LL-L "Etymology" 2007.05.19 (01) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  19 May 2007 - Volume 01

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From: Jonny Meibohm <altkehdinger at freenet.de>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2007.05.18 (04) [E]

Beste Ron,

in your table here: lowlands-l.net/anniversary/jysk-info.php

you translate 'corner' in LS as 'Eck', 'Huuk' ('Huke' here).

This (your choice) is very interesting and I formerly had made some thoughts
about it.

In our Lower-Elbe-dialect both words are in use, but I think the first
choice to describe the corner of a street or anything else comparable within
a landscape would be 'Hoyrn', 'Hörn'. So I always would do though I guess
the very early, basic meaning was something betokening a 'peak', as e.g.
'Cape Horn' shows.
It would be interesting to find out whether the Scandinavian 'hörn', 'horn',
'hjørn'  came as an LS loan into those languages or if they are
pan-germanic.

If translating 'He ran round the corner' people today prefer to say LS 'Hey
leyp rümme Eck'- because it is closer to Standard German(?).

'Huuk'/'Huke' here isn't much used in our days, though its meaning is nearly
identical with 'Hoyrn'/'Hörn' but perhaps could describe
something more similar to a real English 'hook', G: 'Haken'.
I'm aware of a 'Huke' as a location name which arose in the 18th century or
even later. It denotes a specially angeled part of a dike which was built
after A.D.1717.
Could it even be a loan from Dutch/Frisian, because we definitely know in
this special case that Dutch builders were engaged in the project, namely
repairing the broken dike?

But: a 'hook' in the technical sense is LS 'Hoken' ('Haken'?).

And- going some steps deeper into etymological relationships- then we have
the word LS 'Höker'/'Hoyker' (verbum: 'hoyker_n'/'höker_n'), E: 'little
salesman', in its *meaning* closely related to Dutch 'winkel'. It obviously
denotes 'someone sitting in any small edge/corner of the street selling
goods', so I guess the 'Höker' being cognate with 'Huuk'/'Huke', 'hook', D
'hoek'. (BTW: it's also a widely spread family name in our region in
different spellings: 'Höhk', 'Höök', 'Hööck'.)
Or is the 'Hoyker'/'Höker' derived from LS 'hukken', G: 'hocken', E: 'to
cower' (see G:'kauern')? Probably the same stem, I dare say.

Allerbest!

Jonny Meibohm

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

Moin, Jonny!

You're absolutely right in pointing out that Huuk ([hu:k] < Huke] in the
sense of 'corner' or 'nook' is now very rare and is mostly archaic in the
dialects of Northern Germany.  Höörn (hoyrn [hœI3n] ~ [hy:3n]) for 'corner',
too, is absent or archaic in many dialects but is retained mostly in those
with Frisian substrates.

Huuk (fem.), like (North?) German Huke, is mostly used as a noun denoting
'crouch' or 'squat'.  So you can say Hey sitt in de huuk ("He sits in the
huuk", "He sits in the squat" =) 'He's crouching down', 'He's squatting',
'He's cowering'. (In German, I'd say Er sitzt in der Huke.)  Obviously this
is related to Dutch (etc.) hoek [hu(:)k] 'corner' as well as to English
"hook", therefore more distantly to Haken 'hook'.  The common semantic
element seems to be 'angle', including "bent legs."

I believe that (neut.) Höörn is a part of the large word family to which
"horn" and "corner" belong.  In the Lower Elbe dialects that I am familiar
with it tends to be used in the sense of "land spit" (i.e. a piece of land
jutting out into a river or ocean).  As such it is preserved in place names,
such as Schaarhöörn (> German Scharhorn) which I understand to denote
something like "rocky spit" or "rocky island spit" (Schaar being
apparently related
to English "skerry", German Schäre and their Scandinavian
cognates/origins).  And think of the place name Kap Hoorn ~ Cape Hoorn
("sharply angled cape"?)!

Thanks for an interesting topic, Jonny!

Kumpelmenten,
Reinhard/Ron
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