LL-L "Etymology" 2008.09.20 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 20 September 2008 - Volume 04
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From: Marcel Bas <marcelbas at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Delectables" 2008.09.18 (01) [E]

Hallo Johnny,

Thanks for the recognition, hahaha. I never expected that. The Lowlands-L
archives are massive, and so searchable. Today I happened to be browsing
through some discussions in 2007, too. Quite a coincidence.



So it seems that till / Ziel  are not only found in Scandinavian and High
German languages, but also in Low German. I would like to find it in Dutch
now. And I think I found it.



The nice thing about the 'Ausnahmlosigkeit' ('exceptionlessness') of  these
etymological processes is that these sound laws are indeed without great
exceptions.



Because if we take High German 'Ziel' and transform it into Dutch according
to sound laws, we would get:



ziel ~ teel



Here Dutch is cleary more conservative than High German. The Dutch verb
'telen' means 'to breed' (züchten). When I try to reduce it to a common
ancestor, I realise that it must have been an ancient word that reflected
a high agricultural level from the beginning: 'telen' must have meant 'to
breed with a purpose'. So 'to breed towards a (new) form' / 'to breed until
a race/cultivar has been created'.



'Teel/telen' is a verb in Dutch (with -t it is a noun: 'teelt'), 'till' is a
preposition and a prefix in Scandinavian, and 'Ziel' is a noun in German.
What was the original word? A verb? A noun? Interesting question. I don't
know the answer.



Best regards,



Marcel.
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