On which base would you construct a word for raspberry?

[Grsartor at AOL.COM]

Hailai.

The Gothic for a berry was "basi", with plural "basja", a neuter noun like "badi" (= a bed). We know this because it appears in the compound word weinabasja (wineberries) for grapes in Mat 7:16 and Luke 6:44. I cannot help with the first part of "raspberry" except perhaps to make a remark relevant to what Ingemar and Thomas said, when they mentioned Dutch braam and German Broombeer: something might come of researching the origin of the English words "broom", which is used for a kind of plant, and "bramble", which I am told is cognate with OHG bramo.

Gerry T.

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Ingemar Nordgren <ingemar at nordgren.se>
To: gothic-l <gothic-l at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Mon, 17 Oct 2011 22:37
Subject: [gothic-l] Re: On which base would you construct a word for raspberry?


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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