Ælfric's Colloquy, Latin-OE

Aelfric is one of the most prominent figures in OE and the greatest prose writer of his time. His Colloquy of the Occupations is one of the most significant works in the history of the language. It's full of information about Anglo-Saxon occupations and livelihoods but the most interesting thing is the relation that exists in this work between Latin and OE and how we can compare both languages. It was written in the late 10th century, at the time of the Benedictine reform when latin was absolutely established. He wrote his Colloquy in Latin, but then it was supplied by an OE version -an interlinear gloss- so it's actually written in both languages. In the Fisherman's part we can observe, for example, this sentence:

Latin - Quia periculosa res est capere cetum

OE - Forþam plyhtlic þingc hit ys gefon hwæl

English - Because dangerous thing it is to catch a whale.

Periculosa: Periculosus adj. (fem. periculosa, neuter periculosum). It means "dangerous" or "full of peril", from periculum n. (pericula), Latin.

To listen to a snatch of the Colloquy and appreciate what English in Anglo-Saxon times may have sounded like, here is link to a passage describing the baker's job: http://wwwbbc.co.uk/radio4/routesofenglish/storysofar/ramfiles/aelfric.ram

FOUL, DEFILE, PUTRID, SUPPURATE

LUIS FERNANDO

According to the Indo-European roots Index of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English language, 4th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. www.bartleby.com/61/. [05/11/08], all these words, whole or just a part of them ultimately derive from the IE root “* PU-”, meaning “ to rot or decay”. According to Grimm´s Law 1 , voiceless plosives became voiceless fricatives, /p/ > /f/.

“FOUL” derives from OE word “*ful”, which means “unclean, rotten”. On the other hand, “DEFILE” derives from OE word “*fylan”, which means “to sully” and it must have been borrowed from the old French word “defouler”. The word “PUTRID” derives from the Classical Latin word “putere” which means “to be rotten”. Finally, the word “SUPPURATE” derives from Classical Latin verb “suppurare”, which means “to produce or leak pus”.

Other words containing the IE root “*PU-” are putrefy, purulent, pus… etc.

Work, worker and wright

Sorry for my lateness but I have had problems with my computer.
Indoeuropean Root, Germanic, Old English and Modern English.

If we research about these three words we can find that "work", "worker" and "wright" are related with the word " werg"according to the Indoeuropean Roots Index of the American Heritage Dictionary of English Language.

WORK
In "work" it is necessary to differenciate work as a noun, and work as a verb because each one of them have changed through the history in different ways.

"Work" as a noun comes from the Indouropean root "werg" as I said before it means "to do". In Germanic, "werg" changed to "werc" because of the Grimm´s law " where voiced plosives change to voiceless plosives (g >k)
Thus, "werc" changed to "weorc" in Old English because of an assimilation whereby the epenthetic vowel adjust to the imputted vowel in height and change to dipthong "eo"; and finally this word changed to "work" in Modern English.
This word has had a lot of meaning for example some of them: at the beginning it means "physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something; then " a job, an employment", "the part of a day devoted to an occupation or undetaking", "the manner, style or quality of working or treatment", etc.

Work as a verb it comes from "werg" but it becomes in Old English in "wyrcan" and then it changes to "worch" and finally it becomes "work" because of the substitution of k for ch.
Thank to "work" a a noun we can see the following word "wright".

WRIGHT
It comes from the same root "werg" , then "wurhtjo" in Germanic and later in Old English is "wryhta". It means " a workman, one who does or performs something, a doer or worker". Finally it becomes "wright"in modern English.
This type of work is use in compouns like " playwright"("worker in plays)
Another word is related with "work" and "wright" and this is "worker".

WORKER
It comes from "werg" that changed into werker in germanic "werk + suffix -er".This is because of the Grimm´s Law 2 where voiced plosives changed into voiceless plosives (g > k).
It means " one who makes, creates, produces something"; it is also applied to God as maker or creator but it is also used to refer to an author, producer or doer (similar to wright)

Note
It is curious but this word has not any root in latin to express "work" because this in latin is "tripaliare" and nowadays we can not find any word with this root.

Finally, we can conclude that these three words are related with the Indoeuropean Root "werg".

LORD, WARD, WARDEN AND GUARDIAN

MARTA CASTILLO

LORD, WARD, WARDEN AND GUARDIAN

All these words, whole or just a part of them, ultimately derive from the Indo-European (IE) root *WER- which meant “to perceive, watch out for” and *WEAR- which “The act of guarding or protecting”, according to the Indo-European Roots Index of The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. www.bartleby.com/61/. [12/11/08].

LORD

The form of lord in OE was hlāfweard, the result of hlāf “bread” + weard “keep, guard”, so that lord literally meant “the keeper or guardian of bread”. Weard can be traced back to the IE root *WER-, which meant “to perceive, watch out for” The lord was the male head of a household.

WARD

It comes from OE ward was wearda. war -, an extended form of *war- to watch, guard . Ward means “A watchman, guard, keeper, warden”.
Common in OE. It often applied to God, as in rodora weard, keeper of the skies. Later, chiefly as the second element in compounds, as bear-, gate-, hay-, mill-, woodward.. Weard can be traced back to the IE root *WER-, which meant “to perceive, watch out for”

GUARDIAN

This word comes from Old French g(u)arden and from English *warding-, f. wardâ WARD n. + -ing. Ward means “A watchman, guard, keeper, warden”. The assimilation of the ending to the suffix -ien, which has given the mod.F. gardien, while the appearance of the corresponding -ian in the Eng. In conclusion, guardian is ‘one to whom the care and preservation of any thing is committed’

WARDEN

It comes from the words in Old French wardein, north-eastern var. of guarden, -ene and the Middle English wardein, from Old North French, from warder, to guard, of Germanic origin. Ward means “A watchman, guard, keeper, warden”. Certainly, warden means “The chief administrative official of a prison”.

BLACK, BLEACH, BLEAK, Spanish BLANCO
As we can see, these words ultimately derive from the Indo- European (IE) root bhel-1 which means “to shine, flash, burn, shining white and various bright colors” according to the Indo-European Roots Index of The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. www.bartleby.com/61/. [05/11/08]. The extended root *bhle -, is contracted to *bhl -. It is also suffixed form *bhl -wo-. blue, from Old French bleu, blue, and from Germanic (Gmc) *bl waz, blue. It is also explained as the extended root *bhleg- is constracted to *bhl -.with the meaning of “to shine, flash, burn”.

The original OE form of black was blæc and this root became *blak- in Germanic (Gmc). The same root produced in OE is blac which means “white, bright”, the common notion being "lack of hue." The main OE word for black was sweart. In ME it is often doubtful whether blac, blak, blake, which means “black, dark, or pale, colourless, wan, livid”.
The corresponding OE form of bleach is bleacan which comes from the Germanic (Gmc) form *blaikjan and which means “to make white”. In ME became blechen from OE bleacan.
The word bleak became bleke, probably alteration (influenced by bleke, pale) of blay, from OE bleage. In ME it became bleik, “pale”, from Old Norse bleikr, “shinning, white”. The word comes from Germanic (Gmc) *blaikaz, “shining, white”.
Some derived forms from Germanic (Gmc) are blende, from Old Norse blanda, "to mix"; blond from Germanic *blendaz, “clouded”, and *bland-, *bland-ja-, which means “to mix, mingle” (< “make cloudy”). Or also blench from Old English blencan, meaning “to deceive”; then we have blanch, blank, blanket, blancmange, which came from Old French blanc, "white". Both blench and blanch came from Germanic *blenk-, *blank-, meaning “to shine, dazzle, blind”. So in this way we can see a little development of de word black “being of the color black, producing or reflecting comparatively little light and having no predominant hue; having little or no light: a black, moonless night”, to the other one blanco as the word blanc means “white” we know that in Spanish it means “blanco”.

Other words containing the IE root *bhe-l are beluga, from Russian bely , “white”; Beltane, from Scottish Gaelic bealltainn, from Old Irish beltaine, “fire of Bel” (ten, tene, fire; see tep-), from Bel, “name of a pagan Irish deity akin to the Gaulish divine name Beleno”, from Celtic *bel-o- ;phalarope, from Greek phalaros, meaning “having a white spot”.

WIT, WITTY, WITNESS, VIDEO

According to the Indo-European Roots Index of The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language and www.bartleby.com/61/ we will analyse:
• WIT
This word comes from the Old English(OE) word –weid that means ‘to see’.
Its Zero-grade form *wid- comes from Old English wit, witt that means knowledge and intelligence.
Among their derivatives we include guide, wisdom, kaleidoscope, Hades, unwitting, envy, idea, history, and penguin.
• WITTY
From OE. wit(t)i . Its meaning is possessing or demonstrating wit in speech or writing; very clever and humorous and being characterized by or having the nature of wit; funny or jocular.
• WITNESS
It comes from OE. witnes, more frequently ewitnes, f. wit WIT n., IWIT + -nes -NESS. The passage in sense from abstract to concrete is paralleled in French témoin (testimonium). The uninflected plural was frequent in early use.
The meaning of witness is somebody who can give a firsthand account of something seen, heard, or experienced, for instance, being a witness of a robbery.
• VIDEO
Whose origins come from Latin video, first person singular of the present tense of videre whose meaning is to see. At the same time, video comes from the Latin word vide, sing. imperative of videre, ‘to see’ that also coincides to the word wit that comes from –weid.

WEREWOLF, VIRILE, VIRTUOUS

According to the Indo-European Roots Index (IRI) of The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, werewolf, virile, virtuous come from the same Indo-European (IE) root, *WĪ-RO, which means “man”.
The noun werewolf is a compound whose first element, were-, comes from Old English (OE) wer “man”. Thus, werewolf means “man-wolf, a man who is capable to transform himself into a wolf”. The OE word wer stopped being used in the 13th c. according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). OE wer descends from the IE root through the Germanic (Gmc) form *wir-az. The change from IE */i/ to Gmc */e/ is explained by the changed called Velar Umlaut, whereby in North-West Germanic (NWGmc) a closed high vowel in the first syllable of word opens and lowers when the next syllable contains a velar vowel, such as */a/. Thus, Gmc *wir-az > OE wer. However, this change did not take place in Latin (Lat), where the IE vowel */i/ remained unchanged. Werewulf, “werewolf,” occurs only once in Old English, about the year 1000, in the laws of King Canute: “lest the madly ravenous werewolf too savagely tear or devour too much from a godly flock.” Therefore, the Lat cognate is vir “man”.
The adjective virile “manly, masculine, characteristic of man” was first used in English by Caxton in his translation of The Aeneid (1490), according to the OED. The OED also says that it is a borrowing either from Latin virilis or from Old French viril. Whatever the case may be, virile is an adjective made up of the noun vir and the suffix -ilis.
Our third word, virtuous may be said to be composed of virtue and the suffix –ous. However, it is not an English coinage, but a loan-word. The noun virtue was borrowed from Anglo-Norman French (AN) vertu in the middle of the 13th century. AN vertu comes from Lat virtus “manliness”, ultimately from the same IE root *WIR-. The adjective virtuous also comes from AN, from the adjective vertuous, which in turn comes from Lat virtuōsus, which is made up of the noun virtus and the suffix –ōsus. What is interesting the semantics of the word virtuous: originally it meant “manly, masculine”, but today the adjective means “free from vice, righteous, good” and can also describe women. This looks like a contradiction in terms: a virtuous woman. So, two questions need answering. First, when did the original meaning disappear? Second, when did the new meaning appear? Again, our source is the OED. Virtuous definitely stopped meaning “manly” at the beginning of the 17th c., but the new meaning had appeared some centuries before, in the 14th c. Chaucer was the first English writer to apply the adjective to women, in The Man of Law’s Tale: “They can not gesse That sche had doon so gret a wikkednesse, For they han seyen hir so vertuous.” Thus a semantic connection can be established between the three words because they all descend ultimately from the same IE root. As we can see these three words come from the same Indo-European root *w ro, and this root has evolutioned in a different way in different languages, but always with the meaning 'man'.

WELL, WEALTH, WILL

All these words, whole or just a part of them, ultimately derive from the Indo-European (IE) root *WEL- meaning “To wish” or “will”, according to the Indo-European Roots Index of The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. www.bartleby.com/61/. [12/11/08].

In the case of well, the root *WEL-, continued being *WEL- in Germanic (GMC), and WEL in Old English (OE).
The transition of meaning is the following: firstly it refered to "Favourably circumstanced; having things as one wishes them to be" > "in comfortable and affluent circumstances" > "In a state of prosperity or affluence; more explicitly well in goods or cash, well in the world".

In the case of wealth, the root *WEL-, became *WELON- in GMC, and WELA, WEOLA in OE. The transition of meaning is the following: firstly it refered to "Things in which material riches consist; rich and costly goods or possessions; luxuries" > "with reference to more than one possessor." > "Condition with regard to riches or poverty; degree of wealthiness." > "said of a specific commodity as the chief source of a country's riches. Also with defining word, indicating a particular source" > "Abundance of possessions or of valuable products, as characteristic of a people, country, or region; the collective riches of a people or country." > "Prosperity consisting in abundance of possessions; ‘worldly goods’, valuable possessions, esp. in great abundance: riches, affluence".

In the case of will, the root *WEL-, became *WILJON- in GMC, and WILLA in OE.
The transition of meaning is the following: firstly it refered to "Chiefly used in the names (often hyphenated) of supposed natural instincts or drives, as will to art, be, believe, live " > "Intention, intent, purpose, determination" > "The action of willing or choosing to do something; the movement or attitude of the mind which is directed with conscious intention to (and, normally, issues immediately in) some action, physical or mental; volition".

while, whilom, tranquility, requiem

According to the Indo-European Roots Index of The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, these four words ultimately come from the Indo-European root *kwei-, or also *kwye-, which means “to rest” or “to be quiet”. The root became *hwilo- in Germanic, and it later produced the Old English words *hwil and *hwilum, where the words while and whilom respectively come from. The change in the root, formerly a /k/ sound and later a voiceless fricative /h/ is explained by Grimm’s Law.

On the other hand, the same Indo-European root survived into the Latin language, where it shaped the word tranquillus, meaning something like “accros the rest”. In Middle English, it transformed again into tranquill, and ultimately into Modern English tranquillity. Again in Latin and by means of the same Indo-European root, the word quies appeared with the same meaning of rest and quietness. And this is where the word requiem (an hymn to those that are already resting forever) comes from.

Lord, lady, doughnut

As we shall see, the words lord, lady and loaf are intimately related through the word hlāf, which originally meant “bread” and was related to Gothic hlaifs and Old Norse hleifr. In Middle English (ME) it evolved into lof, the initial cluster /xl/ becoming /l/ and the vocalic sound becoming first /ɔ:/ and later the diphthong /əu/,as loaf shows. No Indo-European (IE) etymology is given in the Indo-European Roots Index, which says that the root *HL- is found only in Germanic (Gmc) languages.

The original OE form of lord was hlāford (fromhlāfweard = hlāf “bread” + weard “keeper, guardian”, so that lord literally meant “the keeper or guardian of the bread”. The first noun in this compound, weard, can be traced back to the IE root *WER-, which meant “to perceive, watch out for” (Indo-European Roots Index of The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. www.bartleby.com/61/. [12/11/08]). Certainly, the lord was the one supposed to care about and sustain his household. The counterpart of this word is lady, from OE form hlfādige. This is also a compound made up of hlāf “bread” and dige “kneader”. The second part of the compound derives from dæge, which in turn came from the Germanic (Gmc) *-dig. The reconstructed IE root is *DEIGH-, which, according to the Indo-European Roots Index, meant “to form, build”. Hence, lady literally meant “the kneader or maker of the bread”.

But what does doughnut have to do with lord and lady? Doughnut is certainly a recent creation, which, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, was coined circa 1809 to refer to "a small cake in the shape of a ring." What is surprising is that the same IE root -*DEIGH that we found in hlfādige (now lady) is also found in dough. Dough comes from OE dāg through ME dogh in ME. It originally meant (and still means) “a mixture of flour, water, etc. that is made into bread and pastry” (Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary - OALD). We have also traced back the origin of nut, which presented the form hnut(u) in OE and nute in ME. However, we have attested that it has always made reference to some kind of hard-shelled fruit (see peanut, hazelnut, and cashewnut) and so it does not make much sense to apply this meaning in the word doughnut. All I can think of to account for this is that this nuance of “hardness” might have been lost in the course of time, so that speakers might be analyzing nut as a mere suffix to express some kind of food.

As for the meaning of lord, it is obvious that the reference to bread is no longer recognisable. Lord now refers to "a man of high rank in the nobility" (OALD - semantic extension). This change of meaning has been largely influenced by the adoption of the word as the English counterpart for Latin dominus. In the case of lady, it was especially influenced by the French dame, so that it has come to refer to "a highly polite and courteous woman" (alteration of contexts). Finally, loaf is a clear example of semantic reduction, since it now refers to "a shaped mass of bread baked in one piece" (American Heritage Dictionary).

Other words containing the IE root -*WER are wary, reward, guard and panorama (pan + Greek horāma “sight”, from the verb horān “to see”, which goes back to our IE root). Words surviving from the IE root *DEIGH- include dairy and paradise (its original meaning was “an enclosured park”: pairi “around (*-PER) and daēzō (“wall”, evolving from *deigh-).

BEAR, BURDEN, BAIRN, FERTILE, SUFFER

All these words, whole or just a part of them, ultimately derive from the Indo-European (IE) root *BHER-, meaning “to carry” or “to bear children”, according to the Indo-European Roots Index of The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. www.bartleby.com/61/. [05/11/08]. This root became *BER- in Germanic (Gmc). The change in the initial consonant was explained by Grimm: the IE voiced aspirate */bh/ > Gmc voiced fricative*/ß/ > Old English (OE) voiced plosive*/b/. This is the reason why bear, burden and bairn have an initial /b/ = . However, IE */bh/ became /f/ in Latin (Lat), that is, we find FER- in Lat, whence the words fertile or suffer, which are not of Gmc stock, but from Lat. The verb suffer was borrowed from Anglo-Norman (AN), the French dialect of Normandy as was spoken in England after the Norman Conquest. The AN verb suffrir, of course, descends from Lat sufferre, which is made up of the prefix sub- and the verb ferre “to carry”, that is, the meaning was “to bear from underneath”. The verb suffer today keeps the original meaning with which it was employed in 1225 in the important medieval work Ancrene Wisse, or Guide of Anchoresses in Modern English (ModE): “to endure, to undergo”. The second Lat word, the adjective fertile, was borrowed two centuries later from Old French (OFr) fertile and ultimately comes from Lat fertilis, which in turn derives from the verb ferre “to carry”. According to the Oxford English Dicationary Online, 2008. http//dictionary.oed.com [o5.11/2008], the adjective fertile was first used in English in 1460, with the meaning it still has today, "bearing or producing in abundance; fruitful, prolific", and it was Sir John Fortescue, a lawyer appointed chancellor of England, who first employed it in a book about the English monarchy (see Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, s.v. John Fortescue). As for the semantic relationship holding between the three Germanic words, bear, burden and bairn, they all denote “carrying”: the verb bear (from OE beran) means “to carry”, the noun burden (from OE burþen) means “that which is carried or borne”, and the noun bairn (from OE bearn “child”) at bottom means “the baby borne in the womb”. However, bairn is not used in standard Present Day English (PDE) anymore. It has survived, though, in the Englishes spoken in Scotland and northern England. Other surviving words from the same IE root *BHER- are birth, barrow, bier and bring, from Gmc, and afferent, circumference, confer, defer, differ, efferent, infer, offer, prefer, proffer, refer, suffer, transfer, vociferate, from Lat.