Re: Where does the name come from?

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=ethics&searchmode=none
Colin Fine wrote:
Dusan Vukotic wrote:
Colin Fine wrote:
Dusan Vukotic wrote:
heliogabalus wrote:
Dusan Vukotic wrote:
heliogabalus wrote:
Dusan Vukotic wrote:

Sehr interesant!
Es gibt das serbische Wort ,,akov" (ein altes Maß für
Flüssigkeit). Zusätzlich, wie man versteht, warum das serbische
,,okov" (Fessel, Fetter) phonologisch fast das selbe wie ,,akov"
ist (ein Maß für Flüssigkeit).
Is this different from your view previously expressed on sci.lang: "A
careful viewer will certainly have noticed that Lat. habeo has the
meaning 'keep'. Who would say at first sight that Eng. 'keep'
came from the same source as Serb. 'cuvati' (on cuva = he keeps).
It begun from 'gna-bel' - hnabiti (suppress), gnjaviti (badger,
plague bel-gna, press), gnev (rage, anger, wrath), kovati (to forge,
to hammer), okov (fetter), akov (dish, vessel), cabar (slop-basin),
kuvati (to cook), cuvati (to keep), cuvar = keeper."?
I do not know exactly what you have in mind.
'AKOV' is a special designed vessel and an old Serbian measure for
liquid - a unit of capacity, 15 U.S. gallons - about 56.6 liters.

DV
I don't understand if, in your opinion, 'akov' is related to the Latin
'habeo' or to the root akʷā-
Slavic languages are precise in wording, completely transparent down to
the roots and quite understandable in their internal logic.
Bollocks. Slavic languages are - on the average - as precise,
transparent, logical, woolly, opaque and confused as any other language.
No more and no less.

(The following are all drawn from Russian, but I am certain that a
similar set of questions could easily be asked of any other Slavonic
language)
Why is the genitive used for the accusative only for masculine singular
nouns denoting animates?
Why distinguish gender in the singular of adjectives and pronouns but
not the plural? (W Slavic languages IIRC distinguish two genders in the
plural)
Why is a bear a 'honey-knower' (medved')? The answer has nothing to do
with logic or clarity and everything to do with cultural beliefs.
Why is the relationship between pf and impf stems such a mess - pf are
formed by prefixing, unsuffixing, vowel change, suppletion.
Why do only a few verbs have frequentatives?
Why do verbs whose stem ends in a labial add '-l-' before the 1s
termination?
Why do numbers up to four take a different form of the NP (g.s.) from
higher numbers (g.p.)?
Why does '40' (sorok) have no relation to 4, 30 or any other number?

I'm not saying Russian or other Slavonic languages are particularly
obscure, just that, like all other languages, they have their foibles.
(I'm also not asking for answers to the rhetorical questions above - I
know the historical answers to some of them, and I'm sure the others
have comparable answers.)

See Bauer & Trudgill, 'Language Myths', Myth 4: "French is a logical
language", for discussion of a comparable myth.

Colin

As you see I said nothing about other IE languages and I did not say
that the Slavic languages are more transparent and logical than
Romance, Germanic or Greek. I do not understand your fury. Simply, I do
not feel Germanic or Romance languages as I feel Slavic, especially
Serbian - my mother tongue. I can explain the historical development of
the more than 99% of Serbian words.
It is the truth.

You said "Slavic languages are precise in wording, completely
transparent down to the roots and quite understandable in their internal
logic."

I too have a great feeling for my mother tongue, but this does not lead
me to post nonsensical claims about it in a scientific group.


Bear (Serb. medved) is not a 'honey-knower' but "honey-scooper" or
something similar because "medved" is a compound word (med + vaditi;
honey + take out); it demands a large explication from the ur-basis
BEL_GON to the other Serbian words like voda (water), vođenje
(leading), izvođenje (taking out), vađenje (scooping, taking out). Of
course, the word 'viđenje' (seeing, knowing) is from the same source,
but, in this case, it has nothing to do with the noun 'med-ved'; bear
is taking honey out of the beehive.

I hadn't checked on "medved'" - the etymology I suggested I first heard
from my Russian teacher at school. Pokorný doesn't agree with either of
us: he says OCS medv-ĕdъ 'honey eater', and claims there is an Old Indic
parallel 'madhv-ad'.

The explanation as 'honey knower' would indeed be relative to 'viđenje',
as the root 'uidh-' gives rise both to words of seeing and words of
knowing. But according to Pokorný this is not relevant here.

"Sorok" is Russian word and at this moment I am unable to see the
reason why it is not connected with the number 'četiri'.
Serbian 40 is 'četrdeset'.

Sorok may have a perfectly reasonable etymology, but I would not without
justification take it as related to 'četiri'.

But as I said, that's not the point - I know that the questions I raised
have perfectly good historical answers.

Colin

Цыганенко Г. (Tsyganenko G., Etymological dictionary of the
Russian Language Этимологический словарь
русского языка; Kiev 1989, pp.393-94) says the word
"sorok" is an Eastern Slavic word; it first appeared in written speech
of the twelve century. Its origin is likely to be related to the second
meaning of the word SOROK" which denotes "SACK" , which used to
contain 40 sable skins. She also relates it to the word "sorochka" (a
sort of woman shirt, Serb. suknja.

Please compare the following words:

Sack, Italian sacco (sack, , Eng. jacket, Sp. jaco, Serb. džak (sack),
Eng. socks and skirt, Serb. suknja; Gr. sykchos (a kind of shoe), Lat.
soccus; Eng. short < O.Eng. scort Serb skratiti (shorten)

I hope you see relation between 'sack' and 'peasant clothing'. If I
say that all these words originated from the ur-basis SUR_GON (Serb.
'sukno' lint, material, fabric, cloth, web, tissue) I am afraid you
will find it nonsensical again.

Regards,
Dushan

.

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