Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[Raphael]

Vaguely related random thought: I was a bit surprised when I learned that the Western word "Sanskrit" is derived from a word in Sanskrit itself. I had thought before that "Sanskrit" was a name given to the language by classically trained Western scholars, derived from some Latin phrase like "sanctus scribere" or something like that.

[Vijay]

In fact, every region in India has its own way of pronouncing that word, more or less. My sister-in-law thought it was hilarious that I pronounced it [ˈsænskɹɪt̚] in English because she always assumed it was a Hindi word (same with sari and probably also chutney, curry, etc.) and thus the only way to pronounce it was obviously [ˈsənskrɪt̪]. IINM this is also how it's pronounced in Punjabi (and of course Urdu).

In Malayalam, we say [ˈsəmskrɯd̪əm]...in theory, but in Tamil, they break up all the consonant clusters and say something like [saˈmasɯɦɪrɯd̪ə̃], and a lot of us Malayalees also say something like [səˈməsɯgɪrɯd̪əm], especially poorer Malayalees from rural areas or people from a similarly less prestigious background.
In Gujarati and Marathi, FWIU they say [ˈsənskrʊt̪].
In Kannada and Telugu, they apparently say [ˈsəmskrʊt̪a].
In Bengali, they say [ˈʃɔŋʃkrit̪].
I can only guess what they say in Odia and Assamese...I guess [ˈsɔŋskrut̪] and [ˈxɔŋskɹit], respectively.

[Kuchigakatai]

Vaguely related random thought: I was a bit surprised when I learned that the Western word "Sanskrit" is derived from a word in Sanskrit itself. I had thought before that "Sanskrit" was a name given to the language by classically trained Western scholars, derived from some Latin phrase like "sanctus scribere" or something like that.

The saṃ- of saṃskṛtam is cognate with Greek syn- (synthesis, symphony), the root of Latin similis 'similar', and English "some".

The -skṛtam part has the root -kṛ-, which comes from the zero-grade of PIE *kʷer-. One word elsewhere created from *kʷer- is a name for the Celtic ethnicity, *kʷritenī, where the labiovelar *kʷ became a labial in P-Celtic (hence the name "P-Celtic"), whence ultimately Latin Brit(t)a(n)nia and English "Britain". Another word you're likely to know is Sanskrit "karma".

[KathTheDragon]

Vaguely related random thought: I was a bit surprised when I learned that the Western word "Sanskrit" is derived from a word in Sanskrit itself. I had thought before that "Sanskrit" was a name given to the language by classically trained Western scholars, derived from some Latin phrase like "sanctus scribere" or something like that.

The saṃ- of saṃskṛtam is cognate with Greek syn- (synthesis, symphony), the root of Latin similis 'similar', and English "some".

The -skṛtam part has the root -kṛ-, which comes from the zero-grade of PIE *kʷer-. One word elsewhere created from *kʷer- is a name for the Celtic ethnicity, *kʷritenī, where the labiovelar *kʷ became a labial in P-Celtic (hence the name "P-Celtic"), whence ultimately Latin Brit(t)a(n)nia and English "Britain". Another word you're likely to know is Sanskrit "karma".

Minor correction, the division is saṃs-kṛtā, cf Prakrit

[akam chinjir]

Is vowel-conditioned retroflex~palatal allomorphy something lots of languages do, or am I too much under the influence of Mandarin?

(You might prefer to say "postalveolar" or something rather than "palatal"; however you think of ɕ. E.g., maybe you'd have ɕi and ʂu, but not ɕu or ʂi.)

[dhok]

Retroflexes are phonetically "dark". RUKI is a famous example of retroflexes developing after high vowels; there are also a few Australian languages where /u/ conditioned retroflexation of an alveolar.

[akam chinjir]

Yeah, that's the sort of phonetic background I'm thinking of. Do you think it could make a difference that those are cases where it's an alveolar that's getting retroflexed? Which is to say, they're apical → apical. (Assuming I've got RUKI right.)

(Possibly relevant: Mandarin, which does about this, has a funny retroflex series that doesn't actually involve curling back the tongue.)

[Moose-tache]

Wait, how can "sam" and "syn" be from the same root? If it was *sun or something in PIE, wouldn't the Greek reflex be *hyn? I've heard the s-initial prefixes in Greek attributed to substratum influence because they're otherwise out of place in Greek phonology.

[KathTheDragon]

syn- is the result of Cowgill's law in Greek, a sound change that raised *o to u adjacent to a resonant and a labial consonant (which could be the same consonant): *som- > *sum-. sam- is the regular zero-grade.

[Salmoneus]

syn- is the result of Cowgill's law in Greek, a sound change that raised *o to u adjacent to a resonant and a labial consonant (which could be the same consonant): *som- > *sum-. sam- is the regular zero-grade.

Yes, but he's asking why it's syn- and not hyn-, given that s>h normally.

Apparently the idea is that it might be from *kom + *som, rather than *som alone. In Old Attic, it was written with xi, not sigma, and in Mycenaean it's written ku-su. So some dramatic reduction of the first element gave *ksun, with the *k then being dropped entirely, having in the interim served to protect the sigma from debuccalising.

[Pabappa]

Can anyone think offhand of another word besides computerize that ends in transparent -er + -ize? "Bowdlerize" is an eponym so I dont include that. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/words ... d-in-erize suggests that containerize may be the only other example.

[zompist]

Rubberize

[Linguoboy]

Rubberize

I doubt I ever thought to analyse “rubber” as “that which rubs”.

[akam chinjir]

Did you ever use "rubber" for erasers?

[Kuchigakatai]

Did you ever use "rubber" for erasers?

I feel it makes sense either way, for erasers or condoms. Or some less common things too.

I remember it amused me a lot to see some ZBBers' disbelief about "also" coming from "all" + "so" one time I mentioned it years ago, considering I had already noticed the possibility of this etymology as a kid learning English as a foreign language. Same goes for "almost" from "all" + "most", "alone" from "all" + "one" (regardless of pronunciation), and "always" from "all ways". (And my etymologizing turned out to be correct. I admit I totally missed "albeit" though.)

On the other hand, I kind of got a taste of my own medicine later on when I started learning Latin, and the etymology of so many Spanish words started becoming obvious to me. Like Linguoboy and "rub(b)+er", it had never occurred to me that the en- of encontrar 'to find [sth]', encima [de...] 'on top [of...]' and entender 'to understand [sth]' was a prefix, still somewhat synchronically analyzable from contra 'against', cima 'top (of a mountain)', and tender [a hacer] 'to tend [to do], have a tendency [to do]'.

Although it also led to some false etymologies, like thinking English adamant 'rigid, uncompromising' had anything to do with Latin adamō 'lust after [sb], love [sb] madly', it being actually from Greek ἀδάμαντα '(often legendary) hard metal, diamond'.

[Linguoboy]

Did you ever use "rubber" for erasers?

Nope.

Moreover, the verb doesn't mean "make like an eraser" (bzw. condom) but rather "make like the substance rubber" or "coat with rubber". (Viz. French caoutchouter "rubberise" where the equivalent of "eraser" is gomme.)

[akam chinjir]

The little bit of checking I did on that suggests the history goes something like

'rubber', any of a number of tools for rubbing

→ 'rubber', eraser

→ 'rubber', the stuff erasers were made of

→ 'rubbers', rubber boots

→ 'rubbers', condoms

I hope I understood the last step right, and it's true! (Has anyone ever called condoms Wellies?)

Anyway I suppose "rubberise" fits in there about where you'd expect it.

[Raphael]

The little bit of checking I did on that suggests the history goes something like

'rubber', any of a number of tools for rubbing

→ 'rubber', eraser

→ 'rubber', the stuff erasers were made of

What was the stuff erasers were made of called before it came to be called rubber, then?

[akam chinjir]

What was the stuff erasers were made of called before it came to be called rubber, then?

caoutchouc (according to my quick and easy googling, anyway)

[Raphael]

What was the stuff erasers were made of called before it came to be called rubber, then?

caoutchouc (according to my quick and easy googling, anyway)

Thank you!