I think my problem is that etymology sites just go "oh, this is from the Latin" as if there were no other languages before Latin. I realise that it's tough/impossible to follow stuff before Latin, particularly if it goes to a pre-writing stage (then it really is impossible), but... there are fucking years of linguistic development before Latin, have you ever thought that maybe these similar words have a deeper root? But then even writing that out sounds like I have an irrational chip on my shoulder.
― emil.y, Sunday, 1 November 2015 05:01 (eight years ago) link
etymonline speculates a reduplicated PIE root *pal- 'to touch/feel/shake' for papilio, PIE *pap- 'to swell' for papilla
i don't know if there are any PIE-specific resources on the internet, it's a pretty hard topic to google
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Sunday, 1 November 2015 05:13 (eight years ago) link
ok so in the answers here:
http://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/1282/why-do-languages-not-share-a-root-for-butterfly
there's a citation:
EtymologyPā -piliō can reflect reduplication of a root *pl- 'to fly, flutter', which has also served to build the word for 'quail' in BSl. and 'butterfly' in Gm. It seems unlikely that this root *pl- is a very early variant of PIE roots such as *pleu- 'to swim, wander', *pleh3- 'to swim, float', *pelh1- 'to swing'.
from:
Michiel de Vaan. "pāpiliō" in: Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages. Indo-European Etymological Dictionaries Online. Edited by Alexander Lubotsky. Brill, 2012.
otoh this is unavailable w/o a subscription and doesn't seem to have an entry for papilla
---
it looks like your most user-friendly next step would be to go find a copy of the american heritage dictionary of indo-european roots and check out those two, but i suspect this is something you will never be able to answer to your own satisfaction ~
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Sunday, 1 November 2015 05:24 (eight years ago) link
That's pretty good work, man. Thank you.
― emil.y, Sunday, 1 November 2015 05:41 (eight years ago) link
I think my problem is that etymology sites just go "oh, this is from the Latin" as if there were no other languages before Latin.
The technique by which you get the Latin origin of an English word comes mostly from philology with (hopefully) some application of modern historical linguistics. Once you start talking about Proto-Italic and PIE, you are dealing with entirely reconstructed languages, which is a different set of assumptions and a different kind of evidence. You're still in the domain of etymology, sort of, but when you make the step back from attested languages to reconstructed ones, you're taking a tool used to show the relationships between languages and trying to make it show relationships between words.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Sunday, 1 November 2015 06:52 (eight years ago) link
Good points, well made (not sarcastic - this is stuff I'm interested in and you've explained well).
― emil.y, Sunday, 1 November 2015 19:38 (eight years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/7AeYcfK.jpg
― a llove spat over a llama-keeper (forksclovetofu), Monday, 2 November 2015 01:35 (eight years ago) link
https://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/Homer-Simpson-Doh.jpg
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Monday, 2 November 2015 01:52 (eight years ago) link
This is what the discussion sounded like while they were making that chart, forks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YClAMYTEuZ0
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Monday, 2 November 2015 02:04 (eight years ago) link
language log on those butterflies:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=23775&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
― emil.y, Friday, 29 January 2016 03:22 (eight years ago) link
Have we ever done Foreign Language False Friends? LikeTurkish: tuz - saltHungarian: tűz - fireRussian: туз (tuz) - ace
― The Pickety 33⅓ Policeman (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 May 2017 15:06 (six years ago) link
^There is a lot of this in Julian Rios's Larva
― The Pickety 33⅓ Policeman (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 May 2017 15:10 (six years ago) link
badger (aka brock) blaireaudachstéjon tasso
already mentioned upthread as in fact NON-non-cognate but worth setting out in full to see the variance anyway (eg dachs and tasso are p close once you think abt it)
quite pleased for some reason also to discover that there are badgers in italy
― mark s, Saturday, 27 May 2017 15:26 (six years ago) link
woodlouse cloporte assel cochinillaonisco
adding in the dutch for wild invention (and/or correct olfactory observation) pissebed
― mark s, Saturday, 27 May 2017 15:40 (six years ago) link
... called a slater in Scotland.
― Punnet of the Grapes (Tom D.), Saturday, 27 May 2017 15:42 (six years ago) link
En: the bishopFr: le fouDe: der LäuferEs: el alfilThe bishop, the fool, the runner, and (from the Persian) the elephant rider(!?)
The bishop, the fool, the runner, and (from the Persian) the elephant rider(!?)
(and cf subsquent comments eg from tuomas)
weird thing i have never seen explained (tho it probably has been by now): in lewis carroll's through the looking glass it has been noted that, of the chess pieces featured, there are no rooks -- and commentators (for example martin gardner in the annotated alice) have suggested perhaps there was a mild religious timidity here, given that he was an anglican deacon etc, and presumably had professional dealings with bishops now and then
but of course he DOES feature a pair of messengers, haigha and hatta, "one to come and one to go" -- so as far as germans or swedes or finns are concerned, the piece distinctly does play a part
i wondered if there was a time when the pieces in english were called runners or messengers? or whether LC preferred to fashion jokes based on e.g. the german name (fairly sure he spoke german, tho i forget why i think this)
of course rooks also don't play a part in the book, so…
― mark s, Saturday, 27 May 2017 15:55 (six years ago) link
yes, my rutherglen gran called them slaters
― mark s, Saturday, 27 May 2017 15:56 (six years ago) link
ugh my alice post makes more sense once you substitute bishops for the first mention of rooks (but keep rooks for the final paragraph)
it is too hot here in hackney
― mark s, Saturday, 27 May 2017 15:57 (six years ago) link
Mark, are you familiar with the Barrington Bayley story "The Exploration of Space"?
― The Pickety 33⅓ Policeman (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 May 2017 16:29 (six years ago) link
might have read it as a teenager -- when i devoured a ton of stuff like that, mostly in gollancz collections from the library -- but the synopsis i just looked up didn't ring a bell
(eg i dimly recall a story in which jabberwocky was a code to enter the 4th dimension?)
― mark s, Saturday, 27 May 2017 16:41 (six years ago) link
i also just checked a 1990 edn of gardner's annoted alice and he was still saying the same thing about bishops: "Although Carroll never mentions bishops (perhaps out of deference to the clergy), they can be seen clearly in Tenniel's drawing. Isaac Asimov's mystery story "The Curious Omission," in his Tales of the Black Widowers, derives from Carroll's curious omission of chess bishops."
(Gardner also hovers round the idea that Tweedledum and Tweedledee are possibly rooks.)
― mark s, Saturday, 27 May 2017 16:50 (six years ago) link
(the jabberwocky story is lewis padgett's "mimsy were the borogoves")
― mark s, Saturday, 27 May 2017 16:52 (six years ago) link
I was listening to Ecstasy of St. Theresa and reading up on the etymology of "sussurate" (although I was actually listening to Fluidtrance Centauri) and I figured "whisper" might be fun to look into since most languages might have a bespoke imitative/onomatopoeic form...
English: whisperGerman: FlüsternFrench: chuchotementSpanish: susurroItalian: bisbiglio
Pretty much every Romance language plus English has cognates for the Latin "sussurate" and "murmur" plus German has an alternate noun "Whispern". English ended up using a word derived from "whistle" as the go-to for whisper, just to be different. The French chuchotement has an older form that shows up in the English "chuchotage" which means "the interpretation or translation of speech in a whisper to a single person in proximity to other people" which is cool and I hadn't heard before. Spanish also has "cuchicheo" which at first glance should be related to the French but both languages claim it themselves. The similar spelling might be what is fooling me, plus it's always risky to claim borrowing with onomatopoeic words. The German is unrelated to English's "flustered" which is Scandinavian in origin ("to make slightly drunk"!). And the Italian word is just awesome.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Friday, 14 July 2017 04:52 (six years ago) link
This is a fucking magnificent thread, by the way. This shit is what ILX excels at.
― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Friday, 14 July 2017 05:20 (six years ago) link
English: pillowGerman: KissenFrench: oreillerSpanish: almohadaItalian: cuscinoPortuguese: travesseiroWelsh: gobennydd
― Alba, Friday, 14 July 2017 10:51 (six years ago) link
Wow, not only Italian but Portuguese as well! Nice. Interesting that English pillow comes from Latin via Germanic and through Old English. I would never have guessed that pillow and polvo (Spanish for dust) are cognates!
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Friday, 14 July 2017 14:50 (six years ago) link
Full marks! Although is it true that Kissen and cuscino are unrelated?
― Under Heaviside Manners (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 14 July 2017 15:43 (six years ago) link
Well, no... the German comes from Old High German kussīn which is borrowed from Old French cussin with the same Latin root as the Italian cuscino. But it's a winning set because the English and German aren't cognates and Alba found non-cognates in Spanish, Italian, *and* Portuguese which is hard!
PS a good site for looking up etymologies for German words is https://www.dwds.de/ which is in German but can be deciphered using Google translate and a bit of sleuthing to figure out the abbreviations (for example if you look up Kissen there's afrz/ which is Alt französisch or Old French).
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Friday, 14 July 2017 16:06 (six years ago) link
english: pencilgerman: bleistiftfrench: crayonspanish: lapizitalian: matita
portuguese is lapis unfortunately :/
― -_- (jim in vancouver), Friday, 14 July 2017 16:27 (six years ago) link
what about pencil?pencil, encrayon, frlapiz, esmatita, itbleistift, de
― Jibe, Wednesday, April 24, 2013 6:53 PM (four years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Le Bateau Ivre, Friday, 14 July 2017 16:35 (six years ago) link
foiled by not pressing "show all messages" before ctrl+fing :c
― -_- (jim in vancouver), Friday, 14 July 2017 16:36 (six years ago) link
Happens to the best of us
― Le Bateau Ivre, Friday, 14 July 2017 16:38 (six years ago) link
But you can get there with pen!
English: penGerman: StiftSpanish: bolígrafoPortuguese: canetaFrench: stylo
Italian "penna" being obviously out of the running, Portuguese steps up. The French word comes from English "stylograph" as does the related Spanish "estilógrafo" but "bolígrafo" wasn't borrowed but coined. And I guess if we really wanted to use Italian's "penna" we could go for the British English "biro" instead of "pen"!
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Friday, 14 July 2017 17:14 (six years ago) link
English: knickersFrench: culotteSpanish: bragasGerman: SchlüpferPortuguese: Calcinhas
― Alba, Friday, 14 July 2017 18:54 (six years ago) link
Great thread to stumble on!
IT Negozio E ShopG Laden FR AtelierSP Tienda
― wtev, Sunday, 16 July 2017 10:21 (six years ago) link
I forgot to add the Italian knickers: mutandine!
― Alba, Sunday, 16 July 2017 10:39 (six years ago) link
english: wrenfrench: roiteletitalian: scricciolospanish: reyezueloportuguese: carriçagerman: zaunkönig (means fenceking!) dutch: winterkoninkje (winter-king, so overlaps w/german i guess) danish: gærdesmuttewelsh: drywfinnish: peukaloinen
french, spanish and italian are maybe cognates soundwise tho they don't look it by eye
― mark s, Sunday, 16 July 2017 11:33 (six years ago) link
english: witchfrench: sorcièreitalian: stregaspanish: bruja (portuguese: bruxa)german: hexe (dutch/danish: heks) welsh: wrachfinnish: noita
― mark s, Sunday, 16 July 2017 11:43 (six years ago) link
english: lump (german: klumpen) (welsh: lwmp)french: bosseitalian: grumospanish: terrón portuguese: nódulodutch: brokfinnish: kyhmy
― mark s, Sunday, 16 July 2017 11:55 (six years ago) link
E Billow F Onduler G Bauschen I Flutto SP Ola
― wtev, Monday, 17 July 2017 05:53 (six years ago) link
Great work last month!
Came to post about an amusing German word I just learned is
der Bubikopf
which means1) A bob haircut- German wikipedia features a picture of Louise Brooks2) The plant Soleirolia soleirolii, which has all kinds of names in English
Wondering what amusing names that plant and haircut have in other languages
There is also
der Bubikragen - the Peter Pan collar, wonder what other picturesque names it might have
― When I Get To The Borad (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 20 August 2017 15:42 (six years ago) link
― When I Get To The Borad (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 20 August 2017 15:50 (six years ago) link
Earlier mention of water itt:
Hmm, so how do I interpret the colors for the etymology map of, say, water? Because "eau," "agua," "water/wasser/etc." are correspond to PIE?― Matt Groening's Cousin (Leee), Monday, November 11, 2013 11:50 AM (three years ago) Bookmark Flag Post PermalinkThere are three PIE roots meaning "water" from which contemporary languages derive their terms for water, and each color corresponds to one of them. The shades of each color refer (I am guessing) to terms that have younger common ancestors that ultimately go back to the PIE root.― erry red flag (f. hazel), Monday, November 11, 2013 12:00 PM (three years ago) Bookmark
― Matt Groening's Cousin (Leee), Monday, November 11, 2013 11:50 AM (three years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
There are three PIE roots meaning "water" from which contemporary languages derive their terms for water, and each color corresponds to one of them. The shades of each color refer (I am guessing) to terms that have younger common ancestors that ultimately go back to the PIE root.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Monday, November 11, 2013 12:00 PM (three years ago) Bookmark
― When I Get To The Borad (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 20 August 2017 15:56 (six years ago) link
https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Bubikopfhttps://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubikragenhttps://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubikopf_(Frisur)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soleirolia
― When I Get To The Borad (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 20 August 2017 21:12 (six years ago) link
english: lump (german: klumpen) (welsh: lwmp)french: bosseitalian: grumospanish: terrónportuguese: nódulodutch: brokfinnish: kyhmy
Dammit, French!
english: hideous (german: Scheußlich) (welsh: Yn wych)french: hideuxitalian: orrendospanish: repulsivoportuguese: medonhodutch: afschuwelijkfinnish: hirveä
― Hideous Lump, Monday, 21 August 2017 02:40 (six years ago) link
http://languagehat.com/butterfly/
― Some Dusty in Here (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 3 February 2018 03:17 (six years ago) link
A fun etymology-related game I have been playing lately is to find one of the legion of lists of "untranslatable" words a la this one (which has lovely illustrations):
https://ellafrancessanders.com/untranslatable-words-from-other-cultures/
and the try and find English translations for as many of them as I can, ideally single-word, by looking at rarely used or archaic terms... or simply starting from the assumption that nothing is truly untranslatable between human languages and being poetically obstinate.
for example, the aforementioned list has the Swedish mångata, "the glimmering, road-like reflection that the moon creates on water" which in English is... moonglade! Which the OED first attests back in 1867.
I find a bit of googling the untranslatable words to be helpful to establish they really mean what the lists say they do, some are just flat-out wrong.
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Thursday, 31 January 2019 23:14 (five years ago) link
and then, not and the...
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Thursday, 31 January 2019 23:15 (five years ago) link
Oh, that is a cool endeavour. Please post more if you're up for it.
― emil.y, Thursday, 31 January 2019 23:16 (five years ago) link
We have a Finnish word for the same concept as mångata too, it's "kuunsilta", literally "moon's bridge".
― Tuomas, Thursday, 31 January 2019 23:24 (five years ago) link