LL-L 'Etymology' 2007.01.01 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L - 01 January 2007 - Volume 03
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From: Niels Winther <nielswinther at gmail.com >
 Subject: LL-L 'Etymology

Ron wrote:
> I sure know killern, use it in Low Saxon as well as Missingsch.
> I don't  think it's related to 'to kill', though.

Think of "kettelen" in Middle Saxon, "tickle" in English, "kittla" in
Swedish and "kilde", "kildre" in Danish.

Regards
Niels

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From: Global Moose Translations <globalmoose at t-online.de>
Subject: LL-L 'Etymology' 2006.12.31 (05) [E]

Jonny wrote:
>Does anybody of our LS-speakers (there are lots of them active ones, at the
moment!) know the word LS: 'killern'? One of >those words sleeping beneath
the sediments of a live with dominating Standard German- it came to me today
when I played >with my young dog. I think I didn't use or hear it for a good
40 years...
>It means something like E: 'to tickle (excessively)", close to a torture.
>In accordance to OnED it even could be cognate with 'to kill'.

But of course. "Killern" was the regular Northern German word for "to
tickle" among children when I grew up (similar to "pullern" for "to pee").
They still say it around here (in southern Lower Saxony). I heard it in the
Rhineland, too, but there children use it for erasing ink (with a
"Tintenkiller").

I think I quoted my youngest (bilingual) daughter before who, barely two,
suddenly announced: "Mama, I'm going to kill you!". While I was still
wondering how come my child had this violent streak, she proceeded to tickle
me ("kille, kille, kille!").

"Kiezen/verkiezen" is related to the German word "küren".

Gabriele Kahn

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From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L 'Etymology' 2006.12.31 (05) [E]

Beste Reini,

thanks for your answer:

I sure know *killern*, use it in Low Saxon as well as Missingsch.  I don't
think it's related to 'to kill', though.  I think something's going on with
/dd/ ~ /ll/ there.

This was my first thought, too. But then I came across the word OS:
'kwillian' (of course related to G: 'quälen') and Mr. Harper's (OnED)
guessing it could be related to E:'to kill' in the old meaning of this word
as 'to torture etc'.

I never would say LS: 'Dat killert!' (it tickles [me]), if anyone would try
to tease me with eg. a feather- in this case I'd prefer LS: 'Dat kiddelt!'.

_*killern*_ for my opinion is closer to a torture, like in G: 'jemanden
durch-kitzeln' ('to tickle someone till he is breathless').

But I fear we'll never know...

Greutens/Regards

Johannes "Jonny" Meibohm

BTW: Can we keep on writing in HTML without making things uncomfortable for
you?
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R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Etymology

Thanks for asking, Jonny.

Simple text is preferable, because your HTML formatting tends to carry over
to the following posting, and it takes some doing to override that.

What I mean is that playing with font styles and colors causes problems.
It's best to set your font to Arial or Arial Unicode 10 or 11 points and
black (usually default color) when you compose your messages.  This way you
can be pretty sure that what you see then is what arrives.

Using italics and bold face is fine in our new setup, however.

Kumpelmenten,
Reinhard/Ron
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