But he also records the libellous theory that Normendie comes from north mendie (begs). We cannot always say whether an early etymology is serious or not, but many theories which were undoubtedly meant for jokes have been quite innocently accepted by comparatively modern writers.[142]
The philologists of the Renaissance period were often very learned men, but they had no knowledge of the phonetic laws by which sound change is governed. Nor were they aware of the existence of Vulgar Latin, which is, to a much greater extent than classical Latin, the parent of the Romance languages. Sometimes a philologist had a pet theory which the facts were made to fit. Hellenists like Henri Estienne believed in the Greek origin of the French language, and Périon even derived maison from the Gk. οἶκον (οἶκος, a house) by the simple method of prefixing an m. At other periods there have been Celtomaniacs, i.e., scholars who insisted on the Celtic origin of French.
The first English etymological dictionary which aims at something like completeness is the Guide into the Tongues of John Minsheu, published in 1617. This attempts to deal not only with English, but with ten other languages. It contains a great deal of learning, much valuable information for the student of Tudor literature, and some amazing etymologies. "To purloine,[143] or get privily away," is, says Minsheu, "a metaphor from those that picke the fat of the loines." Parmaceti, a corruption of spermaceti—
"And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth
Was parmaceti for an inward bruise."
(1 Henry IV., i. 3.)
he derives from Parma, which has given its name to parmesan cheese. On the word cockney[144] he waxes anecdotic, always a fatal thing in an etymologist—
"Cockney, or cockny, applied only to one borne within the sound of Bow-bell, that is, within the City of London, which tearme came first out of this tale: That a cittizens sonne riding with his father out of London into the country, and being a novice and meerely ignorant how corne or cattell increased, asked, when he heard a horse neigh, what the horse did; his father answered, the horse doth neigh; riding farther he heard a cocke crow, and said, doth the cocke neigh too?"
EARLY ETYMOLOGISTS
Molière often makes fun of the etymologists of his time and has rather unfairly caricatured, as Vadius in Les Femmes savantes, the great scholar Gilles Ménage, whose Dictionnaire étymologique, published in 1650, was long a standard work. Molière's mockery and the fantastic nature of some of Ménage's etymologies have combined to make him a butt for the ignorant, but it may be doubted whether any modern scholar, using the same implements, could have done better work. For Ménage the one source of the Romance languages was classical Latin, and every word had to be traced to a Latin word of suitable form or sense. Thus Fr. haricot[145] is connected by him with Lat. faba, a bean, via the conjectural "forms" *fabarius, *fabaricus, *fabaricotus, *faricotus, *haricotus, a method to which no problem is insoluble.[146] He suggests that Fr. geindre, or gindre,[147] baker's man, comes from Lat. gener, son-in-law, because the baker's man always marries the baker's daughter; but this practice, common though it may be, is not of sufficiently unfailing regularity to constitute a philological law. Perhaps his greatest achievement was the derivation of Span. alfana,[148] a mare, from Lat. equus, a horse, which inspired a well-known epigram—
"Alfana vient d'equus, sans doute,
Mais il faut avouer aussi
Qu'en venant de là jusqu'ici
Il a bien changé sur la route."