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Posts: 172 | Thanked: 353 times | Joined on Nov 2014
#21
Originally Posted by nthn View Post
Something like '*saima-' (nectar/honey) in Proto-Germanic, which became 'Seim' (syrup, apparently fallen into disuse in favour of 'Sirup', which is actually an Arabic loanword) in High German, or 'zeem' (honey) in West-Flemish.
Regarding 'sima' ~ 'seim':
According to this decade old library Q&A webpage (a butchered Google translation) there supposedly isn't a connection.

( I tried to tweak the translation of the relevant paragraph to a bit more sane direction, caveat lector: )
According to Häkkinen, in Finnish literary language "sima" was first mentioned in the proverbs of Henrik Florinus in 1702. In Karelian poetry its meaning is "mesi", while in Estonian dialects it means "plant juice, liquid, mucus, sweat". The Danish dialect word 'sime' ('drizzle, drip') is assumed to be of the same Germanic ancestry(?) as the Finnish word 'sima'. In German, there is also the word "Seim" for 'honey, a sticky liquid', but at least for the time being by using reconstructions it hasn't been found to connect to the word 'sima' in Finnish.
(I'm not sure if the quote above even makes much sense but it is something)

Yes yes, way OT and no photos... my apologies and all that jazz.
 

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