Dmitry Pruss writes me:
We have an etymology discussion under my Facebook post with ermine pictures. Vasmer says one thing about горностай, Trubachyov another, and wiktionary shies away from it but suggests a paper with discussion.
Does the learned world of the hatters know?
I’ve added links so interested parties can follow up; to summarize, Trubachov says it’s from an Old Saxon *harmenes-tagl- / *harmenes-tail- ‘ermine’s tail,’ while Vasmer calls that idea mistaken (“Ошибочно”) without further analysis, rubbishing another couple of hypotheses in the process (“unacceptable… also unacceptable… absolutely fantastic”), and says Proto-Slavic *gornostajь remains unexplained (“остается необъясненным”). All thoughts welcome!
In fairness, Wiktionary suggests that the origins of the word “ermine” itself are also debated.
Well, he calls it “verfehlt”, which is not quite the same, I think; and he points out that there is ‘further analysis” of this hypothesis in Agrell BSl 42, even if he finds the offered alternative “unbefriedigend” (unsatisfactory). If Vasmer had given a “further analysis” for each hypothesis, his dictionary would have taken up ten volumes (at least) and not three, and there wouldn’t have found a publisher for it.
If it’s Proto-Slavic, it’s way too early for [h] to be borrowed as [g].
Sitting in an airport waiting for a delayed connecting flight, and now stupid me lost my comment when reloading.
Anyway, based on Wiktionary alone:
1. To get to initial g-, don’t we have to suppose a recentish borrowing and subsequent nativization through the Slavic dialect chain? Then the source for the first element might be OHG harmo.
2. The second element could also be *stajь. This takes us not too far from Eng- stoat, for which we might reconstruct *stait- (rather than *stut-): I guess this could be a verbal adjective meaning “stiffened” or something like that, maybe another word for “tail”, but I can’t find any other evidence for that. The Slavic form would have to be folk etymological.
3. Could the Slavic folk-etymology be something like “tall-stander” — and a further folk etymology in Slovene “mountain-dweller”?
If Vasmer had given a “further analysis” for each hypothesis, his dictionary would have taken up ten volumes (at least) and not three, and there wouldn’t have found a publisher for it.
Sure, I wasn’t complaining, just noting.