Re: Scientist's etymology vs. scientific etymology

From: tgpedersen
Message: 59075
Date: 2008-06-06

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> >
> > > > > Cheese is another golden calf in the world of etymology.
> > > > > "Such luck that latin had caseus. Now we can wrestle the
> > > > > germanic words to fit the theory that the word for hard
> > > > > cheese came from the latin word!" The celtic languages has
> > > > > this word too and I do believe reading something about the
> > > > > celts being the first in Europe to make hard cheese...
> > > >
> > > > Early Irish <cáise>, like the WGmc. words, is an early
> > > > borrowing of Latin <ca:seus>. Derivation of the WGmc. words
> > > > from an early loan from Latin isn't problematic (apart from
> > > > the odd case of WSax. <cy:se>). Your emphasis on 'hard'
> > > > seems quite arbitrary.
>
> So we have alternation in the original word *kuzi-/*kazi- "salty".
> That would make it a word of the ur-/ar- language (cf. *up- vs.
> *akW-/ap- "water").
>
> NBTW North Germanic uses another word for "cheese"
> DEO:
> ost "cheese", c., ODa. oost, No. ost, OSw. o:ster, Sw. ost, Sw.dial.
> u:st, ON ostr (where o- seems shortened from ó-); as loanword from
> North Gmc. in Finn. juusto "cheese"; from Gmc. *ju:sta- (hardly
> *justa-), PIE yu:sto, a *-to derivation to PIE yu:s- etc "soup", to
> which also Latin iu:s, iu:ris "juice, soup" ... The older Gmc.
> cheese thus was kind of 'cheese soup'.

Trask: The History of Basquee, p. 315
cheese: gaztae ~ gaztai ~ gazta ~ gazna (< *gaztane)
This word is curiously similar to Latin caseu-, but it cannot be a
direct loan. Most Basque cheeses are hard; a soft cheese resembling
cottage cheese is gaztanbera (bera 'soft').



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