Whence these words?

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janKipo
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Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Whence these words?

Post by janKipo »

While they don't really make any difference in tp itself (though occasionally one does suggest some usage), the etymologies of the tp words is interesting to know. Some of the old list and notes which said more about this seem to have disappeared from the various websites, but there were always gaps. Here are the places where I have no information or inadequate amounts. I would appreciate any help you can give.

Words with no etymon I could find
lawa
pana
sinpin (said to be Cantonese)
tan

Old words
*iki
*kan
*kapa
*kapesi
*leko
*pasi
*pata
*po (presumably Eng “four”)
*powe
*tuli (prob from Eng “three”)

New words
?alasa (suggested Fr a la chasse)
?apeja
?esun
?kipisi
?monsuto
?namako
?pake
?pu
Have I missed any?

Words with etymons I can't confirm, especially Cantonese, Tok Pisin. Acadian French
ike (can't confirm)
insa (TP)
jan (Cantonese)
ko (Cantonese)
kon (Cantonese)
len (can't check peculiarities of Acadian)
lete (acadian)
lili (Tok Pisin)
lili (Tok Pisin)
lon (Tok Pisin)
lukin (TP)
meli (TP)
moku (can't confirm)
nasa (TP)
nena (can't confirm)
ni (Cantonese)
open (tp)
pi (tp)
pilin (tp)
pipi (Acadian)
sewi (can't confirm)
sona (can't confirm)

Words with odd eytymologies
la
li
unpa (said to be a priori or sound symbolism, but looks like “hump”)
janPilipe
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Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 12:19 pm

Re: Whence these words?

Post by janPilipe »

My two pence :

tan - Dutch 'dan' same as 'then' in English
ike - as in 'eek a mouse'
len - is French for sure : 'laine' means 'wool', can also signify 'any warm cloth' - 'une petite laine'
janPelanPoniju
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Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2016 10:04 am

Re: Whence these words?

Post by janPelanPoniju »

'monsuto' is just a Tokiponised form of 'monster' with the place of the vowels re-arranged.

'pu' is obviously from 'book'.

'loje' is from Flemish dialect for red btw ('rooie'), not standard Dutch.
janKipo
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Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: Whence these words?

Post by janKipo »

Some of these gaps have been filled, other remain;
'monsuta' has gone through Japanese on its way to tp, so that may account for some oddities.
'pu' was a tp word looking for a definition for a long time and finally settled on the present one in pu. I doubt that it is from "book", although that is a good retrodefinition (it was suggested as a sort of punctuation, as a way to make restrictive relative clauses, as a noun for selected text passages, and finally as the current verb.)
Thanks for the dialect info (I only knew it from Afrikaans as in 'rooibos', an herbal tea.
'tan seems likely, 'ike' less so, 'len' almost certainly right.
'kan' is pretty surely from "con" in Spn or Ital (Latin "cum")
'leko' is at least retro from Lego(tm)
'pata' is likely from "brother"
'pake seems to be from "block" (stop, prevent)
'esun' has some Akan root
uteose
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Joined: Thu Apr 21, 2016 4:47 am

Re: Whence these words?

Post by uteose »

I would guess that 'ike' comes form the (British?) English 'icky': ike I believe comes from the English icky - which is used in a similar way to yucky (from which I believe yaki is derived).
janKipo
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Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: Whence these words?

Post by janKipo »

'ike' is saisd to be from Finnish 'ilkea"' "malicious" which checks out. I suspect the English helped in the choice.
jan Pilo
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Location: Polska

Re: Whence these words?

Post by jan Pilo »

lawa
Slavic, eg. Czech "hlava" head

I'm not sure about actual etymology, but
sona
is easy to remember "Io so" Italian "I know"
tan
probably independent of Polish "stąd" "from here", but it helps.
Piotr M.
jan Pilo
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Location: Polska

Re: Whence these words?

Post by jan Pilo »

len
"len" is Polish for "linen" - it was the oldest non -animal material for clothes in Europe, I suppose.
Sonja took a lot from Croatian. After tokiponization "luka, noka, oko, ona" could have any Slavic source, though.
Piotr M.
janKipo
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Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: Whence these words?

Post by janKipo »

Officially 'lenl is from Acadian French 'linge' which I suppose also means linen and so probably goes back to a Latin root that took hold throughout Western Europe. Many people have commented on how tp ization tends to give pandSlavic forms for Slavic borrowings. I'll take their word for it.
jan Pilo
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Joined: Thu Apr 21, 2016 9:59 am
Location: Polska

Re: Whence these words?

Post by jan Pilo »

However "oko" and "ona" wouldn't need any tp-ization, if they were taken from eg. Polish (exacly the same spelling and pronunciation - eye and she)
Probably your interlocutors spoke Slavic languages other than Croatian (which was the official source for Sonja). I raised that point from the same reason: I don't know any Croatian. They make maybe a few percent of the whole Slavic population, while roots of words are often the same.
Piotr M.
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