<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">L O W L A N D S - L - 05 December 2007 - Volume 03
</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Song Contest: <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/contest/" target="_blank">lowlands-l.net/contest/</a> (- 31 Dec. 2007)
</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">=========================================================================</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: <span style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">
jonny</span> <span><<a href="mailto:jonny.meibohm@arcor.de" target="_blank">jonny.meibohm@arcor.de</a>></span> </span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2007.12.04 (02) [E]<br><br></span><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span>
Beste
Ron,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span></span> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span>you wrote
(continuing our researches for LS: 'Botten'/E: 'boots")</span></div><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<div><span></span> </div>
<div><span><font color="#008080">> And this takes us to an Indo-European diminutive version:
"bottle", Low Saxon <i>boddel</i> ~ <i>buddel</i> (<i>bottel</i> ~
<i>buttel</i>), etc., apparently from Old </font></span></div>
<div><span><font color="#008080">> French <i>bouteille</i> (in Middle English also
<i>botel</i>), related to Italian <i>bottiglia</i>
, Spanish <i>botella</i> , Portuguese <i>botelha</i>
, etc., apparently from Latin
<i>> buticula</i> 'small vessel', diminutive of
Late Latin <i>butis
~</i> <i>buttis</i> 'vessel', which is related to
... tadah! ... our old friend the <i>butt</i>, cognate of
</font></span></div>
<div><span><font color="#008080">> French
<i>botte</i> ~ <i>boute</i>
, etc. However, the <i>Oxford English
Dctionary</i> says it's
<u>not</u> related to "boot" and that its
origin is unknown ...<br></font></span></div></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span> The French
word for 'boot' <u>is</u> 'botte' (or did you say so??), as I just found out, so
I think we have reached the end of the tunnel here- it's a French loan as we
know many of them in LS, and this time obviously much closer (because it came
later?) to its French original than in E: 'boot'.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span>But then I
am getting into some trouble. What kind of <font color="#008080">'good old
friend _butt_'</font> do you mean?? The E: 'fleshy part of the human body that
you sit on <i>(WordWeb)</i>' or the fish LS/G: 'Butt', E:
'flounder'?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span></span> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span>DUDEN says to the
latter:</span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span><u>quote</u></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span>
<p><font color="#ff0000"><span><b>Butt</b></span></font></p>
<p><font color="#ff0000"><span></span>»Flunder, Scholle«: Der Fischname wurde im 16.
Jh. aus dem Niederd. ins Hochd. übernommen. Niederd. butt, mnd. but[te],
niederl. bot gehören zu dem Adjektiv nd. butt, niederl. bot »stumpf, plump«
(vgl. Butzen). Der Fisch ist also nach seiner plumpen Gestalt benannt.<span>(...)</span></font></p><div>
<p><font color="#ff0000">Duden - Das Herkunftswörterbuch,
3. Aufl. Mannheim 2001 [CD-ROM]</font> </p></div></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span><u>unquote</u></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span></span> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span>I'm not totally
convinced by DUDEN, because we know another similar sounding word dealing
with fish: if in any lake there are too many fishes of one sort they degenerate
to very <u>small</u> individuals, and this phenomene we call LS/G:
'ver-_butten_'. And- isn't a 'Butt' (fish) anything else than a <u>small</u>
flounder? And the above in DUDEN mentioned 'Butzen(-Fenster)' are <u>small</u>
windows, aren't they?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span>And so we could go
back to our LS: 'Buttje[r]', who from this point of cognisance could denote a
<u>little</u> rounder, tramp, just the way it does indeed...</span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span></span> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span>But just to put
some more confusion into the whole matter: 'Buttjer' also denotes a grown-up
beggar, 'Stromer' in our LS.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span></span> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span>Continuum of
mysteries...</span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span></span> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" align="left">Allerbest!</div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" align="left"> </div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Jonny Meibohm</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">----------</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: R. F. Hahn <</span><a rel="nofollow" style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank">
sassisch@yahoo.com</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: Etymology<br><br>Hi, Jonny!<br><br>I suppose you're right. We can at least see some light at the end of the tunnel. I guess I was just tired when I wrote that, wouldn't have been able to find my way out of a paper bag, leave alone a tunnel.
<br><br>But there's always more in etymological tunnels. <br><br>Here's an extension, a cross-over to "Morphology," prompted by the Low Saxon word <i>buttjern</i> (> Missingsch <i>butschern</i>) 'to walk about wearing (big) boots', 'to stomp around'. (By the way, folks, this is the type of word that's impossible to render in German as "elegantly," which is why casual Northern German has borrowed many of them via Missingsch.)
<br><br>Do you remember what I said about the frequentative or iterative suffix /-l-/? In short, by adding it (on the lexical level) to verb, adjective or noun roots verbs are derived that express frequent, repetitive and usually "small,"
i.e. iterative actions, as in (hand >) "handle", (fond >) "fondle", (jig >) "jiggle", (tick >) "tickle", (cob >) "cobble", (tink >) "tinkle", (jug >) "juggle", and (hack > heck >) "heckle". I am fairly confident that there is a relationship between this, which is common Germanic, and the common Germanic nominal diminutive suffix, which is also found in Romance (
e.g., Latin diminutive <i>-ul-a</i>) and Baltic (e.g., Lithuanian <i>-el-</i>).<br><br>(A connection between this type of
frequentative and nominal diminutive can be shown in Romance where the diminutive suffix <i>-it-
</i> is also found in frequentative verbs, as in Latin <i>vend-</i> > <i>vendere</i> 'to sell', <i>venditare</i> 'to go around selling', 'to try to sell'.)</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br>Another type of
frequentative is marked by /-r-/. My hunch is that this one, at least originally, indicated habitual action (rather than iterative "small" actions). English examples are (spat >) "spatter" (
e.g., Frisian <i>spatterje</i>, <i>spettere</i>, W. Flemish <i>spetteren</i>, but Dutch and Low Saxon <i>spatten</i> 'to burst', 'to spout'), (scat >) "scatter", and (tink >) "tinker".
<br>
<br>
A Low Saxon verb example with /-r-/ is (<i>klap-</i> 'clap' >) <i>klapper-</i> 'to rattle', 'to chatter', 'to keep knocking'. You also find it in (*<i>ra(a)t-</i> >) <i>roeter-</i> 'to rattle', in other dialects
<i>roetel-</i> with the iterative aspect.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br>Apparently, this is the type we are dealing with in the Low Saxon verb
<i>butjern</i> (<i>buttjern</i>) with the addition of an inserted diminutive /-je/: <i>but</i>("boot")<i>-je-r-</i>, where the diminutive does not modify the root noun but indicates the aspect of the verb: "small," iterative action, in this case "to walk around wearing (big) boots" or rather "to take (many) steps in (big) boots."
<br><br>Here is another one of this sort: (<i>put (~ pot)</i> 'pot' > <i>püt (~ pöt</i>) 'pots' >) <i>p</i><i>ütjer-</i> (<i>p</i><i>üttjer-</i>) 'to tinker about', 'to busy oneself with small tasks' (> Missingsch > casual Northerrn German
<i>p</i><i>ütscher-</i>).<br><br>Here another one: (<i>wit</i> 'white', 'whitewash' >) <i>witjer-</i> (<i>wittjer-</i>) 'to whitewash' (> Missingsch > casual Northerrn German <i>wi</i><i>tscher-
</i>).<br><br>Furthermore, I believe that this /-r-/ is related to the deverbal noun suffix /-r/ that denotes habitual agents; e.g., (<i>bake ></i>) "baker", (sing >) "singer". This is not only common throughout Germanic but also
</span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">, at the very least,</span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> in Romance (e.g., French <i>boucher</i> 'butcher', <i>chanteur</i> 'singer', Spanish
<i>panadero</i> 'baker') and Slavonic (e.g., Russian <i>пекарь pekar'</i>, Upper Sorbian </span><i> pjekar</i>, Loweer Sorbian <i>pjakaŕ</i> 'baker'<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
).<br><br>I would be interested in additional information and alternative theories.</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
Regards,</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Reinhard/Ron</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br></span>