[split] Discussion of f116v interpretations by Anton Alipov

[Anton]

.I see your point about the spoken/written distinction. In Middle High German, however, words were written exactly as you spoke them. If your dialect says "gas" instead of "Geis" or "Pock" instead of "Bock", then you write those forms. If your dialect says "mich" then you write "mich".

OK, that's important. But anyway written examples would be confirmative, without them "mi(l)ch" is just a working hypothesis.

In the meantime I reviewed the "gasmich" in the light of the suggestion (which I share) that there is no space, as well as your and Helmut's approach to look for a single fitting word. Indeed, a single fitting word would be better than assuming the non-existing space.

And I think I have breaking news!  

Let me first explain how I came to the "so nim gas mich" interpretation described in my "To Crack the Spell" blog post.

Actually, being in a certain degree familiar with the German language (although I am not able to speak or write coherently), when I first considered the last line of f116v, I immediately recognized "mich" as the word form of "ich" (just because this word "mich" is so common). The  faded ascender of "m" is not clearly seen at the first glance - I noted it only later, so the first interpretation was "gas_mich", with "mich" = "me". "So nim" with "me" formed a nice combination meaning "so take me", so what was left was to discover the meaning of "gas", which I found in Lexer. After that I noted the ascender of "m", was thus forced to acknowledge that there is actually no space between "s" and "m", and added appropriate notes (and even some recommedations therefrom) to my paper.

Of course, I considered the possibility that "gasmich" might be a single word. But "gasmich" was not found in dictionaries.

Now, the idea that "gasmich" might be a composite word was raised in this thread. Dolokhov pointed that "gas" is a variant of "Gans" (goose). And indeed, the extensive article for "Gans" in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. expressly states that. Interestingly, (if I understood the article correctly), "geis" is yet another Swiss variant of "Gans".

Next, Helmut pointed that "gas" = "geis" = "female goat". You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. has an entry for Geiss (or Geis), describing it as a "Hausziege" (domestic goat). It's a bit amuzing that in some dialects "geis" is a goose, in others it's a goat.

So "gas" can be "goose", or it can be a domestic goat. My vote is for goose: first, because this seems to be a more widespread option, second because we already have "pox" in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (no matter if it relates to goat or to God, it ultimately comes from the goat), so why use "gas" to designate a goat instead of "pox" (unless one wants to get some milk from it, of course)? But let's not touch the choice between the two. For now, it's sufficient to understand that "gas" is a domestic animal.

What is "mich" though? In the context of "gasmich" it could only be some attribute of "gas". Let's overcome the distractor of "mich" as the word form of "ich" and look (with the help of woerterbuchnetz.de) what are the possible meanings of "mich".

 DISCLAIMER:
The below part of the post contains obscene language as a necessary instrument of research. Please stop reading if you have reasonable expectations that you may be insulted by that language.


Beside the accusative of "ich", which is quite common for all dialects, "Mich" is found in the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as a variant of "Misch". In turn, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (beside the human name) is a synonym for "Aasch", while "Aasch" You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. "Arsch" which in German means (I beg your pardon) "ass". Interestingly, the article for "Aasch" says that "Misch" is the child's language variant of "Aasch".

So "gasmich" in the regions somewhere in Luxembourg would ultimately mean "goose's ass" (or "goat's ass"), and the whole expression: "So take goose's ass" or "so take goat's ass".

If we search for other possible meanings of "Misch", we will stumble upon something like "mix" - which, I guess, is the meaning "Misch" takes in modern German (Mischbrot, Mischerei, Mischer etc.). Although, that is not in the specifically Luxembourgish context (not found in the dictionary). If one knows some special meaning of "goose mix" or "goat mix", that would be very interesting to consider.

Meanwhile let's return to the Arsch. Why would one wish to take goose's (or goat's) Arsch, especially in the consequence of what is written before that in Line 3 (the "so" must be there for a reason!). I supposed that that was used not in the direct meaning, but as an idiom - much like the "pox leber" was likely used. Therefore I googled in order to discover whether "Gans" and "Arsch" tend to be used in a common context. Not many results. First, I found what seems to be a proverb: "Einer fetten Gans muss nicht der Arsch geschmiert werden". Second, Google returned me to woerterbuchnetz.de, this time to the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. As far as I understand the highly abbreviated system of writing of German dictionaries, this article provides some examples of contexts in which "Gans Arsch" is used. Like:

Der waggelt met der Maul wie en Gans-arsch

I can't interpret the meaning, but I guess this is some folk-lore by-word.

I then repeated the Google search for "goat's ass", using "Geiss" for goat, but found nothing interesting.

Now, if we consider the vulgar "pox leber" in Line 0, it would not be surprising to meet with another vulgar expression in the same folio. This would lead to the dissolution of my "spell block" hypothesis though. Lines 1 and 2 would now appear totally unrelated to Line 3.

Why goose's ass, after all? The last page of manuscripts was often used to dedications. Maybe Line 3 is some sort of those - addressed, for example, to certain foes. Its first part (partly enciphered and still not understood) formulates a certain circumstance, and "so take goose's ass" is a "kind request" related to that circumstance. For a purely formal example: "I have enciphered this book well, so you may drop attempts to read it". In Russian, when we wish to say that a person will get nothing, we can express it in the way that he will get "dead donkey's ears". Maybe "to take goose's ass" is of the same rank?

Could our German users recall if goose's (and goat's) asses take any part in the German language and folk-lore?

One argument against the ass is that "Misch" for "ass" is Northern, while, as I understand, "gas" for "goose" is Southern?!