Subject: LL-L: "Etymology" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 13.JUN.1999 (02)

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From: "john feather" <johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Etymology

Ron

You were considering the etymology of LS "snaaksche snaak". In Dutch,
"snaakse snaak" means something like "roguish fellow". According to De Vries
"Etymologisch woordenboek" this "snaak" is a loan-word from Frisian or LG.
According to van Dale "Groot woordenboek N-E" you have to add something to
"snaak" to get the idea of "strangeness", eg "vreemde snaak". I suppose with
time this sort of construction could reduce down to the noun. All this is a
long way from snakes and threats.

De Vries cross-references to vb. "snakken", with many meanings.  One might
suspect a variety of etymologies, different words having fallen together. I
like the idea that the sense chatter -> speak informally -> speak comes from
*snaak signifying jocular speech or the speech of a joker. It would be nice
if *snaak were related to NHG "Schnake" = "[Stech-]Muecke" with the idea of
"gadfly" (cf Till Eulenspiegel) tying the whole thing together. Duden
"Herkunftswoerterbuch" says "Schnake" has no cognates and the etymology is
obscure so there's luckily no evidence that I'm wrong.

John Feather
johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at geocities.com>
Subject: Etymology

Hi, John!

Thanks for the interesting information (above).  Thanks for helping me by
transferring this to the appropriate subject line.  I really appreciate that.

I ought to have mentioned that Modern Low Saxon (Low German) _snaak_ comes from
_snake_.  I expect that the earlier form survives in various dialects, namely
those dialects that did not apply -e elision.

_Snake_ appears not to be a Saxonism.  We have Old Norse _snákr_ ~ _snókr_ <
*/snák/ ~ /snók/ 'snake'.

Best regards,

Reinhard/Ron

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