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The Italic languages – Introduction

Welcome back to the HLC!

It is certainly about time for a new blog post, don’t you think? Well, I do.

So, we’ve spent quite some time looking at English and other Germanic languages. I figured it was about time to do something different.

So, for a little while, we’re going to be looking at the Italic languages!

Let’s get started with what they actually are – and let’s not confuse them with the early Italian languages, shall we?

The Italic languages are a group of cognate languages spoken throughout the middle and southern parts of Italy before the predominance of Rome.

Most of you (dare I say all of you?) will probably recognise at least one of the Italic languages: Latin.

Latin, of course, has a somewhat privileged status among languages generally today (and previously in history as well). This is primarily because so many texts written in Latin survive – and, of course, that it had such an impact on many languages around it.

But Latin isn’t the only Italic language.

In fact, the language family is generally divided into two branches: one represented by Latin and the closely related (or potentially dialectal) Faliscan. The other is represented by a subgroup of languages usually referred to as the Sabellic or Sabellian languages.

So, although you might be inclined to think “Latin, Latin, Latin”, the tree actually looks more like this:

Modified from Ancient History Encyclopedia
A tad bit larger than you thought?

There are plenty of languages in the Italic language family. Perhaps those that spring to mind are Spanish, Italian and French. But, Britannica notes that the term Italic languages sometimes even excludes Latin. We’ll talk more about that next week.

As with the Germanic languages, the Italic languages are classified as Italic based on some shared features, such as phonological and/or grammatical changes.

During the following weeks, we’ll look a bit closer at these shared features and the daughter-languages of Proto-Italic.

But, for now, study my little guide-tree and read up on some Italic languages… and join me again in two weeks to learn some more about the Italic languages together!

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References

Philip Baldi & Gabriel C.L.M. Bakkum. 2014. Italic languages. Oxford Bibliographies. DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780195389661-0045.

Italic languages

Italic languages

Indo-European language family tree

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Fun Etymology Tuesday – Cabal

It’s Tuesday, which means a new Fun Etymology!

Today’s word is cabal!

From around the 1520s, this word refers to a “mystical interpretation of the Old Testament”. Around the 1660s, it also came to mean “an intriguing society, a small group meeting privately”.

This word has come a long way.

From French cabal, from Medieval Latin cabbala, from Hebrew qabbalah, meaning “reception, received lore, tradition” from qibbel, meaning to receive, admit, accept.

Interestingly, though, the word didn’t become popular in English use until 1673, when it, interestingly, came to be seen as an acronym for five intriguing ministers of Charles II. Specifically Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale, whose initial letters of their surnames spelled out CABAL. The men became quite famous as they signed the Secret Treaty of Dover, which essentially allied England to France in a prospective war against the Netherlands.

And that is the story of cabal!
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Mary Haas – Patron Saint of March 2020

It’s the first (full) weekend of a new month! And, coincidentally, today is also International Women’s Day!

Therefore, it is only suitable that we celebrate
Professor Mary Haas!

Mary Haas, born in 1910 in Richmond, Indiana, completed her PhD in linguistics at Yale in 1935. She went on to become a multifaceted linguist during her career. She specialised in North American Indian languages, Thai and historical linguistics.

During the 1930s, she studied a number of languages, mainly spoken in the American southeast. Shortly after publishing her paper A Visit to the Other World, a Nitinat Text in 1933, she went on to conduct fieldwork with the two last native speakers of the Natchez language. Though her notes of the language went unpublished, they are considered a highly reliable source of information on the now, sadly, dead language.

She conducted fieldwork on the Creek, also known as the Muscogee, language and was actually the first modern linguist who collected extensive texts in that language. The texts were later published posthumously.

As if that wasn’t impressive enough, Professor Haas also developed a program to teach the Thai language during the tumultuous time of World War II. Professor Haas, aside from implementing the new program, also wrote the authoritative Thai-English Student’s Dictionary, which was published in 1964. The dictionary remains in use today.

In 1948, she was appointed assistant professor of Thai and Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. She became one of the founding members of the UC-Berkely Department of Linguistics and became the long-term chair of the department.

Additionally, Professor Haas was Director of the Survey of California Indian Languages between 1953-1977.

Again, as if that wasn’t enough, her student Karl Teeter famously stated in her obituary that “she was responsible for training more scholars as Americanists than Boas and Sapir together”, an undoubtedly impressive feat.

During her career, she received quite a few awards and honors for her amazing work in her field. Among others, she was President of the Linguistic Society of America in 1963, awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1964, elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1974 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1978. She also received four (!) honorary doctorates between 1975 and 1980.

In addition to all of these honours, I am more than happy to add Patron Saint of March 2020 at the HLC to the list!

Happy international women’s day!

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References

For this post, I’ve used the following:

Mary Haas

Survey of California and Other Indian Languages: History

Mary Haas Obituary by Karl Teeter

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Fun Etymology Tuesday – Cab

It’s Tuesday! Time for another Fun Etymology!

Today’s word is cab!

For most of us, perhaps, when someone says cab, we think of this:

Image result for cab

But, originally, it actually referred to something more like this:

Image result for cabriolet horse

Known especially for their springy suspensions, these passenger-vehicles, commonly drawn by two or four horses, were known as cabs. This was a colloquial London shortening of cabriolet, which was a type of covered carriage.

The word was borrowed from the French word cabriolet, from around the 18th century, a diminutive of cabriole, meaning “a leap, a caper”. Earlier, around the 16th century, it was known as capriole, from Italian capriola, meaning “a caper, frisk, leap” – which literally translates to “a leap like that of a kid goat”, from capriola, meaning “a kid, a fawn”!

Now, where did the goat come from, you wonder?

Well, the Italian word comes from Latin capreolus, meaning “wild goat, roebuck”. This comes from caper, capri, meaning “he-goat, buck” from PIE *kap-ro, meaning the same thing.

Interestingly, the PIE ancestor is also the source of Irish gabor, Welsh gafr, Old English hæfr and Old Norse hafr, all meaning “he-goat”.

From goat to a yellow car that drives you around, this is the story of cab and this week’s Fun Etymology!

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History of the English language – Modern English syntax

And I’m back!

This every-other-week-stuff is still a bit odd to me, but I imagine I get used to not talking to you in this format every week. (I hope – if not, I’ll simply have to find more time – perhaps one can sleep less….)

Anyway! Today, let’s have a look at Modern English syntax!

This is actually going to be a rather short post.

Why? Well… there really isn’t that much change going on during this period. (At least not in the brief glance that I offer here).

That’s not to say that there weren’t changes between 16th century English and Present-day English, of course. Simply that “the structure of the language was gradually established so that eighteenth-century standard written English closely resembles the present-day language”1.

Basically, there’s not much to talk about in regard to changes in English syntax after the 18th century, because it is, at that point, pretty much the same as in Present-Day English. (Not, perhaps, identical, but still.)

Therefore, while I normally separate between early, late and Present-day English, I won’t make that distinction today.

So now we know that!
Let’s get on to the actual syntax, shall we?

Okay, so, the earlier part of the Modern English period varied quite a bit more than what it does today. That isn’t surprising really, standardisation wasn’t completely done for a while and Middle English is the period of variation. Following immediately after, it makes sense that we see more variation than we do today.

Anyway, the most important thing, perhaps, is that we see patterns that started during Middle English become more regular and, eventually, the “rule”.

Subject-verb word order thus becomes more and more common. Later during the Modern English period, this, of course, becomes even more common and it is today the most common word-order of declarative clauses:

  1. I saw you.

We also see a higher degree of regularisation in the so-called do-constructions – especially in questions and negations:

  1. Did you see me?
  2. I did not.

And so on. As you can see, this hasn’t changed all that much.

Speaking of questions, we see something called subject-auxiliary inversion and where appropriate – fronting of a wh-element. What does that mean? Well, basically, the former means that we put the auxiliary before the subject in questions, like:

  1. Has Simon been here lately?

while the second means that we put a wh-word (like what, who, where, etc.) before the rest, so:

  1. What did she say?

This doesn’t normally happen in subordinate clauses, so, instead, we get:

  1. I asked what she said.

As I’ve focused on basic word order in my previous posts on English syntax, I…. really don’t have anything else to say.

So.. there you have it?

No, really, I hope you enjoyed this very small insight into Modern English syntax or perhaps more the fact that basic English word order hasn’t really changed all that much since the Middle English period.

In the next post, I’ll wrap up the HEL series and then…
We will start a new adventure!
Join me then!

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References

For this post, I’ve had a look at:

Matti Rissanen. 1999. Syntax. In Roger Lass (ed). The Cambridge History of the English language. Volume III: 1476-1776. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

and

David Denison. 1998. Syntax. In Suzanne Romaine (ed.). The Cambridge History of the English language. Volume IV: 1776-1997. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Fun Etymology Tuesday – Baboon

It’s Tuesday, which means a new Fun Etymology!

Today’s word is baboon!
Image result for baboon
A yellow baboon, Tanzania
Source

A primate classified as a type of Old World Ape – which is an interesting English term for Cercopithecidae, a family of primates with 24 genera and 138 species – this word came to English around 1400 as babewyn (or something similar – we all know how unpredictable Middle English spelling is).

Borrowed from French (either Anglo-Norman French or Middle French or why not both?), this word remains in modern French as babouin from Old French baboin, this word actually meant something like “foolish or stupid person” around the early 13th century. It could also refer to a grotesque figure or monster in architecture – that is, a gargoyle.

Image result for gargoyle

Around the mid-13th century (in French that is), it came to also mean what we would identify as a baboon today. And then, like many other French words, it made its way over to the English vocabulary.

And that’s the story of baboon!
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Fun Etymology Tuesday – Babe

Welcome back to the HLC!

It’s Tuesday and that means another Fun Etymology! Today’s word is babe!

Nowadays, this word is often superseded by the form baby, which is actually the diminutive form of babe. Baby was used figuratively from the 1520s. The slang baby, referring to an attractive young woman, didn’t actually occur until around 1915.

Anyway, back to babe.

From the late 14th century, this word means infant or young child of either sex. The word itself is a shortened form of baban, from early 13th century.

Its etymology is uncertain, but, much like babble from last week, it is likely imitative of baby talk.

You see, the combination ba is considered one of the easiest ones to pronounce. If you have kids, you’ll probably recognise that children tend to begin talking by combining the vowel a with some consonant. Specifically, this is usually the labial or dental consonants.

The result?
“Words” like ba, ma, pa, ta, da.

And that is pretty much what we know about babe!

An interesting side-note, though, is that, in some languages, similar words mean something along the lines with old woman. In Russian, for example, babushka means grandmother. Whether that has any relation or not, I’ll leave unsaid (though Etymonline appears to suggest that this might be the case).

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The history of the English language – Middle English syntax

It’s Thursday and that means more of the History of the English Language! Today, we deal with Middle English syntax!

So, remember how we talked about Old English syntax in our last post? Well, a lot happens in the shift from Old English to Middle English.

As you know by now, English morphology changed quite a bit in this “shift” too. Particularly important for Middle English syntax was the weakening inflections on words. In Old English, the function of nouns, for example, was rather clear. If it was a nominative, it was the subject – accusative the object and so on. But, with the loss of these endings, a lot suddenly became rather ambiguous.

Suddenly, word order became quite important!

First, while Old English tended toward using V2 word order in main clauses and VF in sub-clauses, Middle English tends to be very similar to Present-Day English word order.

However, Modern English word order is quite.. rigid. It has to be, really, because the word order is what tells you about the subject and the object in a sentence. There is a world of difference between Jack ate the fish and The fish ate Jack, isn’t there?

But Middle English is a bit.. more flexible.

Typically, the verb is found in second position, preceded by the subject and followed by the object (that is, a typical SVO order). We find the same in Present-Day English (such as in John likes football).

Although the standard word order of Middle English is therefore rather similar to what we find in English today, we do see a few differences.

The V2 constraint (that we saw in Old English) continues to be quite common during the Middle English period. It had a sharp decline in use by 1600 and is today virtually extinct in English.

SOV was also still in use during Middle English, but it now became rather unusual. In the late Middle English period, it appears to have become very rare (though still occasionally occurring).

Except for these two, we also find that Middle English makes use of VSO order in questions and commands:

Gyf ye the chyld any thyng?
Give you the child any thing?
Bring ye the horse
Bring you the horse1

OSV and OVS are still found when emphasising the object:

This boke I haue mad and wretyn
This book I have made and written
Clothis have they none
Clothes have they none2

So there are still a few differences.

The changes in word order actually had a significant effect on the development of the English language. For example, an expressed subject became increasingly obligatory in Middle English and the so-called dummy it came to be used more and more (that is, It seems to me…). But subject-less constructions still occurred quite frequently (which is something to keep in mind when reading Middle English).

Generally, though, we are moving increasingly toward Present-Day English. As a result, it is my personal belief that most speakers of English today can likely read Middle English with some focused attention (syntactically speaking anyway – I won’t make promises about orthography).

Want to see if you can?

Check out this interlinear translation of some of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and test yourself!

(Let me know how it goes, will ya?)

Join me for a look into modern English syntax on February 27!

Until then, enjoy our Fun Etymologies!

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References

Albert C. Baugh & Thomas Cable. 2002. A history of the English language. London: Routledge.

Carol Percy. n.d. ME Syntax. Find it here.

Elly van Gelderen. 2016. Old, Middle, and Early Modern Morphology and Syntax through texts. Find it here.

Olga Fisher. 1992. Syntax. In Norman Blake (ed.). The Cambridge history of the English language. Volume II: 1066-1476. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 207-408.

Olga Fischer. Ans van Kemenade. Willem Koopman. Wim van der Wurff. 2000. The syntax of early English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Robert Stanton. Middle English Syntax and Vocabulary – a PPT-presentation “Middle English Syntax and Vocabulary”.

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Fun Etymology Tuesday – Babble

As promised, your weekly Fun Etymology remains!

Today’s word is babble.

Recorded from the mid-thirteenth century, this verb refers to the practice of uttering words indistinctly or talking “baby-talk”.

Similar words are found in other Western European languages (such as Swedish babbla, Old French babillier) which are attested from roughly the same time (though some are likely borrowed from other languages). Though one might wonder if the name Babel might be related, there is no such evidence. However, the OED notes that the perceived connection may have come to affect the sense of the word.

The word is likely imitative of baby-talk. According to the OED, the syllable /ba/, which is often used by babies in early vocalisation, came to be seen as typical of childish speech. It then combined with the suffix –le, a verbal formation from Old English –lian and from Proto-Germanic *-ilôjan, with a frequentative1  or, sometimes, a diminutive2 effect.

And suddenly, we have babble!

It is recorded with the meaning “to talk excessively” from around 1500.

But let’s not forget that there is also a noun! The noun babble, meaning “idle talk, foolish or incoherent talk”, is, however, derived from the verb and therefore follows the same etymology. It is recorded from around the 16th century.

And that’s our Fun Etymology for today!
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An announcement

It’s Thursday and I know that means a new post.

However, having thought about it rather thoroughly, I’ve decided to step it down a notch.

Unfortunately, looking at my schedule, I’ve been forced to realise that I’ll be having significantly less time on my hands for the foreseeable future.

Therefore, at this start of a new month, I’ve decided to publish new blog posts every other week rather than every week.

Not to worry, Fun Etymology and Patron Saint will continue as usual!

I hope that you’ll continue down this road of mysteries with me in the future and join me next week when I’ll be back with our longed-for post on Middle English syntax!