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Fun Etymology Tuesday Special – Auld Lang Syne

Happy new year to all of you, my dear followers and friends!

Since it is New Year’s Eve and, more importantly (of course), Tuesday, I thought we should do something special for today’s Fun Etymology!

Today’s special Fun Ety is Auld Lang Syne.

The English version of this song, with which you are no doubt familiar, goes something like this:

It is traditionally sung on New Year’s Eve all around the world (often in the English version), but was created by the Scottish poet Robert Burns in 1788.

Burns sent the song to the Scots Musical Museum, noting that it was an old song that he was putting into writing for the first time. So, although its been around since 1788 in the form we know now it, the lyrics may be significantly older.

It was eventually set to the slowed-down melody of a Scottish folk song (number 6294 in Roud Folk Song Index to be specific), giving us a lovely Scottish tune.

Regardless of whether you listen to the English or Scottish (or any other) version though, Auld Lang Syne is a lovely way of celebrating the past while ringing in the new year as its lyrics celebrate the old while the chiming of the clock will celebrate the new.

Once you’re done with ringing in the new year (and celebrating the beauty of the Scots language), join me as we continue our study of languages, their history and, their development.

Happy New Year!

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Fun Etymology Tuesday – Santa Claus

God jul, dear friends!

Today, I celebrate Christmas with my family in Sweden. But not only is it Christmas (for me), it is our 200th post on the blog!

Isn’t that amazing – when we started this blog about 2½ years ago, there was no telling how this was gonna go, but here we are! With a steadily growing readership, I am very happy to continue to entertain you each week. If there is anything you’re missing on the blog – please let me know!

But, it is not only Christmas Eve and our 200th post: it is also Tuesday, and as always, here is your Fun Etymology!

Today’s word is Santa Claus!

First attested in the New York Gazette as St. A Claus in 1773, this name comes to English (specifically to American English) from the dialectal Dutch Sante Klaas from Middle Dutch Sinter Niklaas.

As you might have guessed, the Dutch word refers to Saint Nicholas. The bishop of Asia Minor during the end of the Roman Empire was named the patron saint of scholars, especially of schoolchildren, and of children generally, following his death.

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Saint Nicholas

Saint Nicholas is actually still visible in some variations of the Santa suit.

Santa is often associated with the red suit with white fur trimmings, which can be attributed to Thomas Nast. Nast first dressed Santa in a red suit in an 1881 illustration, but the Coca Cola Company, who started its campaign with Santa in a red suit during the 1930s, is often given credit for it. Santa may, however, sometimes be dressed in long robes and a bishop’s mitre – thus calling back to Saint Nicholas.

And that is the story of Santa Claus! He may, of course, be known by other names (Father Christmas is found in English since around 1650), but regardless of the name, I do hope he brings you a merry and joyful Christmas!

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Fun Etymology Tuesday – Advent

Ladies and gents! We’re getting close to the Fourth Sunday of Advent!

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So, in honour of that, today’s word is Advent!

Meaning the ecclesiastical season immediately preceding Christmas, this word was attested as early as 1119 in English and as early as the 7th or 8th century in Latin so it has certainly been around for a long time!

From Latin adventus, this word means “a coming, approach, arrival”. In Church Latin, though, it has the extended sense of “the coming of the Savior”. The Latin word comes from the past participle stem of Latin advenire, meaning “arrive at, come to” and can be divided into two parts:

ad-, a word-forming element that expresses direction toward something or in addition to something. The Latin word ad – meaning “to, toward” in space or time or “with regard to, in relation to” as a prefix – comes from the PIE root *ad-, meaning “to, near, at”.

–ventus, which comes from venire, meaning “to come”. This word comes from a suffixed form of the PIE root *gwa-, meaning “to go, come”.

And that is the history of advent!

Next Tuesday is Christmas Eve, which means that I’ll be celebrating Christmas and have an armful of nephews to play with! But don’t fret, I am ever faithful to my dear followers!

Welcome back next week and learn the etymological origin of
Santa Claus!
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Fun Etymology Tuesday – Reindeer

One week closer to Christmas! And, as promised, another Christmas-related word: reindeer!

Of course, most of us know the story of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and Santa’s request for aid on a foggy Christmas Eve, but where does the word reindeer come from?

Well, most likely, it came from my own little area of the world: Scandinavia. Borrowed into English around 1400, it is most likely from Old Norse hreindyri, meaning reindeer.

This word can be divided in two: hrein and dyr(i).

Hrein– is from the word hreinn, the usual name of the animal. You can see it preserved in the modern descendants of Old Norse (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Icelandic) today:

DanishNorwegianSwedishIcelandic
Ren (or rensdyr)Rein (or reinsdyr)RenHreindýr

Interestingly, you can’t actually say *rendjur in Swedish, referring to the reindeer, which you seem to be able to do in the other descendants of Old Norse. As a native Swedish speaker, trust me, it sounds really weird and is certainly incorrect.

I wonder why that is.

Anyway. Hreinn comes from Proto-Germanic *khrinda, which is also the source of the Old English word hran, also meaning reindeer. *khrinda likely comes from PIE *krei, from the root *ker-, meaning horn or head. That totally makes sense; have you ever seen the horns of a reindeer? They’re magnificent.

Image result for reindeer

The PIE word may also be related to Greek krios, meaning ram, and some sources further connect it to words in Sami and Finnish.

Dyr simply means animal and corresponds to Old English deor (which later became deer). From Proto-Germanic *deuzam, meaning (wild) animal. The Proto-Germanic word likely comes from PIE *dheusom, which, rather unspecifically, simply means creature that breathes (and isn’t human).

And that is the story of reindeer!  
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Fun Etymology Tuesday – Buck (but really, its about julbocken)

The first Tuesday of December and Norway is definitely showing its winter-y side! So, today, let’s immerse ourselves in Christmas-related etymology!

Today’s word is buck!

From c. 1300, this word has come to mean male deer in English, but before that, it referred to a male goat. The word comes from Old English bucca, meaning male goat, from Proto-Germanic *bukkon.

The Proto-Germanic word may have come from PIE *bhugo, which is also said to be the source of Avestan buza “buck, goat”, and Armenian buc “lamb”. Some, however, say that it might be from a lost pre-Germanic language.

Fairly straight-forward etymology, really, unless you want to look very closely into the lost pre-Germanic idea. So why am I telling you about a buck as a Christmas-related word?

Well, as you may know by now, I’m from Sweden.

In Sweden, Julbocken (often translated as the Yule Goat as English has mostly lost the word buck in reference to a male goat) has a very long history.

Julbocken goes back to ancient Pagan traditions, potentially connecting with ancient Proto-Slavic beliefs. The god honored in these beliefs was Devac (or Dazbog), who was represented by a white goat. The festivities therefore always included a person dressed as a goat, who demanded offerings in the form of presents.

Eventually, though, julbocken became the giver of gifts rather than the recipient, and this actually remained the case in the Scandinavian countries until as late as the second half of the 19th/beginning of the 20th century, when it was replaced by Father Christmas/Santa Claus.

But, it remains a very popular ornament in Scandinavian countries and in my own native country, a massive julbock called Gävlebocken is built up in the city of Gävle every year.

Image result for Gävlebocken
Gävlebocken

In a traditional prank (that tends to get on people’s nerves), it is usually lit on fire soon after its unveiling.

Image result for Gävlebocken
However sad that is, now, you know the story of buck and julbocken!

I hope that you enjoyed that little piece of Christmas-related history, because every week until Christmas, Fun Etymology will give you one Christmas-related word and tell you about its history!

Is there a Christmas-related word that you’ve always wondered where it came from? Let me know! (One can never have too much inspiration in life!)

Until next time!
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Fun Etymology Tuesday – Ocean

It’s Tuesday! Let’s continue with our words relating to nature and take a look at ocean!

A borrowed word from French, ocean starts to appear in English around the early 14th century. However, it appears that it wasn’t very popular because it had to be reborrowed in the mid-17th century.

The word comes from classical Latin Ōceanus, meaning literally the ocean but especially referred to the Atlantic. It could also be referring to a vast expense of something.

The Latin word came from Ancient Greek Ὠκεανός, which referred to a great stream or river. This refers to the “vast river” that the Ancient Greeks believed encircled the world (as opposed to Mediterranean, which comes from the Greek word μεσόγαιος, meaning situated in the middle of the land).

It was also personified as the Greek deity Oceanus. Oceanus was the son of Uranus and Gaia and husband of Tethys (who happened to also be his sister).

And that is about as far as we can track ocean (though some scholars have suggested that it is of pre-Greek origin)!

And that is our FunEty for today!

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Fun Etymology Tuesday – milieu

Another Tuesday, and as always, here is your Fun Etymology!

Today, we’re continuing on another word that has to do with the environment: today’s word is milieu!

A somewhat unusual word in English today (listed by the OED as being used somewhere between 1 to 10 times per million words in typical modern English usage), this word was borrowed in around the mid 19th century from French milieu.

In French, it means middle, medium, or mean, meaning literally middle place. The French word can really be divided into two:

mi-, from Latin medius, from the PIE root *medhyo-, meaning middle

and

–lieu, meaning place (which, of course, you also find in English as a separate noun).

Interestingly, many of the other Germanic languages (including the Scandinavian languages, German and Dutch), have also borrowed this word from French – but in each, it seems to have taken the approximate meaning of the English word environment.

And that’s our FunEty!

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Fun Etymology Tuesday – Like

Another Tuesday comes our way, and so does another FunEty! Before that, I hope that you’ll like that all our FunEty and our Patron Saints are now also available on the blog!

And speaking of like, that is our word for today!

This little word is extremely versatile and has multiple uses, for example as an adjective, a preposition, a noun, etc.

I suppose then that it is only appropriate that it is also of multiple origins.

Partly, like is a variant or alteration of another lexical item, ylike, from Old English gelic, meaning similar or identical. The Old English word can, however, be divided into two parts: the prefix ge- and the base líc.

The former could be used to denote quality or condition in words where the associative sense recognises something that makes the connection appropriate, convenient or based on similarity (like gecynd – gecynde, meaning nature – natural.

The latter, from Proto-Germanic *lîkom , meaning form or shape, likely referred to the body. Cognate developments might, however, suggest that it had some specific feature that denoted the dead body specifically! You see, in most other Germanic languages, the Proto-Germanic word has come to denote just that (for example Dutch lijk, German leiche, Danish lig, all meaning corpse, cadaver or dead body).

Isn’t that interesting?

Now, let’s add a twist:

This word developed differently in the north and the south of England!

In the south, the normal development was lich(e), but in the north, the development was like. One hypothesis is that this might be due to a partial borrowing from Old Norse glikr. As I am sure that you remember, there were plenty of Vikings around in the north of England during the later Old English period, which could explain the differences in the development of this Old English word.

So there you have it – the somewhat convoluted development of the modern-day adjective (and plenty of other things) like!

(As a final note, this does not represent the development of the verb like, which, though undoubtedly related, comes to us from the Old English word lician.)

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Fun Etymology Tuesday – Heresy

We’re back – and we’re even on time this week!

Today’s word: heresy!

From Old French heresie, eresie, this word came to English during the early 13th century and was once described by Samuel Johnson as “an opinion of private men different from that of the catholick and orthodox church”. But that’s not what it used to mean!

From Latin hæresis, meaning school of though or philosophical sect, the word came to Latin from Greek hairesis, meaning a taking or choosing for oneself, a choice, a deliberate plan, purpose, philosophical sect or school. This, in turn, care from haireisthai, meaning take or seize, middle voice of hairein, meaning to choose.

Here’s the fun part: did you know that this word may be a cognate of Hittite šaru and Welsh herw, meaning booty? We sure didn’t!

Now that you’ve got your Tuesday fun – a bit of important information for you: the HLC goes on vacation! Don’t worry – FunEty and Patron Saint will keep popping up in your feed but the blog will ease back a bit and you will get your linguistic treats once a month during July and August instead of every week! We’re sorry, but even linguists need vacation (actually, it’s because we all have an absolutely insane summer filled with work)!

Next post will appear next week, on Thursday 11th! Join us then for more linguistic facts!

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Fun Etymology Tuesday – Tide

Another Tuesday means a new FunEty!

Today’s word is “tide”, referring to the rise and fall of the sea.

If you know any other Germanic languages, you’ll probably recognise the Old English word “tid”, from which “tide” hails. OE “tid” actually referred to a point in time (and could also refer to a period in time, a season, feast day or canonical hour), and, indeed the Scandinavian cognate “tid” for example still means “time”. From Proto-Germanic *tīdi-, from PIE *di-ti-, meaning meaning “division of time”, a suffixed form of *da-, meaning “to divide”.

The current meaning of the word, which surfaced around the 14th century, is likely from the notion of a fixed time, in this particular case the time of high water. This might be a native evolution or from Middle Low German “getide”. Interestingly, Old English appears to not have had a specific word for “tide”, using instead “flod” and “ebba” to refer to the rise and fall of the sea – a usage that strikes me as very likely cognates to modern-day Swedish “flod och ebb”, meaning much the same thing.