26160: DeGraff: (reply) Re: 26135: Raber: (Ask) Word origin---"kapon" (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Michel DeGraff <degraff@MIT.EDU>


Re: etymology of the Haitian Creole word "kapon".

Just a quick note to follow up on the observation of my colleague
Hugues Saint-Fort:

I've never seen a "castrated rooster" aka "capon" in English, but I
don't think we need to evoke this English word as the source of
Haitian Creole "kapon".  Le Grand Robert de la Langue Francaise (1987)
lists "capon" as an archaic French word meaning a timorous person, a
coward.  Thus the semantics of Haitian Creole "kapon".

I hope this helps,

                                 -michel.
___________________________________________________________________________
MIT Linguistics & Philosophy, 77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge MA 02139-4307
degraff@MIT.EDU        http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/degraff.home.html
___________________________________________________________________________