From: Joao S. Lopes
Message: 44322
Date: 2006-04-20
'Broom'(<OE 'bro:m') and 'bramble' (>OE 'braembel'), are they related?
A biography of a famous composer I once read pointed out that in
old France he might have been a Plantagenet but in north Germany he
was just a Brahms.
Dan
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>
> On 2006-04-20 11:15, Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:
>
> >> You said something about the semantic field of *bhrem- :
> >
> > Without claiming any connection with <Bremen>.
>
> I should add that the name of the city doesn't have to have anything do
> with the 'edge' word. Its early versions point to <Breme> as the
> original form, most likely a plural (cf. Latinised Bremae, abl. de
> Bremis), and the modern version continues the dat.pl. used in locative
> phrases (van Bremen = de Bremis). Whatever the underlying appellative,
> it's likely to have been something that naturally occurs as a
plural, so
> the best fit is perhaps not 'edge' but 'bramble-bush' or 'thorn-bush'
> (*bre:m-(j)o:- beside variants with a shortened root vowel, cf. OHG
> bra:ma, brema, MLG breme, OE bro:m, bre:mel). Pokorny lumps the two
> etyma together (with the semantics of 'stick out'), but I see little
> reason to do so, given the different vocalism. There may be a distant
> connection with the OE 'briar' word (WS bræ:r, Angl. bre:r).
>
> Piotr
>
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