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Re: a weird question...

From:Sally Caves <scaves@...>
Date:Wednesday, September 22, 1999, 16:27
Thomas R. Wier wrote:
> > Nik Taylor wrote: > > > wayne chevrier wrote: > > > As I understand it, /dog/ is cognate with /dingo/
I have Onions' Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology in front of me, and he writes that "dingo" is from a native name _jungho_, "George's River." Does that make him right? I don't know. Onions is fairly respected, though.
> > Speaking of which, the ENGLISH word "dog" is of mysterious origin. > > Maybe a psychic connection with Aborigines? ;-) > > Nah. The word has been attested for centuries. I remember > reading a text somewhere -- the place escapes me -- about > all the little "dogges and cattes". (Chaucer, maybe? Dunno... > it's shows up later than that, though, I think. )
You mean earlier. "Dog" is found in OE _docga_, and shows up in place names like Doggenford. It eventually replaced "hund" as the general name of the species. Onions asks you to compare formations with the names of other animals, such as picga and frocga and stacga in OE (hee hee! these are funny!). It renders Latin phrases like _rosa canina_, "dog rose." "Dog" is only mysterious because it can't seem to be traced any further back than Germanic, but that's a major feature of the Germanic branch of Indo-European. There are a host of words in Germanic that have no other cognates in IndoEuropean languages. Germanic has some wonderful innovations, way back when. Sally -- ============================================================ SALLY CAVES scaves@frontiernet.net http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves (bragpage) http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html (T. homepage) http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/contents.html (all else) ===================================================================== Niffodyr tweluenrem lis teuim an. "The gods have retractible claws." from _The Gospel of Bastet_ ============================================================