The might of language

Having mused about the connection between Dutch -acht/-ocht endings and English -ought ending I was further interested to read David Crystal's comment on the word 'might'.

In Crystal's great book 'The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language' he makes a study on the Middle English variations of the word might (note: the -ght ending). In this little aside he shows that the written evidence for this particular word during the Middle English period was varied due to scribal error, context or dialectal variant.

He adds as an example that the North Eastern dialect form of 'might' was 'micht'. Furthermore as David Simpson states in his fantastically entertaining book 'Aal Aboot Geordie', Northern dialect was chiefly influenced by Saxon (a West Germanic language) and not, as is commonly thought, Viking (North Germanic) languages. So we see that the Saxon (or North Eastern English) equivalent of might was close to 'micht'. This further proves a link between the -ght of English today and its equivalent Germanic -cht.

Street lesson to help you remember

I learnt this….what does gedachtenis mean again? I seem to have forgotten...

A biography of the Dutch language

This is definitely a book I'm putting on my Christmas list! A biography of the Dutch language, written in English by Flemish linguist Roland Willemyns. I heard him being interviewed on Dutch language radio een (I think!) but I didn't quite understand the author's name so I was glad when I spotted an article in the English language paper 'Flanders Today'.

The book, printed by Oxford University Press, covers the history of Dutch as well as the influence of Dutch today. For someone like me who is interested (obsessed?) by the etymology of the English language I think it's pretty indispensable. Part of the joy of this blog is spotting links between English and Dutch to help me remember what sometimes seem at first glance super-complex words. And of course as a learner of the Dutch language it'll be fairly interesting to see the development of the language; knowing the history will help me understand the grammar more. I hope.

Of course, I can't say too much about it as I haven't read it yet.

Maybe I'll move this from the Christmas list to my birthday list.

Or maybe I'll just buy it tomorrow….

Werchter 2013 Dutch

Essential word learned at Rock Werchter this year:
'Muilen'

Apparently a West Flemish dialect word for intense French kissing.

Muilen means muzzles or mouths.

Woord van de dag: zenuwachtig

Love it!

What a fantastic word, "zenuwachtig". I could say it all day….

It means nervous, or jumpy.
From zenuw, nerve (poss also sinew?)

Just a thought (connection between words ending -ought in English and -acht/-ocht in Dutch)

A little thought piece looking at a connection I've noticed between words ending in '-ought' in English and their counterparts in Dutch which mostly end in '-ocht' and sometimes '-acht'.

As I was studying Dutch the other day it struck me that the words 'thought' and 'brought' (as past participles) have similar equivalents in Dutch and, just like in English, their equivalents end in a similar way!

Thought - gedacht
Brought - gebracht

It seems that this is a straight link between these types of words. I did a little digging and came up with the following list:

Bought - gekocht
Sought - gezocht
Fought - gevochten (but gevocht in the imperfect)
Wrought - gewrocht

Further digging in the etymology of the English words throws up some interesting evidence for the link:

Seek (Old English sohte) and zoeken both originate from the Proto-Germanic 'sokjanan', likewise fought (Old English fohten) and vechten come from fekhtanen and so on. Perhaps 'ought' was the English rendering of the k followed by j or h sound? -kj and -kh

The online etymology dictionary highlights why the -gh spelling for a 'hard H' sound is used. It was a scribal habit to represent the yogh.

Eggys or Eryen?

William Caxton who is credited as setting up the first printing presses in England also helped edit and translate many works. One story he wrote illustrates some of the difficulties he had with the various English dialects of the time. It is the tale of two merchants who knock upon a door and ask to buy eggs…

"And one of theym named Sheffelde, a mercer, cam in to an hows and axed for mete and specyally he axyd after eggys, and the goode wyf answerde that she could speke no Frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no Frenshe, but wolde have hadde egges; and she understode hym not. And thenne at laste a-nother sayd that he wolde have eyren. Then the good wyf sayd that she understod hym wel. Loo, what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte, egges, or eyren? Certaynly it is hard to playse every man, by-cause of dyversite and chaunge of langage." (Ref)

The confusion comes form the fact that 'Sheffield' was using a Northern dialect (influenced by Old Norse) which gave the word 'eggys'. Eryen which is very similar to modern Dutch 'eieren' was in fact influenced by the Southern Old English dialect. Interestingly Caxton decided to furthermore use the word 'egges'. (Ref p.87 The Story of English, Piercy, London 2012).