Yesterday for #lexember I introduced the first swear word into the Zevy lexicon, veko:
A frustrated fella swearing in Zevy
The interesting thing about this word is that it has both a true etymology and a folk one. Lexicographers generally agree that it's is derived as a clipping of the verb veaku "rot", which is roughly pronounced /veku/. The hypothesis goes that in the Kuuvi dialect, the clipping of /veku/ in exclamatory speech resulted in the second syllable being deleted in favor of a word-final ejective, hence the swear word being realized as [vekΚΌ]. It happens that this deletion of a word-final vowel after a plosive, and the subsequent transformation of the plosive into an ejective, regularly occurs in the reduced forms of words ending in /o/. This is what lead the clipped swear-word form to be respelled as veko. Further, this analysis is supported by the fact that the two words are homophones in the Bemi dialect, which doesn't experience the clipping effect.
Meanwhile, though, there is a popular folk etymology that attests that this word comes from ve "no" + ko "storeroom. Speakers who draw this analogy claim that the curse came about due to farmers experiencing frustration whenever they didn't have enough space to store a large haul after an especially fruitful harvest. But, though this etymology is amusing, it is highly unlikely to have a basis in fact.
This leads me to a question for y'all: What are some words which have interesting or odd folk etymologies in your conlang?
Folk etymology is a really fascinating case where people come up with a story to differentiate the meaning of two words to define their difference.
Does this also happen in sing language?
I have recently read about folk etymologies, like Berlin or Bern, meaning bear. Is there any examples of folk etymologies about cities and places? in other languages maybe?
https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/4erk3f/where_does_the_name_berlin_come_from/
basic premise: Greek-Latin correspondence of P-Q (Pou-Quo) (Quintus-Penta) ...
i was getting the feeling that [CL-] in Clamor ("shout" and Clear) has a Latin [PL-] counterpart e.g. in French Pleurer ("cry, weep").
But this seems a product (or a pipe-dream) of a folk- or lay-Etymologist living in my head.
- is there Something (else) like this that is actually Linguistically-sound ?
or
- is there Something (else) like this that is NOT Linguistically-sound , but is fun and interesting anyway ?
Examples are:
- Posh - Port out, Starboard Home
- Chav - Council house and violent
- Simp - Sucker idolising mediocre pussy (and variants)
- Thot - that ho over there
- Adidas - all day I dream about sport
- Wiki - what I know is
- Golf - Gentlemen only, ladies forbidden
- Fuck - Fornication under consent of the King
Iβve had a look online about this and most of the stuff online is just correcting these misapprehensions, without delving into why these backronym-based folk etymologies are so popular.
until just now, i guess i believed the stories about [Kangaroo] and [llama].
https://stason.org/TULARC/languages/english-usage/99-kangaroo-Word-origins-alt-usage-english.html
> "Kangaroo" does NOT derive from the aboriginal for "I don't understand". Captain James Cook's expedition learned the word from an aboriginal tribe that subsequently couldn't be identified. Since there were a large number of Australian aboriginal languages, and it has taken some time to record and catalogue the surviving ones, for many years the story that it meant "I don't understand" was plausible. The search was further complicated by the fact that many aboriginal languages imported the word from English. But if you consult an up-to-date English dictionary, such as RHUD2, you will see that "kangaroo" is derived from the Guugu-Yimidhirr (a language spoken near Cooktown, North Queensland) word "ga<eng>-urru" "a large black or grey species of kangaroo".
Similar stories are told about
> - "llama" (a Quechua word, not from the Spanish "Como se llama?" = "What's it called?");
> - "indri" (this one DOES derive from the Malagasy word for "Look!"); -------- A nice one! The locals point and say "indri!" ---- here's a photo: https://cdn.audleytravel.com/1512/1080/80/151008017154194042005031141154120009081162099231.jpg Not to be confused with : https://www.denverzoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/aye-aye-2.jpg
and several place names, among them
> - Canada ("kanata" was the Huron- Iroquois word for "village, settlement"; --- Jacques Cartier is supposed to have mistaken this for the name of the country);
> - Istanbul (said to come from a Turkish mishearing of Greek "eis ten poli" "to the city");
> - Luzon (supposedly Tagalog for "What did you say?");
> - Nome (supposedly a printer's misreading of a cartographer's query, "Name?");
> - Senegal (supposedly from Wolof "senyu gal" "our boats");
> - and Yucatan (supposedly = "I don't understand you").
(the above text is) Kinda confusing, but the only TRUE story (true etymology, according to this) is "indri" -- which is an animal. (EDIT: and Canada comes from Kanata)
> inΒ·dri /ΛindrΔ/ noun: indri; plural noun: indris == a large, short-tailed Madagascan lemur which jumps from tree to tree in an upright position and rarely comes to the ground.
It just comes from the old enlgish "blyscan" meaning to blush.
Talked to u/stopl00kingatmeswann on the phone today, and he said Bentuangie in a way I had never even imagined. But he deals with Indonesian farmers, so he may be saying it correctly. Is it Hulu kah-poo-ahs? Or copwhass?
http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/alphabet_letters_aleph.html
>The original pictograph for this letter is a picture of an ox head representing strength and power from the work performed by the animal. This pictograph also represents a chief or other leader. When two oxen are yoked together for pulling a wagon or plow, one is the older and more experienced one who leads the other. Within the clan, tribe or family the chief or father is seen as the elder who is yoked to the others as the leader and teacher.
...possibly related to "hame" ?
Sneaky disney.
In my region, Virginia, the old timers call grapes in the muscadine family "sloaves." I'm uncertain of the correct spelling, it may be "sloves."
[/slΕvs/]
I love the word because, as it's almost always plural, it sounds like a portmanteau of "slew," "loads," and "droves."
Any idea where it came from, /r/winemaking?
(I have also posted to /r/etymology.)
What are some common misconceptions about the origin of words? And what words actually became influenced by folk etymology (some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy)?
I am eager to hear some interesting examples in any language, not just English.
When linguists or etymologists refer to "folk etymology" they are talking about when speakers of a language make their own guesses about what the history of a word is, generally based upon partial similarities to other words. Now, we have amateur speculation and unfounded judgements made across many fields of study, but what makes folk etymology so interesting is that it can bring about real language change. History has shown that speakers of a language may actually change a word so that its pronunciation comes more into line with what they think is the origin of the word. If enough speakers do this, the word may be changed perminently in the language. This tends to happen with words that are relatively long and in some sense felt to be 'unusual' by speakers. Then they take the word, or a part of it, and change it so that it looks more similar to a word that they already know.
is exactly what happened with the word 'crayfish' in English. It was originally copied from an older French word 'crevisse' which actually had nothing to do with fish at all. Ordinarily, such a word would have simply been copied at anglicized into 'creviss'. This word was evidently unusual enough, though, that english speakers looked for a meaning behind the word. They noted a similarity between 'visse' and 'fish', and as both 'crevisse' and 'fish' referred to edible aquatic creatures, it seemed as though the words must be related. Therefore, instead of 'crevisse' being anglicized to 'creviss', it became 'crayfish' to this day. Of course, 'visse' and 'fish' have nothing to do with each other semantically and a crayfish is not a type of fish at all.
Are there more examples of this kind of change in progress? Some linguists have noted "ashfelt" as an alternative to "asphalt", as speakers equate 'ash' with the black colour of asphalt as well as a black colour of felt cloth. Another case could be "water grass" instead of "watercress", or "sparrow grass" instead of "asparagus".
