HISTENG: History of the English Language

2009-09-27T10:51:00.002+02:00

New Anglo-Saxon treasure found

Visit the link (BBC NEWS)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/staffordshire/8272058.stm.

El inglés y sus palabras más antiguas

2009-03-02T23:56:00.002+01:00

An unexpected piece of news in 20minutos punto es about English, some words and Indo-European. Click here.

A. Alcaraz

Listening to Old and Middle English

2009-01-25T11:38:00.004+01:00

If you are interested in knowing how Old English and Middle English really sounded like, check the following link from the Norton Anthology. You can listen to excerpts from all periods, but surely the most interesting for us is "The Middle Ages". You can listen to Caedmon's Hymn, The Battle of Maldon, The Wanderer and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, among others!
Enjoy!

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/noa/audio.htm#poems

A commentary on Ana Bueno's posting

2008-12-04T12:58:00.005+01:00

MONEY, MONEDA, MINT

I would like to expand a little on Ana Bueno’s posting on the English (Eng) and Spanish (Sp) cognate words money and moneda. First, here is a quote from Wikipedia about Juno: “As the patron goddess of Rome and the Roman empire she was called Regina ("queen") and, together with Jupiter and Minerva, was worshipped as a triad on the Capitol (Juno Capitolina) in Rome. As the Juno moneta (which either means "the one who warns" or "the one unique" or "union unique") she guarded over the finances of the empire and had a temple on the Arx (one of two Capitoline hills), close to the Royal Mint.” (Wikipedia s.v. Juno. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_(mythology) [03/12/2008]). For this reason, she often appeared on coins (see photo, downloaded from Wikipedia, but ultimately from http://www.wildwinds.com/). Second, English borrowed the word money, not from Latin but from French, in Middle English (ME). According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), s.v. money (http://dictionary.oed.com [04/12/2008]), English took the word from Anglo-Norman monai, moné, monee, moneie, monoie, munee, munei and Old French monoie, monnoie, moneie, monee, monae, monaye. The French words, of course, like the Sp moneda, descend from Latin (Lat) monēta, the feminine past participle of the verb monēo “to warn”, as Ana Bueno wrote. The first citation given in the OED belongs to 1325: “þei iyef him. þrythi plates of god mone”. However, English had already borrowed the same word straight from Latin in Anglo-Saxon times and this word survives in Modern English (ModE): mint. One obvious question is why Eng money, Sp moneda, French (Fr) monnaie have the same vowel, (“o”) while mint has a different vowel (“i”), if all of them derive from Lat monēta. The answer lies in a assimilatory sound change called Palatal Umlaut, whereby a velar vowel is fronted or palatalized by an /i/ or /j/ in the following syllable. Since monēta, at the time it was borrowed by the Germanic tribes, was pronounced /munita/, the /i/ of the second syllable caused the /u/ of the first syllable to become /ü/: Lat /munita/ > OE mynt / mynet. Later, in ME, this /ü/ further palatized to /i/, whence today’s spelling and pronunciation mint /mint/. When one word -monēta- is borrowed twice (in Anglo-Saxon times -mynt- and in the 14th c. -money-), the loans constitute a doublet. Normally doublets end up meaning different, though semantically related, things. In the 15th c. mint expanded its meaning to “an establishment where money is coined, usually under the authority and direction of the state” (OED, s.v. mint 2.a http://dictionary.oed.com [04/12/2008]). This is the usual meaning it has today. The older meaning that mint had had since OE was “coin”, but this meaning was lost in the 16th c. Why should the meaning of mint change, anyway? Probably because English already possessed other words for the concept “coin”: coin (14th c.) and, yes, money, which for several centuries was also a countable noun meaning “coin” (OED, s.v. money 4 http://dictionary.oed.com [04/12/2008]). (Another similar doublet is bench and bank, but this is matter for another blog posting.)

Where do "moneda" and "money" come from?

2008-12-04T09:16:00.002+01:00

The other day in class we were commenting on the origin of the cognate words moneda (Spanish for coin) and English money, and I suggested that they came from the Latin verb monēo "to warn". At first sight this might not make much sense: what can the relationship between money/moneda and warn be?? But I knew I had read it somewhere: you always remember things that strike you! And I have finally found it!

In his Lenguaje e historia, Salvador Núñez states that both money and moneda derive from the perfect participle of the verb monēo, namely, monēta, which was one of the epithets used for the Roman goddess Juno. This seems only logical, since she was the protector and special counselor of the state. But, again, where do moneda and money come into play? Well, curiously enough, it was in her temple in Rome were money was coined!

Ælfric's Colloquy, Latin-OE

2008-11-18T11:18:00.012+01:00

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

2008-11-13T16:40:00.003+01:00

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

2008-11-13T09:51:00.002+01:00

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

2008-11-13T08:50:00.000+01:00

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”.

2008-11-13T02:19:00.003+01:00

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

2008-11-12T22:04:00.003+01:00

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

2008-11-12T21:13:00.007+01:00

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'.

2008-11-12T19:21:00.002+01:00

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

2008-11-12T19:17:00.002+01:00

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

2008-11-12T16:49:00.004+01:00

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-).

2008-11-05T11:39:00.010+01:00

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.

Indo-European Languages and Historical Linguistics

2008-11-04T12:21:00.003+01:00

If you want to know more about Indo-European languages and Historical Linguistics, you can download through iTunes a couple fo lectures from the course GEOGRAPHY OF WORLD CULTURES (and follow the accompanying PowerPoint slides).

The course was given in 2007 by Martin W. Lewis.

In particular, you can listen to Units 2 and 3.

AAS

A new book on the history of English

2008-10-30T20:01:00.004+01:00

Review in The Economist (18.09.2008) of Henry Hitchings' The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English.

AAS

Grimm's and Verner's Laws

2008-10-28T20:43:00.003+01:00

Links to YouTube videos on Grimm's and Verner's Laws:

And links to the Wikipedia entries for Grimm's and Verner's Law.

Enjoy!

AAS

Welcome to HEL

2008-10-22T12:41:00.002+02:00

New academic year

2008-10-16T18:25:00.006+02:00

Welcome to the new academic year 2008-09!

The student who contributes the most interesting posting will win a prize!

Interest will be decided by majority vote in class.

That's a promise.

Again English Spelling.

2008-08-16T10:10:00.002+02:00

English spelling worries The Economist (14-08-2008)

Click here.

Response to "A Commentary about the Study of Language"

2007-11-10T20:50:00.000+01:00

Greetings everyone!

I must confess that though a bit confused concerning the content of the paper (I couldn’t decide whether concentrating on the theory, or expressing my own views towards the issue of Language Change) I eventually drew the same conclusions as Inma did. Not being able to decide whether to include my personal view or not, I only touched upon it, but luckily we have this blog!

First of all, let me say again that I agree with Inma’s comment of language being “the most personal and intimate product of human beings”. To me, language, together with the capacity of being intelligent and having free will, is what differentiate us from the other living creatures around us. As such, language is something inherent in human kind. Think for instance of dumb people. Even though they cannot articulate words they have found a parallel way of communicating with others. Humans overcome difficulties in order to fulfill the basic necessity of communication, which make us more powerful and ultimately free.
After finishing my paper I have been able to affirm that ‘language change’ is something universal, which gives evidence of my previous point. ‘Language’ is a matter of humanity, therefore it will react in a similar way notwithstanding geographical differences.

Finally, I would like to give you my reading of how people have made language evolve. For me there is no clearer evidence than that of ‘economy of the language’ and ‘practicality’. Throughout history, human kind has been trying to make language simpler, exactly as everything else. For example, while in the old times scribes had to handwrite all those ‘never-ending’ manuscripts, now we have computers that help us editing and that make our job much easier. Now, going back to my point, language has experienced a similar evolution and currently, as a result of those changes, it is more practical and economical – all those previous inflections that make us go crazy have mostly been cast away (thank God) –.

So, this said, goodbye!

Marina Torralbo Jover

PS. Although this is in a sense a commentary on Inma’s contribution I added this to the forum as a new entry just in case it was annoying to read it in the tiny font of commentaries.

A commentary about the study of language

2007-11-09T21:19:00.000+01:00

Hi to everybody!

I would like to present to all of you an issue that appeared in my final conclusion of the paper “Linguistic Change”. I was encouraged by Alejandro to develop this idea, and I thought this is the best site to do that, so here I am.

I find it strange that other human activities, apart from language, are almost identical in different cultures and seem not to evolve: smiling, crying, sleeping, eating, walking… But something very different happens with language, that innate capacity of human beings, something universal which everybody shares.

Language is a product of human beings, among a huge amount of products. The feature that makes language so special among the other products is its arbitrary sign: language allows human beings to choose a word, a structure, an intonation, etc. in order to express… to express what? An attitude, a feeling, an idea… Human beings are constantly choosing items of the language depending to what we want to express: confidence, respect, formality, disagreement, happiness.

In this way, I infer from this idea that language is the most personal and intimate product of human beings, allowing us to choose different options according to our ideas, feelings, attitudes, adapting to any specific need from all the varied needs that we have when expressing ourselves.

Language, then, is constantly reinterpreting itself in the same way that human beings do: changes of meaning, of intonation, of spelling, appearance of new words… to sum up: evolution.

If language is the most personal and intimate product created by human beings, the study of it will get us closer to the understanding of its creators themselves. I think that the study of any product of human beings gets us closer, in a direct or indirect way, to our own nature: by means of studying the evolution of fashion, literature, buildings, etc. through the whole history, we can be a little be closer to the ideas of human beings surrounding these products, to the reasons for this evolution, their attitudes and feelings concerning the way in which something needs to change in order to adapt to their needs.

As I have said before, language is the most special product of human beings in that sense: since it covers a wide range of options (which depends on the speaker, the listener, the whole community in a specific moment of history), its study allows us (as philologists) to understand human beings better, their evolution, the nature of language change (of course!) and the nature of human beings themselves.

These ideas may appear a bit subjective, but I must confess that I love subjectivity: it allows more interpretations than objectivity, so this enriches our knowledge a lot.

Then, I would like to know your opinions about this issue, which I find very interesting (for example, is there some kind of connection between the specific use of language that a writer uses in his/her works and his/her own vision of the world? Of course! Think about the case of Virginia Woolf, or Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Language tells us a lot about human beings).

Cheers!

Inma XXX

The largest library in the world will be digitalized and opened to everyone

2007-10-24T20:01:00.000+02:00

We're talking about the Library of Congress (USA), which, supported by UNESCO, will offer the World Digital Library with free access from anywhere on the planet. That'll be at the end of 2008.
You see they're really taking a big step towards free culture (which has already been promoted with the creation of concepts such as the copyleft).

Some interesting webs

2007-10-24T17:14:00.000+02:00

Hi everybody!

As Alejandro told us to upload things we've found on the web about the subject. I'd like to give you some links (legal, of course) related to some topics that can be of our interest.

The first one is the a link to a book of project Gutemberg's site, titled "A Brief History of the English Language and Literature" http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/21665

The second one is www.englishtips.org. It is in Russian (you can change the language into English) , but it is the best web I’ve visited for a long time, here you can download every single book you’re looking for. (you need registration). There are two or three books for this subject although you are going to find plenty of grammar, phonetics, exam preparation and literature books. Don’t worry, it is not illegal! In Russia, there are no laws banning this type of downloading, just in case, don’t air the link too much.

Alejandro, if you think that this link can be “dangerous” for the survival of your super-blog feel free to delete it.

PS: Alejandro, why don’t you try to include snap shots on your blog and webpage? (It’s just a suggestion) they are free and very useful for previewing the links. Here you can create them and get HTML code. http://www.snap.com/about/shots.php

Cheers!!

Elena Moreno

A reply concerning holy, etc. and OE halig

2007-10-22T23:13:00.000+02:00

Alejandro gret eadmodlice his leorneras and eow segþ,

In reply to Marina's survey of the etymology of holy, holiday and halloween, I thank her for reminding me of that piece of forgotten "homework". A good teacher should not give homework and then forget to correct it. My apologies to those who did work out the etymologies of these words.

I was surprised to read in Marina's post that Old English halig descends from Old Norse heilagr. I checked in the Online Etymology Dictionary myself and found a little error in her explanation. What the dictionary says is that both the OE and ON words are reflexes of a common Germanic word, which is reconstructed as *khailagas.

This dictionary also mentions that the word halig is etymologically connected to the word hal "healthy, sound, whole". Both words had a long /a:/ in OE. In ME /a:/ became /o:/, whence Modern English holy and whole. The word whole today has an archaic meaning "healthy". However, in the North of England and in Scotland, this OE /a:/ did not change, and the word continued to be written with "a". The Modern English alliterative expression hale and healthy contains this a-form from the North. It is in fact a doublet of two words meaning the same thing.

The compound haligdæg existed already in OE. It is only the meanings "religious festival" and "day of recreation" that were created in the 14th century, not the word itself, as Marinas description seems to imply. Until then, including the OE period, it was used to render the Latin (Hebrew) word Sabbath (i.e., "Sunday").

As for the third word, halloween, I have nothing to add. But I would like to draw your attention that Halloween is particularly popular in Scotland.

I am glad that two students have contributed posts to this blog. My comments must not be taken as discouraging. On the contrary, this commentary is an invitation to more posts.

Wesaþ ge hale!
Alejandro Alcaraz

Etymological study

2007-10-22T22:14:00.000+02:00

Hi everybody!

I just remembered we forgot to bring up in class the etymological study of the words 'holy', 'holiday' and 'Halloween'. It so happens that I was already familiar with those terms because, as you know, I quite like Harry Potter, and the seventh (and final) book of the series is titled Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This title was really controversial because the word 'hallows' is not used nowadays, and therefore we all had to hurry up and take a look at an etymological dictionary. By the way, 'hallows' was finally paralleled with 'holy relics', just so you know (not everyone, but some of you may be interested).
In any case, I found out that the three words ('holy', 'holiday' and 'Halloween') have an Old Norse origin 'heilagr'. In OE it changed into 'halig' ('that must be preserved intact') which in fact, after some variations in meaning towards the spiritual field, became 'holy' in ModE.
Now, 'holiday' is a compound of 'halig' ('holy') + 'daeg' ('day') and it was first registered in the 14th century (meaning 'religious festival' or 'day of recreation'). By the 16th century both its pronunciation and sense evolved towards the current word 'holiday'.
The word 'halloween' is really interesting when it comes to its provenance. It appeared as a Scottish shortening of 'Allhallow-even' (literally 'Eve of All Saints') which was celebrated on the 31st of October, the last day of the Celtic calendar.

So, I hope you enjoyed these curious facts. I certainly did! I know it's not much, but it is really interesting to see how words and their meaning change as much as going, for example, from 'religious festival' to those exquisite long months in which we rest and have fun!

Cheers!
Marina Torralbo

PS. I used an online etymology dictionary. You can check it out in the following link: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php

The Bayeux Tapestry (III)

2007-10-21T21:20:00.000+02:00

But this is not the complete story…

According to scholars there must be a piece of tapestry missing (of at least seven or eight metres), which is quite demoralizing because that part may have answered many questions related to the Tapestry. The historical facts are that, after his triumph at Hastings, William marched to London, where some English lords submitted to him. On Christmas day William was crowned king of England at Westminster Abbey. However, the Saxons continuously rebelled against the invaders, even after William’s death.

We can compare the surviving piece, depicting the Norman’s triumph over the English, and the missing one, perhaps dealing with William’s coronation and consolidation of England; and this comparison suggests that someone may have removed it intentionally, probably someone French.

The Tapestry in the Modern Age

During the French Revolution the Tapestry was at risk of being destroyed. Some people from Bayeux, fighting for the Republic, used it as a cloth to cover an ammunition wagon, but fortunately a lawyer who understood its value replaced it with another cloth. Later Napoleon wanted to use the Tapestry as inspiration for his attack on his lifelong enemy England. When this plan was aborted, the Tapestry was given back to the people of Bayeux.

Other details and anecdotes

The Tapestry provides much information about early Norman clothes, weapons, castle-building, boat-building, hunting and other aspects of the medieval everyday life.
Above and below the different sequences of the story we find “the marginalia”, that is, additional information that shows the season of the year, the looting of war spoils, and many other symbols and pictures.
A full-size replica of the Bayeux Tapestry is displayed in the Museum of Reading, in England. The Victorians demanded that the one naked figure in the original tapestry was represented with a garment covering his genitals. From 2000 some members of the Danish Viking group Lindholm Hoje have been elaborating an accurate replica of the Bayeux Tapestry, using the original sewing technique, and thread naturally dyed with plants.
Scott McCloud in his work Understanding Comics, mentions the Bayeux Tapestry as one of the first examples of narrative art. (By the way, I recommend this book to all comic fans).

Have a look at this animated Bayeux Tapestry, the story seems to be full of life.

Electronic sources

All these electronic sources were consulted on 20th October 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hastings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayeux_tapestry
http://hastings1066.com/history.shtml
http://www.britainexpress.com/History/bayeux-tapestry.htm
http://www.cinemacrawler.com/index.php?Operation=CustomerReviews&ItemId=B00004R9A4&ReviewPage=15
http://www.youtube.com/v/bDaB-NNyM8o

The Bayeux Tapestry (II)

2007-10-21T21:08:00.000+02:00

What the Tapestry tells us
The Tapestry deals with the story of the Norman conquest of England, in which the Normans, led by William the Conqueror, fight against the Anglo-Saxons, conducted by Harold Godwinson, recently crowned as King of England. They fought in the Battle of Hastings in October 1066.

The main character of the Tapestry is William the Conqueror. As a piece of gossip I can tell you that he was married to his distant cousin Matilda of Flanders, and that William was 1.78 m., while Matilda was 1.27 m (just imagine them together).

At the beginning of the tapestry there is a scene of King Edward the Confessor, who did not have any heir. Apparently Edward sends Harold Godwinson, the most powerful earl in England, to Normandy. There he lands, but he is imprisoned by Guy, Count of Ponthieu. William sends two messengers to require his liberation, and Guy obeys quickly. William, perhaps to impress Harold, invites him to his combat against Conan II, Duke of Brittany. On the way, Harold saves two Norman soldiers who had become mired in quicksand. William’s army pursues Conan, who eventually surrenders at Dinan. For his braveness Harold receives arms and armours from William and makes an oath on saintly relics.

Harold sails to Normandy

The messenger with Guy with portrayal of medieval agriculture in the marginalia.

Harold comes back home and meets the old king Edward again, who seems to be reprimanding Harold, maybe for making an oath to William. Edward dies, and Harold becomes the new king. After his coronation a star with hair appears flying across the sky, it is Halley’s Comet! In the Middle Ages comets were considered a symbol of doom.

Halley's comet.

William hears about Harold’s coronation and, longing for the throne of England, he prepares his fleet of ships. With his troops he reaches England. There is a legend about this. While setting foot on the beach, William stumbled and fell on his face. Not to seem awkward before his troops, he rose with his hands full of sand and shouted: “I now take hold of the land of England!” But this is suspiciously similar to the story of Julius Caesar’s invasion of Britain, so it may have been used by William’s biographer to highlight the similarities between Caesar and William. Again in the Tapestry, William orders his men to find food and cook a meal. A house is burnt, probably because of the invaders’ thirst of destruction. Then the Normans build a kind of fort to defend their position. Messengers are sent between the two armies, and William delivers a speech to get his army ready for the battle.

The English force consists entirely of infantry, fighting behind the protection of a shield wall, whereas the Normans employ a mounted cavalry. The first warriors to fall are Harold’s brothers. Bishop Odo also appears in this episode. The part dealing with the death of Harold has received different interpretations, since the name “Harold” is embroidered above a lengthy death scene, which makes it difficult to find out which character is Harold. Usually, medieval iconography depicts perjurers dying with a weapon through the eye. Thus representing Harold as an oath breaker (with an arrow stuck in his eye) may emphasize William’s legitimate right to the throne. Nevertheless, Harold’s way of dying remains unknown. Finally in the Tapestry the defeated English run away.

Continuation: THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY (III)

Harold's death.

The Bayeux Tapestry (I)

2007-10-21T20:56:00.000+02:00

After mentioning the Bayeux Tapestry to my father, he stated that it appears at the beginning of the film Bed knobs and Broomsticks (known in Spanish as La Bruja Novata). Later I found an image of the film and at last I remembered: the opening titles have a design which is quite similar to that of the Tapestry. This is because the film is about another invasion of England, but in this case prompted by the Nazis.

The Bayeux Tapestry is 70 metre long and half a metre wide. In fact it is not a tapestry at all! Actually, it is an embroidered cloth depicting the incidents that led to the Norman invasion of England, as well as the invasion itself. They call it “tapestry” because it is embroidered, and because it is designed to hang on the wall, like other medieval works. Another interesting fact is that the Tapestry contains annotations in Latin. Nowadays it is exhibited in a special museum in Bayeux (France), the Centre Guillaume le Conquérant. We may conclude that one of the greatest historical records of the Middle Ages in Britain is not preserved in Britain, but in France.

Scholars think that it was Bishop Odo (William the Conqueror’s half brother) who commissioned the Tapestry, with the intention of exhibiting it at Bayeux Cathedral. If we assume this to be true, then the Tapestry may have been designed and constructed by English artists, since Odo’s central base was in Kent and because in the Tapestry many connections have been found with Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, clothes and language.

Continuation: THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY (II)

Laptop thieves. Beware!

2007-10-19T18:03:00.000+02:00

Beware of thieves.
AAS

Wikipedia in Old English

2007-10-16T13:44:00.000+02:00

Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia is published in many languages. Among others:

Old English = Wicipǣdia, sēo frēo wīsdōmbōc.

Latin = Libera encyclopaedia.

AAS

News in Old English

2007-10-16T13:41:00.000+02:00

You can read current news in Old English and test your reading comprehension skills!

Visit the New Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in Old English called Tidunga on englisce.

As we move further into the course, you'll see how your reading improves.

AAS

Bosworth & Toller's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon

2007-10-12T17:34:00.000+02:00

You can download an application with Bosworth & Toller's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon and view the entries as text or images of the original printed dictionary.

AAS

Online History of English Course

2007-10-10T19:34:00.001+02:00

You can visit the Online History of English Course, still under construction.

The material in this website is practically the same as that in Docencia Virtual.

AAS

Novedades en Docencia Virtual

2007-10-10T18:59:00.000+02:00

He reestructurado las carpetas y archivos de la asignatura en la plataforma de Docencia Virtual. Podéis visitar todas las carpetas, salvo las de Middle y Early Modern English, que estarán disponibles en el segundo cuatrimestre.