From: Torsten
Message: 67276
Date: 2011-03-23
> Moreover, examples like (25) illustrate the fact that German minersAh, as I thought:
> 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.