Re: to buy

From: Daniel J. Milton
Message: 20371
Date: 2003-03-26

From Buck: SCr. 'skup'. Bulg. 'skapu' "expensive", also "stingy";
in the other Slavic languages only "stingy." Etym. dubious, perhaps
orig. "tight, pinched" (Pol. 'szczmic' "pinch") or as an
opprobrious "whining" (Pol. 'skomlec').
Dan

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex_lycos" <altamix@...> wrote:
> Let us take a look at " to buy":
> The Germanic words are suspected to come all from Latin.
> German. "kaufen", swedish "köpa", Old English "ceaipan",
Mhd. "koufen",
> Ahd. "koufon", Gothich "kaupon".
> All these words are supposed to be a derivative of Latin "caupo", a
> derivative of the Latin verb "cauponari"
> The Slavic should know this word too since we have "kupa, kupi,
kupati,
> kupiti".
> The romance languages as George suggested have as follow:
> Port.:comprar
> Spanish:comprar
> French: acheter
> Italian:comperare, comprare
> Rom: cumpãra
> I would accept the etymology of a Latin root if there won't be the
word
> for " expensive" which means in Rom. "scump".
> The word "scump" is given as coming from Slavic "skonpU" by my DEX
> But is a "skonpU" in slavic? I know just "skupo" but my knowledge
are as
> usual limited, so I try to make a search on the web for finding
out what
> about:
> Russian: dorogoi
> Serbian: skupo
> Bulgarian:skUp
> Polish: drogi
> Ukrainiean:dorogui
> It seems the form with "skup" it is just in south slavic to find.
Just
> there?
> There is of course in Romanian . But what about Albanian? I have
no idea
> if there is something in Albanin which will fit into this
equation. OK,
> so the form with "sku(m)po" is to find just in south Slavic and in
> Romanian.
> The south Slavic forms are explained trough lost of nasal I guess.
> So the supposed Slavic "skonpU" > skupo in Serbian, and "skUp" in
> Bulgarian. Why did not Romanian lost the nasal?
> It is said that specialy "n" before consonants " get los in
Romanian in
> the Latin words:
> conquerreo > cuceri, so it should have been very easy to lost the
nasal.
> The explanation is given as " the phenomenon ceased" as the
Romanians
> got it from Slavic. Did it? It seems we have 200 years where it
happened
> a lot of stuff or there is no Slavic "skonpU" but a loan from
Romanian,
> with the lost of nasal in Slavic.
> An another argument should be the "u" here. In Romanian we have o
> u
> before nasal, so if there has been a "skonpU" then the Rom. form is
> regular but the Slavic, does the south Slavic make too an "u"
from "o"
> before nasal? Or the "o" becomes an "u" before "p" ?
> In this case , if the Rom. word "sump-" is not a loan from Slavic,
then
> it is very hard to accept the another (s)cump+ ara to be a
derivative of
> Latin even if the Romance forms are too with a nasal there .