LL-L "Etymology" 2009.09.14 (04) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 14 September 2009 - Volume 04
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From: tighe <tighe at sympatico.ca>
 Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2009.09.14 (01) [EN-NDS]

 From: heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>

Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2009.09.13 (04) [EN]

Where does the other Scots word for child " wain" ( not sure about spelling
because I've only ever heard it) come from?
My son-in-law uses 'wain' all the time but 'bairn' never - as does Billy

Hi Fowk:

Could weans be childer that have been have weaned?

"Wean [West, Ulster rhymes with 'rain']" from Chambers

Gerald Tighe

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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
 Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2009.09.14 (01) [EN-NDS]

> From: heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
 > Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2009.09.13 (04) [EN]
>
> from Heather Rendall heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk
> Ron/Reinhard wrote:  Would you agree with my hunch that Latvian bērn-
> is a Scandinavian loan? I assume that Scots bairn 'child' is a
> Scandinavian loan, too.
> Where does the other Scots word for child " wain" ( not sure about
> spelling because I've only ever heard it) come from?
> My son-in-law uses 'wain' all the time but 'bairn' never - as does
> Billy Connelly.

Heather,

"Wean" (as it's usually spelled) is a conflation of "wee ane" (little
one).

Being from the east of Scotland, I use "bairn".

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

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From: Jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
 Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2009.09.14 (03) [EN]

 Dear Reinhard,

you have  picked up "wraith" as a new changellenge and ask for fulfillment
of your wondering.
So you'll have to suffer from my answer and (penny-worth) idea: what about
Middle German "wreken", G: "rächen", E: "to avenge" etc. - (luck would have
it - just today I came upon this word!!).
Couldn't be the LS word "wracksch", meaning German: "böse, aggressiv", E:
"angry, aggressive, feisty", which I formerly had put into the sequence of
French "rage", be a cognate as well?

Just an idea...

Allerbest!

Jonny Meibohm
Lower Saxony, Germany

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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2009.09.14 (03) [EN]

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
 >
> Subject: Etymology
>
> Lowlanders,
>
> And the “wraith” story continues …
>
> “Wraith”, now practically obsolete in English, is considered mostly
> northern British, especially Scottish. (Is it still used in Scots?)
>
> Its primary meaning is “ghost” or “specter” of a dead person. It has
> also been used to refer to ghost-like beings, including water-sprites,
> that haunt certain places or objects.

I never realised wraith was Scottish, but certainly I would use it.

It seems to me to mean the sort of spirit that's fleeting and
insubstantial, that you might mistake wisps of fog or plumes blown from
waves in the sea for in the darkness.

Could it be connected to "wreath" in some way?

By the way, sorry for some of the unfinished postings I think you must
be receiving from me, Ron: it's because this new laptop's touchpad is
far too sensitive and I haven't managed to find a setting that works for
me. It will get better with practice!

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

----------

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

Thanks, guys!

Heather and Gerald, like Sandy I've assumed that *wean *for "child" comes
from *wee ane* ("little one"). I guess it ought to be written **wee'n'* or
something like it, in the case of Ulster dialects *w'ane*. The word is the
equivalent of "littl'un" (< "little one") in southern dialects of American
English (which also have "chillun"). (In Low Saxon of my area you can say *
Lütten* "little one(s)*" *for 'child(ren)', when it's still a fetus, then
it's *wat L**ütts* "something little".)

Jonny and Sandy, I rather assume that *wraith* is related to Low Saxon *
wreed* (pronounced as though "vrayt" in English spelling). It means "angry",
"angered", "perturbed", "cross" and so forth. In Middle Saxon it is *wrêd*,
in Old Saxon *wrêth*. This is clearly related to "wroth" ~ "wrath" and I
suspect also to Scots *wraith* [re:θ].

Low Saxon always "sides" with Scots against English when it comes to this
vowel ~ diphthong; e.g. (een) eyn = ane [e:n] = one, (Steen) steyn = stane
[ste:n] = stone, (Been) beyn = bane [be:n] = bone, (leeg') leyg' = laich
[le:x] = low, (heel) heyl = hail [he:l] = whole, (Geest) geyst = ghaist =
ghost.

Not a lot of words for "ghost" in the sense of "apparition", "phantom" or
"specter" are known in the older Lowlands languages. However, Old English,
the language with the largest written literature among them, has the
following: *becola, becole, dwimor, fæcce, grīma, scinlāc, scinn, scinna*.
Outside the group, Old German has *egisgrīmolt, gisk**īn*, and* gitrog*, and
Old Norse has *draugr*, *flyka*, *skrīpi*, and *skrimsl*. I know! Frisians,
Low Franks and Saxons were far too down to earth to even entertain such
flights of fancy ... and the Brits got them from the Celts. ;-) Yeah, yeah,
that's it!

Sandy, "wreath" < *wriða ~ wriþa,* is related to "to writhe" < *wriðan ~
wriþan*. So it's something wound.

By the way, Sandy, I don't mind the hiccups. I assumed that some technical
teething problems were involved (that or you suddenly took a senile turn). I
can't stand mouse pads! When I get me a laptop (probably soon) I will still
connect a mouse to it.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

... who's comin' down with somethin' awful ... Keep your distance, folks!

•

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