Fwd: Re: [ADS-L] "lanechtskipt" =? "landish-ship"

[Joel S. Berson]

Sorry, sent too quickly.  W Brewer's supposition is that "echt" is
part of the element that refers to land, and not a separate element
meaning "genuine".

Joel

>Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 12:22:49 -0500
>To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>, ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>From: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at att.net>
>Subject: Re: [ADS-L]  "lanechtskipt" =? "landish-ship"
>
>Playing along (although I'm skeptical, to say the least), would an
>animal that is thought of as "-ish", "somewhat like, having the
>nature of" be named with a word containing "echt", "true, genuine"?
>
>Joel
>
>At 11/11/2013 07:11 PM, W Brewer wrote:
>>Playing with the idea of 'camel' & working backwards: assume a calque of
>>the original Arabic <ship of the desert> or <desert ship>. Then,
>><<lanecht>> would have to correspond to 'desert'. This is the tough part.
>>Assume some cognate of English <land> (we think of as basically arable,
>>however). Germanic & Celtic cognates imply a "free space" including 'heath,
>>plain'. Free of trees, like a <lawn> (etymologically identical to French
>><lande> 'wasteland' < Celtic 'heath, plain'). <<Lanecht>> could correspond
>>by this reasoning to English *land-ish (an outlandish idea, actually).
>>Whence "the landish-ship", meaning the camel as metaphorized as "the ship
>>of the wasteland". Wonder if the Arabs view their homeland as a wasteland?
>>
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