Ah yes, Galore...
Posted on 05/06/2009 6:04:34 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Terms such as 'law', 'ugly', 'want' and 'take' are all loanwords from Old Norse, brought to these shores by the Vikings, whose attacks on England started in AD 793. In the centuries following it wasn't just warfare and trade that the invaders gave England. Their settlement and subsequent assimilation into the country's culture brought along the introduction of something much more permanent than the silk, spices and furs that weighed down their longboats -- words... The loanwords which appear in English -- such as 'husband' -- suggest that the invaders quickly integrated with their new culture. The English language soon adopted day-to-day terms, suggesting that the cultures lived side-by-side and were soon on intimate terms. This is in marked contrast to French loanwords. Though there are many more of these terms present in the standard English language -- around 1,000 Scandinavian to more than 10,000 French -- they tend to refer to high culture, law, government and hunting... Old Norse had probably completely died out in England by the 12th century, indicating total cultural assimilation by the Scandinavian invaders. Another clear indicator of this is the type of loanwords seen in English. The majority of loanwords tend to nouns, words and adjectives, open-ended categories which are easily adapted into a language. But one of the most commonly-seen loanwords in English today is 'they' -- a pronoun with its origins in Old Norse. Pronouns are a closed category, far more difficult to adapt into a new language, which again indicates a closeness between the two languages and cultures not present in previous or subsequent invading forces.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
OK, wait a great big, fat, funky, blinkin', stinkin', snaggle-toothed, pink and purple polka-dotted, mean. green, sandwich-eating minute. Are you SURE about that?
Well, Old Norse and Old English both were Germanic languages and the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse were both Germanic peoples so I can see how the assimilation would be rather easy (especially once the Norse converted to Christianity).
Pixie. From "Pict-Sidhe" (Sidhe is pronounced "shee")
In German I would use benutzen or gebrauchen. I can sort of see the Latin influence on benutzen just from looking at it (looks similar to utilize and sounds similar to use)- the German tribes probably starting using it after exposure to the Romans- so I would guess that gebrauchen would be the proper Germanic word. Presumedly there would have been an Old English word similar to gebrauchen that we- English speakers- simply stopped using at some point.
The closest I can think of for a proper English word that means something similar to use would be wield. But I think an English speaker would probably look at you cock-eyed if you tried to wield that one in a way other than for a weapon or a tool or a power of some sort although I would probably like to see it used poetically as in 'he/she wielded me to his/her own ends'. It would be funny to hear people saying 'Come on, wield your head man'.
I hope I don't sound like I'm splitting hairs :-) This is actually what I find so fascinating about words and their origins. It's a very fertile ground for thought and discussion.
A good example of Frenchification in our language is in this post. No need to use similar (which must be Latin based) when like would suffice (I'm assuming it is related to the German word- gleich and therefore a 'proper' English word).
Oh, f-word, I effed that up beyond all recog-effin-nition. Yeah, I meant, the only one to *follow* a noun properly. ;’)
Thanks!
Giving Goliath His Due:The name Goliath, like Achish, is not Semitic, but rather Anatolian (McCarter 1980, 291, Mitchell 1967, 415; Wainwright 1959, 79). Not all agree though; the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (2:524) proposes that Goliath may have been a remnant of one of the aboriginal groups of giants of Palestine who now were in the employ of the Philistines. [1. Naveh (1985, 9, 13 n. 14) states that Ikausu, the name of the king of Ekron in the seventh century b.c., is a non-Semitic name that can be associated with that of the Achish of Gath in David's time. The name in the seventh century has a shin ending that is non-West Semitic.]
New Archaeological Light on the Philistines
chap 5 "David's Flight"
by Neal Bierling
foreword by Paul L. Maier
Philistines: Giving Goliath His Due
by Neal Bierling, foreword by Joe E. Seger
old edition
Hee hee, I thought that’s what you meant!
“Or Celtic?”
Donal (=Donald)
“One example that gnaws at my brain stem each time I hear or read it is ‘utilized’. Reporters seem to love this—”the police utilized tear gas canisters to quell the increasingly violent peace protesters.”
‘Used’ says the same thing, costs you less ink to print, and is a proper English word. So why not utilize ... uh use it?”
Or employed, or deployed.
English has a very large vocabulary, permitting precise ways of saying things.
Ever notice when listening to translations how looong they talk in most other languages, to say what we do in English with a few words?
Story of Human Language, Course No. 1600
Taught by John McWhorter, Manhattan Institute, Ph.D., Stanford University
Thanks!
Not splitting hairs, thanks! I just figured the shorter word was likely of English origin.
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