Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 June 24

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June 24

Etymology of "bee"?

What is the etymology of the English language word "bee"? I find it strange that the English word is so short when the Finnish word is mehiläinen, roughly meaning "one associated with nectar". JIP | Talk 00:11, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

It's from antiquity.[1] --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:32, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

As Bugs' reference indicates, the English word has decended with only minor modification from the original Proto-Indo-European name, perhaps 6,000+ years old. Finnish is of course not a PIE language, but I suspect also that the current Finnish word is an example of cultural Euphemism (I'm sure there's a specific term used for this, not Antonomasia although it's a form of that), where the "real" name of something is considered to have magical properties, and uttering it may, for example, summon the thing named, so that an indirect description, a type of kenning, is substituted.

Another example of this is bear, whose original PIE name – something like arkto – is frequently substituted by expressions referring to its brown colour ("bear", "bruin") or fondness for honey ("beowulf", i.e. "bee-wolf" – and now we're back to bees). As you will know, JIP, Finnish also has several such circumlocutions to refer to the bear without using the original "sacred" Uralic name, which I don't know – is it Karhu (now used for a beer I rather like)?

I suspect that, as for the bear, the bee must have been culturally significant to early Uralic speakers, and the original word was probably a shorter one, substituted by mehiläinen as a euphemism. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.201.73.76 (talk) 09:34, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

The "proper term" for what you're describing, might be noa-name. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:08, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Also compare the other germanic languages: bi, bij, Biene, bý, Bei, bie. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:38, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

See also wikt:bee#Etymology_1 for the English, and wikt:mehiläinen#Etymology for the Finnish. Seems like the underlying proto-form was shorter -- consider Hungarian méh.  :) ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 10:47, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

So if that's right, the Proto-Uralic ancestors had a good short word for bee, mekše, which the Finns adapted to make a word for nectar, mehi, implying that nectar is bee-stuff. Then, needing a word for bee, they invented tarhamehiläinen, which parses as tarha mehi läinen, garden nectar inhabitant ... or "member of the garden nectar tribe".  Card Zero  (talk) 11:37, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

So then somewhere on their trek from the Ural to the west, the speakers of Proto-Finnic lost the word for "bee" and had to make up a new one. Did they encounter no Apis mellifera on the way? However, the Estonian cognate mesilane is formed analogously, and so I presume that Estonian mesi is cognate with Finnish mehi-, which Wiktionary states is from earlier *meši. But, according again to Wiktionary, mesi is from Proto-Finno-Ugric *mete (honey), probably borrowed from Proto-Indo-European *médʰu (honey, mead). The role of Proto-Uralic *mekše, if any, is not clear-cut.  --Lambiam 12:29, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

If "cultural euphemism" was involved, they wouldn't have lost the original word for "bee"; rather, they would have substituted the more indirect term (the noa-name, as Wakuran suggests) in everyday use, while still using the original in restricted, "sacred" contexts.

Such names are sometimes poorly attested in linguistic records because by definition they are only spoken at the "proper" times. Compare the now-uncertain original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, and the dearth of information about the Druidic religion because it was only taught orally and retained by memory, and forbidden to record the knowledge in writing. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.201.73.76 (talk) 01:28, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

90.201.73.76/87.81.230.195 -- The original pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was not lost due to refusing to write it down. Vowel points did not exist until after 500 A.D., so before that time, the only way of writing things down in Hebrew was with the consonantal letters of the Hebrew alphabet. A few of the consonant letters had a dual meaning, and could sometimes also be used as "matres lectionis", or very partial and limited vowel indicators. The Tetragrammaton was abundantly written down in the Hebrew writing system of the time, using four consonant letters ("YHWH"), where the second H was a mater lectionis. The pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was lost because the Romans burned down the Jerusalem temple and slaughtered many of the priests around A.D. 66, probably more than 500 years before vowel points existed for Hebrew... AnonMoos (talk) 22:15, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

• As a side note: While I think of a honeyeater in other contexts as a bird, the Russians came up with the word медвед (medved) for bear. It means "honey-eater". (Their word мёд (myod) is related to the "mel" seen above.) So there, Medved-ev, eat ... er, honey. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:09, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I recall that etymology. I believe -ev is just a patronymicon, with an obvious parallel in Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. Bjørnson wouldn't eat honey bars, but iambic bars, I guess... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 02:24, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

• As a side note to that side note, the character in The Hobbit who is named "Beorn" in the published story, and was said to be able to turn himself into a bear, was named "Medwed" in early drafts. John Rateliff in The History of the Hobbit explains this as a Slavic name. "Beorn" meant "warrior" or "hero" in Old English but was probably related to Old Norse "bjorn" meaning "bear". CodeTalker (talk) 16:56, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

As far as I have understood it, the beorn/ bjǫrn - connection is disputed. The phonetic shift matches, but not the semantic, with the Anglo-Saxon word only meaning "warrior/ hero" and the Norse word only meaning literally "bear". 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:58, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it is disputed, and what you say about the semantics is correct. But I think the analysis in the OED justifies saying "probably": "Phonetically, Old English beorn ‘man of valour’ answers exactly to Old Norse bjǫrn , genitive bjarnar , ‘bear’( < Germanic bernu-z , the Celtic representative of which Prof. Rhys sees in the Gaulish proper name Brennus ); but the Old Norse word has never the sense of ‘warrior,’ while the Old English has never that of ‘bear.’ To this, however, a striking analogy is offered by the case of Old English eofor , Old Norse jǫfurr ( < Germanic eƀuro-z = Latin aper ), which has in Old English only the sense of ‘wild boar,’ in Old Norse only that of ‘warrior, hero.’ The use of the name of a fierce animal as a figurative appellation for ‘warrior, brave,’ seems very natural, and the fact that Old English beorn belonged only to the language of poetry and is never found in prose, suggests that it was a word of which the literal sense was lost, and only a figurative one traditionally retained. Nevertheless some eminent Germanic scholars doubt the identification. Some have considered the word to be an early variant of bearn , bairn n., or at least a cognate derivative of beran to bear v.1 Mr. H. Bradley has suggested the possibility of connecting it with the British root of Beornice Bernicia, Welsh bryneich, and of Welsh brenhin king; but the nature of the connection is not apparent." CodeTalker (talk) 15:54, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Mauritshuis pronunciation in English

Can anyone help me figure out the IPA transcription for this word in English? ÷seresin 14:52, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

For reference, here's some people saying "Mauritshuis" while speaking English. Sounds like Maurice + house, but with a t inserted in the middle. /mɔˈɹitshaʊs/. (Could also change the first vowel to ɘ for the RP version, but then it sounds less like the Dutch, so I don't see the need.)  Card Zero  (talk) 15:38, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

See also the article Mauritshuis. 108.52.196.8 (talk) 15:46, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm guessing this question might be for that article, which currently lacks an English pronunciation.  Card Zero  (talk) 15:51, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

It's a Dutch word. Are you asking for the least bad way how a monolingual English speaker, incapable of making sounds not present in English, might mangle it? /ɦ/ can be replaced with /h/, as they are pretty close. /œy/ can be backed (and somewhat unrounded) to /aʊ/, which has the advantage of forming the word house, which is the translation of huis (it's a cognate). The closest to /ʌu/ is probably again /aʊ/, giving /ˈmaʊ.rɪts.haʊs/, with whatever version of /r/ is used in your variety of English. We multilingual people from the continent are usually expected to pronounce names of British museums with our best effort at English sounds, even if not present in our continental languages. PiusImpavidus (talk) 16:50, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Is changing (English IPA) /s/ to /ʃ/ an improvement? I mean /s/ is the voiceless alveolar fricative, and in English it's a hissing sound, but in Dutch it's the "retracted" variant. So English speakers hear /ʃ/ because it stands out as a difference.  Card Zero  (talk) 17:03, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Also note that our article says "English: Maurice House"... Alansplodge (talk) 19:09, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

That's a transliteration, isn't it? Maurits is the name Maurice (or Morris). Besides, if it's pronunciation, are we pronouncing it like Steve Miller would?  Card Zero  (talk) 19:22, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Dutch /s/ is somewhat different from English /s/, but also from English /ʃ/. I don't think it would be an improvement. Pronouncing it as /ˈmaʊ.rɪtʃ.haʊʃ/ will make people believe your native language is Yiddish. With /s/, people will think your native language is either German or English, depending on the /r/ you use. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:50, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

In Dutch it is /ˈmɑu̯rɪtsˌɦœy̯s/. In English it is whatever the speaker thinks it might be.  --Lambiam 23:17, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

• Why would it need an English pronunciation? It's not an English word. The pronunciation is already there, and that's all you need. Wiki does have a bizarre habit of emphasising English mispronunciations of foreign terms over the actual pronunciations. Fgf10 (talk) 09:24, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Hear, hear! PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:50, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Van Gogh has a footnote: Vincent_van_Gogh#cite_note-6. Pronouncing his name is a perennial question which is liable to come up in any conversation about him, and English speakers are prone to hypercorrection, sometimes resulting in /væn ɡɒɡ/, and mild anxiety about sounding silly (because we are silly), so the footnote is of use to readers. I don't know if that means it would likewise be useful to have a guide to saying Mauritshuis when you can't make half the sounds. I mean I think it would, but it would be OR, so we can't. The difference is that Van Gogh is famous enough to appear in English dictionaries, with pronunciation keys that we can cite. On the other hand we could ignore actual usage (which would be the OR) and just say what the closest equivalent sounds are, as you have above.  Card Zero  (talk) 15:05, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

There is the anecdote about the American who was visiting Paris and was astounded that no one could tell him the way to the famous /t͡ʃæmps.ɪˈlaɪsɪz/. When visiting The Hague, the better you approximate the Dutch pronunciation, the more likely it is the locals will get what you're trying to refer to. "The /ˈmɑʊ̯rɪtsˌhʌɪ̯s/", while not perfect, will probably do.  --Lambiam 21:19, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Anecdotally, Parisians tend to feign incomprehension of any accent other than their own; the locals are generally more helpful in other parts of France. But just about everybody speaks excellent English in the Netherlands, so I'm certain that "Maurice House" would be perfectly well understood and no offence would be taken. Anne Frank House similarly requires no attempt at Dutch orthography. Alansplodge (talk) 13:43, 26 June 2022 (UTC)