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E 0105 BOOR
The word " boor " is of
Germanic origin .
H 0293 ר ו ב
Concept of root :
uncultivated
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Hebrew word
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pronunciation
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English meanings
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ר ו ב
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bur
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uncultivated
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Related English words
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boor
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Comparison between European words and
Hebrew
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Languages
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Words
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Pronunciation
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English meanings
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Similarity in roots
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Hebrew
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ר ו ב
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bur
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ignorant, uncultivated
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b u r
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English
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boor
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farmer, unrefined person
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b o r
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Dutch
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boer
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bur
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farmer, unrefined person
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b u r
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Proto-Semitic *BUR --- *BŪR Proto-Germanic
The combination of more meanings, showing little respect of people from town for those who cure the fields, is striking as a similarity.
Note:
- Hebrew calls an uncultivated terrain "sadé bur".
Note:
- Proto-Semitic. There is not much information to allow a hypothesis. Aramaic has a root " B R Y " and Arabic has "B W R" ( improbably a loan from Aramaic ) and a root similar to Hebrew may have been used in Proto-Semitic : "*ב ו ר , B W R".
Note:
- English may have loaned this word from Middle Dutch. Thus the real similarity is between Hebrew and Dutch, that as Germanic language in general has best conserved its old roots.
Note:
- Italian uses a diminutive , "burino" to indicate the same two meanings as Dutch "boer". The word seems to be rather new, perhaps in was first used in Rome in the 19th century. But nobody has an idea about its etymology. Loaning from English or Dutch would be surprising.
Note:
- Dutch "boer" is a well-known word , besides probably having given English the word "boor". The Boer Wars, the one of 1880-1881 that was dramatically lost by the British , and the one twenty years later, fought for gold and diamonds with mid-20th century arguments and as a total war against the civilian people, have their name from the Boers, descendants of Dutch farmers that lived in southern Africa. Their ancestors, very poor and very religious, had come from the poorest grounds of Holland to what they gave the name of Kaap De Goede Hoop, Cape of Good Hope.
Note:
- Proto-Germanic. There is not much agreement on the origin of the Germanic words of this entry. It seems useful to have a look at Middle Dutch, that has words with the common prefix "ghe-" : "geboer, gheboer = farmer" and "gebuur, ghebuur= neighbour". In modern languages the prefix is no more used for "boer = farmer" and rarily for "buur = neighbour". Middle Dutch also used "boerman = farmer" and "buur, buurman = inhabitant, neighbour", that in modern language maintain only the meaning "neighbour".
The semantic origin of these words is that of "to dwell, live in a place, inhabit a place". In North Germanic languages , for example in Norwegian, we still have the brief verb "bo = to dwell", "bosted = dwelling,home". This verb is "bō" in Old Danish and Old Swedish and "búa" in Old Norse, but "būan; in Old Saxon, Old English and Old High German, languages that used the suffix with "N" to express the infinitive. Typically in Dutch the two versions were used for a differentiation in meaning, between that of "farmer" and that of "neighbour".
The original meaning of "to dwell" has disappeared from German and Dutch, just as from English. But one of the most common and natural things one does on the place where one settles and then dwells, is "building" practice agriculture. This has led to see as one and the same with this old verb, or as developed out of it, the verbs "bauen" in German and "bouwen" in Dutch, that both mean "to build" and are with a message of agriculture in the nouns German "Bauer = farmer" and Dutch "landbouwer = farmer". This seems complicated, but Old Norse shows us the way, as it had different versions : "bú = home" and "búa = to live, have one's home" , compared with "byggva = to build". But in practice this good distinction was lost when "byggva" or "byggja" also came to be extended to the use of the building after its completion: "to live in, stayin, populate, settle". This was abolished in modern language, restoring a proper distinction.
The final "R" in "boer" and "buur" is a suffix, comparable to the English suffix "-R" in "dweller". This same suffix is seen in English "neighbour" that goes back to Old English "neahgebūr" . This was certainly already used in Proto-Germanic that thus had "*(GHE) B Ū R" and probably also a newer "*(GHE) B Ō R", both with the prefix that later nearly fully disappeared. Remains uncertain when the earlier forms without that prefix have existed.
Note:
- Indo-European. The best attempts perhaps are those to link the Germanic words for "to have home in" with the root seen in English "to be". Regretfully they are not convincing and we have to limit ourselves to the comparison between Semitic and Germanic, as in so many cases.
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| Created: Tuesday 6 November 2007 at 22.30.54 Updated: 10/10/2012 at 17.50.41 |
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