Re: Schöffe II

> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghilman
> >from Turkic too?
>
> I don't know. OTOH, Turkic is another linguistic area where one
> can't tell which is the hen and the egg. :)


> Seemingly, Iranian
> (i.e. chiefly Scythian-Sarmatian-Alan) and Uralic are the
> substrates to what's called Turkic...
>
> >Grimm thinks so.
> >
> >wo auch mögliche verwandtschaften der östlichen sprachen
> >angezogen sind (vgl. besonders altslav. chlap servus
>
> German Knappe (the medieval squire < scutarius!)
> (a later additional meaning: "miner". Miners' guild and
> group insurances association is called Knappschaft. All
> these have to do with the primeval Knappe, and not with
> any alluding to low wages: "knappes Geld" :))

Hock
Principles of Historical Linguistics
p. 458 ff.
'Although international in character and provenience, nautical jargon can have repercussions also on the languages and regional dialects of individual countries. In Germany, for instance, it is responsible for the introduction of a large amount of foreign elements, as well as borrowings from northern Low German which, as noted, differs considerably from the southern-based standard language. And these borrowings have introduced some 'alien' phonological features into Standard German.
...
Other professional jargons can have similar effects. Consider for instance the jargon of German miners, whose roots can be traced back to the early Middle Ages. It appears that in the latter part of the tenth century A.D., Rhine Frankish miners migrated to the linguistically Low German Harz region, bringing with them not only their technique but also the technical vocabulary that went with it. By imparting their skills and their vocabulary to the local 'Low Saxon' population, they laid the foundation for a professional jargon that was not specifically linked to a particular dialect area. Moreover, since new technical terms now tended to come from the local Low Saxon, that jargon soon acquired northern beside southern features. A further shift of the center of mining in the twelfth century, from the Low German Harz region to the linguistically mixed 'Eastern Middle German' area of Meissen and the Erzgebirge added yet another linguistic element. The resulting variety then became the foundation for a national miners language, a supra-regional dialect which eventually coexisted with Standard German and which even had international ramifications.
The vocabulary of the jargon reflects its dialectally composite origin. And as words from the jargon entered the standard language they brought with them pronunciations or meanings which in a number of cases differed from their cognates in Standard German. Compare the data in (24). (The listing under 'Standard German' excludes borrowings from miners jargon.) Especially interesting are Teufe, (ab)teufen and Grus vs. standard Tiefe, (ab)tiefen, and Graus (the latter attested in Goethe's works), where miners jargon and standard language exhibit quite different phonological developments. Note also the word Schlacke, whose ck [k] is rather difficult to explain vis-a-vis the earlier northern attestation slagge [g].

(24)
Miners jargon
Standard German
Origin

Schweif 'entrance of a gallery'
Schweif 'tail'
southern

Zechstein 'zechstein'
zäh 'tough'
southern

•Schacht 'mine shaft'
Schaft 'shaft (of spear, etc.)'
northern

•Schicht 'layer; shift'
Ø
northern for 'southern' *Schift 'shift, change'(?) or
southern *Schicht 'layer'(?)

Hund/Hunt 'trolley'
Hund 'dog'
southern/northern

Kaue 'pit head'
(Käfig 'cage', a later borrowing from Lat.)
MHG kouwe fr. Lat. cavea

Kumpel 'miner'
Kumpan 'friend, buddy'
East. Middle German variant of Kumpan

Grus 'coal fragments, slag, grit'
Graus 'gravel'
Middle Frankish (?) or southern, MHG grūz with northern lack of ū > au?

•Schlacke 'slag(s), refuse'
schlagen 'beat, hammer' or schlack 'slack'?
northern slagge; cf. slagen 'beat, hammer' or slak 'slack' (?)


The items marked by • are especially interesting. For they have remarkably similar correspondences in English miners language; cf. (24). (The English listing is limited to the words as they are used in mining.) Moreover, as (24) shows, English likewise has a variation between voiced [g] and voiceless [k] in the words corresponding to Germ. Schlacke, northern slagge. Semantically, the relation between Germ. Schlacke, Engl. slack 'slags, refuse; inferior coal' and schlack, slack is supported by the precedent of German miners jargon Fäule/Feule 'inferior mineral' (Standard Fäule 'rot') and faul 'rotten, lazy'. But this will not account for the [g] of slagge, slag, which finds a better explanation in Low German slagen, NHG schlagen 'beat, hammer': slagge, slag then is the refuse which results from hammering, either in the pit or in the originally closely associated foundry.

(24)
German
English

Schacht
shaft (1433: '... factura unius shaft ... pro carbonibus ... lucrandis' = 'for the making of a shaft to exploit coal')

Schicht
shift (1708: 'The Pit will require ... 4 shifts or horses ...')

slagge
slag (1552: 'At the furst melting ... was mad ... 288 lbs. of lead besids the slaggs and stones')

Schlacke
slack 'small or refuse coal' (1440; cf. 1795: 'for all slack or small or inferior coal')


The English evidence, then, does not help to resolve the phonological and etymological problems with Schlacke. However, it opens up another dimension: Are the correspondences in (24) due to chance or independent development, or was there contact between German and English miners jargon? Some points might argue for independent innovation. For instance, the ft of Engl. shaft, shift does not agree with the cht of Germ. Schacht, Schicht. (But note that the southern form Schaft is indirectly attested in early German treatises on mining. The English words, then, might be borrowings from an early, more southern, form of German miners jargon.) On the other hand, there are several arguments which might favor the latter view: First, as English mineral terms like zechstein (cf. (23) above) and blende, feldspar (Germ. Blende, Feldspat) show, there was a certain influence of German mining language on English. Moreover, examples like (25) illustrate the fact that German miners jargon exerted an influence also on other European languages. Finally, if Engl. slag is to be derived from a word meaning 'hammer, beat', then its source would have to be (Low) German: The native English cognate, with regular indigenous phonetic and semantic developments, is slay.

(25 a)
German
Swedish

Schicht
skikt

Schacht
skakt

b)
German
French

Rückstein
rustine

Bleimacher
blaymard


Given the fact that in observable history, professional jargons can be seen to introduce phonologically, semantically, etc., deviant elements into particular languages, it must be accepted as a possibility that similar developments may have happened in prehistorical times. The assumption of borrowing from a professional jargon therefore must be considered another possible approach to accounting for apparently irregular sound change, beside analogy, incomplete spread of innovations in transition areas, and 'ordinary' borrowing. Here as elsewhere, of course, it is necessary to give persuasive arguments for such an account.'

And what I find interesting is that three of these miner's words, German/English shift and shaft, and German Kaue are related to that word family we saw might have been used in law and slavery, so I wonder, given that in Rome you could be sentenced 'ad metallos', ie to work (as a state slave) in a mine, if that might have been the case in early Germanic law too. That would explain the mysterious appearance of those words in English, about Swedish I'm not so sure whether it couldn't have been later.

> >lith. klapas puer);
>
> German Knabe
>
> >bedeutsam ist namentlich altkelt. gnabat filius, natus
>
> German Knabe
>
> >s. DWB knabatz 2. '
>
> Quite imaginable: in khlap- & knapp/knab/knav. The
> pronunciations of [l] and [n]: usually variants of
> apico-alveolar configurations.

That -atz suffix is odd for a supposedly Germanic word.


I wasn't too happy with adding one extra manifestation, namely kn-, to the already extensive list of supposed descendants of my mysterious *λ-. On the other hand Prellwitz lists κνέφας (related to Sanskrit ai. kşap, so it's the right kind of anlaut!) as related to σκέπας and that latter again to γνόφος and δνόφος, so who am I to argue?

> >Or were you thinking of something to do with Knaan?
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knaanic
>
> AFAIK, wether the Knappe/Knabe family, nor the khlap-/khlop-
> family include the idea "Jewish Czech/Lusatian/Polish
> slavery or serfdom". (Cnaan means Canaan = Palestina)

> Whereas all knap-knab-gnab--khlap-khlop words have the
> same chief meanings "servant", "page", "boy".

It is a possibility.

Wexler
Explorations ...
p. 5, fn. 17
'The use of He kna´anī to denote Slavdom and Slavic languages in Medieval times follows the practice in European languages of equating 'slave' and 'Slav' and reflects the fact that the Canaanites in the Old Testament had the status of slaves. For details see Mieses 1934:253; Kupfer and Lewicki 1956:28-30; M. Weinreich 1956; 1973:84; Jakobson and Halle 1964:147-154; Lewicki 1964c:364. The founder of the Chassidic movement, the Baal Sem Tov (pseudonym of Jisrael ben Eliεzer, 1699-1760) is reputed to have called his Ukrainian servant a "Canaanite" (Chajes 1934:449). The Polish Jewish family name Chanaan (Kraków 1495) may indicate a Christian convert to Judaism (Mieses 1934:253). See also SeJud kenaani adj 'Slavic, Yugoslav, gentile (?)' (1862), which appears to be the most recent use of the Hebraism in this meaning.'

and
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/67122



Torsten