Klarinet Archive - Posting 000238.txt from 2005/09

From: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] Pinky again
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 06:06:54 -0400

So what's the consensus view on this? Was "penki" borrowed into Yiddish?
Roger S.

In message <410-22005932118334137@-----.org writes:
>
> >My wife, who is beginning a conversation
> >course in Lithuanian, started by memorising
> >the numbers. So as an exercise, I asked her
> >to tell me what our telephone number was in
> >Lithuanian, and thereby learned that the
> >Lithuanian for 5 is 'penki'. (Fits with the 'penta-'
> >prefix, a connection that didn't get made when
> >we discussed it.)
>
> Well, I'll be dipped. The things one can learn on this list! Never
> occurred to me that we say "pinkie" for a genuine *reason* that *makes
> sense*.
> :-)
>
> Should have occurred to me, too, since I live near the Pentagon; although,
> in the Romance languages (at least in Spanish, Italian and French), the
> words for "fifth" don't follow the "penta" model, and instead derive from
> "quinta" in Latin. In Germanic languages, as in English, the words for
> "fifth" come from "fünf" (hope Earthlink doesn't mutilate the second
> letter, which should be u with umlaut).
>
> Not all of the Slavic languages follow the Lithuanian, which is probably
> just as well, since in Czech, "fifth" is "páty" (if EarthLink mutilates the
> ASCII text, the second letter should come out as an "a" with an acute
> accent and the fourth letter as a "y" with acute accent). It's pronounced
> just similarly enough to a familiar word in English that I'm sure grade
> school kids would never be able to resist saying "potty-finger," with all
> of its most unfortunate associations, if our word for the fifth finger had
> come from Czech....
>
> Thanks for the information, Tony.
>
>
> Lelia Loban
>
>
>
>
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