Re: a weird question...

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

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