Hi Torsten,
I've probably been too elliptical in jumping over steps in my arguments since they seemed obvious, but to lay this matter to rest:
1. Agreeing with Trask - i.e. that -et is a Gascon suffix - as cited by V. on p434 of Vasconica
2. Canif - V says that the fact that you don't get chanif, shows that this is a late borrowing into French. If you look at phonological dating (e.g. Gaston Zink), all this means is that it would be borrowed after 500AD into Centre d'oil or no particular date for Picard (since k is preserved and not palatalised, hence this is a non-point. It doesn't resolve the question either way between a loan from Germanic or Basque. But it does overturn V's point about it being a late loan into French.
3. However, and where I take issue with you - V answers the question as to why this word should come from Basque
by claiming: a) there is directional flow of cultural objects from S to N [You claim that this is a misreading of V. but he says this entirely explicitly in the Abstract (point 1 in para 2). b) Even more fancifully, he claims that the Basque Country may be kind of Mediaeval Sheffield with a world-wide reputation for fine cutlery. Now one Basque town did get an exclusive royal charter for steelmaking in 1262, but we're agreed that any loan would have been earlier, so this is way too late for his Basque>OFr>OE route.
Hence a) since we all seem to agree that his dates are too late, we have to assume that despite all the turbulence and lack of a viable international trading system during the 8th-10th centuries (other than perhaps one run by the Jews), the Basques are running a international knife business. (Edo Nyland strikes again!) b) if the whole world is killing each other with Basque knives in the 8th-9th centuries, why doesn't Portuguese
use the Basque word rather than a Gascon loan.
c) Just try saying 'knif" in a French accent - e.g. watch the French knight in Monty Python & the Holy Grail
--- Em sex, 19/9/08, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> escreveu:
De: tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...>
Assunto: [tied] Re: Neigh
Para: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Data: Sexta-feira, 19 de Setembro de 2008, 20:34
[Excess quoted matter deleted. -BMS]
> I have a copy of V's book (can I have my money back?) and was
waiting until my time in Purgatory to read it but was prompted by your
query to read the entry on knife, et al.
>
> It's so transparently bullshit that it hardly deserves comment - but
for the sake of due diligence:
>
> 1. When you have a word with a restricted meaning in language A and
a more general sense in language B, it's usually a good sign that A
borrowed the word from B (e.g. boîte, smoking). Hence in this case the
direction of flow would be Germanic to Latin.
The word has now an unrestricted meaning in English and North
Germanic, but with several variants indiacting something more specialized.
> 2. On the one hand, V says the word must have passed into Old French
late (p441) because you don't get 'chanif' but 'canif' - (which, btw
shows a profound ignorance of Picard, which preserves k,
So do many langue d'oc dialects. Why is this relevant?
> and you'd expect to find canif if the word was coming from the
Germanic)
And?
then it's borrowed from Old French into Middle English and from there
into Old Norse, with "Old English/Old Norse bilingualism in the
Danelaw contributing" (p.439) (sic). So it's unlikely to get to
England before 1066, years after the end of the Danelaw, but then goes
straight into Old Norse and Icelandic. Can anyone take this seriously?
Yes, it must have happened earlier.
> 3. Portuguese has canivete - pocket knife - these kinds of words are
usually transparent brrowings from French/Gascon/ Provençal (e.g.
cacete). If it were a Basque borrowing, it would look like one (and
there are likely borrowings from Basque like bacalhau, prob. esquerda)
- i.e. it would have preserved the b. According to Houaiss, the first
recorded use in Port dates from 1364 - canjuete.
Why should it have been borrowed directly from Basque in this case?
> Much as I dislike agreeing with Trask, I agree with Trask.
Erh, on what?
The best solution I can see to the problem of the Germanic doublets in
hn-/kn- (and hl-/kl-, hr-/kr-) is that they are loans from a substrate
which had doublets kn-/gn- (and kl-/gl-, kr-/hr-) as we see
in many Western Romance words, also in this. They might ultimately be
loans from something else (eg. Vennemann's Vasconian and Semitidic
Atlantic)
Torsten
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