Category: Latin (Lingua Latina)

The worm that turned

By Simon

cartoon worm

While working in my garden this afternoon I dug up lots of worms, so I thought it might be interesting to find out more about the word worm.

Meanings of worm (/wɜːm/ /wɝm/) include:

– a member of the genus Lumbricus; a slender, creeping, naked, limbless animal, usually brown or reddish, with a soft body divided into a series of segments; an earthworm. More widely, any annelid, terrestrial, aquatic, or marine;
– any animal that creeps or crawls; a reptile; an insect;
– serpent, snake, dragon;
– four-footed animals considered noxious or objectionable.

Some of these meanings are archaic or obsolete.

There have been many variant spellings, including wirm, wrim, wyrme, weorm, werm, werme, wurm, wurem, orm, wrm, wourme, woirme, woorme, worme, and it finally settled on worm.

Worm comes from the Old English wyrm (a serpent, snake, dragon), from the Proto-Germanic *wurmiz (serpent, worm), from the Proto-Indo-European *wrmi-/*wrmo- (worm), possibly from *wer- (to turn). *wrmi-/*wrmo- is also the root of the Irish and Scottish Gaelic word gorm (blue/black), the Welsh gwrm (dusky), the Danish/Norwegian/Swedish orm (snake), the Latin vermis, which is the root of the English words vermilion and vermin, and quite a few other words in various languages.

Some interesting worm factoids

– there are some 2,700 different types of worms
– an acre of land can contain over a million worms
– Cleopatra VII made the export of worms from Egypt a capital crime as she realized the important roll they play in keeping soil fertile
– Charles Darwin studied worms for many years and concluded that they are one of the most important creatures on earth.

Sources: Oxford English Dictionary, Online Etymology Dictionary, Wikipedia, Word-Origins.com, Eartworm Farming, Worm Facts

Noce

By Simon

Noce /nɔs/ is a French word I learnt last night meaning “wedding” (ceremony) or wedding party. Here are some examples of usage:

– être de la noce – to be (a member) of the wedding party, to be among the wedding guests
– être de noce – to be invited to a wedding
– aller à la noce de quelqun – to go to somebody’s wedding
– repas/robe/nuit de noce – wedding banquet/dress/night
– noce d’argent / d’or etc – silver/golden wedding
– fare la noce – to live it up / have a wild time
– il n’était pas à la noce – he wasn’t enjoying himself / was have an uncomfortable time
– il n’avait jamais été à pareille noce – he’d never been so happy / he was having the time of his life

Noce, sounds like the Welsh word for night nos, so when I first heard it I thought nights and not weddings were being discussed. It comes from the Latin word nuptiae (wedding/marriage), which is derived from nubere (to veil/hide) – this goes back to a Roman custom that married women wore veils. Nuptiae is also the root of the English word nuptial (to marry; to speak of a wedding; wedding), and of the French word nuage (cloud).

An alternative to noce is mariage, which can refer both to the institution of marriage and the marriage/wedding ceremony. The English word wedding comes from the Old English węddian (to wed), while marriage comes from the French mariage.

Ductus

By Simon

I came across the word ductus today in an interesting article about the origins of the writing. The articles focuses particularly on the development of the Latin/Roman alphabet and traces it’s origins back to ancient Egypt.

Ductus /ˈdʌktəs/ means:

1. the number of strokes that make up a written letter, and the direction, sequence and speed in which they are written
2. a subtle reduction of weight towards the middle of the stroke of the letter
3. (medicine) a duct, tube or canal in the body

Etymology: from Latin, perfect passive participle of dūcō (to lead), from the Proto-Indo-European root *deuk- (to lead), which is also the root of duct, and duke, via the Old French duc and the Latin dux

[Sources: wiktionary and myEtymology.com]

The article uses it in the second sense when talking about how letters shapes have changed and been simplified over time.

The first sense could be used when talking about Chinese Hanzi / Japanese Kanji / Korean Hanja, as the direction and sequence of strokes used to write such characters is fixed and has to be memorised when learning them, and the number of strokes is used to order them in dictionaries and indices.

Incidentally, I’ve just added a page about the Proto-Sinaitic / Proto-Canaanite script , one of the earliest alphabetic scripts, and one of the scripts mentioned in the article.

Levees and ganseys

By Simon

Last night the words levee and gansey came up in conversation and while I’d heard both of them before, I wasn’t entirely sure of the meaning of the former, or the origins of the latter. I did know that a levee had something to with flood prevention and was something you drive your chevy to, and that gansey sounded similar to the Irish word, geansaí (jersey, jumper), though I hadn’t heard it used in English before.

A levee, /lɪˈviː/ or /ˈlɛviː/, is a natural embankment along a river formed by sedimentation, or a man-made embankment along a river or around a field designed to prevent flooding. It is also a landing place or quay; a formal ceremony held when a sovereign gets up in the morning, or an afternoon reception for men at court [source].

Levee in the sense of a man-made flood-prevention embankment is apparently used mainly in American English (especially in the Midwest and Deep South), and was first used in English in New Orleans in around 1720. Other words for levee include levée, dike/dyke, embankment, floodbank and stopbank.

Etymology: the feminine form of the past participle of the French verb lever (to raise), from the Latin levare (to raise), from levis (light in weight), from the Proto-Indo-European root *le(n)gwh- (light, easy, agile, nimble) [source].

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, gansey, /ˈgænzɪ/, is a jersey or pullover and is a dialect variant of Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands famous for its knitted sweaters. It is also written gansy, ganzee, ganzey, ganzie & ganzy. This dictionary also has a Guernsey coat, “a thick, knitted, closely-fitting vest or shirt, generally made of blue wool, worn by seamen”, which is also known as a Garnesie, Garnsey or Gernsey.

Another source claims that the word gansey comes from “a word of Scandinavian origin meaning ‘tunic'”. This sounds plausible as the Norwegian word for such a garment is genser [source], though it’s possible that the Norwegian word comes from Britain or Ireland.

The Art of the Fishing Communities website, “Ganseys (Guernseys), Jerseys, Aran and Fair Isle are names given to fishermen’s knitted pullovers that were universally popular in the 19th and early 20th century. Each fishing village had its own pattern and within the local pattern there were small variations, and sometimes names, that identified the family and individual.”

The Irish word for jersey or sweater, and also the island of Guernsey, is geansaí /gʲansiː/, sounds similar to gansey and possibly comes from the same source. The word is also found in Manx – gansee and in Scottish Gaelic – geansaidh.

What do you call a knitted woollen top?

Jumper, sweater, pullover and jersey, and indeed gansey, are all used in the UK, and I normally say jumper.

Honey apples and quince cheese

By Simon

Some of the apple jam and jelly I made last year

A recent discussion with a friend got me wondering about the differences between jam, jelly, conserve and marmalade and the origins of these words. I discovered that in some varieties of English and in other languages some or all of these words can be used interchangeably, for example in American English jelly can refer to both jam and jelly, and in Australian and South African English jam is used to refer to both jam and jelly, while these words refer to different things in the English of the UK, Canada and India.

Outside North America the jelly is also the name of a gelatin dessert known as jello or Jell-O in the USA and Canada.

Definitions

– Marmalade /ˈmɑːməleɪd/: a preserve made from citrus fruit, especially bitter ‘Seville’ oranges, and also from grapefruit, lemons and limes. Often contains shredded or chopped peel from the fruit.

Etymology: first appeared in English in 1480 and comes from the Portuguese marmelada (a preserve made from quinces – quince jam/cheese), from marmelo (quince), from the Latin melimelum, (honey apple), from the Greek μελίμηλον (melímēlon – a kind of apple grafted on a quince), from μέλι (meli -honey) and μήλον (mēlon – apple).

The practice of cooking fruit with honey or sugar to preserve it apparently dates back to the Greeks, who discovered that quinces cooked slowly with honey would set when cooled. This discovery was taken up by the Romans, who used this method to make preserves of such fruit as quinces, lemons, apples, plums and pears.

– Jam /dʒam/ – a sweet spread or conserve made from fruit and sugar boiled to a thick consistency. Usually the fruit is peeled and stones, pips, etc are removed before it is cooked.

Etymology: uncertain, perhaps related to jam (to press tightly) and of imitative origin.

– Jelly /ˈdʒɛli/ – a clear fruit spread made from sweetened fruit (or vegetable) juice. With jellies the fruit is chopped up but there is no need to peel or core it as the pulp resulting from cooking the fruit with water is filtered through a cloth such as muslin. The juice is then mixed with sugar and cooked until it sets.

Etymology: from Old French gelee (frost, jelly), from Latin gelata (frozen), from gelare (freeze), from gelu (frost). Related to the Italian word gelato (icecream).

– Conserve /kənˈsəːv/ a preparation made by preserving fruit with sugar; jam or marmalade. Also known as whole fruit jam. The fruit is often spread with sugar and left to steep for a few hours before it is cooked, and the cooking is shorter than with jam as the aim is that the fruit absorbs the sugar but doesn’t break up.

Etymology: from Old French conserve, from Latin conservare (to preserve), from con- (together) and servare (to keep).

In other languages fruit preserves have various names

– in French confiture can be used for jam, jelly and marmalade, which is also referred to as confiture d’oranages or marmelade d’oranges. marmelade is defined as ‘stewed fruit, compote’ in my French dictionary. Jelly/jello, the gelatin dessert, is known as gelée.

– in German Marmelade is jam, jelly and marmalade; Orangenmarmelade is also used for marmalade, and Konfitüre for jam. Jelly/jello is known as Wackelpeter or Wackelpudding.

– in Czech marmeláda is used for jam, jelly and marmalade, though džem (jam) and želé (jelly) also exist.

Sources: www.oxforddictionaries.com, wikipedia.org, www.etymonline.com, langtolang.com http://www.slovnik.cz/

Čmeláci a včely

By Simon

Photo of a honey bee

Recently I discovered that there are two different words for bee in Czech: čmelák [ˈʧmɛlaːk] (pl. čmeláci) for bumblebee and včela [ˈfʧɛla] (pl. včely) for honey bee. While investigating these words I also discovered the wonderful Czech word hmyz [ɦmɪz] (insect), which sounds like it might be onomatopoeic. This got me wondering about the differences between bumblebees and honey bees and the origins of these words.

Honey bees (apis) make and store honey, and live in large colonies in nests made from wax, while bumblebees (bombus) are bigger and hairier; make only a little honey for their young, and make much smaller nests [source 1 & source 2]. Honey bees are more likely to sting people than bumblebees, and lose their sting and die when they do so. Bumblebees are much less aggressive, very rarely sting people and don’t die when they sting [source].

The word bee can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European root *bʰey-, via the Old English bēo [source], and the Czech word včela probably comes from the same root, via the Proto-Slavic *bьčela [source]. The word čmelák possibly comes from the same root as well, though I haven’t been able to find any confirmation of this.

Photo of a bumblebee

Bumblebee was known humbul-be in Middle English and this was changed to sound like the Middle English word bombeln (to boom, buzz), which comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *kem (to hum) [source]. According to The Guardian though, bumblebees were known as humblebees because they hum. The name bumblebee had been around for many years and started to become more popular at the beginning of the 20th century, perhaps popularised by the name of the character Babbitty Bumble in Beatrix Potter’s Tale of Mrs Tittlemouse (1910).

Incidentally, a dialect word for bumblebee found in Hampshire, Cornwall and a number of other areas is dumbledore [source]. Dumbledore combines dumble, a dialect word from Southwell in Nottinghamshire meaning “a wood lined stream often in a small, steep sided valley” [source] and dore, of uncertain origin.

Gwrthryfelwyr

By Simon

The other day while listening to a news report on Radio Cymru about the situation in Libya, the word gwrthryfelwyr caught my attention. It means rebels and is made up of the elements gwrth (against, counter), ryfel, from rhyfel (war), and wyr, from gwŷr (men). I’d heard the word before and knew what it meant, but hadn’t really thought about the individual parts in this way, and this lead me to thinking that the meaning and etymology of Welsh words is often easier to work out than that of English words as many of them are made up of native roots with meanings I know or can guess.

I also thought about the etymology of the rebels and realised that it actually has a similar structure to gwrthryfelwyr, though from Latin roots. I knew that the bel part had something to do with war and appears in such Latin phrases as antebellum (before the war) and postbellum (after the war), and guessed that in this context the re- prefix might mean against. I checked this and found that rebel comes from the Old French rebelle, from the Latin rebellis (insurgent, rebellious). from rebellare (to rebel, wage war against) from re- (opposite, against or again) and bellare (wage war), from bellum (war).

The Welsh prefix gwrth- appears in many Welsh words, including:

– gwrthblaid – opposition (party) [“against/counter party”]
– gwrthbrofi – to disprove, refute [“counter prove/test”]
– gwrthdyb – paradox [“counter opinion/surmise/conjecture/notion”]
– gwrthdystio – to protest [“testify against”]
– gwrthgorffyn – antibody [“counter little body”]
– gwrthneidio – to rebound [“counter jump”]

Mice, muscles and mussels

By Simon

Larry, the official mouser at 10 Downing Street

Today I came across the German word Mäusefänger (mouse catcher) in an article, sent to me by a friend, about the cat that recently took up the position of chief mouse catcher at 10 Downing Street, the official residence of British Prime Minister David Cameron. Number 10 apparently has a bit of a problem with mice, and there’s a long tradition of keeping cats at the prime minister’s residence and the treasury.

Mäusefänger is made up of two words: mäuse, the plural of maus (mouse), and fänger (catcher, fielder, interceptor, trap). Maus, which is of course related to the English word mouse, comes from the Proto-Germanic. *mus (a small rodent), from PIE *muHs- (mouse) [source]. The word muscle comes from the same root, via the Latin musculus (muscle, lit. “little mouse”), as does mussel, via the Old English muscle/musscel, and the Late Latin muscula [source].

While looking up some of the words in the article, I came across a useful German dictionary, canoonet, which not only gives information about German words (in German), and links to dictionaries for other languages, but also has grammatical information, such as noun and verb conjugations. There is also a Morphologie-Browser, which shows the words derived from a particular word – here’s an example with the word sehen (to see).

Cave canem!

By Simon

Carea Castellano

I received a email today asking when the Spanish word perro (dog) replaced can, a word for dog derived from the Latin canis, which appears in the name Canary Islands, (Islas Canarias in Spanish).

The Spanish word perro first appeared in the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española in 1737 [source]; was originally pejorative [source] and is possibly of onomatopoeic origin from the growling sounds made by dogs, perr perr (sounds more like a cat’s purr to me). Shepherds also used that sound to call their dogs. Another possibility is that perro comes from a pre-Roman language [source].

In Spanish the word can was used for dog until about the 14th century, after which it was gradually replaced by perro. The words for dog in most other Romance languages come from the Latin word canis: cane (Italian), chien (French), câine (Romanian), cão (Portuguese), can (Galician). One exception is Catalan, in which the word for dog is gos. [source].

The root of the Latin word canis, which appears in biological name for the subspecies of dogs: canis lupus familiaris, comes from the Proto-Indo-European base *kwon- (dog). This is also the root of the English hound (via the Proto-Germanic *khundas and the Old English hund), the English canine, the Greek κυων (kuōn), the German hund, the Irish cu and the Welsh ci [source].

The English word dog comes from the Old English docga, a word of unknown origin which was probably the name of a particular breed of dog, and had largely replaced the word hound as the general term for dog by the 16th century [source]. Hound started to be used to mean “a dog used for hunting” from the 12th century [source].

The name Islas Canarias probably comes from the Latin Insula Canaria (Island of the Dogs), which was originally just the name of Gran Canaria. It is possible that the dogs referred to were seals [source].

Taverns, columns and caps

By Simon

What do the words in the title of this post have in common?

Well, they all originally come from Etruscan, according to Nicholas Ostler in Ad Infinitum – A Biography of Latin and the World it Created, one of the books I’m reading at the moment.

The English word tavern dates from the late 13th century, when it meant “wine shop”, and later came to mean “public house”. It comes from the Old French taverne, (shed made of boards; booth; stall; tavern; inn), from the Latin taberna (shop, inn, tavern) – originally “hut or shed”, from Etruscan [source]. The Greek word ταβέρνα (taverna) comes the Latin [source].

Column comes from the Old French colombe (column, pillar), from the Latin columna (pillar), which the Online Etymology Dictionary says is a collateral form of columen (top, summit), from the Proto-Indo-European base *kel- (to project), but which Nicholas Ostler believes comes from Etruscan.

Cap comes from the Old English cæppe (hood, head-covering, cape), from the Late Latin cappa (a cape, hooded cloak), which is possibly a shortened from capitulare (headdress) from caput (head) [source], or from the Etruscan.

Other Latin words that are thought to come from Etruscan include voltur (vulture), ātruim (forecourt), fenestra (window), caseus (cheese), culīna (kitchen), tuba (trumpet), urna (urn), mīles (soldier), Aprīlis (April), autumnus (autumn) and laburnum (shrub).