All rabbits are baby rabbits.
English and French both lost their early words for ‘rabbit’ because they sounded rude, and replaced them with words for ‘baby rabbit’.
The source of the problem, in both cases, was the Old French word coniz, which became French connin and also, thanks to the Norman invasion, English coney.1
Now coney (or cony) is usually pronounced to rhyme with ‘ ( Read more... )
Comments 18
Reply
Reply
I notice Anatoly Liberman examined the possible etymologies of rabbit in his Analytic Dictionary but Google Books breaks off before the discussion reaches any conclusion . . .
It is a bit peculiar that there does not seem to be a Germanic word, insofar as the Romans did bring them into Britain AFAIK, and the Teutonic Knights subsequently spread them throughout the German and Slav lands. But from Liberman's discussion, maybe it's been there all along in Walloon robett and French rabouillère; maybe the OED was right that it started out as a Flemish word.
After my first foray into Google Books I found to my embarrassment that I had the 1969 reprint of EETS O.S. 160, The Old English Version of the Heptateuch, sitting in my bookshelf. Unfortunately they abbreviated the verses of Leviticus and skipped XI.5 altogether. I have one work on the glosses but not the edition that Google Books shows only glimpses from. I mucked around with Bosworth-Toller on- and offline and didn't find it in either; but I am not ( ... )
Reply
1. Drihten spræc to Moyse & to Aarone:
2. Secgað Israhela bearnum,
3. Ðæt hi eton þa nytenu ðe heora clawa todælede beoð & ceowað.
4. Ne ete ge þa ðinge ðe ceowað & clawa ne todælað, swa olfend.
5. Hara (7) & swyn (8) synd forbodene to æthrinene.
9. Ne ete ge nanne fisc, duton ða þe habbað finnas & scylla.
12. Ða oþre synd unclæne.
13. Ne ete ge nan ðinge hafoccynnes ne earncynnes,
15-17. Ne ulan, ne nan þinge hrefncynnes.
. . . which is beautifully simple and visibly limited to what occurs in England, except for that bemused elephant/camel reference :-)
M
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment