LOL! Me too I love words. I can go on and on. But it’s your fault, you got me started.
“Weird” refers to the Norse god whose characteristics were strange occultic ...well weirdness. Usually referred to as fate, his power was greater than all the other gods. Spelled “Wyrd” if you wanna look him up.
The old pronunciation was like “weigh”, Weigh-errd. As you say it rapidly in normal conversation, you will hear your tongue make the -y sound in the middle of the word which recalls the -y in the original spelling. Sometimes the spelling gets altered to try to retain the old pronunciation, and sometimes our idea of the spelling changes the pronunciation.
The old god of fate was named “weird” but spelled “Wyrd.”
When we see that spelling we want to say “word” but that is not it. The more a word is used by reglar dummies like us, it will go through many sometimes senseless changes. Special subject words that dumdums don’t ever use will retain their old forms. This is why we still use Medieval Latin words in law, science/medicine, theology, and other smart people subjects. The smart folks just keep using the old words because they don’t need to change them.
That old -i before -e rule is also related to Latin. There was a pronunciation shift in Latin consonants as Latin was becoming Italian and other Romance languages. The letter c used to sound like -k in all words. Now it is like an -s or a -ch before -ih and -ee vowels.
The -igh in weigh used to sound as it does in germanic languages. We say “right” and they say “rishtig”. Back when we were saying the -igh sound, it would impact the sound of the attached vowel. The long -i sound changed from a german -ih to an -oy sound in the 1500’s. “Risht” but with more of a german g in there than the -sh became “roysght”. Then the -igh sound not being voiced was simply unheard and dropped. When your tongue is high in your mouth for a short -i, then the -gh could be heard. But when the tongue is low for the diphthing long -i, -ah-eee then it is hard to put the -gh in the word.
I’m Scotch-Irish and still pronounce the -h in the word “where”. I still say the -w in the word “write”. I say “cot” and “caught” completely differently. (Forgive me I do love this subject.)
Yup...The Germanic tongue is quite different from the Nordic even though it is sometimes used as a bridge. Norse -> German -> Romantic -> Olde English -> New English. Doesn’t always work out well.
Similarly, Oriental -> Sanskrit -> Greek -> Latin -> Olde English -> New English
You can insert the various middle East Languages (most notably, Arabic) between Sanskrit and Greek.
While the above is a simplification, it points toward some problems.
Of note, the library at Alexandria generally used Greek as a “common” language. (I’ve heard that Cleopatra spoke fluent Egyptian, Arabic, and Greek). The real problem was translating various terms phonetically into written transcripts (most people were illiterate).
What fun. Welcome to festivus