LL-L "Etymology" 2004.07.19 (07) [A/E/German]

Tue Jul 20 05:23:15 UTC 2004

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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West)Flemish Z=Zeelandic (ZeÃªuws)
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From: David Barrow <davidab at telefonica.net.pe>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2004.07.19 (05) [E]

This from http://www.etymonline.com/

rare (adj.2) - "undercooked," 1655, variant of M.E. rere, from O.E. hrer
"lightly cooked," probably related to hreran "to stir, move." Originally
of eggs, not recorded in reference to meat until 1784, and according to
O.E.D., in this sense "formerly often regarded as an Americanism,
although it was current in many English dialects ...."

uproar - 1526, used as a loan-translation of Ger. Aufruhr or Du. oproer
in Ger. and Du. Bibles (cf. Acts xxi:38), "outbreak of disorder, revolt,
commotion," from Ger. auf "up" + ruhr "a stirring, motion." Meaning
"noisy shouting" is first recorded 1544, probably by mistaken
association with roar. First record of uproarious is from 1819.

David Barrow

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From: Kevin Caldwell <kcaldwell31 at comcast.net>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2004.07.19 (05) [E]

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Etymology
>
> Thanks, Patrick or Cynthia (whichever of you sent this).
>
> > This seems semantically and phonetically to be a pretty good match to G.
> ruehren.
>
> Indeed!  Note also German _Aufruhr_, Dutch and Afrikaans _oproer_ and
> Lowlands Saxon (Low German) _uprour_ (<Uprohr>) ~ _oprour_ (<Oprohr>)
> 'uproar', 'revolt', 'rebellion'.  So it's a "stirring up."
>
> We might be dealing with coalescence in the case of English, the "roar" of
> "uproar" alone being defunct ...

What about the English verb "rear", meaning to raise or lift up (to rear
children, to rear one's head) or, intransitively, to rise on the hind legs
or to tower? The Amer. Heritage Dict. (2nd College ed.) traces it to OE
"roeran", and it definitely carries the idea of motion.

About "orc", I wouldn't say that the "Lord of the Rings" and "Shrek" movies
revived the word. Not only is it used in Tolkien's novel, which has long
been popular and widely read, but orcs appear in the extremely popular
fantasy role-playing genre of games (such as Dungeons & Dragons, which
appeared in the mid-1970s and drew largely from Tolkien at first) and
collectible card games (such as Magic: The Gathering, which came out in the
early 1990s).  I'd say large numbers of Americans under the age of about 45
are quite familiar with the word, even if they don't know where it comes
from.

----------

From: HALLS Haeng-Cho <zzhhalls at student.uq.edu.au>
Subject:

the Sanskrit actually reads as rayita

----------

From: John Baskind <jbaskind at mac.com>
Subject: Etymology

Nuwe Vriende:

Ek is die nuwe lid vanaf Washington, US. Ek het grootgeword in the
Noord-Transvaalse bosveld, in 'n klein dorpie meet een klein drie-kamer
plaasskooltjie. My Afrikaans is dus effens "boers", maar sÃ³ praat ek,
en 'n liewe, lekker ryk taal is dit  vir my ook.

Mark het gesÃª, ten opsigte van "orc":

> Well, in Afrikaans schoolboy slang, to call someone an 'urk' - [@rk]
> is to
> denounce him as a graceless monstrosity. I have never found that word
> in a
> dictionary, but my mother a & grandmother knew it, though they denied
> ever
> using it! So use goes back to before 'The Hobbit' & 'The Lord of the
> Rings'.
>
> That is not the only insinuation of S. African 'schoolboy language'
> into
> Tolkien's books. Here is another, from the Hobbit, where Bilbo teases
> the
> spiders in Mirkwood to a frenzy by singing a song calling them
> 'attercop',
> Afrikaans 'etterkop' - (pus-head) . This word was identified to his
> correspondants by Tolkien as from Old English 'Aetercop' - (poison
> head);
> suitable for an adder or a spider, [sny]

See this, found at: http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/biography.html

"...John Ronald ("Ronald" to family and early friends) was born in
Bloemfontein, S.A., on 3 January 1892. His memories of Africa were
slight but vivid, including a scary encounter with a large hairy
spider, and influenced his later writing to some extent; slight,
because on 15 February 1896 his father died, and he, his mother and his
younger brother Hilary returned to England - or more particularly, the
West Midlands."

Daar staan Mark se etterkop, vris en sterk.  Mar ek moet sÃª dat,
kontekstuÃ«el  gesproke, dit vir my onredelik is dat 'n vier-jarige
knapie van 'n koloniale Engelse familie "etterkop" kon geleer het.
Sulke "rooinekke" sou nooit Afrikaans geleer het nie, veral in 1896
nie. Nederlands, miskien ja, Ã³f in die Vrystaat Ã³f die Transvaal, waar
Nederlands die amptelike taal was.

Nooit "urk" gehoor vanuit enige Afrikaans-sprekende mond, maar dit was
beslis  in my (Engels-sprekende) hÃ¶erskool gesÃª. "Baskind, you bloody
urk, you!" byvoorbeeld.

I've also heard (and used) the expression in London (England), which
was for me, like many SA exiles, a second home during the bad old days.
Roughly, as my friends and I used the expression, it carried the
meaning  of  blunderer or maker of stupid mistakes.

John

John Baskind

mailto:jbaskind at mac.com
360.675.3483
604.488.1020

----------

From: Luc Hellinckx <luc.hellinckx at pandora.be>
Subject: Etymology

Beste Roger,

> Hello Luc,
>
> You wrote "the initial _n_ can result from the final n of the
> article preceding it". You seem to assume that Dutch words
> 'nurk, nurks', East Brabant 'nÃ¶rk' "grumbler, grumpy and
> unfriendly person" were derived from the adjective 'ork',
> Kiliaan 'orck' next to 'norck', Middle Dutch 'norke'
> "surly, grumpy". This view is not supported by Franck/Van
> Wijk's Etymologisch Woordenboek, which states "Kil. norck
> enz. is bezwaarlijk een jongere, naast Kil. orck, als znw.
> Nog zuidndl. dial. [..], opgekomen vorm."
> To me it is unclear which form was original and which secondary.

Indeed, it wasn't obvious for Franck/Van Wijk which form was original, "ork"
or "nork" (that was 92 years ago by the way). Unfortunately, nor is there
any consensus today, as Prof. dr. A. A. Weijnen writes in his "Etymologisch
Dialectwoordenboek" (1994):

hork: "Waarschijnlijk < *hornik ~ mnl. hornete (~ hornet (E)) 'naam van
verschillende insecten' (usually a "horzel" (D)) and so on...

...again another explanation...which basically means that he too doesn't
seem to believe in what Franck/Van Wijk were not sure about either.
Personally I think that both theories are a little far-fetched. Let me try
to explain.

Semantically speaking, the words starting with _n_ describe more of a
grumbling person (somebody who is "stuur" (B)...also called a "drÃ¶mmer" here
btw) and are indeed cognate with German "nÃ¶rgeln" ("to grump" (E)); whereas
an "Ã¶rk" is definitely evil, and has an utterly cruel, sadistic nature.
Please read the following definitions, from Lexer and Grimm respectively:

orke swm. bÃ¶ser dÃ¤mon, teufel. so sagt manger, er hab den orken und elben
gesechen VINTL. 7686. aus lat. orcus, it. orco, fz. ogre waldgeist. vgl.
MYTH. 291. 454. SCHM. Fr. 1,142. SCHÃ–PF 482. ROCHHOLZ naturmythen 96 anm.

ORKE,ORK,ORG, m. gespenstisches wesen, bÃ¶ser dÃ¤mon, spukmÃ¤nnchen, teufel,
it. l'orco (von lat. Orcus, als gottheit gedacht, s. norke und oger sp. 899.
1198), cimbr. orko SCHM. 151b, bair. tirol. orke, org, deminutiv Ã¶rkel
SCHM.2 1, 142. SCHÃ–PF 482. ZINGERLE sagen 63. s. MANNHARDT baumkultus 73.
110. 333:

so sagt auch maniger ze teute,
er hab den orken und elben gesehen.
         VINTLER 7802.

This fits nicely the meaning of "Ã¶r(re)k" in my version of Brabantish, be it
for a human being. Surely the two nouns may have influenced each other at
some point in time. Especially in those places, where also the verb "hÃ¶rken"
(~ "hearken" (E), "horchen" (G)) was in use (like in Eastern North Brabant),
metanalysis may have urged speakers even more to reinterpret "den ork" as
"de(n) nork" (due to so called "fear of homonyms"). I know metanalysis can
work both ways (either adding or deleting _n_), but to my knowledge I know
of no example in my dialect where _n_ is deleted. I'm not stating that such
words do not exist, but there is a very strong tendency of adding  _n_,
e.g.:

"ast" > "nast" ("oast" (E))
"heef" > "nÃ¨Ã¨f" ("sourdough" (E))
"oord" > "nood" ("farthing"(E))
"oncle" (F) > "noenkel" ("uncle" (E))
"echel" > "nechel" ("leech"(E))
"azen" > "nÃ¨Ã¨zn" ("to bait" (E))...

Yet, with "Ã¶r(re)k", it's not done. We will say for example "Ã–r(re)k mÃ¼rre
dÃ Ã vÃ¶Ã¶ zaÃ«n, vÃ¶Ã¶ aa vraa zoe af te slÃ Ã ge".

Moreover, Kiliaan referred "norck" to "orck" (not the other way round) in
his Etymologicum Teutonicae linguae sive Dictionarium Teutonico - Latinum
(16th century), and also listed "orckachtigh" but not "norckachtigh". In
short, I don't think that "ork" has been derived from "nork" or vice versa,
but rather that they originally were (completely) different words.

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx

----------

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

Welcome to the List and to its "vocal" chapter, Haeng-Cho and John!  It's
great to have you here.

I wrote:

> Indo-Aryan words such as Sanskrit à¤°à¤¾à¤¯à¤¿à¤¤ _rÄyati_ '(he/she/it) barks'.

Haeng-Cho:

> the Sanskrit actually reads as rayita

Hmmm ...  It clearly reads _rÄyati_ here (r(a)-Ä-ya-t(a)i).  (The -i
half-graph is written *before* the consonant it follows, while the long -i
half-graph is written behind.)  Maybe there's an encoding problem at your
end.  Nice to know, though, that there's someone else interested in this
fascinating language.

Liewe John,

> My Afrikaans is dus effens "boers", maar sÃ³ praat ek,
> en 'n liewe, lekker ryk taal is dit  vir my ook.

Op Lowlands-L kan jy "praat" sonder bang te wees en sonder verskoning te
vra.  Alle Laaglandse taalsorte is by ons welkom en op prys gestel.

Luc regarding initial _n-_ added as a remnant of an infinitive article
(_een_, _eyn_, _'n_, etc.):

> "ast" > "nast" ("oast" (E))
> "heef" > "nÃ¨Ã¨f" ("sourdough" (E))
> "oord" > "nood" ("farthing"(E))
> "oncle" (F) > "noenkel" ("uncle" (E))
> "echel" > "nechel" ("leech"(E))
> "azen" > "nÃ¨Ã¨zn" ("to bait" (E))...

In North Saxon dialects of Lowlands Saxon (Low German) we have _naars_
(<Naars>, <Noors>, <Nors> etc.) and _maars_ (<Maars>, <Moors>, <Mors> etc.)
'arse' (American 'ass', as in 'backside'), based on _aars_, which is hardly
ever used now.  Perhaps the _maars_ variant comes from _an dem aars_ > _an
'em aars_ > _am aars_ 'on the ...', perhaps from the "colorful" invitation
_Lek/Lik my am aars!_ (<Leck/Lick mi am Aars!>, nowadays _... an'n ..._,
dative forms having disappeared).  It's an invitation in reverse, so to
speak.  I guess I can spare you the translation.

How's this for "boers," John?

Groete,
Reinhard/Ron

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