Some time ago we had the question of the origin of the words
fromage (Fr.) and
formaggio (It.).
I stumbled across this dictionary
http://www.geocities.com/etymonline/ which gives us the Midlle Latin
formaticum in its entry for cheese.
Maitre corbeau sur un arbre perché
Tenait en son bec un fromage......
Etymology: the word cheese derives from the Latin "caseus", meaning a wicker basket in which the cheese was left to drain. The Greek equivalent, "formos", has given us Fromage, the French word for cheese.
http://www.france.net.nz/gastronomy/food/cheese.htm
Dites "fromage"
hehehe... I just now got it.
Did you get your picture taken?
Dites "fromage"
hehehe... I just now got it.
D'Oh! Me too.
I thought notre RdPdT was making an arcane joke, comparing formaticum/fromage to shibboleth/sibboleth - I guess my mind's just too highly trained.
thanks Douglas
I saw that same formos one, wondered why they used an f and discounted it for some other reason. I'll look formos (or phormos) up in my Greek dictionary when I get home. No reason the Latin couldn't have come from the Greek but words of that sort didn't normally change gender in the process. The geocities site traces cheese back through Latin to I.E. base *kwat- "to ferment, become sour." AHD doesn't list kwat- in its list of IE roots.
I guess my mind's just too highly trained. thanks Douglas
Lonely at the "top," ain't it... (hey, how'd you get your letters to go small without HTML? Did you intentionally not close a mark-up tag?)
The letters all look the same size to me.
My B&M AHD has kwath- as a root with the meaning to ferment, be sour, but has only kvass in its list of modern descendants.
It sounds so strange to me, all these explainations.
Since I feel the strong relationship between formaggio and forma ( shape, or even the tool to give something a given shape). I mean, the formaggio takes its "forma" from the cointainer it is in.
Also, we say "una forma di parmigiano" = the round (flat cilindrical) piece of parmesan cheese.
It sounds so strange
We're so used to the connection between Latin caseus and cheese in so many languages. Just in Romance languages it's queso in Spanish and queijo in Portuguese. We're, I think, mostly used to the French fromage, which has suffered the brutal mutilation of metathesis ripping it untimely from its mother's roots. When we discovered that it was formaggio in Italian, some of us went into a tizzy. This after just recently getting that lovely family tree of Romance languages that show Italian and French to be not that closely related (as Romance languages go).
Of course now some of us (read; me) are now in a frightful tizzy wondering why Latin borrowed a word from Greek AND CHANGED ITS GENDER!.
POST RESEARCH EDIT
AHD shows Latin forma possibly from Greek morphe via Etruscan. My Greek dictionary shows Greek phormos means anything plaited of wicker or reeds, hence a wicker basket, e.g., for carrying corn.
We have just learned what the modern Greek for cheese is: turi (u = y). It normally takes the article: "to turi." Plural is "ta turia." I'd write it in Greek if I could, but I can't here, so I won't.
And sjm, your font is smaller in Netscape but regulation-size via other browsers. Go figger.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
turophile
SYLLABICATION:
tur·o·phile
PRONUNCIATION:
tr-f, tyr-
NOUN:
A lover of cheese.
ETYMOLOGY:
Greek tros, cheese; see teu- in Appendix I + –phile.
As I suspected, a missing ypsilon in the transform to the ASCII world.
Quite a family we got here looking at the root:
http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE531.html
µ
And thanks, Dr. Bill, for the look-up.
µ
It's a very small Greek cow.
Remember a long time ago, talking about Welsh Rabbit, that some people have nightmares,etc.
from it. Some people associated it with migraine. Tyrosine, tyramine,etc. etc.
tyrosine
5Gr tyros, cheese (see BUTTER) + 3INE36
n.
a white, crystalline nonessential amino acid, C6H4OHCH2CH(NH2)COOH, formed by the decomposition of proteins, as in the putrefaction of cheese: see AMINO ACID
It's a very small Greek cow.
This from a sheep guy.
Tyramine Foods
Tyramine is a chemical (monoamine) that occurs
naturally in many foods, but particularly in foods and
beverages that have undergone bacterial
decomposition, such as aged cheddar, blue
cheese, and certain red wines. Not everyone who
gets migraines is necessarily sensitive to tyramine.
Rather than simply eliminating all tyramine foods at
once, experiment to see if certain foods are more
problematic than others.
In reply to:
the modern Greek for cheese is: turi (u = y). It normally takes the article: "to turi." Plural is "ta turia."
While the ancient Greek was turos, and was masculine. For other cheese words (mainly compounds of turos) see this list from the reverse look up in the Perseus edition of Liddell and Scott:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?T26124572
Bingley
Dear Bingley: Is the moon made out of chlôrotura ?
No, but is often sung about with coloratura.
Bingley