LL-L "Etymology" 2004.08.26 (05) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 26.AUG.2004 (05) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: John Duckworth <jcduckworth2003 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Etymology


Kevin Caldwell said:

"For what it's worth, the Russian word for "sea" is "more" /MOR-yeh/,
etymologically related to the Latin root.  I don't know the etymology
of the Russian word for "lake", "ozero" /OH-zyeh-ruh/."

(I hope Ron does not mind my commenting on this, even though it is a little
out of the realm of the Lowlandic languages.)

Russian о́зеро [ 'o:zjerə ] is an interesting case. It is fully established
in Slavonic, thus: Ukrainian о́зеро _ozero_ ; Old Russian озеро _ozero_ ;
Old Slavonic ѥзеро, Ñ¥Ð·ÐµÑ€Ñ  (used as a translation of Greek λίμνη [ a lake]);
Bulgarian е́зеро ; Serbocroat jе̏зеро _jе̏zero_ ; Slovenian jеzе̑rо,jе̑zеrо,
jе̑zеr (all masculine) and jézera (feminine) ; Czech jezero ; Slovak jazero
; Polish jezioro ; Upper Lusatian jezor, Lower Lusatian jazor.

In the Baltic languages we still find cognates, it is thus clearly related
to Lithuanian ẽžeras, ãžеrаs (lake, pond), Latvian ęzęrs (ibid.), OLd
Prussian assaran (ibid.).

Once we leave the Balto-Slavonic group we find ouselves on shaky ground, and
to me it seems possible that we are dealing with a non-Balto-Slavonic, and
perhaps non-Indo-European word. It is generally said to be connected with
Greek ᾽Αχέρων (the name of a river in the Underworld), Illyrian ᾽Οσεριάτες
_Oseriates_ .. The Illyrian word is intersting perhaps, but I think the
Greek is derived from the verb meaning 'to disgorge' ( ¢eceraw _ekherao:_ ).

Some explanation still seems to be required as to whence this word came.



John Duckworth

Preston, UK

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From: Global Moose Translations <globalmoose at t-online.de>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2004.08.26 (10) [E]


Ron wrote:
> A classic example in German is _wo der Bartel seinen/den Most (her)holt_,
> denoting originally something like a source of quick wealth or illicit
gain,
> nowadays "which side one's bread is buttered on."

That's not quite the meaning I know; if you say of somebody, "der weiß, wo
Bartl den Most holt", it simply means that the person is clever,
street-smart, and knows his/her way around, or simply that (s)he will not be
fooled.

There's a very similar expression in Dutch. My Dutch father-in-law used to
say about my oldest daughter, even when she was a baby: "Zij weet wel, waar
Abraham de mosterd haalt!"

The similarity of "Most" and "mosterd" makes you wonder how the original
saying went...

Gabriele Kahn

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From: Global Moose Translations <globalmoose at t-online.de>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2004.08.26 (08) [E]


John Feather wrote:
> elephant and a castle. The best example I can think of at the moment is
the
> occasional interpretation of Span "mano a mano" as "man to man". Here, of
> course, the phrase is assimilated to an existing English phrase but it's
not
> hard to imagine the same thing happening in some other case.
>
> Can anybody think of better examples in any relevant pair of languages,
> excluding deliberate jokes?

I can think of one German example: the wolverine. Its German name is
"Vielfraß", denoting someone who eats an awful lot, a glutton. But it is
said to be derived from the sound of the old Norse word "fjällfross", which
means "rock tomcat" (there are no wolverines in Germany, so this name was
"adopted"). Today, Norwegians call the wolverine "jerv" or "felefrans". I'm
not sure about the meaning of the latter - could it be that it also means
"glutton", and that the same shift happened in Norwegian itself?

Gabriele Kahn

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From: Kristoff Bonne <kristoff.bonne at compaqnet.be>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2004.08.25 (01) [E/D]


Gegroet,

Lowlands-L schreef:
> I did a search using AltaVista set to Worldwide and All Languages with the
> following expressions and got these numbers of hits for 11 out of the 12
> possibilities within this range (so I got bored!) :

> ten allen tijde          32,900
> ten allen tijden          1,970
> ten allen tijd                  75
> ten alle tijde            48,000
> ten alle tijd                  218
> ten alle tijden          44,900
> te allen tijden            1,630
> te allen tijde          179,000
> te allen tijd                   371
> te alle tijde                   556
> te alle tijd                      13

Raar. Mijn taalgevoel zou zeggen "ten aller tijden" (met een "r", niet
met een "n"). Ik weet niet waarom.

(google: 674 hits).

Cheerio! Kr. Bonne.
--
Kristoff Bonne, Bredene, BEL
H323 VoIP: callto://krbonne.homelinux.net/
[nl] [fr] [en] [de]

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