Re: Swedish -is (was Dissimilation of gW/kWVw to gVw/kVw)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Kim Bastin <kimb@...> wrote:

> On Wed, 27 Apr 2005 09:34:48 -0400, Brian wrote:
>
> >>> On what evidence do you conclude that the Latin inflectional
> >>> suffixes are the source of this element?
> >
> >> It's the consensus, afaIk. They are all colloquialism and
> >> pretty recent ('funkis' being perhaps the oldest).
> >
> >That was my guess when I looked at them, but <skakis> 1902
> >is the only one that made it into SAOB.
> >
> >Brian
>
> What I remember reading, but I forget where, is that the oldest

such

> words were student slang: students knew Latin, of course, since

they

> were taught in it, and would sometimes Latinise Swedish words by
> adding to them the -is ending of Latin nouns such as civis. Most -

is

> words are nouns; the adjective skakis 'shaky' is unusual. Kändis
> 'celeb' is an example of a noun formed from an adjective (känd
> '(well-)known').
>
> Kim Bastin

There is no other probable source for this suffix than schoolboys.
Declining "brevis brevis breve"
brevis ter
brevi ter
etc.
gives the same melody as children use when teasing:
"fegis fegis fegis" (coward coward coward)when daring a
mate to do something.2
"Fegis" is a suffixation from the adjective "feg", cowardly.
That is what my Sprachgefühl tells me.

Likewise the French frequent argot suffix -os as in gratuits>gratos,
musiciens>musicos, intellectuels>intellos, touristique>touristos,
has been claimed to have its origin among Greekstudying schoolboys.

Lars