Re: Official language question!

Jan van Steenbergen scripsit:

> It looks a bit strange indeed, but not impossible. The word "lichaam"
> (Middle Dutch "lichâme", Ohd. lîhhamo) consists of two roots: "lîka-"
> (Modern Dutch "lijk" = dead body), and "xaman-" (Mod. Dutch "haam" =
> net), and is of course cognate to German "leichnam".
Old English has the word too, in the form "lichama".  Here's a
picture of "se lichama" with major parts labeled in good OE:
http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/ballc/hwaet/lichama.gif .  By early
ME times the word was replaced by _body_ < OE _bodig_.

_Lich_ 'corpse' left more traces in English before the word went extinct:
the "lich-gate" is the gate in a churchyard by which coffins are brought
in for burial (without going through the church), and a "lyke-wake" is
another term for "wake" in the sense of a celebratory watch kept over
a dead boy.

--
John Cowan      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan      jcowan@reutershealth.com
Be yourself.  Especially do not feign a working knowledge of RDF where
no such knowledge exists.  Neither be cynical about RELAX NG; for in
the face of all aridity and disenchantment in the world of markup,
James Clark is as perennial as the grass.  --DeXiderata, Sean McGrath

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