2709: Why HW- flipped to WH- May 21, 2024

While it is still found in a few dialects of English, the pronunciation of “wh-” [ʍ] as separate from “w-” [w], in most cases “whale” and “wail” have merged to be indistinguishable. Like many other modern features of English and even Middle English, the source of the change was at least heavily influenced by the Norman conquerors. Beyond simply the pronunciation, however, is the fact that the spelling used to be HW-, as in hwæl (“whale”), as seen in the very first line of Beowulf:

Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum, þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

(So! We, in the glory of days past of the Spear-Danes, kingly men, how these warriors performed acts of courage.)

Yet now, there is no H+consonant combination in English anymore. This is due to the Norman scribes, who chose to write it WH-, likely in keeping with other spelling norms wherein H signifies a separate sound, like TH, SH, CH, PH or historically GH. While it may be more intuitive to have the H first in some ways to represent this sound, keep in mind the means to aspirate the air to pronounce[ʍ] is not actually two separate consonants, but one unique one, just as with TH or SH and the rest really.

2691: Old English Has a Word for ‘Hyena’, Sort of. May 3, 2024

The modern word 'hyena' comes from an Ancient Greek root ὗς (hûs) meaning 'pig' with a feminine ending -αινα (-aina) so called because it has a similar hide to a warthog. This replaced an earlier Old English word nihtgenġe (“night walker”) which is not only cooler, but begs the question of how much contact there was between these parts of the world to have a distinct and known word for the animal. You might think the answer is because of the Roman Empire, but Old English began after the Roman Empire fell, and the Germanic tribes that invaded then-Celtic Britain wouldn't have had much Roman contact. However, hyenas are used in the Bible as a metaphor for Satan, and the term nihtgenġe (“night walker”) would otherwise refer to a demon. So, in way this was the word for them, but it is also likely those living in Britain in the Dark Ages would not have had a clear idea how they looked.

There will be more on this tomorrow.

2544: glass Nov 30, 2021

Although 'glass' refers to a material in English, throughout Indo-European languages the root of this word often led to other meanings for a variety of colors. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root *ghel- meant 'shine' and as a result eventually came to mean 'glass' in Germanic languages, but also led to words for the colors yellow such as Old English 'glær' or Latin 'glaesum' (amber) or indeed Modern English 'yellow'. In Old Irish 'glass' meant 'green' and in Welsh 'glas' means 'blue'.

2466: county Sep 12, 2021

Counties are named because they were ruled by counts, but at least in England, not to mention other places, these could have been ruled by other types of people, including earls, lords, dukes, etc.. Before this, the Old English used 'scir', an ancestor of the Modern English 'shire'. Moreover, 'count' comes from Old French which was meant to be a translation of 'earl' (O.E.: 'eorl') but 'count' was primarily used as a term for foreign leaders in particular.

2417: Functionality of Ge- in German Aug 3, 2021

Like German, Old English frequently used the prefix 'ge-' for a variety of purposes. Indeed, while most Germanic language use this—a feature lost in Modern English—it wasn't used in all the same ways. While both Old English and Modern German use this for participles and to indicate association like the modern 'co(m)-' prefix derived from Latin, in Old English this was also used as an intensifier, especially indicating a completed action of a verb. The prefix could also be used to form nouns and verbs indicating a result.

2160: lady & lord Nov 13, 2020

These days, ‘lady’ connotes nobility or otherwise upper class, well-mannered, or even just particularly feminine qualities in a woman, but it originally meant ‘bread-kneader’. That said, even if baking bread is not necessarily what would be thought of with a ‘lady’ today, even in Old English ‘hlǣfdīge’ (loaf-kneader) nevertheless denoted a woman to whom homage and fealty was paid, as in the wife of a lord. This word was also strongly associated with the Virgin Mary, and hence many plants and also ‘ladybugs’ are named from this source. The first half of the word ‘hlǣf-‘ is associated with ‘loaf’ and ‘dīge’ while indicating action, is related to ‘dough’ and also ‘dairy’. The reduction now to ‘lady’ is not so odd considering the there was a common assimilation of the suffix ‘-ig’ in Old English to ‘-y’ in Modern English, but the -f- did not drop out until the 14th century, around the time when the word had gained connotations to higher society and chivalry. Indeed, it was not a form of address for a normal woman until the late 19th century. ‘Lord’ comes from ‘hlafweard’ meaning similarly ‘loaf-guard’, related to ‘warden’, though keep in mind this word was not so common until the Middle Ages before which ‘dryhten‘ was prefered. Moreover, tying this all together, the Old English for ‘servant’ was ‘hlafæta’ or literally ‘loaf'-eater’.