Re: origin of the english word 'boy'

From: Torsten Poulin (t_usenet_drop_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 11/01/04 

Date: 1 Nov 2004 14:05:05 GMT

Nigel Greenwood wrote:

> It might be worth pointing out that the inflected forms of "poika"
> drop the K: eg "pojat" = boys. Unfortunately the Vikings (or the
> Swedes, at any rate) seem to have retained it.

Older Danish had <pojke> meaning "ship's boy". Otto Kalkar's
dictionary of the older Danish language mentions Swedish <pojke>
and Norwegian <pøyk> (from Finnish). No further explanations are
given, but the article ends with "cf. <pøkker>". It turns out
that <pøkker> "ship's boy" is to be found as <pø(t)ker> comes
from Middle Low German <putker>. A number of attested froms are
given. Among them <pøcker>, <pøcher>, and <pøker>. There is also
<pøkkerdreng>, which is simply a synonym (<dreng> means "boy").

Dansk Ordbog for Folket (vol. 2, 1914) doesn't have <pojke> as
a headword, but it has <pøjk> (compare the Norwegian form given
by Kalkar) from older Danish <poike> (i.e., pojke) from Finnish
<poika>. Not surprisingly, it means "ship's boy". It doesn't have
<pø(t)ker>.

There is also Danish <pog> meaning a little boy. Possibly from
Low German <pôk> and maybe ultimately of the same origin as
English <(to) poke>.

I am highly skeptical about the idea of <boy> being connected to
any of these. Why the initial /b/ for instance? 

-- 
Torsten

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