mailto:<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:ezinsser@icon.co.za">
ezinsser@icon.co.za</a>>><br></div><div style="direction: ltr;"><span class="q">> Subject: LL-L "Etymology"<br>><br>> Hi all,<br>><br>> Ron used the word 'maskee' as in 'Maskee you likie' the other day and
<br>> it reminded me of the Afrikaans 'miskien' and Dutch misschien. So<br>> Luc informed me that older folks in Brussels still say "maskien" for<br>> Dutch "misschien", and that it comes from
<br>><br>> < mag-schien = mag-geschieden.<br>><br>> Now, are there cognates in other Lowlands languages of the Afrikaans<br>> interjection "allemaskie"? Other interjections still used by older<br>
> folks are "allemintig" and "allemapstieks". The "alle" –part possibly<br>> comes from 'almagtig', and is used euphemistically.<br>><br>> Elsie Zinsser<br>><br>> ----------
<br>><br></span></div><div style="direction: ltr;">> From: R. F. Hahn <<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com">sassisch@yahoo.com</a> <mailto:<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com">
sassisch@yahoo.com</a>>><br></div><div style="direction: ltr;"><span class="q">> Subject: Etymology<br>><br>> Hi, Elsie, Lowlanders!<br>><br>> Let me just add a few footnotes to your post.<br>><br>
> * I said it in a message to the Travel Team, i.e. off-list.<br>> * The language I used was China Coast Pidgin, now extinct. (It's<br>> the language from which English got expressions like "look-see"
<br>> and "long time no see.")<br>> * In Tok Pisin (Neo-Melanesian, which, like many other<br>> English-based pidgins and creoles drew heavily from CCP) maski<br>> developed to mean 'although', 'never mind', 'forget about it'
<br>> * For "maybe," Danish has måske, Swedish the variant kanske (can<br>> happen).<br>><br>> I wonder if there's a Middle Saxon connection, but right now I don't<br>> have access to a dictionary. In Modern Low Saxon you can say mag sien
<br>> or mag wesen ("may be," also mag angahn "may be the case").<br></span></div><div style="direction: ltr;">There is a middle Saxon connenction. Look at<br><<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://drw-www.adw.uni-heidelberg.de/drw-cgi/zeige?db=dig&darstellung=v&index=buecher&term=schiller-luebben+iii&blaettere_g002-003=+%3C+&seite=g004-005" target="_blank">
http://drw-www.adw.uni-heidelberg.de/drw-cgi/zeige?db=dig&darstellung=v&index=buecher&term=schiller-luebben+iii&blaettere_g002-003=+%3C+&seite=g004-005</a>>.<br>mnd. machschên. Gyldendals Etymologisk Ordbog says: måske, efter mnty.
<br>machschên, egl. 'måske', det kan ske'.<br><br>The same for Dansk, Svensk 'kanske'.<br></div><span class="sg"><br>Marcus Buck<br><br>----------<br><br></span>From: R. F. Hahn <<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com">
sassisch@yahoo.com</a><br>
<div style="direction: ltr;"><span class="q">Subject: Etymology</span></div><br>Thanks a lot, Luc and Marcus!<br><br>This is very interesting. But how did <span style="font-style: italic;">maskee</span> (= <span style="font-style: italic;">
maski</span> = <span style="font-style: italic;">ma-si-ki</span>) get to the Chinese coast?<br><br>The core of the language is English on Chinese (originally Cantonese) substrate, and it contains some Portuguese-derived words (
e.g., <span style="font-style: italic;">pequeno</span> 'small (one)' > <span style="font-style: italic;">pikanini</span> 'small', 'child'), which is understandable considering historical contacts (such as in Macau,
e.g., late 18th century: <span style="font-style: italic;">Carey grandi hola, pickenini hola?</span> < Port. <span style="font-style: italic;">Quer uma grande puta ou uma pequena puta?</span> "Do you want a big or little whore?"). Later on, other dialects were developed from this, such as in multinationally occupied Shanghai (with Wu admixture) and in German-occupied Tianjin (Tientsin) and Shandong (Shantung). I am wondering if
<span style="font-style: italic;">maskee</span> was imported by English speakers from another colony which had had direct or indirect contacts with Dutch, perhaps Sri Lanka (Ceylon) or Malaya, or somewhere in the Caribbean area.
<br><br>It is interesting to note that English-based pidgins and creoles of Asia and Oceania share a common basis that underlies strata of mixing of English and the specific local languages. For instance, most of them have variants of (
<span style="font-style: italic;">pequeno</span> >) <span style="font-style: italic;">pikanini</span> ~ <span style="font-style: italic;">pikinini</span> for 'child' > 'small' and of (fellow >)
<span style="font-style: italic;">fela</span> ~ <span style="font-style: italic;">pela</span> as an adjectival marker (e.g., Tok Pisin <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">em i </span>naispela
</span> 'he/she/it is (a) nice/beautiful (one)', <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">tripela </span>bikpela haus</span> 'three big houses'), in Asia, Papua New Guinea, Melanesia and Australia. So this had been carried as a lingua franca base from colony to colony, probably mostly by Europeans, in part also by Chinese and other non-Europeans that were in European employ or followed Europeans to other colonies.
<br><br>In the creoles of Suriname we get these of "maybe":<br>Aukan (Ndyuka): <span style="font-style: italic;">kande</span><br>Saramaccan: <span style="font-style: italic;">kandë́<br></span>Sranan Tongo: <span style="font-style: italic;">
kande</span> <br>(I wonder if they are influenced by Carib <span style="font-style: italic;">ka`tu</span> 'maybe'.)<br><br>It's an interesting mystery.<br><br>Regards,<br>Reinhard/Ron<br></div><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">