--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Jonathan Morris <jonatas9@...> wrote:
>
> Ah yes, Vennemann, the thinking man's Edo Nyland.
Unfortunately, the article is in German, but the abstract isn'r:
'Abstract
Traditionally, Engl. knife and related Germanic words - Late OE cni:f,
OFris. and MLG kni:f; MDu. cnijf (Du. knijf), ON knÃfr - have been
derived from an unattested Germanic verbal root *knib- or, violating
the sound laws and disregarding the semantic discrepancy, from the
Germanic root *kni:p- 'to nip, pinch, squeeze'. The word is most
commonly assumed to have originated in Old Norse and to have boon
borrowed from there into Late Old English and the other Germanic
languages, then from Old English into Old French as quenif, quanif
'pocket knife'; a diminutive cnivet, canivet formed in Old French is
assumed to have traveled on into Provençal, Catalan, and other Romance
languages (e.g. OSpan. cañivete 'small knife'), and finally into
Basque as gaiñibeta, ganabeta, ganibet, kanibet, etc. '(pocket) knife,
penknife' with different forms and meanings in the dialects.
Ten reasons are given why this assumed itinary is wrong, among them
the facts (1) that in the Middle Ages new cultural objects and their
names do not travel from north to south but from south to north, (2)
that the implied development of a monosyllabic simplex (kni:fr, knife)
into an apparent compound of three or four syllables (gaiñibeta,
ganibet), though not impossible, is at least peculiar, (3) that the
presumed diminutive suffix -et of OFr. cnivet, canivet is also found
in Germanic (West Fris. knyft '(large) pocket knife)', and (4) that
the entire set of words is left unexplained because the traditional
Germanic etymologies are unacceptable.
The opposite route is then proposed, starting with a Basque compound,
possibly formed of Latin-derived Bq. kana 'reed pipe, cane' and bedoi
'pruning knife' in Gascony, and continuing through the Romance
languages including Old French, where a doublet was formed by dropping
the apparent diminutive suffix -et, and on into the Continental,
Insular, and Scandinavian Germanic languages with different forms and
meanings, until it reached its end-point in Norwegian Lappish.'
Do you have a better proposal?
> What about the Celtic words?
Which ones?
BTW, the root he rejects *kni:b-/kni:p- fits the pattern too: it has a
side form *hni:p-/hnipp-.
Torsten