Real Consensus on 'Myt'?

[Steven Young]

Dal' (Tolkovyi slovar') confuses the issue by listing all these items
(tolls/duties, diarrhea, animal infections, and moulting) under the same
headword, mytit'.  A check in Vasmer's Etimologicheskii slovar' russkogo
iazyka and Trubachëv's Etimologicheskii slovar' slavianskikh iazykov shows
that there are three distinct roots here:

myto 'duty (on goods)', a borrowing from Old High German mûta 'duty'
(Modern German 'Maut');

myt (ESSJa 21:83) 'ostroe infektsionnoe zabolevanie u molodykh loshadei,
oslov i mulov, kotoroe vyrazhaetsia v istecheniiakh iz nosa, opukhan'i
podcheliustnykh zhelez i soprovozhdaetsia likhradkoi' (citing Ushakov);
'ponos, osob. u zhivotnykh'.  Only East Slavic.  Vasmer derives it from
"myti" 'to wash'; Trubachëv adds: "ego moet" 'u nego ponos', though there
Trub. indicates difficulties with this etymology.

myt' (ESSJa 21:84) ORuss (also Modern Russian) 'vremia, kodga ptitsy
roniaiut per'ia'. Apparently from Middle Low German mût 'moulting'.

Especially considering Dal''s example "sokol v mytiakh," the "myt" in
Mandel'shtam's "Kak sokol posle myta (for myti?)" is indeed "moulting."

Steve

--
Steven Young
Associate Professor of Russian & Linguistics
Deparment of Modern Languages & Linguistics
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
1000 Hilltop Circle
Baltimore, MD 21250
Tel.  410-455-2117


> Sorry, but is there really consensus?  So far I hear "diarhea", "bridge
> toll", and "molting".  I myself do not know, but I am interested if some
> other person does know it for sure.
>
> Sasha
>
>>From: Tom Dolack <tdolack at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU>
>>Reply-To: Slavic & East European Languages and Literature list
>><SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU>
>>To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
>>Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Myt
>>Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 01:10:51 -0800
>>
>>I'd like to thank everyone for their help, and should anyone be
>>interested, the consensus is that the word's primary meaning in this
>>context is "molting" (a bird is apparently helpless while without
>>feathers and hides in his nest).

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