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Can we make isoglosses?
- Can we make isoglosses?
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RE: Can we make isoglosses?
Helmut Winkler > 09-05-2023, 07:30 PM
(09-05-2023, 07:16 PM)Helmut Winkler Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I am not sure if I understtand the problem, gaismich goose seems to be the term for a very young goose fed on milk, like milk lamb is the term for a very young lamb fed on milk only.The Anmerkung about gansjung, the dis is reracted. The Herzogenburg UB shows a better explanation, it is the editors choice.
and see #86 and #88 -
RE: Can we make isoglosses?
Anton > 09-05-2023, 09:39 PM
I'm afraid the idea of a "milk goose" does not hold from the practical point of view. Milk piglet or milk calf are called that because they are so young that they still feed on their mother's milk. Their meat is delicious and practically valuable, so a specific term was derived in practice to designate that kind of product.
A goose cannot feed on its mother's milk for apparent reasons. Hence any mechanical transfer of "milk something" (in the sense above specified) on a goose would be impossible in language. One would hardly succeed in locating such construct as "milk goose" in German language, let alone "goat milk goose". Even "goat milk calf" would be problematic - again, for reasons apparent.
One may argue that it might have been peasant who gave milk to geese. Why not, if he was a successful one and had no better application for his goat milk (with its comparatively low production volume). However, where is "goat milk goose" in the language of history of agriculture? There is none.
A "very young goose"? What's that? A gosling? Who would accept goslings for yearly tax? Except for breeding, may be. But that could rather serve as render for one's landlord, not as tax to the state. -
RE: Can we make isoglosses?
Aga Tentakulus > 09-05-2023, 10:26 PM
This person also writes the "z" to the "t", unlike other writers.
And the "g" also looks quite different.
Do I have to distinguish between handwriting and book writing (Schönschrift). -
RE: Can we make isoglosses?
Anton > 09-05-2023, 11:56 PM
(09-05-2023, 03:35 PM)Bernd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But geese for the clergy seems a bit of a stretch as is a mistranslation of "tl" to "m".
Why would geese for the clergy be a stretch? Also might be some kind of jargon, e.g. if a certain day in the year when the tax was due was somehow associated with church, then the respective tax might have been called "clerical".
About mistranslation, if you search for "geismich" on Google Books you will find several mis-recognitions of "geistlich". That's of course the OCR fault and is thus something different, but anyway. -
RE: Can we make isoglosses?
Bernd > 10-05-2023, 09:58 AM
Geese for the clergy makes no sense in this case as all the dues and taxes mentioned in the Urkundenbuch had to be paid to the monastery of Herzogenburg who owned the land anyway. It all went to the clergy. Also in this construction it would mean clergy/clerical geese which whould probably be an insult. And if it was misspelled it would not have mentioned as positive example in the St. Pölten corrigenum. The 19th century editor of this book must have understood the meaning of "gaismich".
However a problem for gaismich -> goat milk is the absence of mich -> Milch especially in Austria. It's very un-Austrobavarian. Also why mention the fact that geese were fed with milk in a legal document? Do they taste better or does this represent a certain growth stage in peasant jargon? It also raises the question what a "Gaisiung gans" is. A goose fed with young goats? Surely not.
Another fun fact. "Gänsemilch" (goose milk) is a joke word for nonsense like rooster eggs and was common in the 15th century.
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But I doubt that made its way into a legal document. I still think "gaismich" is a correct term but it probably has nothing to do with goats or milk. -
RE: Can we make isoglosses?
Bernd > 10-05-2023, 10:12 AM
It would be interesting to have a look at this Austrian cooking book from the early 15th century made by the Dorotheerkloster in Vienna which is in the Österreichische Nationlbibliothek.
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It appears to be largely identical to the recipe collection of the Berliner Codex mgq 1187 but with spelling variations and there's an excellent thesis about it here:
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Milk is written as 'milich' in the Berliner Codex and 'milch' in the Dorotheer Kochbuch, I found nothing about goats. There are also a lot of 'so nim' phrases in these cooking books.
Also this:
M I 128: Medizinische-naturwissenschaftliche Sammelhandschrift, early 15th century, Universitätsbibliothek Salzburg
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Milk is both spelled "milch" and "milich" but never without "L".
Here is a medicinal recipe containing goat milk spelled "gais milch" split over 2 lines.
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RE: Can we make isoglosses?
Helmut Winkler > 10-05-2023, 10:13 AM
The St. Pölen gaisjung is an emendation corrected by the Herzogenburg entry -
RE: Can we make isoglosses?
Bernd > 10-05-2023, 10:53 AM
I'm afraid I still don't understand.
There are two emendations in the St. Pölten Urkundenbuch p.500 regarding "gensjunge gans": (a) and (1). In the corrigenum the emedation (1), the interpretation, is declared obsolete. This does not affect emendation (a) "Gaisiunge, Gaisinnge".
As stated in (1) there clearly is a capitalized word there that reads "Gaisiunge" or "Gaisinnge". However after finding "gaismich" in the slightly older book about Herzogenburg written by M. Faigl, the interpretation as "gensjunge gans" with the nonsensical translation as goose giblets was rejected. We are not told what the alternative explanation is but it appears it should be easy to derive from "gaismich". Well, not to us. But it appears "gais-" is correct and "gens-" is not. Again, we'd have to look at the original documents for clarification - if they still exist.
Or is my interpretation fundamentally wrong? -
RE: Can we make isoglosses?
Aga Tentakulus > 10-05-2023, 11:43 AM
I could still imagine with the "gansjung Gans",
the same meaning as with us " chuechalb" Kuhkalb, cow calf = female and not male.
So would be goose and drake. Gans und Ganter, Erpel. -
RE: Can we make isoglosses?
Koen G > 10-05-2023, 12:48 PM
I think you are right, Bernd. This is how I see the chronology:
1) Form the charter book of Herzogenburg; a list of goods to be paid is transcribed as such:
"...und zehen herbst hvor vnd sechs vaschang huenr vnd vier gaismich Gens."
"...and seven autumn chickens and six vaschang chickens and four gaismich Geese."
2) A slightly later book from the same series transcribes documents from the nearby St. Pölten. This includes a similar list to be paid:
"zwai herbsthuner und ain gensjunge gans"
"two autumn chickens and one gensjunge goose"
3) The authors place two remarks with the word gensjunge: A and 1.
Footnote A: "Gaisiunge, Gaisinnge; vgl. Anm. 1."
Footnote 1: "Gemeint ist das Junge, d. h. die Kleinteile, einer Gans. Ueber den Ausdruck
»Gansjunges, junge Gans« siehe Schmeller, » Buir. Wörterb.«, I., S. 1207; letzterer
dusdruck, allein gebraucht, hätte ein Missverständniss herbeiführen können, daher
wol der Pleonasmus. Denkbar wäre noch, dass man eine nicht ausgeweidete Gans
bezeichnen wollte, also Braten und Gänseklein. Eine dritte Möglichkeit endlich wäre
die, dass der Abschreiber in seiner Vorlage nur die Worte junge gans vor sich hatte
und, was ihm oft widerfahren ist, gans vorweg genommen hatte. Dagegen spricht
jedoch der Umstand, dass er nicht, wie sonst, tilgt, überhaupt auch nicht gans, son
dern gais schreibt, dieses mit iunge verbindet, also überhaupt Gaisiunge, und zwar,
was nicht unwichtig ist, mit grossen Anfangsbuchstaben schreibt, ein Beweis, dass
auch ihm das Wort auffallend, wo nicht fremd war."
Translation, modified from ChatGPT: "The meaning is the young, i.e. the small parts (??), of a goose. Regarding the expression "Gansjunges, junge Gans", see Schmeller, "Buir. Wörterb.", I., p. 1207; the latter expression, used alone, could have led to a misunderstanding, hence the pleonasm. Another possibility could be that they wanted to designate an ungutted goose, thus roast and giblets. A third possibility would be that the copyist only had the words "junge Gans" (young goose) in front of him and, as often happened to him, had already written "Gans" beforehand. However, this is contradicted by the fact that he does not delete, as usual, nor does he write "Gans", but "Gais" and combines it with "iunge", thus "Gaisiunge". Also, importantly, he writes it with capital letters, evidence that the word was striking, if not foreign to him."
4) A corrigendum to this second book refers to the attestation of "gaismich Gens" in the first book to declare the long footnote 1 above obsolete, but not footnote A.
Now, since "1" has become obsolete and "A" relies on "1", "A" also becomes obsolete. So if I understand correctly, what happened is that they transcribed "Gaisiunge gans" or "Gaisinnge gans" as "gensjunge gans". Then they saw "gaismich Gens" in the earlier book and decided that this made their correction obsolete.
What this tells me is that they now knew that the expression "gaissomething gens" made sense, so their correction to "gensjunge" was unnecessary. So for them "gaismich" clarifies the uncertain reading of their word "Gaisinnge" or "Gaisjunge". Is that correct so far?