Family history via the medium of etymology

[kaberett]

From my mum, just now:

Grausi used to call gooseberries 'ogrosln'. I'm working on a Slavic etymological dictionary at the moent and on the very first page I've spotted something interesting 'Stachelbeere' leapt out at me and then I looked at the Slavic words agrestu etc.:
It gives: medieval latin 'agresta', modern German Austrian 'agras' (this in 1886), Hungarian egres, Slovenian agres. FUN!

Now back to finding out whether this publication ever had such a thing as
a title page or preface/list of abbreviations. This copy doesn't!

("Grausi" is my maternal great-grandmother.)

Comments

[quirkytizzy]

It sounds like the quest for knowledge is a genetic and wonderful thing your mother was a part of for you. This is neat!

[kaberett]

It's turned into a lengthy discussion on FB including my aunt about various other bits and pieces of our shared dialect... :-) Entertainingly, I seriously only today realised that our word for redcurrent ("Ribisel" - Germans call them "Rote Johannisbeeren") is derived directly from the Latin genus name for those plants (Ribe + diminutive "-el"...)

For some more on my relationship with my mum see this post of snippets about people who are important to me and this about languages.

[birke]

This is great! I love surprise etymological discoveries.

[kaberett]

yesss we are very please :-)

[fyreharper]

:wordsyay squeeflail: