Talk:Otter

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I was somewhat surprised by this meaning. It would make it a cognate to Natter, but without the n- (which also happened to Dutch adder and English). Is this just an alternative form of Natter or are both actually used distinctly in the same language/dialect? German Wikipedia has nothing about this on its disambiguation page w:de:Otter (Begriffsklärung) so it can't be all that well known. —CodeCat 20:37, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes it does. Directly above "Kriegsschiffe" it says, "deutsche Bezeichnung der Vipern, z. B. Kreuzotter". And it's certainly well enough known that people sometimes refer to the mammal as Fischotter to distinguish it from the snake, though in most circumstances that isn't necessary since they're different genders. Etymologically it is a by-form of Natter; Kluge says it's the East Central German form but points out that the Swabian/Allemannic word, as well as the Breton word (in addition to the English and Dutch words), also loses the n-. —Angr 22:04, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Should this really be defined as {{temp|dialectal}} {{alternative form of|Natter}} then? —CodeCat 22:25, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

No. It's etymologically a dialectal by-form of Natter, but synchronically they're both words of pandialectal standard German, and they mean different things: an Otter is a snake of the family Viperidae, while a Natter is a snake of the family Colubridae. —Angr 22:41, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Strike this then. —CodeCat 23:26, 12 March 2013 (UTC)