Q: "lanechtskipt" -- perhaps "lanDechtskip[e]t"?

[Joel S. Berson]

At 11/11/2013 02:48 PM, Paul Johnston wrote:
>"LanDechtskip(e)t", from Dutch?  No way.
>
>1.  In Dutch, like the rest of the Germanic group, adjectives
>precede nouns.  Therefore, the "echt" wouldn't modify "lan(d)" but
>"skip(e)t".

Yes, "[true [land ship] ]" would be "echte land schip".

>With a few inflectional endings missing, you'd have, at best, "land
>of the true ship".

What kind of inflectional endings would have to be added to make
"land of the true ship"?  Is it likely they would be slurred or
omitted in an oral transmission or a written transcription?

However, at least in the 18th century, might not someone have thought
"echte schip van het land" ("true ship of the land"), turned the
prepositional phrase "van het land" into an adjectival "land", like
other adjectives placed it before the "noun" (noun phrase) "echte
schip", and formed "landechtschip"?

>What the -t would signify is anyone's guess.  It's a good 3rd person
>singular verbal ending, but doesn't join to nouns.  No post nominal
>articles here, just forms of "de" (and "die" in dialects) and
>"het/'t" (and "dat" in dialects).
>2.  There are dialects like Gronings that turn -nd > -n (as does
>Frisian), and "skip" instead of Standard "schip" could be Gronings
>too (& cf. English skipper), but again, what's the "-t".  Some sort
>of hypercorrection by an English speaker who turns -pt to -p?  Or
>someone who usually says "oncet, twicet"?
>3.  Whatever it is, it's something severely mangled in translation.

For the "-t" and "-nd > -n", I think it's plausible to account for
them as mispronunciation and/or mistranscription, by either/both of
the petitioner or/andr the selectmen's clerk.

Joel


>Paul Johnston
>
>On Nov 11, 2013, at 2:12 PM, "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      Re: Q: "lanechtskipt" -- perhaps "lanDechtskip[e]t"?
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Stephen Goranson wrote
> >> wild guess: lynx cat
> >
> > Perhaps, but I have no evidence for or against.
> >
> > W Brewer wrote:
> >> WAG from left field: Norwegian
> >> (1) Looks Germanic.
> >> (2) skip-et means 'the ship' in Norwegian.
> >> (3) <the ship ...> sc. of the desert = camel.
> >> (4) lanecht (?)
> >> (5) Did the Vikings have camels? :)  (This is definitely more
> >> plausible than Haitians.)
> >
> > Interestingly, the historian whose manuscript cites the one and only
> > appearance of lanechtskipt also supposes "camel", but does not write
> > why he so supposes.  (I will ask him.)  In the vein of Germanic,
> > "echt" can mean "genuine, true"; but what about "lan"?
> >
> > The primary source must be the manuscript record of a meeting of the
> > Boston Selectmen in 1735, and therefore subject to either
> > mispronunciation or misspelling by the petitioner or misspelling or
> > mistranscription by the clerk.
> >
> > Thus might the original have been "lanDechtskip[e]t" (confusing
> > pronunciation of "nd" with "n"?) = "true ship of the land (earth,
> > soil -- desert?)"?!  Google Translate detects Dutch, but does not
> > translate "landechtskip[e]t" into English.  Perhaps a nonce
> > word.  Dutch for "camel" is "kameel", which must long antedate the
> > 18th century.  Google Web and Books do not find "landechtskip[e]t".
> >
> > In passing, Haitian Creole is perhaps more plausible than
> > Norwegian.  A camel visiting Boston in February 1739 (perhaps the
> > same beast as the "lanechtskipt" of 1735?) was advertised as "bound
> > for the West Indies" in March; perhaps it had been in Haiti in
> > 1735.  Of course, the advertisement may merely have been a come-on to
> > induce visitors; a minister from Westborough visiting family in
> > Boston went to see the camel the very next day.
> >
> > Why Dutch?  Like Norway, few camels resident. But a Dutch ship
> > captain might have picked up a camel on a voyage to the
> Mediterranean region.
> >
> > hw gray wrote:
> >> On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 11:57 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> >>
> >>> "lanechtskipt"
> >>
> >>
> >> "Landesknecht"?
> >
> > "Country servant"?  No, a lanechtskipt must be a somewhat exotic
> > animal (at least for Boston in the early 18th century).
> >
> > Joel
> >
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