Re: About the word "spinster"

Trond Engen wrote:

Ranko Matasovic', 'An etymological lexicon of Proto-Celtic
(in progress)'.

Proto-Celtic: *glendos 'valley, shore' [Noun]
Old Irish: glend [s n]
Middle Welsh: glynn [m] 'glen, valley'
Middle Breton: glann 'shore'
Proto-Indo-European: *glend- 'shore' (?)
IE cognates: MLG klint, 'shore' ON klettr 'rock'
References: Pedersen I: 38

Deshayes (Dic. etym. du Breton) has two roots here:

Glann 'rive': c. glan, w. glan, pc. *glanno-
1499 _glann_

A bit odd that the word meaning "rive" is the one without the *d that became t in its Germanic cognates?

Glenn 'terre, pays, contree': w. glyn, g. gleann, pc *glend-
16th cent _glenn_

Could the initial *g in the word meaning "land" be (a remnant of) a prefix? No, surely that would be to simple.

There is lann:

Lann 'lande, lieu sacre': c. lan, w. llan, oi. land, gaulish landa 'etendue de sol', pc *landa, germanic land
1499 _lann_

I don't think there is a g(something)- prefix in modern breton, but the fact remains that many words in celtic languages almost look like they have one.

As for 'glean' I don't know if this is of any relevance but there is a second match for OI <glen>:

Proto-Celtic: *gli-na- 'glue' [Verb]
Old Irish: glenaid, -glen; glieid, -glia [Subj.]; gíulaid, -gíulai [Fut.]; gíuil [Pret.]
Middle Welsh: glynu
Middle Breton: englenaff < *en-gli-na- 'stick'
Cornish: glena
Proto-Indo-European: *gleyH-
Page in Pokorny: 362
IE cognates: OHG klenan 'smear', Lith. dial. glejù 'smear'
References: KPV 337ff., LIV 190, LP 369, LEIA D-148

And one here:

Englenañ 'encoller': c. glena, w. glynu, oi. glenaid, pc. *glina-
1499 _englenaff_

Apparently nothing to do with 'glean'. But I came to remember that this semantic leap has been done in Germanic. English 'clean' is derived from the PIE root above.

The mentioned OHG strong verb <klinan> "smear" is connected to a PG root /*klain-/, which is also the origin of adjectives like English <clean> and German <kleine> "small". In ON there is a weak verb <klína> "smear" < /*kleinijan-/. This is a causative to /*klain-/.

If the stated meaning of the PIE root is correct the meaning of the strong verb early changed from "stick" through "make stick, glue" to "smear", presumably replacing the weak verb along the way. The meaning of the adjective changed from "sticky" through "greasy", "shining" and "delicate" to the various current meanings.

Could the suggested Celtic origin of 'glean' be the result of a similar development in meaning (or to an inherited duality in meaning), e.g. of a PC or PIE weak verb /**glei-n-ija-/? Of course this hypothesis would be stronger if there existed a related Celtic word meaning "clean" or "polished". Or if it was raised by someone who actually knows anything about the development of Celtic.

It's interesting and I can't help here. None of the several breton verbs for 'clean' that I know looks remotely like englenam. I'd go for the inherited duality in meaning, though.

[Drifting off: Germanic roots starting with /*kl-/ have many descendants, e.g. English 'claw', 'clay', 'cleave', 'clew', 'climb', 'cling', 'cloth'. Some are deduced from the root /*klai-/, and some from other roots, but the dictionaries seem to disagree on the grouping. Among the proposed IE cognates of the different Germanic words are 'globe' "clay shaped to a ball?", and 'glyph', from a root meaning "carve". This probably is a stupid question, but wouldn't it all fit neatly into some PIE /**gl-e(H?)-/ "hand" or "work by hand"?]

It looks very neat indeed. I don't think conclusive evidence may be produced one way or the other, unfortunately (unless of course new material is found).

My sources to the Germanic material:
Bjorvand and Lindeman: _Våre arveord_ Oslo, 2000
Hellquist: _Svensk etymologisk ordbok_ Lund, 1922
(<http://runeberg.org/svetym/index.htm>)
Svenska Akademiens Ordbok (SAOB) (<http://g3.spraakdata.gu.se/saob/>)

Hey, great stuff! Thanks.

B - One of the results of the /M/, some kind of fricative m. It evolved into [w], [v], nasal plus [v] or [w] and the latter occasionally into simple nasal. Which furthermore may simply disappear. All of this according to word and dialect. A well known case is the infinitive marker that we find here.

Is this connected to the similar development in French in some sort of (one-way) sprachbund?

French may have 'helped' develop the nasal vowels - or, who knows, french may owe some of its nasality to contact with breton! -, but the evolution of the fricative into various results is seen elsewhere, e.g. irish neamh [w], breton nenv [~, ~w, w, ~v, v, ~f] 'sky'.

(breton has a number of neutralisations and sandhi that are simply butchered by the current system, devised as it was by individuals that wished to reform and 'modernise' the traditional system but didn't always know what they were doing).

.... or did so with the intention of removing all orthographic conventions inherited from French, accidentally losing some very Breton features in the process?

That too (cf. ditching <ss> for <s>, which among other problems implies using just <z> for previous <s> and <z>, when those two have only merged into [z] in a small part of the territory). Curiously enough, they didn't shed inherited prejudices, and so decided /k/ before /e, i/ couldn't be <c>; <k> does the job, but neither is it graphically close to <g> / <c'h>, the sounds it mutates to, neither is it particularly good for [tS], which is precisely what /k/ plus /e, i/ becomes in a large part of Britanny. Not to mention the very <c'h>, which is how one began writing /x/, since /S/ 'had to be' <ch>. Go figure.

It happens a lot, anyway. It's not like someone's (or the victim languages themselves are) going to die because of it, but it certainly doesn't help.
--
am

laurus : rhodophyta : brethoneg : smalltalk : stargate

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