Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2017/November

賧
Seems that this Chinese lemma has 2 different etymologies, and they may be out of Sinitic. It must be interesting. Dokurrat (talk) 12:51, 1 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Now there are three, I've yet to see any sources with the sense "river" listed. Chinese sources mainly point sense 3 to Tai (i.e. southwetsern Tai) languages. STEDT database which is only for ST languages, yields a few interesting but highly doubtful results such as "tan³ > tat³" in Northern Chin. Also, I have a gut feeling that senses 1 and 3 are related due to the semantical similarities. However, ancient Chinese sources (説文解字) ambiguously point sense 1 to "languages of minority ethnicities (夷人)" and recent sources more substantially point sense 3 to Tai languages. Could just be a matter of obscurity due to the low occurrence of the word and general lack of research. Cattusalbus (talk) 10:50, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

What in the Sam Hill, expression.
I'm thinking that the expression may come from the Celtic name for Halloween, which is Samhain. To Whit: What in the Samhain.


 * I think you're mispronouncing that word. It doesn't actually sound like "Sam Hill" and there's no /h/ sound. Listen to our audio clip in the entry. Equinox ◑ 20:32, 1 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Im familiar with it, but uncertain as to origin. Seems maybe a minced oath form of hell, but that doesn't explain the "sam" part. See also the expressions with "tarnation", as the culture seems the same - Oakie Americana.-Booksnarky (talk) 04:44, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

आड़ू, آڑو, ਆੜੂ, and آڙو
These four words all mean peach and are all pronounced āṛū. Obviously, there is most likely a relation between these words, but I can't find any reliable sources on their etymology, or any sources at all, for that matter. Does anyone have more information on the subject? Aamri2 (talk) 19:16, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * A hypothetical 🇨🇬 has been reconstructed by the Indologist . See Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages for more cognates. Apparently, it may be an Iranian borrowing. —Aryaman (मुझसे बात करो) 19:29, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you. That dictionary will come in handy, once I can make more sense of it. As well, thank you for making the edits to the pages. Aamri2 (talk) 23:08, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

allotriomorph
Right now it's missing an etymology. I'm 99% sure it's just taken from +. Can I add it? --2601:246:C602:67B3:F520:5E6A:3B4B:E98E 21:41, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, go ahead. --Barytonesis (talk) 21:43, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Polish suka
The etymology section says this is inherited from, but it can't be, can it? Wouldn't the inherited term have to be or ? If so, then suka must be borrowed from some other Slavic language (almost any other Slavic language besides Slovene), right? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:38, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * That's well spotted, you're probably right. —Rua (mew) 14:39, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I had forgotten that I had already asked this at Reconstruction talk:Proto-Slavic/sǫka almost 2 years ago. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:41, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't know anything about Kashubian and Polabian; can and  be inherited? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:44, 6 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Vladimir Orel has a book on Albanian etymologies listed on-line where he mentiones shakë (bitch, female dog) as a borrowing from a scythian dialect, cognate with ir.*spaka (< rus.sobaka). Gives three cognates: Pers.sak, N.Pers.säg, Tadjic sag, etc.

I think the term is inherited in Albanian, not borrowed. For an iranian *spaka is easy to imagine an original proto-form *svaka. See these exemples and many others: Av. spā (dog) and sanscrit śván (dog, houn), Av. aspa (horse; kurd hesp, esp) and Sanscrit अश्व (áśva, horse < IE *h₁éḱwos). Sanscrict stays faithful to /v/ from IE *w, but for avestan and other iranian dialects *v becomes /b/ or /p/. In my grammatical book is called 'betacisation', I don't know how is called in English. *soka must be a parallel form for satem dialects, from IE *ḱwóns (dog, hound), whitout *w.

Why I think shakë is inherited in Albanian and not borrowed? First of all, they have a cognate, samë (dog excrement). Secondly, Albanian, and probably thracian also, eliminates the glide *w from it's inherited lexicon (ex: alb.derë, sl.*dvь̃rь = eng. door) and it fits their specific transformations. Alternation between /s/ and /sh/ is rare but not uncommon. An example I remember is shutë (female deer), variable for the correct and etymological form sutë. I'm referring to /s/ that, in it's inherited vocabulary, comes from two older affricates, [t͡ʃ] and [ts], both representing either IE  *k' or a specific suffix, -tja. Albanian has some complicated rules of transformation.

https://sq.wiktionary.org/wiki/shakë https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/samë above page 408, but it's not a great copy: https://www.scribd.com/doc/117854777/Vladimir-Orel-Albanian-Etymological-Dictionary

There is also a bad spirit in Romanian called Samca (var.Sanca), rarely represented with the appearance of a huge dog, but not always. It is considered a slavic borrowing.

https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samca

Sorin5780 (talk) 11:35, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

German Ausdruck
could it be a calque from expression/espressione in a romance language. thank you. --2A02:2788:A4:F44:401C:A4FB:C091:D24A 18:14, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I've always assumed it is, yes. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:10, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Albanian ashkë
Not to open up another one of these topics again, but how reliable is the work of Vladimir Orel in general, since he's used as a citation for many etymologies in Albanian entries, many of which other users and I believe are dubious? From what I've read, a fair amount of his work is controversial; he was prolific and apparently did work on quite a wide variety of languages, even attempting to write on the topic of Nostratic, but his main interest was Balto-Slavic languages and some other IE families.

Anyway, my main question was about this specific entry for now. Most other sources, including etymological dictionaries for Romance languages themselves, have this as a descendant of Latin. It undergoes the appropriate sound shifts into Albanian and corresponds exactly to the meaning found in all other Romance derivatives.. i.e. that of tinder/touchwood; actually means mushroom used as tinder, which is found in Romanian  as well. And we can see the likely semantic shift from what in Latin was originally "food" or "bait" to this meaning. The coincidence is too much for it to be separately derived from a completely different root in Indo-European, in this case allegedly the root of 'axis'. I feel like this linguist was a little too determined to find direct Indo-European roots for many Albanian terms, often putting out erroneous etymologies. But I think that as soon as I modify that etymology, some Albanian nationalist will come and revert it or add more spurious sources. Word dewd544 (talk) 18:27, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * ? —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 18:08, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I have cleaned up, and . --Vahag (talk) 19:14, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Ah, that makes more sense. I had a suspicion that the two words may have actually been different as well. I meant to mainly talk about then (which certainly does correspond to Lat.  and is the form most of the dictionaries I saw referred to), but  had a slightly inaccurate or misleading definition on here, which threw me off. Thanks. Word dewd544 (talk) 23:49, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I can add to this that there is a town in Croatia called Jaska. Now, some things remain unclear, e.g. the Croatian Language Portal merely states that it is an old name for Jastrebarsko, a bigger near town. I know for a fact that these are separate, however, Jastrebarsko contains (hawk; falcon), but etymologically speaking,  is much more appropriate for said meaning. --FeliSoul (talk) 14:14, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

grossus
I can't seem to semantically derive Sense 3 from senses 1 and 2. Anti-Gamz Dust (There's Hillcrest!) 03:11, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I've read somewhere that the Medieval Latin word was influenced by German and this is where the meanings "thick, great", etc. come from. Not sure how true that is, but it seems to make sense. Leasnam (talk) 15:05, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

bartender
The etymology conflicts with the example given on Template:compound. The one on the page is +, but the one on the template page is  +  +  and specifically says that it's not bar + tender. Globins (talk) 05:12, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * added that line to the template documentation back in 2014: . Personally, I prefer + . BigDom 14:20, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry about this, and thanks for contacting me; fixed!
 * This was due to a too-strict reading of https://www.etymonline.com/word/bartender "from bar (n.2) + agent noun of tend (v.2)", which implies no intermediate form. As one can see from https://www.etymonline.com/word/tender the agent noun was in use, and thus it should be  + . This affected 3 pages (also ), all fixed now:
 * Special:Diff/24606787 (Special:Diff/39065683)
 * Special:Diff/24606730 (Special:Diff/48122446)
 * Special:Diff/24183423 (Special:Diff/48122451)
 * —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 14:28, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

bạc
The entry gives a theory that this Vietnamese word comes form Chinese 鉑. Is that possible? I see various Chu Nom forms given; does this imply that “bạc” may be attested quite early? As for 鉑 as platinum in Chinese, can it be attested in pre-modern times? . Dokurrat (talk) 13:40, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I suspect the sense arose from the separate two-character term, of which this  glyph is simply a kind of combination or abbreviation.  For a discussion on the etymology for 🇨🇬, see Wiktionary:Requests_for_cleanup.  It seems the  sense may be relatively recent, from the mid-1800s.
 * , do you have anything to add here? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 17:23, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think VN bạc is from Chinese 鉑 as the time frames do not match. This is quite complicated. There are a number of words:
 * 🇨🇬 < ; and
 * General MK *prak ("silver") ~.
 * 🇨🇬 < ; and
 * General MK *prak ("silver") ~.


 * 🇨🇬 is unlikely to be from #1 and #2. IMO #4 is the most likely. Mark Alves is of the opinion that 🇨🇬 is from, paralleling 🇨🇬 ← . Wyang (talk) 23:26, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

𢀖
RFV of the etymology (glyph origin). Dokurrat (talk) 14:01, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

"Lua error: French is not an ancestor of Haitian Creole"
I tried to use at  and I got this error. Is this an oversight or intentional? I wouldn't consider it borrowed. Ultimateria (talk) 18:01, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The way that creoles, pidgins, and mixed languages form is not conducive to our current system. Haitian Creole is not exactly a descendant of French, because if you just let French evolve, you wouldn't get a creole. But by no means is it a borrowing, either. This is one of many cases where there is no template more appropriate to use than . —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 18:07, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree. Pidgins and creoles neither exactly borrow nor exactly inherit vocabulary from their lexifier languages, so der is really the only template appropriate in most cases. That said, however, it is possible for a creole to borrow words from other languages, including their lexifier language, for example technical terms and other learnèd vocabulary. In fact, I suspect that is a loanword from French (i.e. it was deliberately taken from French rather than belonging to the everyday vocabulary of the first Haitian Creole speakers), just as  itself is indeed a loanword from Medieval, and not an inheritance. I suppose it's also possible for a creole to inherit words from the pidgin that it evolved from, but I don't know whether we have separate codes for any pidgin/creole pairs in a mother/daughter relationship. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:36, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I would consider all terms in a pidgin borrowed. They do come from another language, after all. The difference is that the borrowing is what creates this new language. The speakers of the pidgin fall back to their native languages for terms, which are then used by others and thus enter the pidgin. —Rua (mew) 19:52, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Proto-Slavic/sъcati vs. Proto-Slavic/sьcati
Should Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/sъcati be deleted or redirected to Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/sьcati? I find the latter in multiple sources but not the former. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:01, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Sounds like reasonable grounds for deleting, esp. when the entry was created by a drive-by anon. --Tropylium (talk) 21:12, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * And the reason itself why the entry is wrong is particularly that only with ь the progressive palatalization rule can have the effect of making a ⟨с⟩ out of a ⟨k­⟩, not with ъ. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 00:22, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I've made the redirect and used attention to draw attention to differences between the two pages' descendants lists. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:14, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

文胸
RFV of the etymology. Dokurrat (talk) 05:54, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Deleted. Wyang (talk) 10:43, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

TLFi etymologies
I've run into a few entries on the mostly authoritative Tresor de la Langue Francaise Informatisee dictionary that had some puzzling information in the etymology sections. Like for, where it lists it as a borrowing from Latin (we have it as Vulgar Latin  here)... whereas the related  is not indicated as a borrowing. There were about a dozen or so other entries among the hundreds I've been through that also had some confusing information in the etymologies, mostly concerning seemingly popular words that they described as borrowed, like how was supposedly borrowed (empr.) from Vulgar Latin, and they don't really delve into more of an explanation why they think it's a borrowing exactly. And borrowing from an unattested Vulgar Latin term is a bit odd in of itself. Does anyone know why they may be listed as such?

I can't remember the other examples off the top of my head right now, but in those cases I ended up mentioning in the etymology sections here that they may have been borrowed (according to the TLFi)... even though otherwise they seem to be inherited as far as phonetics go. Not sure if it's the date that's the issue (but for most of them they were still attested by 1100 or the 11th century, if not earlier).

A resource I found on Old French on the other hand, along with a few linguistic essays I browsed through, seemed to accept several of the terms seen as borrowed by the French academy's dictionary as inherited (not necessarily the specific ones I was talking about above). I noticed there was also a case where the TLFi failed to mention an obviously borrowed word like hypnotique was a borrowing, but so far that's the only one I found. Overall it's still pretty much the most reliable resource we have on French etymologies, but I just wanted to see if anyone had any ideas about this. I'm not enough of an expert to contradict them, but on occasion even sources like this may not be totally accurate or may just be missing some info... I know the Spanish RAE has actually made many inaccuracies, but the TLFi seems to hold their work to a higher or more rigorous standard. Word dewd544 (talk) 00:44, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Edit- to add to that, I recently noticed is also listed as being borrowed from a Vulgar Latin  in that dictionary. Not sure if that means it's because it was altered from the Old French form, because afterward it says the modern form is a result of being influenced by the derived verb ... Word dewd544 (talk) 02:22, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
 * --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 08:29, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I will check on what the literature I have access to says on this. On atteindre that looks like a regular development, suggesting inheritance, not loaning. Regarding baba, yes beve would be the regular development (stressed open /a/ regularly becomes an e), so the account that it was influenced by the verb baver seems likely (i.e. analogy). The /a/ was preserved when not stressed in the case of a verb like baver as typically the second syllable of a word like bava:re would bear stress.--Calthinus (talk) 13:55, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Etymology of the Navajo word níłtsą́ (rain)
In the etymology section of the entry a derivation from the root  ("to trickle, accumulate in a trickle") is proposed. This root is also attested in other Athabaskan languages, e.g. 🇨🇬, 🇨🇬 and 🇨🇬. However YM (1992) lists níłtsą́ under a different root, namely ("to rain, raindrops fall"). In my opinion the latter etymology makes more sense. Apart from the semantic association, there are two basic considerations that make me think the word níłtsą́ should be related to the root rather than :


 * 1) The root  has an ejective alveolar affricate, while  displays its aspirated counterpart. I don't know of any phonological or morphophonemic rule in Navajo according to which an ejective consonant could lose its glottalic exponent, i.e. Cʔ → C. It is true that stem variations in Navajo are for the most part unpredictable, however these changes generally involve quality, quantity, nasality or tone of the radical vowel and/or alterations of the syllabic coda of the root, but not initial consonants. Sometimes classifiers,  and  can alter the first consonant of the stem, nevertheless this alteration only affects the [+/- voiced] feature, in the case of -l- and -ł-, or triggers the D-effect, in the case of -d-, but it doesn't affect the [+/- ejective] feature.
 * 2) Formally, níłtsą́ is a noun derived from an homophone verb form meaning "there is rain, it's rainy", hence "rain". Nominal forms like this one normally come from a verb conjugated in the Neuter aspect, see e.g. names of colors:, , etc., and atmospheric terms like . Interestingly, the last example I've given shows a close resemblance to níłtsą́ in the structure: both have the modal/adjectival  prefix, the classifier  and a Neuter Perfective stem. In YM's Analytical Lexicon of Navajo, the root  has the following stem set:
 * So, as one can see, the Neuter Perfective stem of this root is -tsʼąʼ instead of -tsą́. However, if we assume níłtsą́ derives from the root, we get the right form, the Neuter Perfective stem of this root is in fact -tsą́.

For these reasons I reckon the correct etymology of relates to the root. What do you think? Should we change what's written in the etymology section for this word? — Sorjam (talk) 15:13, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck. Anti-Gamz Dust (There's Hillcrest!) 03:13, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Chuck Entz (talk) 03:24, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * is from . Pre-Proto-Athabaskan *kan, Proto-Athabaskan *kʸan. is cognate with  (belly, become pregnant). —Stephen (Talk) 04:27, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

tsjoen
What's the etymology of this? Are there cognates in other Germanic languages? Teepok (talk) 05:41, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * It appears that all the "magic" words derive from the verb, which itself derived from Old Frisian , , related to the archaic English word . Leasnam (talk) 00:02, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
 * As far as cognates, yes. In addition to English, there is 🇨🇬 Leasnam (talk) 00:22, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the detailed reply. I saw tsjoenderij featured on the main page and wondered. Teepok (talk) 06:18, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

rantistirion
Would be glad for some assistance with the etymology of. The Greek word for the term appears to be 🇨🇬, but that may not be accurate as it does not explain the -ion ending of the English word. — SGconlaw (talk) 08:42, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
 * According to R:LBG, the Byzantine word is actually . —Mahāgaja (formerly Angr) · talk 13:53, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks! — SGconlaw (talk) 02:24, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
 * , would you happen to know how the Greek word is pronounced? — SGconlaw (talk) 15:04, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
 * According to grc-IPA, from the 4th century onward it's, though at some point that first /t/ became a /d/ because it occurs after /n/. I'm not sure when that change happened, though. —Mahāgaja (formerly Angr) · talk 15:07, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'm trying to determine how it would be pronounced in English. I'm presuming it wouldn't be too different. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:23, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Derivative or borrow
Hello. I want learn what is difference between derivative or borrow? --Drabdullayev17 (talk) 12:00, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
 * For the meaning of a borrowing, you may find "Appendix:Glossary" helpful. We don't have a definition of a derivative there, though. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:26, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

different gender of German Tal, Swedish dal
What explanation is there for this extremely rare difference in gender of cognates?

Should dalaz be added to Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/dalą? --Espoo (talk) 16:47, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Template:goh-noun doesn't explain how to add more than one gender. --Espoo (talk) 17:57, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
 * There's a bunch of words, mostly a-stems, that appear with different genders in different branches. I don't really know why that is, nor if there is any kind of systematic difference, like whether one branch always has masculine while the other always has neuter. This seems like something linguistis might have looked into. —Rua (mew) 18:02, 23 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I was under the impression that gender is extremely stable across different branches. How big of a group are a stems? --Espoo (talk) 18:11, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Category:Proto-Germanic a-stem nouns. They make up the majority of masculine and neuter nouns. —Rua (mew) 18:13, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Also, gender is less stable than you might think. Middle Dutch is full of nouns that have a different gender than they had in earlier Germanic. is masculine or feminine in Middle Dutch, but  is neuter. —Rua (mew) 18:16, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Could you please give an estimate of how big that bunch of a-stems is that have different genders in different branches? Have you seen many? All i've noticed so far is that German nouns seem to almost always have the same gender as their Swedish and French cognates. --Espoo (talk) 18:28, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
 * We haven't really made a systematic inventory, and given how many a-stems there are, finding them might take a while. I think it would be a good idea though. —Rua (mew) 18:43, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
 * What do you think of making a systematic inventory of these? Do you want to help out? We probably want to rename the pages as well, replacing -ą and -az with a simple -a- to indicate the ambiguity. —Rua (mew) 18:46, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I think an inventory could be of use, and I would love to assist sure Leasnam (talk) 03:18, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/ēmaitijǭ
Anyone got any ideas on what the prefix is? The page seems to imply a similar meaning to. 19:10, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

mare
Needs an explanation for the /a/ < o. Anti-Gamz Dust (There's Hillcrest!) 19:37, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
 * It's a proposed variant/extension of Thurneysen-Havet's law (which states *owV > /awV/, as in, ): *a > /o/ in open syllables adjacent to a bilabial. I'm not sure about "needing" an explanation, though: we are a dictionary, not a source on historical phonology. (This topic should probably be mentioned in History of Latin, though.) --Tropylium (talk) 11:53, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

geneat
Was the modern English term really inherited from Old English? It looks like one of those borrowed terms that refer specifically to Anglo-Saxon society, like, and. — Ungoliant (falai) 19:24, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I think that's correct. The OED has no quotations for it between 1050 and 1861. — Eru·tuon 20:32, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I've changed it to use . — Kleio (t · c) 20:39, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Kolpos
Gynecologists are familiar with colposcopy, colpocleisis, colpotomy, colprctomy, etc. All refer to procedures an anatomic structures related to the vagina. So, an etymology referencing gap, gulf, opening, womb are all correct - referencing vagina.


 * @2600:387:9:5::66 Absolutely. I've created now. Wyang (talk) 22:03, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

The correct naming of Etymology Scriptorium
In short - shouldn't "Etymology Scriptorium" be named "Scriptorium Etymologensis" instead?

To keep it simple, of course.


 * Nah. — Kleio (t · c) 19:45, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
 * If anything, it would definitely be Scriptorium Etymologicum, but nah. —*i̯óh₁nC[5] 19:53, 26 November 2017 (UTC)


 * This is en.wikt so the "rooms" are named in English. See English entry at scriptorium. Equinox ◑ 21:34, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Was thinking the same thing Equinox. mellohi... 01:49, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/sterxs
I reconstructed this particular word this way because of a comment in Matasovic 2009 in which he thinks that the word could be connected to στέργω by assuming a back-formation from a consonant stem in -g. I personally agree, as it could explain the masculine gender in the Welsh descendant. Is this okay? mellohi... 01:54, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I think it would be better to have the page at Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/sterkā, which is the form that can actually be reconstructed from the attested forms, and then mention the hypothesis that it's a reformation of an earlier *sterxs in the Etymology section. I would favor moving the current page to Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/sterkā but keeping the hard redirect. —Mahāgaja (formerly Angr) · talk 10:46, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Done. But how do you suppose that the word turned masculine in Welsh? Though I'll concede that it was feminine before. mellohi! (僕の乖離) 13:26, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Who knows? Sometimes languages reassign gender based on synonyms or antonyms (e.g. shifted from neuter to feminine because  is feminine), so maybe  became masculine because  is masculine. —Mahāgaja (formerly Angr) · talk 15:33, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
 * TBH you probably have nailed it. mellohi! (僕の乖離) 16:03, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

阿塞拜疆
RFV of the etymology. Who is the source language ? Dokurrat (talk) 17:19, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
 * , it's hard to say definitively. English, Russian and Azeri seem to be the most likely source languages. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 02:25, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I think the from-English claim need evidence. It was a Soviet Union republic and I really don't see how this China Mainland term is derived from English. Dokurrat (talk) 03:59, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Any thoughts? — justin(r)leung { (t...) 06:03, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Haven't had much luck finding the etymology either, but I do agree that Russian is a more likely source. Wyang (talk) 11:25, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if this would help, but just putting this out there: w:zh:Wikipedia:外語譯音表/俄語 would give 阿澤(?)拜占, and w:zh:Wikipedia:外語譯音表/英語 would give 阿澤拜章. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 14:03, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
 * These two Mainland-oriented transliteration guides are seemingly not enforced upon USSR republic names. Эстония/Estonia is, not *埃斯托尼亞(either Russian or English), Грузия is , not *格魯濟亞(Russian, English n/a), Казахстан/Kazakhstan is , not *卡扎赫斯坦(Russian) or *卡澤克斯坦 (English). Dokurrat (talk) 14:29, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

обувь - can anyone translate the Russian etymological information and add it?
The term lacks an etymology in the English Wiktionary, but the Russian Wiktionary gives the following:

Происходит от гл. обувать (обуть), далее из праслав. *ob-uti, от кот. в числе прочего произошли: др.-русск., ст.-слав. обоути (ὑποδεῖσθαι — Супр.), укр. обу́ти, белор. обу́ць, болг. обу́я, сербохорв. о̀бути, о̀буjе̑м, словенск. obúti, obȗjem, чешск. obouti, obuji, словацк. оbut᾽, польск. obuć, obuję, в.-луж. wobuč, н.-луж. hobuś. Праслав. *ob-uti наряду с *jьz-uti (см. изу́ть) родственно лит. aũti, aunù, aviaũ «носить обувь, обувать(ся)», араũti «обуваться», латышск. àut, àunu «обувать», авест. аоɵrа- «башмак», лит. auklė̃ ж. «портянка», лат. ехuō, -еrе «разувать, снимать», induō, -еrе «надевать», sub-ūcula «нижнее платье», арм. aganim «надеваю». Праслав. *obutъ, русск. обу́т и т. д. образованы точно так же, как лит. àр-аutаs — то же. Использованы данные словаря М. Фасмера. См. Список литературы.

I don't know what this means, so if anyone familiar with Russian etymology can decipher this, feel free to add it in the English Wiktionary. 8.40.151.110 02:20, 28 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Translation: From the verb обувать (обуть), from Proto-Slavic *ob-uti, from which also Old Russian and Old Church Slavonic обоути, Ukrainian обути, Belarusian обуць, Bulgarian обуя, Serbo-Croatian о̀бути, Slovenian obúti, Czech obouti, Slovak оbuť, Polish obuć, Upper Sorbian wobuč, Lower Sorbian hobuś. Proto-Slavic *ob-uti along with *jьz-uti (see изуть) are akin to Lithuanian auti ("to wear shoes"), араuti ("to wear shoes"), Latvian aut ("to wear shoes"), Avestan аоɵrа- ("shoe"), Lithuanian auklė ("footcloth"), Latin ("to take off, remove"),  ("to put on"),  ("undershirt"), Old Armenian ագանիմ ("put on"). Proto-Slavic *obutъ, Russian обу́т, etc., are formed in exactly the same way as Lithuanian ap-аutаs. —Stephen (Talk) 11:46, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

nisba
RFV of the etymology.
 * According to this [] it is correct Leasnam (talk) 20:28, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I found and added another source which broadly agrees, saying it's from nichts/nix da. - -sche (discuss) 17:54, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

堕天使
Needs a source that specifically says so. Nothing personal, I'm just very skeptical about this historically-deduced kind of information. ばかFumiko￥talk 16:05, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
 * For those interested, please also see Talk:堕天使 where I attempted to explain the history. Note also that the disputed text clearly explains "probably" not "definitely".  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 17:24, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Old French etymologies
Is anyone an expert on French phonological evolution? What's the deal with (O.Fr. ) and  (and also /)? Again TLFi says is a borrowing, although it doesn't look like one. Could it also be a matter of the Old Northern French/Norman dialect for and such? Obviously the modern French forms with -voquer are learned borrowings but I'm not sure what the deal is with the others. There's also this entry, but I'm not sure how to interpret it. Word dewd544 (talk) 23:16, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Mglovesfun/Renard Migrant still edits on fr.wikt, maybe we can ask him there? --Barytonesis (talk) 22:10, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's a good idea. It seems he actually edited the page on the above-mentioned word on their Wiktionary. Word dewd544 (talk) 00:05, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

fr:Discussion_utilisateur:Renard_Migrant --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 08:32, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * dunno if I'm way too late to this conversation, but Pope pretty clearly states that the noun form avoué is inherited from Latin advocatum. Phonologically it is not suspect as far as I can see-- the intervocalic /k/ went to /g/ and then /γ/ by lenition, and the /γ/ was effaced in Later Gallo-Roman when it was between /o/, /u/, /au/ or /a/ (see Pope, From Latin to Modern French, page 139 section 342iii) . --Calthinus (talk) 20:24, 24 June 2018 (UTC)