Ad
related to: folklore etymology word
Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The term folk etymology is a loan translation from German Volksetymologie, coined by Ernst Förstemann in 1852. [6] Folk etymology is a productive process in historical linguistics, language change, and social interaction. [7] Reanalysis of a word's history or original form can affect its spelling, pronunciation, or meaning.
Folklore lets people escape from repressions imposed upon them by society. Folklore validates culture, justifying its rituals and institutions to those who perform and observe them. Folklore is a pedagogic device which reinforces morals and values and builds wit. Folklore is a means of applying social pressure and exercising social control.
Lindow states that the etymology of the word "troll" remains uncertain, though he defines trolls in later Swedish folklore as "nature beings" and as "all-purpose otherworldly being[s], equivalent, for example, to fairies in Anglo-Celtic traditions". They "therefore appear in various migratory legends where collective nature-beings are called for".
Schmidt, Gerard, and Wlislocki, all three sometime residents of Transylvania, identified the word as Romanian, and even proponents of the "nosophoros" etymology (as well as most other commentators) seem to have little doubt that this is correct; Wlislocki particularly was regarded as an expert in Transylvanian languages and folklore and was a ...
The word mare comes (through Middle English mare) from the Old English feminine noun mære (which had numerous variant forms, including mare, mere, and mær). [2] Likewise are the forms in Old Norse/Icelandic mara [3] as well as the Old High German mara [5] (glossed in Latin as "incuba " [6]), [7] while the Middle High German forms are mar, mare, [8] [10]
Linguist Anatoly Liberman connects the Germanic word with Modern English dizzy, suggesting a link between the etymology and their role in inflicting mental diseases on humans, similar to some other supernatural beings in Germanic folklore such as elves. [4] Before the Proto-Germanic stage, the origin of the word dwarf is highly debated. [3]
These are cases where speakers deduce an incorrect word origin. Another folk etymology is the assumption that the New York place name Fishkill (on Fishkill Creek) means a place to kill fish. In reality, -kill is from a Dutch word meaning "creek" (found also in river names such as Schuylkill, Pennsylvania and Wallkill, New Jersey).
Folk etymology derives the word from Old East Slavic language (chuzhoi, 'foreign'; or chudnoi 'odd'; or chud 'weird'), or alternatively from chudnyi, wonderful, miraculous, excellent, attractive. Chuds or Tchuds are traditional generic villains in some Sami legends [ citation needed ] , as well as in the Sami-language movie Pathfinder from 1987 ...