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I'm sorry to disagree, Matt, but I have here a book of
surnames in a variety of languages: /What's in a Name:
Surnames of America/ by La Reina Rule and William K.
Hammond. Let me open it completely at random:
ROTH, ROTHE (Ger.) r[oot] w[ord] Rot (O[ld] G[erman])
Red-haired; red-complexioned; owner of a red house.
[Heraldry skipped to avoid embarrassing the authors.]
So a book in English can discuss names from other languages,
and at a more scholarly level than above. As you said,
I don't trust Kinbote's claim--maybe he wishes he'd
written such a book--but it's certainly possible.
Jerry Friedman