LL-L "Etymology" 2006.03.15 (03) [E]

Wed Mar 15 16:11:32 UTC 2006

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15 March 2006 * Volume 03
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From: Karl Schulte <kschulte01 at alamosapcs.com>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2006.03.14 (08) [E/German]

All,
Just a note of explanation: I am actually not only educated but an
outstanding speller (no mean feat in English!) but one would never know it
looking at some of my postings. In reviewing, I keep finding both missing
letters and reversed order, and even extra letters (offered at no extra cost
to the reader!). The cause of which is that I recently went blind in my left
eye and that has caused a drastic loss of depth perception and I simply am
missing the center of the keys on the PC. I have been an amateur / dilletant
in linguistics since 14 when one of my best friends in youth began working
on reconstructing Indo-European/PIE and got me interested. Having had
exposure to German/Frisian and Norwegian at home, Latin and a bit of Greek
at school, the study of language evolution and inter-relationships was  (and
still is) fascinating to me. My friend became well known in some language
research circles, perhaps some of you may have heard of him. His name is
Alan Bomhard, and was working on both Tocharian and seeking precursors to
Proto-Indoeuropean the last time we spoke, and is finishing up a book on
these topics at the moment.

So if my comments seem a bit amateurish, it is because I am (at least in
this field; I am a Sr. Radio Engineer, but a frustrated history and classics
professor).

Karl

----------

From: Kevin Caldwell <kevin.caldwell1963 at verizon.net>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2006.03.14 (08) [E/German]

>From: Ben J. Bloomgren <Ben.Bloomgren at asu.edu>
>Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2006.03.14 (01) [E]
>
>Ron wrote in response to Jacqueline:
>
>As for "hangover," it's the same in Low Saxon (kater_ ["kQ:t3`]) and German
>(_Kater_).

Just curious - any connection with the 'cater' in English 'caterwaul'
(howling like a cat in heat)?

Kevin Caldwell

---------

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

Hi, Karl!

I hope that explanation wasn't brought on by my remark:

> Hey, Karl!  You're having fun on LL-L, don't you?

I meant exactly what I said, and it was an expression of pleasure.  I enjoy
witnessing LL-L members' enthusiasm and enjoyment on the List, and this has
nothing to do with level of "expertise."  As for "amateur," most of us are
in your company.  Unfortunately, most seem to feel intimidated by those who
are or seem like "experts," which probably means that there's a lot of
unnecessary lurking going on for this reason alone.  One thing we've been
trying to avoid is making people feel self-conscious and afraid to say or
ask things, and making people feel bad and apologetic isn't something we
condone here.  I make mistakes all the time myself (though not
deliberately), and I hope that this serves as a signal that no one here is
held to an intimidatingly high standard, that it's quite all right to be
human.

So, relax, buddy, and keep having fun!  It's nice to have you on board.

Hey, Kev!

> Just curious - any connection with the 'cater' in English 'caterwaul'
> (howling like a cat in heat)?

Quite so apparently.  It may well be a Middle Saxon ("Middle Low German")
loan:

_Oxford English Dictionary_:

<quote>

caterwaul, v.
1. _intr._ Of cats: To make the noise proper to them at rutting time.
  Prof. Skeat explains Caterw(r)awet, in Chaucer, as a verbal n., on the
type of OE. _on huntað_, a-hunting.
c1386 CHAUCER Wife's Prol. (Harl.) 354 If the cattes skyn be slyk and gay,
forth she wil, er eny day be dawet, To schewe hir skyn, and goon a
caterwrawet [so Corpus: 5 texts have -wawed].
2. _transf._ To utter a similar cry; to make a discordant, hideous noise; to
quarrel like cats.
1621 BURTON _Anat. Mel._ I. ii. III. x. (1676) 66/2 They will let them
[children] caterwaule, sterue, begge and hang.
3. To be in heat; to be lecherous; to behave amorously or lasciviously; to
woo (_contemptuous_).
1599 NASHE _Lent. Stuffe_ (1871) 89 The friars and monks caterwauled, from
the abbots and priors to the novices.
Etymology:
[This occurs in the various forms _caterwrawe_, _-wawe_, _-wrawl(e_,
_-wawle_, _-waul_. The second element appears separately in the vb. _wrawen_
used (of a cat) by Caxton, _wrawlen_, _wraule_ of cats, squalling children,
etc., frequent in Googe, Tusser, Holland, and others from c 1570 to 1625 or
later; _waul_ is of doubtful occurrence before 1600. The precise relation
between these is not clear; all are prob. imitative of the sound, but
whether the forms in -l are formed on the others (cf. mew, mewl, Ger.
_miauen_, _miaulen_, and F. _miauler_) is doubtful.
  Forms akin to _wrawe_, _wrawl_ in other langs. are Da. _vraale_, Sw.
_vråla_, to roar, bellow, bawl, Norw. dial. _råla_, in the north of Norway
‘to cry as a cat’, LG. _wralen_ (Bremen Wbch.) said of a stallion in heat,
also of an ill-behaved man, ‘to be noisy and unruly’; cf. also Bavarian
_rauen_, _rauelen_ ‘to howl, whine’, said esp. of the cat, also Swiss
_rauen_, _räulen_, the latter esp. of the cry of the cat when in heat. (Wr-
becomes r- in HG.: an OE. *_wreawlian_, ME. _wrawlen would answer exactly to
Bav. _rauelen_.) The sense of the Ger. words also comes near the Eng., since
both in Chaucer and in the transf. use of the 16-17th c., the word was spec.
applied to the cry and behaviour of the cat when ‘after kind’. As to the
_-waul_ form, an exact LG. counterpart _katterwaulen ‘(von Kindern) schreien
und heulen wie streitende Katzen’_ is given by Schambach, _Göttingisches
Grubenhagen'sches Idiotiken_ 1858, but its history is uncertain; cf. also
Icel. _vála_ to wail.
  Cater is, of course, connected with AT, but the form is not certainly
explained: some would see in it a parallel to Du. and Ger. _kater_ male cat,
which may once have existed in OE.; but the word appears too late to prove
this. Others would take _-er_ as some kind of suffix or connective merely.]

</quote>

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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