LL-L "Etymology" 2007.11.11 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  11 November 2007 - Volume 01
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
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From: Luc Hellinckx <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology"

Beste Sandy,

You're right about Daniel Cassidy being opinionated (to put it mildly).
I found out he hasn't been able (so far) to provide any sound scientific
evidence for his theory:

http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/grantbarrett/

Cassidy is professor in "Irish Studies" at some university in
California. Maybe that's what "fooled" the New York Times?

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx

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From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2007.11.09 (04) [E]

And to go along with Afrikaans skêr, you failed to mention:
the Sotho-Tsawa languages:
both Sesotho and seTswana : sekêrê pl: dikêrê
Sepedi (Northern Sotho) : sekêrô  pl: dikêrô

the Nguni languages:
isiZulu : isikele pl: izikele
siSwati : sikelo  pl: tikelo
isiXhosa : isikere  pl : izikere (I have also run across the forms
isikela/izikela ... but i think those are NOt the current normative
forms)

and the other two Bantu languages of Suid Afrika:
Venda : tshigero  pl : zwigero
Tsona-Shangaan : xikero  pl : swikero

In all these cases the word, which has been borrowed from the
Afrikaans, has been nativized and put into the (phonetically)
appropriate noun class (7/8 in the traditional system). [As for the
basis of what is "phonetically appropriate", to use isiXhosa as a
case, the isi-/izi- class include, to quote Pahl, Ntusi and
Burns-Ncamashe's 1983 grammar:
"(d) Izibizo ezivela kumagama eelwimi zasemzini aqala ngo-s.
Imiz.: isitalato < straat
isitena < steen
isikolo < skool
isitofu < stoof"

For the benefit of those FEW Lowlands-List members whose isiXhosa is a
bit rusty, a failry loose English "translation" would be:
[The isi-/izi- noun class includes] "(d) foreign nouns beginning in "s-":
E.g.: isitalata < straat (street)
isiteena < steen (stone)
isikolo < skolo (school)
isitofu < stoof (foot-stove)"

I am sorry that I don't know what the non-Bantu, non-IE languages
(i.e. Khoi-San) have for this term, as my 2 months in ZA were focussed
in the NE (and so my knowledge of even isiXhosa is mostly thanks to
its linguistic proximity to siSwati and isiZulu).

This is similar to what we find happening in other Bantu languages
outside the Afrikaans realm. Thus, the most famous Swahili example is
kitabu 'book', borrowed from Arabic, which got put into the Swahili
ki-/vi- class  making it kitabu pl: vitabu. [NB Swahili, if memory
serves me, has lost the traditional class 7/8. Sorry, though i can't
swear by that, as an attempt to locate my references on comparative
Bantu nominal morphology failed. No doubt it is in limbo somewhere
between to-go-with and runner-up shelves!)]
--
MWM || マイク || Мика || माईक

================

Dr Michael W Morgan
Managing Director
Ishara Foundation
Mumbai (Bombay), India

++++++++++++++++

माईकल मोर्गन (पी.एच.डी.)
मेनेजिंग डॉयरेक्टर
ईशारा फॉउंडेशन (मुंबई )

++++++++++++++++

茂流岸マイク(言語学博士)
イシャラ基金の専務理事・事務局長
ムンバイ(ボンベイ)、インド
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