Re: Wuz

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Frank Verhoft" <fa478077@...>
wrote:

> <<<BTW My Prof. Visser's Nederlands-Engels Woordenboek only knows

of 'waas'

> and 'wazig' in the sense of 'mist(y)' etc. but I seem to recall the

word(s)

> had wider meanings that that?<<<
>
> Visser seems to give only the contemporary meaning of the

word 'waas' in

> Standard Dutch.
> The placename "Wasia" is attested in 868, now called "Waas",

or "Waasland".

> MidDu "wase", "waes", with the meaning 'mud', 'dry land after

eb', 'muddy

> land' (modder, drassig land), etc. So, by and large the meanings

you gave in

> message 33437. More details in the PS, a quote from Verdam's Middle

Dutch

> Dictionary.

Wassenaar would be a good candidate, I guess (cf. Danish
nor "lagoon").

>
> <<<Given (my guess) Germ. *wos- > Freench gueux "beggar; uncouth

person" >

> (loan) Dutch geus "beggar"<<<
>
> I still fail to see any connection between Germ. *wos > Fr. gueux.
> Du geus.

PGerm. or Nordwestblock (or rather whatever pre-Germanic language was
common to Scandinavia and the Nordwestblock) *was- or *wos- must have
existed, given the various also non-Dutch ancestors that root had.
The Swedish and Spanish *was-/*wos- words have the "outcast" sense.
http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/wH.html

Gmc. *wos- > French gueux is by the usually recognised rules for
Gmc. loans in French, afaIk, meaning if French borrowed that root,
that's what it would end up as. French <gueux> > (loan) Dutch <geus>
is obvious, I think, given the shared meaning 'beggar'.

> Btw, also Rey's Dictionnaire historique de la langue française

makes the

> connection MidDu guit > Fr gueux, in which 'guit' means something as
> 'babbling', 'joking', 'mocking sb.'.

What does Verdam have to say about <guit>?

>According to P. Giraud gueux is a
> doublet of queux, "cuisinier".

Hm. And what exactly does he mean by 'doublet'?


Torsten