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in reply to a message by Menke
What would be the sense of being "one from the place of lisping" which a phenomenon of pronunciation among some cultures in respect to a language which isn't their mother-tongue...
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that Blazej has this meaning is not relevant anymore, because these meaning are often not known by the people. The reason of the existence of Blazej is to honour a saint, in this case a Saint-Blaise and often those names change under influence of their own language. Blaise is not used in the Netherlands (where i live) and that is probably because this saint had no significant meaning to us. For example, a name like John has a meaning, like all ancient names, but in the Medieval Ages nobody from the people knew the meaning anymore. They just named their child John after one of the (more than 100) saints called John. So, this surname you have to read like this: "one from the place of Blazej", thus one who came from the place where Blazej lived. It could be that Blazejew (place of Blazej) was a village, but this isn't necessary. You could see it like this: there is this guy with a farm, his name is Blazej. He dies or leaves and the farm becomes new inhabitants. This is all pre-surname. Then, someone comes with the idea of surnames for everyone, not only the noble people. This person was Napoleon (well, in Western Europe he did that). The inhabitants of the farm decide to name themselves after the farm (which has the name Blazejew, because Blazej was the first one to build the farm). Their surname becomes thus Blazejewski. Something like that must have happened. That Blazej means 'lisping' was unknown by those people, probably even by Blazej self. The people normally where kept quite ignorant by the nobles (and the church).
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Good Point
What I meant was that lisping seems to be a linguistic phenomenon unique to the Spanish language (which makes it quite surprising to find there is an English word not cognate with the Spanish equivalent) and that it seems pretty surprising there is such a name as to mean "lisping" (furthermore, being it intself not a relevantly outstanding characteristic) in a language which surely existed as such before the phenomenon could be seen (it describes one of the main differences between Spanish in "the Americas" and Spanish in Spain; rather say Castillian) and before linguists could worry about it... Of course your explanation makes more sense than direct full translation... I't was just etymological-fundamentalist rumblings and mumblings:p :$ Well... bye...
What I meant was that lisping seems to be a linguistic phenomenon unique to the Spanish language (which makes it quite surprising to find there is an English word not cognate with the Spanish equivalent) and that it seems pretty surprising there is such a name as to mean "lisping" (furthermore, being it intself not a relevantly outstanding characteristic) in a language which surely existed as such before the phenomenon could be seen (it describes one of the main differences between Spanish in "the Americas" and Spanish in Spain; rather say Castillian) and before linguists could worry about it... Of course your explanation makes more sense than direct full translation... I't was just etymological-fundamentalist rumblings and mumblings:p :$ Well... bye...
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I think you've said it ...things get named for all sorts of reasons and from all sorts of people. Sometimes lousy nicknames stick and become a source of pride (i.e. 'Tiny' Nate Archibald) and sometimes people just forget what the original meaning was.
But I think you stated correctly that the town of the "lispers" (if that's a word?) probably was named by outsiders who thought the locals spoke funny. Eventually they were all either merged, overridden by others or whatever ...but the name stuck.
I'd say it's not a huge percentage, but certainly many names come from what would have originally been perceived as a negative connotation.
But I think you stated correctly that the town of the "lispers" (if that's a word?) probably was named by outsiders who thought the locals spoke funny. Eventually they were all either merged, overridden by others or whatever ...but the name stuck.
I'd say it's not a huge percentage, but certainly many names come from what would have originally been perceived as a negative connotation.
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