LL-L "Etymology" 2010.03.09 (02) [EN]

[Lowlands-L List]

===============================================
*L O W L A N D S - L - 09 March 2010 - Volume 02*
lowlands.list at gmail.com - http://lowlands-l.net/
Posting: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org
Archive: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html
Encoding: Unicode (UTF-08)
Language Codes: lowlands-l.net/codes.php
===============================================

From: Heinrich Becker <heinrich.becker at gmx.net>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2010.03.08 (06) [EN]

Dear Lowlanners,

other Germanic languages like Swedish  use this expression from same
ethymological origin. Wedding, Swedish  "bröllöp"

Greetings from Berlin

Heinrich Becker

From: Marcus Buck <list at marcusbuck.org>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2010.03.08 (02) [EN]

"Brautlauf etc."

----------

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


Dear Lowlanders,

As most of you probably know, “to nosh” is a colloquial English word for “to
eat,” often especially in the sense of “to snack,” and the noun “nosh”
usually means something like “snack.”

I am fairly confident in saying that these go back to the Yiddish verb *
nash-* (נאַשן nashn) ‘to snack’ and/or noun *nash* (נאַש) ‘snack’.
Theoretically, they could have come from the German verb *nasch-* (*naschen*)
‘to snack’ (usually more in the sense of ‘to have a treat’, particularly a
sweet treat). I don’t think German has a noun form of it.

Old German has the verb *naskōn* ‘to nibble’, while Danish has *naske* and
Swedish has *naska* with similar meanings. It is my belief that the original
meaning was something like *’to chew on something’. The reason for this is
that I suspect it is also related to English “to gnash” (as in “to gnash
one’s teeth”), thus with an old prefix *g-. This again is related to Low
Saxon *gnasch-* (*gnaschen* ~ *gnarschen*) and (> Middle Saxon?) Danish *
gnaske* ‘to gnash’, ‘to crunch’, related to German *knirschen*.

All of these appear to be of onomatopoetic origin and originally referred to
sounds making with one's teeth.

I can not find the Old English ancestor of “gnash.” According to the *Oxford
* *English Dictionary*, it appeared in the 15th century and may be related
to archaic “to gnast” from Old Norse *gnísta*, an ablaut form of
**gnaist*‘to gnash’. I, however, am wondering if “gnash” came from
Middle Saxon, in
part because the 15th century saw more or less intensive contacts between
Britain and the Hanseatic Trading League, and the shift **gnast* >
*gnash*would seem somewhat unusual.

Any ideas about this?

By the way, some Low Saxon dialects do have *naschen* in the sense of ‘to
snack on treats’, but I suspect this is a German loan. Many other dialects
use *snopen*, which is related to Dutch *snoepen*. Other Low Saxon verbs
with this meaning are *snoken*, *snoven*, *snabbeln*, *snœkern*, *snückern*,
*sleckern* and *slickern*. Note the recurring *s-*, specifically *sn-*, also
in English “snack” and Low Saxon *snacken* ‘to talk’, originally ‘to make
sounds with one’s teeth’! In the case of *sleckern* and *slickern*,* *his *
s-* seems to precede a frequentive (-r-) form of the group "lick."

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

===================================================
Send posting submissions to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.
Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
Send commands (including "signoff lowlands-l") to
listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or lowlands.list at gmail.com
http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
===================================================
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20100309/048d56a9/attachment.htm>