Thank you, Anthony! I have a bit of a question in relation: when Marie Burwell wrote : the strings are made of ship's and cat's gutte, in this case, for the period, would it be a common abbreviation of "cattle"? What possibly could she mean? alexander
On Wed, 01 Apr 2009 11:52:19 +0200 Anthony Hind <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear Alexander and all > > As I have not quite had time to write up a description of > Charles Besnainou's "Spiramid" strings (I should be able to do so > soon). I would just like to return briefly to the etymology question, > and explain what I mean by safer or unsafe etymology: > > I must insist that I was not saying that the 'caterpillar-gut" > etymology was necessarily any worse than any of the others that have > been cited recently. However, there are many chance similarities > between words that are not in fact related in any way, and sometimes > they just happe to have some meaning in common, without in fact being > related. Such cases, cannot be used as evidence in favour of a string > hypothesis, they must be considered anecdotal (although again that in > no way disproves the hypothesis). > > A famous case of ideological etymology was the imagined relation > between the name Brutus and the name Britain and British. > "Brute of Troy is a legendary descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas, > was known in medieval British legend as the eponymous founder and > first king of Britain." > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutus_of_Troy > > If one simply relies on a similarity between words, there is a risk > of circularity: you find what you look for. As to "catgut" and > "catline", there are at least three hypotheses that are not soundly > based on linguistic arguments: "caterpillar-gut", "cattle-gut", > "catapult-gut", alongside simple "cat-gut" (I will suggest another > one later). Both caterpillar-gut and catapult-gut are an attempt to > support a theory of an original string type. Can we be sure that > either is safer than the "Brute" = "British" hypothesis. > (note that the cat in caterpillar (= feline), the cat in cattle > (derived from capital) and the cat in catapult (Greek Kata 'against') > are all of different origin, and have a chance first syllable in > common. This shows exactly how careful you need to be). > It is notoriously difficult to prove or disprove such analyses, > unless you can find some intermediary from, or an interesting variant > in some dialect. > > For example, "cater" is in fact a "tom-cat", if we found an > intermediary form that was "cater-gut" the theory would be home and > dry. In French there is another form for caterpillar which is > chenille (or little dog), now if in some dialect of French we found > the expression, "boyau de chenille", again we could be pretty happy > for that hypothesis. Don't forget that the French expression is > "boyau de chat". > > In English, the word for caterpillar could also have been > "catkin" (that is quite plausible, as a "catkin" is very much like a > hairy caterpillar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ > File:Ament_inflorescence.jpg > > Now it would be easy to derive the English "cat-gut" from "cat-kin > gut", as in English very generally the unstressed element of such > forms can drop, so we might lose the intermediary "kin". > Nevertheless, if we could find just one example of "cat-kin gut" the > analysis would be safer. > > Furthermore, how do we get the French form "boyau de chat".? Let us > suppose that in French, we also had the from "chaton" (small cat), > for caterpillar, so we would have "boyau de chaton". There is no > obvious reason why the last syllable would be lost, unless of course, > the caterpillar origin was forgotten, and French people just couldn't > believe that the gut came from a small cat, and so they just called > it "boyau de chat" (but we would prefer it to have been a typical > French phonetic process, loss of the final unstressed syllable. That > is common in English, but not quite so in French, although we do have > "chef" derived from "caput" so it remains a possibility). > > I agree with Alexander that "cattle-gut" is no safer (remember that > cattle comes from "capital"). It is easy to obtain "cat-gut" by the > loss of the weak syllable in English, but it is a pity we have no > example of the full item, "cattle-gut". > > Now how do we get "boyau de chat" from this. In Modern French the > equivalent word is "cheptel", but through English we know that there > was also an old form "chattel" (which we still have with a slightly > different meaning in English"). So now how do we get "boyau de chat" > from ""boyau de chattel"?, Why don't we have a variant that is "boyau > de cheptel"? > > One might just as well suppose that "catgut" and "boyau de chat" were > ironical remarks about the way most musicians played on the things, > "catawailing". I don't actually, think this is so. > > Now I am not saying that any of the above etymologies are mistaken, > they are just not sound. Perhaps, new discoveries may make them sound. > > Just to mention two safer etymologies, relating to strings: > "Minikin" is now believed to mean from Munich. This is not just > because Mace mentions Minikin alongside Venice and Pistoy, and that > "minikin" vaguely resembles Munchen. There are two other almost > identical forms in English but of completely diferent orin, one from > Latin Mini+kin, and one from Dutch. This is the more interesting : > mini·kin noun, 1. Obsolete a darling, 2. Rare anything very small > and delicate Etymology: MDu minneken, dim. of minne, love: see > minnesinger > > Of course, one could easily suppose a minikin string meant "something > small and delicate" and so from the Dutch origin. > However, fortunately, Dowland's use of the from "monikin" , allows us > to see how this form could have been derived from "monachen" (the > origin of Munchen, meaning monastery, and related to the word > monachus, "monk"). It is due to the "o" vowel that the analysis is > fairly safe. > Note that we do have an old process in English of umlaut: monastery, > is the origin of Minster. > > However, it may be that the two words "sort of merged" and that by > the time of Mace the string could have been from Munchen, but also > "small and delicate". Yet Mace himself says this was not so. They are > so strong they cut into your hand, so we can be fairly sure of the > munchen origin. > > Nevertheless, we should beware even here about taking the etymology > too literally. The origin is form Munich, but does that mean the > string was actually from Munich. It could be that all samll strings > were called Munichs, just as at one time all vacuum cleaners were > called hoovers. > Just notice what Americans call a robbin. The origin is clearly the > word we find in UK English: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Turdus-migratorius-002.jpg > > So we must not read too much even into a "safe etymology". > > While talking about strings and rope, for a layman deriving English > "Hemp" and French "chanvre" from a Greek form for Cannabis, must seem > much more exotic than the caterpilar-gut hypothesis, but not so for a > linguist. This is considered a very safe etymology, just because of > the number of phonetic processes involved, all backed up by similar > changes in other words: For the English, Kanabis > hemp, we see the > regular "First Germanic consonant shift" : kanabis > hanapis (just > like Kardia > heart), hanapis > henep through Anglo-saxo i/j-umlaut > (just like manniz gives men), henep: giving "henep", and unstressed > vowel dropping gives "hemp" (just like OE emmet gave ant). French in > the south of France we have the older form Canebière which gives > central French "Chanvre " by regular palatalization of K before /a/ > (just as in chateau, etc.) > > An excellent text book relating to this, is Historical Linguistics > and Language Change by Roger Lass, CUP. > > Regards > Anthony > > > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
