Talk:Banner/Archives/2020

Etymology

I have just removed the following paragraph from the lead, leaving a much shorter version in its place:

The word derives from the French word "bannière" and late Latin bandum, a cloth out of which a flag is made (Latin: banderia, Italian: bandiera, Portuguese: bandeira, Spanish: bandera). The German language developed the word to mean an official edict or proclamation and since such written orders often prohibited some form of human activity, bandum assumed the meaning of a ban, control, interdict or excommunication. Banns has the same origin meaning an official proclamation, and abandon means to change loyalty or disobey orders, semantically "to leave the cloth or flag".

This etymology is at odds with Wiktionary and OEtymD, both of which distinguish "ban" and "abandon" from "banner", though in different ways:

• Wiktionary traces "banner" as far as Old French, then delegates further etymology to "band". This, it derives from Proto-Germanic *bandiz, the root also of "bond" and "bind". Ultimately, this goes back to a Proto-Indo-European root bʰendʰ- "to bind". In contrast, it derives "ban" and "abandon" from a different Germanic root, *bannaną, from a PIE root bʰeh₂- "to speak".
• OEtymD traces "banner" through Latin bandum, then through an uncertain Germanic language back to Proto-Germanic *bandwa- "identifying sign, banner, standard", a root not in Wiktionary (though the Gothic word bandwa is), and ultimately back to PIE *bha- "to shine". Its derivations of "band" and "ban" are essentially identical to Wiktionary's; the difference is that OEtymD never links "banner" to "band".

So these sources give no connection between "banner" and "ban" whatsoever. I have to admire this bit of apparent invention for sticking around for just short of 15 years!! -- Perey (talk) 14:38, 3 January 2020 (UTC)