Tolkien at the OED

Just stumbled onto this book, which is going right to the top of my wishlist:

The Ring of Words : Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary

From Amazon's book description:

"Tolkien's first job, on returning home from World War I, was as an assistant on the staff of the OED. He later said that he had 'learned more in those two years than in any other equal part of his life.' The Ring of Words reveals how his professional work on the Oxford English Dictionary influenced Tolkien's creative use of language in his fictional world.

"Here three senior editors of the OED offer an intriguing exploration of Tolkien's career as a lexicographer and illuminate his creativity as a word user and word creator. The centerpiece of the book is a wonderful collection of 'word studies' which will delight the heart of Ring fans and word lovers everywhere."

Contents (from the page at Oxford U. Press):
Preface
1 Tolkien as Lexicographer
2 Tolkien as Wordwright
3 Word Studies
Epilogue: Tolkien's influence on the English Language
Bibliography
Index

Procrastinator's Respite

I know you. I know what you're doing. You're half-way through a translation and it's already the day for the Blog Translation Carnival. Well, you're in luck! You've got two more days to finish those translations! April's Carnival of Blog Translation will occur on Sunday, April 30 -- National Honesty Day. Don't be left out: get translating!
:-)

The American Inklings

For all those in the D.C./Northern Virginia area:

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Announcing the first meeting of the American Inklings

When: Wednesday, May 10, 7:00pm,
and every 2nd and 4th Wednesday

Where: Cosi's, in the Reston Town Center
11909 Democracy Drive, Reston, VA (Map)


The original "Inklings" were a group of mostly university colleagues who got together to discuss literature and poetry--either things they'd read or things they'd written. Theirs were the first ears to hear original drafts of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, and theirs the first mouths to offer critique.

Modeled after that group, the American Inklings are artisitic souls who meet twice a month to share, critique, and possibly collaborate on various creative projects: poems, stories, songs--whatever the Muse inspires!

There's no commitment: Come as you're able, share your writings or ideas, or just listen and be inspired!


For more on the original Inklings:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inklings
http://www.mythsoc.org/inklings.html

For more on the founders of the American Inklings:
King Alfred: http://bitterscroll.blogspot.com/
Mikaela: http://www.dilectusmeusmihi.blogspot.com/
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Gratulerar, Sverige!

There's a new member of the Swedish orthographic family: It's a W! The Swedish Academy has officially granted the letter W its own section in the dictionary. (Note the article's file photo of an actual W! :-P

Until now, words beginning with W were listed in the V section, since they are pronounced the same in Swedish, and any words with W were foreign borrowings anyway.

We usually think of the V sound in English as characteristic of Germanic accents (Nordic, German, Dutch, etc.), but in fact, the W was original to all Germanic languages in the beginning, even though only English preserved the sound. (Compare Lat. ventus; Eng. wind; Ger. wind; Sw. vind)

The German and Scandinavian dialects underwent the same change, from [w] to [v]. German, using the latin alphabet kept the w-spelling, while Norse changed to v. The original Germanic runic alphabet, the Elder Futhark had from the beginning a separate rune for W, but not for V. The letter V was sometimes represented by F (in Old English, where F surrounded by vowels was pronounced like v: hence knife/knives, wife/wives, etc.), sometimes by W (in places where it would end up becoming a V). Notice in the Dalrunes set of Younger Futhark how the runic V is simply a modified F.

Germanic Genealogy #3: Watch!

Waiting witches keep watch on vigorous vegetables.

Well, ok, maybe they don't, but this sentence is interesting nonetheless: All the adjectives and nouns in the sentence are traceable to a common great, great, very great grandfather. The Proto-Indo-European root weg- led to words in Old English, Old High German, Old French, Middle Dutch, and Latin, and sure enough, modern English has drawn from them all. Among others, it gave us the words:

wait: from Old North French waitier, to watch;

witch: from Old English wicca, sorcerer, wizard (feminine wicce, witch), from Germanic *wikkjaz, necromancer (< “one who wakes the dead”);

watch: from Old English wæccan, to be awake, from Germanic *wakjan;

vigorous: from Old French, from Latin vegēre, to be lively, from suffixed (causative) o-grade form *wog-eyo-;

vegetables: from Latin vegēre, (see 'vigorous')

The common thread is strength/liveliness: To wait meant to watch, which meant to be awake, which meant to be lively. A witch was one who wakened/enlivened the dead. Vigorous still means lively/strong. And vegetables are things that are alive (before the dinner plate stage, obviously). The two main strains come to us through Latin, preserving the meaning of being lively, and through Germanic, with the main idea of being awake.

Last Call

Last call for translation for the Blog Translation Carnival this Friday. Post your translations and send me your links in the next couple of days!!

Cool Quotes #9: For Lange Frigedæg

For Good Friday ("Long Friday" in OE), here's an excerpt (and loose translation) from the Dream of the Rood. I covered this part in my last podcast, for which see the link on the sidebar. (For the rest of the poem, I've decided to break up into two separate podcasts so I have more time to look at individual lines and words (by request). I had thought to get at least one up before Easter, but this whole podcast experiment, while fun and fruitful and totally worth it, is still a little more work than I planned, and anyway most of the rest of the poem is about the resurrection or afterwards anyway.)

Update (about 20 minutes later): I've colored the words in the translation that are alliterated in the original. As I mentioned in the last podcast, this may approximate the subtle way alliteration causes the words to be connected in the reader's mind. Sometimes the colors jump out, other times they're hardly visible; this just makes it match the effects of alliteration all the more.

Syllic wæs se sigebeam,     ond ic synnum fah,
forwunded mid wommum.     Geseah ic wuldres treow,
wædum geweorðode,     wynnum scinan,
gegyred mid golde;     gimmas hæfdon
bewrigene weorðlice     wealdendes treow.
Hwæðre ic þurh þæt gold     ongytan meahte
earmra ærgewin,     þæt hit ærest ongan
swætan on þa swiðran healfe.     Eall ic wæs mid sorgum gedrefed,
forht ic wæs for þære fægran gesyhðe.     Geseah ic þæt fuse beacen
wendan wædum ond bleom;     hwilum hit wæs mid wætan bestemed,
beswyled mid swates gange,     hwilum mid since gegyrwed.
Hwæðre ic þær licgende     lange hwile
beheold hreowcearig     hælendes treow...

      Gestah he on gealgan heanne,
modig on manigra gesyhðe,     þa he wolde mancyn lysan.
Bifode ic þa me se beorn ymbclypte.     Ne dorste ic hwæðre bugan to eorðan,
feallan to foldan sceatum,     ac ic sceolde fæste standan.
Rod wæs ic aræred.     Ahof ic ricne cyning,
heofona hlaford,     hyldan me ne dorste.
þurhdrifan hi me mid deorcan næglum.     On me syndon þa dolg gesiene,
opene inwidhlemmas.     Ne dorste ic hira nænigum sceððan.
Bysmeredon hie unc butu ætgædere.     Eall ic wæs mid blode bestemed,
begoten of þæs guman sidan,     siððan he hæfde his gast onsended.

Feala ic on þam beorge     gebiden hæbbe
wraðra wyrda.     Geseah ic weruda god
þearle þenian.     þystro hæfdon
bewrigen mid wolcnum     wealdendes hræw,
scirne sciman,     sceadu forðeode,
wann under wolcnum.     Weop eal gesceaft,
cwiðdon cyninges fyll.     Crist wæs on rode.
(ll. 13-25, 40b-56)

    *     *     *
Wonderful was that victory-tree     while I was spotted with sins,
maimed by my defilements.     I beheld that tree of glory
adorned with vestments     shining so beautifully
decked with gold;     gems had
honorably clothed     the tree of the Almighty.
Yet, through that gold,     I came to discern
the former strife of wretched men:     and that it first began
to bleed on its right side.     I was overcome with grief;
afraid before that fair vision.     I saw that noble symbol
change its robes and appearance:     now it was wet with blood,
drenched from its bloodflow,     now it was adorned with jewels.
I lay there yet     a long while
gazing in repentant sorrow     at the tree of the divine Healer...

      Up the high gallows He climbed,
bold, in the sight of so many,     for now mankind he meant to redeem.
I trembled then, as the hero embraced me;     yet I dared not bow to the ground,
dared not fall to the surface of the earth;     I was to stand firm.
A cross was I raised,     the powerful King I raised up,
the Lord of heaven;     I dared not bend.
With dark nails they ran me through,     my wounds visible to all,
open, treacherous wounds;     yet I dared not harm any of those fiends.
They derided both of us together.     I was drenched with blood,
which gushed from the side of the man,     when he had sent forth his spirit.

Often on that hill     I have had to endure
terrible deeds.     I beheld the Lord of hosts
stretched with violent force.     Darkness then
did cover with clouds     the corpse of the Lord,
a radiant twilight;     a shadow went out
strove under the clouds.     Then wept all creation,
mourning the fall of its king.     Christ was on the cross.

Cool Quote #8: Like Father Like Son...Not!

No commentary needed here; just another blunt saga quote on the generation gap.

Thorstein, Egil's son, was a very handsome man when he grew up, with fair hair and a fair complexion. He was tall and strong, although not on his father's scale. Thorstein was a wise and peaceful man, a model of modesty and self-control.

Egil was not very fond of him.

A Reminder

Tents are going up, mead is being stirred, and language barriers are being toppled!

Don't forget to be looking out for blogposts to translate for this month's Carnival of Blog Translation, which will take place here on 28 April. (Yes, even this post counts, technically.)

Germanic Genealogy #2: Ants (and Aunts)

The modern word ant comes from Old English æmette. With the standard Germanic stress on the first syllable, if you say æmette often enough and fast enough (try it!), you'll stop bothering with the e's, and end up with something like æmt. Once there, it's a short jump to ant, by a process called assimilation: the bilabial m (pronounced with the lips) is assimilated by the dental t. If you make an m dental, you have an n. This is a common linguistic occurance: hemp, from OE henep; as well as all those words with Latin prefixes like in + logical = illogical, and actually, ad + similis > assimilate.

This process also happend to a word that many (I suppose most) Americans pronounce the same as ant: aunt.

Aunt comes from Middle English aunte, from Anglo-Norman, ultimately from Latin amita. Here again, once the middle syllable is dropped, the t plays Borg to the m's futile resistance. So you have something like anta/ante. Except there's a u. Why is there a u? Well, it seems to have originated with Anglo-Norman. There are many au-words in Anglo-Norman whose Parisian French (and often modern English) versions lack the u. For example:

aume (= English soul), beside French ame from Latin anima
aumuce (amice), from Old French amis, from L amictus
aunsien (former, ancient), beside F ancien
auprés (after), beside F aprés
ausmes (> E alms)
ausuager (> E assuage)

Now, of these, only aunt retained its au-spelling. Why? I'm not sure; I could speculate that later contact with French kept words like amice and ancient closer to their Parisian spellings than the Anglo-Norman ones, but it could just as easily be due to a change of spelling conventions internal to English. Perhaps one of my knowledgeable readers could fill in this gap?

Either way, it's fun to watch the process work on words from such different sources.