Re: Scientist's etymology vs. scientific etymology

--- Carl Hult <Carl.Hult@...> wrote:

> Well, you rush to your linguist friend's defence,

Well, I don't know Brian off the list, so he's not my
friend, and from what I understand, he's a
mathematician, not a professional linguist.

>as
> I thought you
> would. I can agree that greek could very well be the
> origin of
> germanic word butter but there's also the chance it
> could have taken
> the course via latin from another language without
> greek being the
> "middle man". Etymonline.com doesn't rule out the
> chance that the
> Greek word is folk etymology of a scythian word.

"Cow butter" does strike me as a folk etymology but
you need to show where it came from or plausibly could
have come from. Check out Witzel and see how he works
with folk etymologies in Sanskrit.

>Who
> knows, maybe the
> same schythians gave the proto-germanic peoples
> their word at the
> same time as the greeks got their word? After all,
> etymology isn't
> the truth, it's only a set of theories which in some
> cases happen to
> fit the fact.

Possibly, but you need to first show what the
hypothetical Scythian root was. and what changes it
would have entailed as it entered Germanic.

> Maybe I should be more precise about why I doubt the
> "official"
> etymology of the word church. First of all, the word
> originates in
> the western hemisphere of Europe.

Can you demonstrate that?

>I believe it has
> more to do with a
> relative of the word circle.

"Circle" for church would strike me as the folk
etymology.

> Second, why did the
> germanic peoples of
> all bother to use a word to translate the word
> ecclesia if that word
> they used was a word from another language in the
> first place. This
> is illogical.

Not necessarily, perhaps they used ecclesia for
Catholic churches and kuriak- for temples of other
faiths such as Arians, pagans, etc. In Latin America,
Catholic churches are called "iglesia" and their
services are called "misa" while Protestant churches
are usually called "templo" or "tabernáculo" (almost
always curiously and hilariously spelled without the
accent, giving it the meaning "tavern ass/arse," and
their services are called "culto."

>Germans did take words from latin en
> masse but they did
> not exchange them for another until centuries later
> when the origin
> of the words were forgotten. I do, however, believe
> that a word like
> church would be kept in mind if it was a new one in
> the years when
> churches were being built.

Remember that most Germanic peoples did not begin to
adopt Catholicism until 500-700, and the
Scandinavians much later.

> Here's a text from site where the greek origin is
> being dealt with:
>
> http://www.takeourword.com/Issue036.html
> From Paul Hansen:
>
> I have found a bit of info on the roots to the word
> church, some very
> interesting. I am especially interested to see if
> there is any
> foundation to the word being connected to the Latin
> word circus.
> This is what I found so far:
>
> "The derivation of the word is generally said to be
> from the Greek
> kyriakon, 'belonging to the Lord'. But the
> derivation has been too
> hastily assumed. It is probably connected with kirk,
> the Latin
> circus, circulus and the Greek kyklos, because the
> congregations were
> gathered in circles."

That does sound like a folk etymology.

>
> I don't know any other resources on that so hope you
> can help.
>
> Phew, what a tough question! The history of church
> is one of the most
> contentious etymologies in the English language.
> Almost all modern
> scholars are in agreement that it derives from the
> Greek kyriakon "of
> the Lord" but the matter is by no means settled. We
> find your
> quotation somewhat amusing, though. The question of
> whether it has a
> Greek or a Latin origin has been hotly debated since
> Walafrid Strabo
> first asked it in the 9th century. We fail to see
> how something
> determined after a thousand years of discussion
> could be "too hastily
> assumed".
>
> There is no evidence to support the statement that
> "congregations
> were gathered in circles" so an origin in the Latin
> circus ("race-
> track", literally "circle, circuit") or the Greek
> kyklos ("wheel,
> circle") seems less than likely. Moreover, if the
> English church has
> its origin in circus, why did Latin itself use the
> words ecclesia or
> basilica? Conversely, why do we find so many*
> cognates of church in
> the Germanic languages but none at all in those
> languages which
> developed from Latin?
>
> One theory which Paul's source does not mention is
> that church comes
> from the Gothic kelikn, "tower, upper chamber".
> This word was
> originally Gaulish and hence Celtic in origin but,
> as with the
> Romance languages, all modern Celtic languages take
> their word for
> church from the Latin ecclesia.

Ecclesia is from Greek, where it means "assembly" or
"(a group) called out". So both ekklesia and kyriak-
are Greek

>
> * For the incorrigibly pedantic, the cognates of
> church include:
> Western Germanic kirika, Old Saxon kirika, kerika,
> Middle Low German
> and Middle Dutch kerke, Dutch kerk, Low German
> kerke, karke, kark,
> Old Frisian szereke, szurke, tzierka, tziurk, Old
> High German
> churihha, (also chiriihha, chiricha, khirihha,
> kirihha, kiricha,
> later chircha), Old Norse kirkia, kyrkja, Swedish
> kyrka, Danish
> kirke. (And that is without including cognates from
> the Slavic
> languages.)
>
>
>
> Carl Hult
>
> Brian M. Scott:
>
> > At 8:51:55 AM on Thursday, June 5, 2008, Carl Hult
> wrote:
> >
> > > We all know what folk etymology is and how it
> works. Today
> > > I will add another word to the list, scientist´s
> > > etymology. The distinction between scientist's
> etymology
> > > and scientific etymology is that the former is
> where the
> > > facts are being doctored to fit the the theory,
> based on
> > > an assumption made by the scientist rather than
> letting
> > > facts speak for themselves. I also call this
> wishful
> > > thinking. Examples of scientist's etymology are
> butter,
> > > church, rush and cheese.
> >
> > > The first word, butter, may be a close call
> since the
> > > greeks actually had a word called boutyron, lit.
> > > "cowcheese" but I still feel that this is
> wishful thinking
> > > on the linguist's part. The greeks didn't use
> butter in
> > > the same way other people in Europe did and if
> ever, the
> > > greeks got this word from elsewhere, not giving
> it away to
> > > other languages. It may even be a folk etymology
> word in
> > > Greece, adapted to fit the notion of "cow
> cheese"
> >
> > The chain from Gk. <boúturon> to Lat. <butyrum> to
> e.g. OE
> > <butere> looks pretty straightforward.
> >
> > > Church is one of the "holy" words in etymology.
> Once
> > > attested in greek, "kyriakon doma", and it's
> enough to
> > > send the linguists to seventh heaven.
> >
> > From the OED s.v. <church>:
> >
> > [T]here is now a general agreement among scholars
> in
> > referring it to the Greek word <ku:riakón>,
> properly adj.
> > 'of the Lord, dominicum, dominical' (f. <kú:rios>
> lord),
> > which occurs, from the 3rd century at least, used
> > substantively (sc. <dô:ma>, or the like) = 'house
> of the
> > Lord', as a name of the Christian house of
> worship. Of
> > this the earliest cited instances are in the
> Apostolical
> > Constitutions (II. 59), a 300, the edict of
> Maximinus
> > (303-13), cited by Eusebius (Eccl. Hist. IX. 10) a
> 324,
> > the Councils of Ancyra 314 (Canon 15), Neo-Cæsarea
> 314-23
>

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