On which base would you construct a word for raspberry?

[Ingemar Nordgren]

There is a dubble etymology here. Sw. björnbär was former also brambär and brombär (German Broombeere); as buschname 1638; as berry name Linneus 1732. Cf Eng. bear berry 'mjölon'; the stem bera-, 'bear', also seems to be part of Got. bairabagms, 'mulberry tree, whose fruits remind of the björnbär. Cf. same double meaning with  Lat. morum and that Engl. mulberry in dial. is björnbär.  Loewe, Germ. Pflanzennamen p.13 claims instead a folksetymological connection with with the stem for  bear but the real connection should be the stem bher' to be pointed, or sharp´referring tom the points on the bush.

To join the majority here why not use bairaberries? It is at least Gothic.

Best
Ingemar




--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "thomasruhm" <thomas at ...> wrote:
>
> There is no sole source for raspberry in the germanic languages. Maybe the dutch word 'braam' could be 'brahm', or something similar. The north germanic languages got the word for bear as the first part.
>


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