Linguacious

I know it’s been a while - things have been beyond crazy at uni - but I’ve been working on some stuff that I’m excited to share with you all!

Remember my series on Scots I did a year or two ago? Well, it’s got a new home! I’ve copied my old posts over to my new website, where I hope to post new articles and expand the readership. Scots is such an important topic, especially nowadays, so I hope you’ll all check out what I write and spread the word! ❤️️

Twitter: @thescotslab

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thescotslab

I know it’s been a while - things have been beyond crazy at uni - but I’ve been working on some stuff that I’m excited to share with you all!

Remember my series on Scots I did a year or two ago? Well, it’s got a new home! I’ve copied my old posts over to my new website, where I hope to post new articles and expand the readership. Scots is such an important topic, especially nowadays, so I hope you’ll all check out what I write and spread the word! ❤️️

Twitter: @thescotslab

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thescotslab

I know it’s been a while - things have been beyond crazy at uni - but I’ve been working on some stuff that I’m excited to share with you all!

Remember my series on Scots I did a year or two ago? Well, it’s got a new home! I’ve copied my old posts over to my new website, where I hope to post new articles and expand the readership. Scots is such an important topic, especially nowadays, so I hope you’ll all check out what I write and spread the word! ❤️️

Twitter: @thescotslab

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thescotslab

One of my main areas of interest is in Scots (for more info on the language, see my series on Scots on my main blog) in particular, the lexicon. Despite a less than favourable relationship between Scotland and England for centuries (putting it mildly 😅) quite a few Scots words made the journey south and became a part of standard English vocabulary. Some of them may surprise you…

blackmail: a compound noun dating from 1530 in English with the Scots variant blackmeal, the term originated as money extorted from farmers on the border around Scotland and England in order to gain protection from raiders called the Border Reivers. The word lost its violent connotations during the borrowing into English.

glamour: The Dictionary of the Scots Language (DSL) gives the meaning as “magic, enchantment, witchcraft; a spell, esp. one affecting the sight” and the word was introduced into English mostly through the works of Walter Scott. The OED also states that it’s “a corrupt form of grammar”, which strikes me as a bit of a weird thing to say.

wow!:The exclamatory form is described as “chiefly Scottish” in the OED, and most of the citations given are from Scottish writers- the first recorded usage in writing is in a translation of the Æneid by Gavin Douglas (a Scot) in 1513.

skulduggery: The OED says that this is an American term, but that it is also an altered version of skulduddery, which is a Scots word. The DSL gives the meaning as “lewd behaviour, fornication, unchastity” but specifies the contexts as literary or sometimes playful joking language.

References

Border Reivers, Wikipedia, link

List of English Words of Scots Origin, Wikipedia, link

OED Online

If you look in the Petit Robert dictionary, the etymology for the French word tête “head” is given as coming from the Latin testa “tile, earthen pot or pitcher”. The German equivalent Kopf has a similar etymology, descending from the Middle High German (MHG) kopf “drinking vessel”. This seems like a strange pattern to follow, but there is a very good reason these two words shifted their meaning in the same way.

Way way back in the mists of time, Old French (OF) and (MHG) used the same word to refer to both “cup/pot” and “head”:

OF test “pot, potsherd” OF test “head (metaphorical)”

MHG kopf “cup” MHG kopf “head (metaphorical)”

In his book Principles of historical linguistics, Hock states that “in medieval soldiers’ slang, battle was referred to as the smashing of pots or cups (= heads) into shards.” This explains the metaphorical application seen above. What then happened was that the original “cup” meaning became obsolete, and the metaphorical connection to “head” was lost. Thus the former “cup” words became the everyday words for “head” and alternatives had to be found to fill the gap left by them:

French tesson “shard” French tête “head”

German Tasse “cup” German Kopf “head”

References

Hock, Principles of Historical Linguistics, link

Kopf, Wiktionary, link

testa, Wiktionary, link

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The word elf has been a part of the English lexicon since before English was English. The Old English (OE) form of the word was ælf and referred to a different type of creature to what we’d think of as an elf today. These creatures were masculine supernatural beings with more malicious intent and ambivalence towards humans. These creatures are common throughout Germanic mythology- look at the Døkkálfar (dark elves) of Norse mythology in the Prose Edda. By contrast, Latin had nymphæ- gentle feminine creatures typically associated with nature (more what we think of as an elf)

This Latinate concept was introduced into Anglo-Saxon England, and during the 8th century ælf was used to represent both of the masculine and feminine creatures. However, this meaning range became too broad, so ælf’s meaning began to narrow again and refer to… the nympha.

During the period of polysemy, it was possible to tell the difference between the two meanings of ælf not just from context, but also from grammar. Ælf was a strong masculine noun, with these delensions. To highlight the newer nympha meaning, writers treated it as a weak noun, using these declensions. So grammar was used to help distinguish between two senses and help facilitate a semantic change.

References

ælf, Wiktionary, link

Dökkálfar and Ljósálfar, Wikipedia, link

elf, n.1. OED Online, (I used my uni’s subscription for access)

Hall, A., 2007. Glosses, gaps and gender: the rise of female elves in Anglo-Saxon Culture. In: Change in meaning and the meaning of change: studies in semantics and grammar from old to present-day English, pp. 139-170.

What is the similarity between the Sahara and cheddar cheese? They’re both yellow, you might say, and you’re right, but that’s not what I’m thinking of. What if I tell you that the Sahara Desert and Cheddar Gorge (where cheddar cheese originates) are examples of the same phenomenon in naming locations…

It’s true, I promise!

The word ‘sahara’ comes from the Arabic çahra “desert”, so etymologically speaking, the Sahara is called the “desert desert”. This same process of taking the word from a local language and using it in Present-Day English (PDE) alongside the English equivalent has been done all over the world, but it has also been done diachronically in the case of Cheddar Gorge.

As previously mentioned, cheddar cheese is named after Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, England. It has been suggested that the gorge’s name derived from the Old English ceodor “ravine”, which is essentially synonymous with “gorge”, thus Cheddar Gorge becomes “gorge gorge”.

Where “sahara” was borrowed from Arabic in the 15th century, “cheddar” derives from the ancestor of PDE, but the original sense of the word became obscured, allowing the common noun to become the proper noun we know today.

References

sahara. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/word/Sahara

Cheddar cheese. Wiktionary, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Cheddar_cheese