LL-L "Fun with words" 2008.04.13 (05) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  - 13 April 2008 - Volume 05
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From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Fun with words" 2008.04.13 (01) [E]

Tom Carty <cartyweb at hotmail.com> wrote:
> the Slovak word which is
> pronounced as our word "cool"
> It means "crap"!
> I was tod by a friend Lara Gandré that it comes from German, "cula", the
> word for "sphere". It is used a lot, especially by Romanies from southern
> Slovakia. Can any of you shed better light on this?

R/R writes:
> Hmmm ... *Kugel*? *Kuller*? I wonder how it's spelled in Slovak. *Kul*?
*Kúl

Well, i don't know am NOT so familiar with Slovak Romani, but khul is
also the common word for sh*t in Balkan Romani (which I AM familar
with from the days lived in Bulgaria).

A more complete list of related etymons would include the following
(taken from Burgenland Romani of Austria which would be the closely
related to Slovak Romani):

khul subst. m. Kot, Schmutz; excrement, dung, mud
khulali subst. f. Toilette, Abtritt, Abort; toilet, lavatory
khulalo adj. Kot-, Scheiß-, schmutzig; excrement..., dung..., mud...,
dirty, muddy [khulano]
khulano adj. Kot-, Scheiß-, schmutzig; excrement..., dung..., mud...,
dirty, muddy [khulalo]
khuljarel verb tr. schmutzig machen (mit Kot); to make s.o. muddy [khujarel]

(from: Dieter W. Halwachs / Gerd Ambrosch, unter Mitarbeit von
Katharina Deman / Ursula Glaeser / Michael Wogg (2002). WÖRTERBUCH DES
BURGENLAND-ROMANI (ROMAN) : ROMAN – DEUTSCH – ENGLISCH / DEUTSCH –
ROMAN / ENGLISCH – ROMAN
Arbeitsbericht 10 des Romani-Projekts, Verein Roma/Oberwart ...
available online -- along with many other EXCELLENT works on the
Burgenland and Lovara dialects spoken in Austria -- from:
http://romani.uni-graz.at/romani/download/files/r_ab10.pdf
More materials are available by following the links at:
http://romani.uni-graz.at/romani/publ.en.shtml)

note 1) khul is also sometimes spelled kxul ... a difference in how
the aspiration of the voiceless stop is indicated.
note 2) another common word for same is tschik / tschika
note 3) the verb to sh*t is unrelated : hijav

The initial kh- (NOT k-) generally would indicate a word of INDIC (not
German, or any other borrowed) origin, as would the fact that it is
found in Balkan as well as Central Romani (Burgenland and Slovak, etc)
dialects.

The word itself though does not remind me of anything in the Indic
languages I am familiar with ... at least not off the top of my
(rather sleepy) head. And the dictionaries of Hindi and Gujarati that
I have with me at the moment are NOT of the type that would list such
words. I would expect it comes from a proto-Indic root of a form
*khu(:)l- or khu(:)T- where T is a retroflex "t".

MWM || マイク || Мика || माईक  || માઈક || ਮਾਈਕ
================
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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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Fun with words

Thanks, guys!

This particular thing, with a short version of Mike's response) is up now
(under "Words to Confuse").

By the way, whenever you find text in a picture, please rest your cursor
onto it to see what it means.

http://lowlands-l.net/beyondthepale/

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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