LL-L 'Etymology' 2007.02.11 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L - 11 February 2007 - Volume 04

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

Hi, Jacqueline!

> "Het baantje" ( a job that is fun and is not necessarily to be taken
seriously ) must be of Dutch origin since it has the typical Dutch
diminutive ending. Because it is diminutive it must have a neuter gender in
Dutch.

Quite so, daddy-o!  I see someone really paid attention. ;-)  Some people do
spell it Bahntje.

As an interesting aside, the English word "trade" apparently came from
Middle Saxon trade *['trɑːde], which originally meant something like 'trade'
in the sense of 'career', and it, too, goes back to "path," being related to
"tread".

Actually, Baantje and similar loans may have entered the eastern dialects of
Northern Low Saxon from Eastern Friesland or Emsland dialects of Low Saxon.

Another noun of this class may be Bontje (also pronounced Bontsche, e.g., in
Hamburg) for 'candy', 'sweet' (German Bonbon, originally probably French).

A rare case of an adverbial diminutive borrowed from Dutch is
suutje([zu(ː)tje], also pronounced
suutsche, e.g., in Hamburg) 'slowly and steadily', 'carefully', 'gingerly',
etc., apparently from Dutch zoetjes, derived from zoet [zut] 'sweet' (cf.
French doucement, literally "sweetly"). (Low Saxon for 'sweet' is sööt [zœɪt]
~ [zɔɪt].)

I suspect there are lots more Dutch loanwords in Low Saxon (not even
counting the dialects of the Netherlands), but in many cases there are no
tell-tale signs, and the two languages are so closely related that many such
loanwords go undetected.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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