Is baedel cognate with paṇḍaka?

I encountered a curious old English word the other day and I was musing as to the possible etymology. But I’m no linguist, so I’m just throwing this out there for thoughts.

The sparsely attested word baedel seems very similar in meaning to Pali/Sanskrit paṇḍaka. We also have Sanskrit spellings paṇḍa and paṇḍra.

It seems to me they could easily be cognates. If we derive the English from the Sanskrit, taking paṇḍra as the archaic form, then all the changes are regular. Something like the following:

  • insert inherent a: paṇḍrapaṇḍara
  • weaken r: paṇḍarapaṇḍala
  • resolve consonant cluster: paṇḍalapadala
  • drop final vowel: padalapadal
  • weaken vowels: padalpedel
  • bp: baedel.

Of course, English is not derived from Sanskrit. Both stem from a more unknowable ancestor (or ancestors). Nonetheless, it seems striking to me. Perhaps the archaic form was not dissimilar to the Sanskrit in this case. Or perhaps it traveled from Sanskrit via the Greeks and Romans (or was even a loan word from the Greek?) To confirm the etymology, you’d want to trace the relations to several intermediate forms as well. Challenging, given that the word is sparse and uncertain even in the attested languages.

The Pali/Sanskrit is said in DPD to derive from paṇḍu. This seems reasonable, and if it is correct, they could be cognate with English “pale” (resolve consonant cluster; d weakens to l in the same place of articulation; vowel shift).

Could the original connotation have been someone who is “pale”, i.e. “fair-skinned” from living an “effeminate” indoor lifestyle, perhaps with painted face, rather than a “masculine” outdoors lifestyle?

If correct, this would establish the IE roots of the term, and open new avenues for investigating the denotation and connotation in cognate languages.

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Upping this for @StefanK , @srkris , @Brahmali , @Vimala

In the same Wikipedia article it mentions:

Fulk, concurring with Meritt in 2004, derived bæddel from a hypothetical early Old English term **bai-daili-*, ‘both parts’, mirroring the derivation of words for hermaphrodite in other Germanic languages, such as Danish tvetulle ‘two tools’.

(from Fulk, Robert D. (2004). “Male Homoeroticism in the Old English Canons of Theodore”. In Pasternack, Carol; Weston, Lisa M. C. (eds.). Sex and Sexuality in Anglo-Saxon England: Essays in Memory of Daniel Gillmore Calder. Phoenix: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. ISBN 9780866983204.)

This definition would be more in line with the definition of the ubhatobyañjanaka or it’s Chinese translation 二根 or 二形 (two roots/faculties or two shapes resp.) while the paṇḍaka is without any roots/facutlies.

Fulk also writes (page 26) that it is seemingly cognate with Old High German pad (“hermaphrodite”). Again, a paṇḍaka is not a hermaphrodite but mostly translated or seen as a eunuch (although as I argued before, a very specific eunuch with a very specific spiritual role in Indian society, most likely a hijra).

Saying that however, the distinction between both is not always so clear in various texts and is often confused.

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The sound changes look plausible, but I’m not sure how the DPD put paṇḍu and paṇḍaka in the same word family. The PED does it differently; it has the Latin cognates palleo ‘I grow pale’ and pello ‘I hit/ expell’, arguably different meanings with different roots. I don’t have access to the PED source for pello.

According to the Indo-European Language Association – http://dnghu.org/ version of Pokorny’s An Etymological Dictionary of the Proto-Indo-European Language there are a couple of possible roots in play:

pel-6
English meaning: grey; pale
Deutsche Übersetzung: in Ausdrũcken for unscharfe Farben as “grau, fahl”, also ‘scheckig”
Material: O.Ind. palitá-, fem. páliknī (from *-tnī) “altersgrau, greis” (: πελιτνός), paruṣá-
“fleckig” = Av. pouruša-, paouruša- “gray, old”; pers. pūr “gray” (*parya-);
Arm. alik” “die (weißen) waves, billows; white Bart, weißes hair” (*pl̥ii̯o-);
Gk. πελιτνός “gray” (for *πελιτός = O.Ind. palitá-ḥ after dem Fem. *πελιτνια = O.Ind.
paliknī); Ion. πελιδνός out of it after μακεδνός etc. reshaped; πελιός (*peli-u̯o-) “farblos,
pallid, grauschwarz, bluish black” (here the PN Πέλοψ), πελλός ds. (*πελι̯ός? *πελνός?),
πολιός “gray, greis” (*poli-u̯o-), πιλνόν φαιόν Κύπριοι Hes.; πέλεια, πελειάς “wild dove”
(after the Farbe benannt, compare πέλειαι, πελειάδες, eig. die grauköpfigen, old, as
Bezeichnung the Priesterinnen in Dodona as well as πέλειος “age” Hes.; also Lat.
palumbēs, O.Pruss. poalis “dove”), πελᾱργός ‘swan” (“the schwarzweiße”); from *πελαF(ο)-

  • αργός; Maced. πέλλης “τεφρώδης” Hes.; probably here also πηλός, Dor. πᾱλός (*παλσός)
    “ loam, clay, slime, mud, ordure, morass”;
    Lat. palleō, -ēre “pale, wan sein”, pallor “paleness”, pallidus “pale, wan” (at first from
    *palu̯os, older *polu̯os = Gmc. falwa-, Lith. paɫvas, O.C.S. plavъ); pullus ‘schwarzgrau” (ul
    from l̥ infolge of anlaut. p-; forms -no-); palumbēs or -is “wood-, Ringeltaube” (*pelon-bho-?
    rather parallel formation to columbus, -a, see above S. 547);
    Note:
    Alb. (*palumb) pëllumb “dove” shares the same root with Lat. palumbes -is, m. and f. “a
    wood pigeon, ring dove”. It is not a Lat. loanword otherwise the ending -es, -is would have
    been solidified in Alb. like Lat. radius > Alb. rreze “ray”; actually Lat. could have borrowed
    this cognate from Illyr. since the shift m > mb is a typical Alb. not Lat. phonetic mutatIon. Alb. plak “ graybeard, Ältester”;
    M.Ir. liath, Welsh (etc.) llwyd “gray” (from *pleito-, compare O.Ind. palitá-, Gk. πελιτνός);
    Gmc. *falwa- in O.Ice. fǫlr, O.E. fealo, O.S. falu, O.H.G. falo, falawēr ‘sallow, paled, falb”
    (in addition as “graue ash” O.Ice. fǫlski m., O.H.G. falawiska “ash, Aschenstäubchen”);
    *falha- (: Lith. pálšas) in alemO.N.-rheinfränk. falch “falb, esp. from hellbraunem Vieh”;
    *fela- or *felwa- in Westfäl. fęl “falb”, fęle “fahles roe deer, fahles horse”; with dem Gmc. k-
    forms as in other bird name here presumably O.H.G. (etc.) falco “falcon” (late Lat. falco
    from dem Gmc.);
    Lith. pal̃vas “blaßgelb” (= Gmc. *falwa, Lat. palli-dus) = O.Bulg. plavъ “white”, Serb. plûv
    “blond, blue”; Lith. pelẽ “ mouse “, Ltv. pele ds., O.Pruss. peles pl. “ mouse (= Armmuskel)”,
    O.Pruss. pele “consecration”; as derivative from pelẽ “ mouse “ also Lith. pelékas, Ltv.
    pelēks “mausfarbig, sallow, paled, gray”; Lith. peléda, Ltv. pęlêda “owl “ (“Mäusefresserin”);
    from a *pelẽ “ mildew “ derives Lith.pele-́ ju, -ti “ mildew “, pelésiai pl. “ mildew “ and in ablaut
    plék-stu, -ti “ mildew, modern”; in ablaut Lith. pìlkas “gray”, pélkė “Moorbruch”, also pálšas,
    Ltv. pàlss ‘sallow, paled” (*polk̂os) as well as O.Pruss. poalis “dove” (*pōlis); Slav. *plěsnь
    in R.C.S. plěsnь, O.Cz. pléseň “ mildew “ and Church Slavic peles “pullus”, Russ. pelësyj
    “mottled, speckled, *tabby, varicolored”; das forms IE -so- or -k̂o-.
    References: WP. II 53 f., WH. II 239 f., 242, 386, Trautmann 205, 212;
    See also: see above S. 799 C (pel-1).
    Page(s): 804-805

badi̯os
English meaning: gold, brown
Deutsche Übersetzung: “gelb, braun”
Note: (only Lat. and Ir.; maybe from one, at most not IE, language of ancient Europe?).
Material: Lat. badius “ brown, chestnutcolored, bay “; O.Ir. buide “gold, yellow” (compare to
Lautl. O.Ir. mag “field”, gen. muige; Gaul. Bodiocasses because of о rather for boduo-,
about which under *bhaut- “ hit “). Gk. βάδιος, βάδεος derives from Lat.
References: WP. II 105, WH. I 92.

I can’t find a root close to pello. The second entry giving the Old Irish for ‘yellow’ shows the change in Sanskrit might be from b > p and from Latin to Greek; intriguingly, it has a link between ‘yellow’ and ‘hit’, but the entry for *bhaut- “ hit" is missing from my dictionary. This will take a lot more detective work, but I have reached my limit.
Also, I’m not confident that the PED is on the right track with either cognate, including palleo (in pel-6), for which Pokorny only gives palita and paliknī for Sanskrit descendants ; I wonder if there is a Dravidian/ Munda origin to these words. Certainly Levman Pāli and Buddhism p55 gives paṇḍu as derived from Santali. If that is the right approach, we would need to suppose there is some unusual transmission route for these words into Indo-European languages; in which case it’s highly doubtful that anything can be proven.

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I’ve just looked at Mayrhofer, who has no entry for paṇḍu, but does have paṇḍaka https://archive.org/details/EtymologischesWrterbuchDesAltindoarischenMayrhoferEWA21992/page/n103/mode/2up. He says it is not satisfactorily explained and may not be Indo-European.
I’m now inclined to think the PED Indo European derivations are wrong (100 years out of date) and IMHO there is no provable etymological connection between these particular Indian words and bæddel and bædling.

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I dont know about this etymological connection to English; but in Sanskrit, there are several other closely related terms to refer to very similar meanings i.e. a paṇḍa(ka) can also be called a paṇḍra (as you’ve said already), and also as ṣaṇṭa, śaṇḍa, śaṇṭa etc. It appears to me that these are merely lexical variations of paṇḍa, and having so many lexical variations for a single word is uncommon in Sanskrit.

Tamil also has both variants (borrowed from sanskrit), meaning the same thing.
சண்டன் (caṇṭaṉ), n . < ṣaṇḍa . Eunuch, hermaphrodite; அலி (ali).
பண்டகன் (paṇṭakaṉ) , n. < paṇḍa. Eunuch; அலி. (ali).

In both Sankrit and Tamil, these words are declined as masculine, as in Pali.

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Thanks! I had noticed the variation in initial letter, and thought it likely a typo, but if it’s attested in Tamil as well then it must be more than that. Hmm.

Am I the only person who wound up on the Giant Panda page of wikipedia?

I really wish I had something smarter to add to this conversation, but basically just feeling :frowning: that this could be where we get the word ‘bad’ from. I guess being binary-gender non-conforming has been difficult for thousands of years. :heavy_heart_exclamation:

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That has been proposed, but I think it’s unlikely.

If it helps, words often get twisted into their opposites. The twilight is “gloom” but also “gleam”. One in a house may be the “host” or the “guest”; or perhaps even a “ghost”.

Anyway, I thought “bad” meant “great”!

:heart:

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