"puss" in Icelandic ? Swedish ?

[Jonathan Lighter]

This real-world situation challenges the application of the word "cognate."  Or at least my understanding of it.

Here's how I see it. If both words descend *independently* from a common ancestor in Latin or Proto-Germanic, e.g., they are indeed cognate.

But if Scandinavian word X comes into English, regardless of its ultimate origin, it's a loan, not a cognate.  The English and Scandinavian words would, however, both be cognate with a word from a common ancestor in, say, High German.

So if "fud" existed in both OE and ON before they were in contact, both versions of the word are cognate. But if "fud" did not exist in earliest OE but was brought in by fud-loving Vikings, English "fud" is just an ON loan.

If the English word had changed its form after importation from ON, say to "furd," then E "furd" would be a "reflex" of ON "fud."

Or so I believe.

Fortunately, these questions do not come up very often in my life. Unfortunately, that means I could be wrong.

JL




"Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson"
Subject: Re: "puss" in Icelandic ? Swedish ?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>If "fud" came from the Continent at any time after 500, it's not really a
>cognate.

Maybe "cognate" means something unusual here, or maybe I'm misunderstanding
something. I've been using what I take to be the usual definition: if both
words are descended from the same word, they're cognates. I hope someone
will correct me if necessary.

Just as a casual 'thought-experiment', assume that a Scandinavian word
"fud" and a (High) German word "fut" were both descended from the same
'Proto-Germanic' word. Or assume the Scandinavian and German words were
both descended from the same Latin word adopted into one or more Germanic
languages long ago. Under either assumption, these words "fud" and "fut"
are/were cognates, right? Then suppose that this Scandinavian "fud" was
adopted into English (say, at any time between 1200 and 1650). Wouldn't the
new English word "fud" be a cognate of the German and Scandinavian words?

-- Doug Wilson


---------------------------------
 Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page