<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">===============================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 03 January 2010 - Volume 05<br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><a href="mailto:lowlands.list@gmail.com">lowlands.list@gmail.com</a> - <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/">http://lowlands-l.net/</a></span><br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">
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===============================================<br></div><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;" target="_blank" href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com">sassisch@yahoo.com</a><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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Subject: Etymology<br><br>I wrote in response to Roger's "Delectables" posting about lettuce.<br></span><ul style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; margin-left: 40px; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><li>Low Saxon <i>Salaad</i> and (Northern) German <i>Salat</i> mean
both 'lettuce' and 'salad', too. Obviously this is why many Dutch and
German speakers say "salad" instead of "lettuce" in English.</li></ul><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">I've been digging around some more and now believe that all of this goes back to what is now Southern Belgium.<br>
<br>I am pretty sure it was Walloon or a closely related northern <i>oïl </i>language (most likely Picard) that started labeling lettuce as <i>salåde </i>("salad"), probably because it was the default ingredient for salads as its speakers understood it at a certain time (though in earlier times salad must have consisted of salt-pickled ingredients, going by the name). So, I suspect the Walloon word came to adopted in Eastern Flemish or Brabantish (or the Picard equivalent got adopted by Western Flemish). It seems predictable that the Romance word <i>salåde</i> [saˈlɔːdə] > [saˈlɔːd] would become *[saˈlɔːdə] > *[saˈlɔːjə] > *[saˈlɔːjə] > *[saˈlɔːj]> > *[səˈlɔːj] (cf. Afrikaans <i>slaai</i>) and eventually [slɔː] in Southern Dutch and , moving northward, </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">that </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">this would come to be pronounced [slaː] in Northern Dutch. And so we have the Dutch word <i>sla</i> for 'lettuce', and the French word <i>salade</i> came to denote 'salad' in Dutch. I have a feeling that this spread eastward into what is now Northern Germany, where <i>Salat</i> has come to mean both 'lettuce' and 'salad'. (Differences can be made if necessary, such as <i>Kopfsalat</i> for lettuce.) A similar thing happened in Low Saxon. In extension, you get Yiddish <i>salat</i> (סאַלאַט), Danish and Norwegian <i>salat</i>, Swedish <i>sallad</i>, Polish <i>sałata</i>, Lower Sorbian <i>salat</i>, Upper Sorbian <i>solotej</i>, Czech </span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">salát</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">, Slovak </span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">šalát</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">, Slovenian </span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">solate</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">, Lithuanian <i>salota</i>, Latvian </span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">salāti</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">, Estonian <i>salat</i>, Finnish <i>salaatti</i>, etc., all meaning 'lettuce' (</span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Lactuca sativa</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">).<br>
<br>(Southern?) Dutch <i>sla</i> then engendered (American?) English <i>slaw</i>.<br><br>English borrowed 'lettuce' from Romance, namely from Anglo-Norman <i>letuse</i> (cf. e.g. French <i>laituë</i> > <i>laitue</i>, Castilian <i>lechuga</i>, Galician </span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">leituga</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">, Italian </span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">lattuga</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">, etc., all going back to Latin </span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">lactūca</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">, based on </span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">lact-</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> 'milk' because of the plant's milky juice.</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;">And apparently derived from it there is German </span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Lattich</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> for the entire </span><i style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Lactuca</i><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> genus.</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;">Seattle, USA</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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