Re: [lojban] Re: bakyjba

[John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>]

klaus schmirler scripsit:

> I'm sitting and reading where my son is sleeping, so I can't 
> look anything up. But in German, there is Kronsbeere, which 
> I always took to be an equivalent to cranberry (the plants 
> are probably similar but different, growing in different 
> continents). Krone = crown, so the crane would most likely 
> be a cranium, if that makes things clearer (laurel?).

Right you are.  Kronsbeere = Preiselbeere = _Vaccinium oxycoccus_,
which does grow in North America and is called "cranberry" in English,
although the N.A. commercial species is _V. macrocarpon_.  But all
sources agree that "cranberry" < PlattD or Du. _kranbeere_ 'crane-berry'
(various spellings given).

> No idea what the bil- in bilberry could be. But I doubt the 
> connection to blueberry, since that one is named for the 
> color in German, too: Blaubeere, unless you prefer to say 
> Schwarzbeere or Heidelbeere (blackberry, and probably 
> heath-berry with a gratuitious l - I'm just guessing).

Blueberries and blackberries are different.  The blueberry is definitely
a N.A.-only species (_V. atrococcum), so its German name is probably
a calque.  Blackberries are genus _Rubus_.  The bil- in bilberry is
thought to be < ON, but I suspect this is grasping at straws.

-- 
John Cowan  jcowan@reutershealth.com  http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Does anybody want any flotsam? / I've gotsam.
Does anybody want any jetsam? / I can getsam.
        --Ogden Nash, _No Doctors Today, Thank You_