tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post5135990729802406149..comments2024-03-11T16:29:13.619-05:00Comments on Lingwë - Musings of a Fish: Umlaut and TolkienJason Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05809154870762268253noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-65014422430515356372012-01-01T09:51:51.469-06:002012-01-01T09:51:51.469-06:00Happy New Year,
as we are here!Happy New Year,<br />as we are here!Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-88033044552409524512012-01-01T09:51:27.756-06:002012-01-01T09:51:27.756-06:00I wonder if "golden" comes directly from...I wonder if "golden" comes directly from "gylden" or from a newer formation from "gold" or from Flemish "gulden" (if that is without umlaut, my Dutch is lousy).Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-54554698161058376082012-01-01T09:49:40.550-06:002012-01-01T09:49:40.550-06:00Ah, if you do distinguish "exhibiting umlaut&...Ah, if you do distinguish "exhibiting umlaut" from "inheriting a vowel from another word that exhibits umlaut" ... which is a moot point, I do not. But then again, I am more into diachronics than synchronics, if you like.Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-4084975760478975302011-12-31T12:28:12.637-06:002011-12-31T12:28:12.637-06:00Hello again, Hans-Georg. I see your line of thinki...Hello again, Hans-Georg. I see your line of thinking with Modern English <i>gild</i>; however, it’s not really an example of umlaut in Modern English — certainly not directly. The word came to Modern English from Middle English <i>gilden</i>, in turn from Old English <i>gyldan</i> “to gild”, back formation from the adjective <i>gylden</i> “golden”. The latter exhibits umlaut, but the new verb <i>gyldan</i> does not. It inherits its vowel from the adjective. Middle and then Modern English, likewise. And notice that the adjective in Modern English lost the signs of umlaut.Jason Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05809154870762268253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-71795577147517243912011-12-05T07:03:26.569-06:002011-12-05T07:03:26.569-06:00In Modern English, the signs of umlaut in “golden”...<i>In Modern English, the signs of umlaut in “golden” are long gone, but they were quite clear in OE gylden.</i> - from which Modern English verb gild, pp/adjective gilded? gilt? when paper thin gold is added on top of other material. Right?Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-63762337653521060642011-12-05T06:59:51.859-06:002011-12-05T06:59:51.859-06:00So much for the 99,999% of humanity who are suppos...So much for the 99,999% of humanity who are supposed to know nothing of Umlaut: Swedes and Germans would be a bit more than just 0,001% of the 7 billion (Swedes alone are more than 0,1%, and far fewer than Germans, plus the fact that Swedish is talked by other nations too: Finland Swedes, "Visconsin Svedes" ... et c.Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-1882041235295812232011-12-05T06:57:09.008-06:002011-12-05T06:57:09.008-06:00In Sweden and Germany - where umlaut is a regular ...In Sweden and Germany - where umlaut is a regular feature of the grammar (when were "lenger, lengest" eliminated for "longer, longest" in English, if they existed?) - if you have quit school with not too bad notes in grammar, even if you are no philologist, you know what Umlaut/Omljud means.<br /><br />However, in German, where every umlauted vowel except i for e or ie for eu (if I got that correct that they are such) is the non-umlauted vowel plus a trema above or an e after, often the word "Umlaut" is simply used for trema.<br /><br />"Ä"="A, Umlaut" or "Umlaut-A", and similar for "Ö", "Ü".<br /><br />In Sweden this is not so, and the word Omljud is therefore less known. We have Y instead of Ü for the umlaut of U ("ung, yngre"="jung, jünger"), and neighbouring languages have Æ and Ø for Ä and Ö. Also, we have Å, which is not an umlaut at all, but a vowel shift with a long ah going aw (extant long ah's were either short at the time or borrowed after, obviously).Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-71031626231621767342011-10-01T07:57:46.250-05:002011-10-01T07:57:46.250-05:00Seeing? Latin near Classical spelling covered up s...Seeing? Latin near Classical spelling covered up sound changes (except for misspelling tellers) up to around anno 1000 when it comes to Spain and Italy, just as French sound changes do not show before the Strassburg oaths.Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-47002246210766368492011-09-29T09:16:56.029-05:002011-09-29T09:16:56.029-05:00Hans-Georg, yes, it seems plausible that sort of a...Hans-Georg, yes, it seems plausible that sort of a connection between Spanish and Gothic might have existed. It would take some poking around to try to substantiate it, but it’s a good hypothesis. The Visigothic influence in Spain was on its way out by the end of the 6th century, I believe. How early in Old Spanish do we start seeing these sorts of sound changes?Jason Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05809154870762268253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-59368834994526186022011-09-26T07:54:53.611-05:002011-09-26T07:54:53.611-05:00Oh, Swedish also has äldre, äldst, and the noun ål...Oh, Swedish also has äldre, äldst, and the noun ålder (age rather than "elde"), but the positive is replaced by "gammal". Gamling means "old man" in Swedish as much as in - I suppose - IcelandicHans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-29853229613852736472011-09-26T07:50:57.760-05:002011-09-26T07:50:57.760-05:00Gothic and Spanish.
Durmiendo, not dormiendo, unl...Gothic and Spanish.<br /><br />Durmiendo, not dormiendo, unless I misremember. There is no fronting but there is lifting before an i/j in Gothic and there were Visigoths in Spain.<br /><br />Connexion, do you think?Hans Georg Lundahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01055583255516264955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-40286711885611264192011-05-13T12:59:45.261-05:002011-05-13T12:59:45.261-05:00Well, since there is no standard spelling, you cou...Well, since there is no standard spelling, you could decide that the name of the letter Q is spelled "queue". :-)John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-41957379089355491582011-04-30T18:13:27.037-05:002011-04-30T18:13:27.037-05:00Sure, that is one way to look at it, Larry. Perhap...Sure, that is one way to look at it, Larry. Perhaps I should have said, double-u <i>no longer</i> contains the letter it names, since I don’t think anyone still regards the letter <i>w</i> as a double <i>u</i>. A double <i>v</i>, if anything (as it is named in the Romance languages). At least if we are speaking of the language <i>today</i>.<br /><br />Of course, the other way to look at it is this: “d-o-u-b-l-e-u” does not contain the letter <i>w</i> anywhere in it. :)Jason Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05809154870762268253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-50847069551091223262011-04-30T17:59:22.910-05:002011-04-30T17:59:22.910-05:00Technically, "double-u" does indeed have...Technically, "double-u" does indeed have the letter in question in its name. It is as the name indicates a DOUBLE U and for the medieval period and well into the age of print, "w" was written uu, or vv since the pointed form we now know as a "v" was just as commonly used as the rounded form. Undoubtedly, one notes the similarity in shape between vv and w, the latter being simply two u letters in the pointed form written with a single pen stroke. Thus, double u does have the letter in question in its name. <br /><br />By the way, much Old English particularly early OE used the runic letter wynn to signify the "w" sound.theswainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05919025515524894537noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-75813765877612690212011-04-27T13:50:12.810-05:002011-04-27T13:50:12.810-05:00John, more great examples! I especially like your ...John, more great examples! I especially like your point about the name of the letter R. And a very good capsule summary of the letter names in general. I very much like how you put it: “no standard written forms to serve as a brake”. By the way, a fun piece of trivia: Q and W are the only two letters whose names in English are spelled <i>without</i> the letter in question: “cue” and “double-u”.Jason Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05809154870762268253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-38618751593913434262011-04-26T23:41:26.696-05:002011-04-26T23:41:26.696-05:00Some more examples are the pairs shear/sharp, sher...Some more examples are the pairs <i>shear/sharp, sherd/shard</i> (synonymous), <i>dear/dar(ling), steer/starboard, firm/farm, errant/arrant</i>, and the name of the letter R.<br /><br />Indeed, the names of the letters are borrowings from Etruscan (through Latin and French) and are particularly juicy examples of pure sound-change, because they have no standard written forms to serve as a brake — they are maintained by oral tradition in the midst of almost entirely literate Anglophonia. The Etruscan convention was that the vowel letters were given their long sounds, the stops were suffixed with /e/ (except that K and Q were /ka/ and /ku/), whereas the non-stops were prefixed with /e/, thus /be/ but /ef/. French palatalization of velars before front vowels, final vowel lengthening in Middle English, and the Great Vowel Shift did the rest of the work, giving us the familiar /eɪ bi si/.<br /><br />When Latin lost /h/, the names of A and H became homonymous, and the new name /akka/ was created for H; this became /atʃə/ in Old French and eventually /eɪtʃ/ in Modern English. Of the new letters, J and V got their names by analogy, W from its shape, and Z by analogy in the U.S. and from <i>zeta</i> elsewhere.<br /><br />While I'm at it, here are the other <a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=etruscan+&searchmode=none" rel="nofollow">English words thought to be of ultimately Etruscan origin</a>John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-43707410446799491432011-04-23T17:25:16.535-05:002011-04-23T17:25:16.535-05:00Thank you for these contributions, John. I look fo...Thank you for these contributions, John. I look forward to reading that essay; Italian is one of my favorites. :)<br /><br />Nice points about /er/ > /ar/, of which <i>clerk</i> (still pronounced as <i>clark</i>, and so spelled in the personal name, as you note) is by far the most familiar example. And of course, the word <i>cleric</i> is another reflex of the same root. But the other examples you give are just as interesting. Thanks again.Jason Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05809154870762268253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-69597661526683531002011-04-23T13:55:15.603-05:002011-04-23T13:55:15.603-05:00Oops, here's the link to "Metaphony Revis...Oops, here's the link to <a href="http://homepages.uconn.edu/~anc02008/Papers/Metaphony%20Revisited.pdf" rel="nofollow">"Metaphony Revisited"</a>.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-3624215233936032262011-04-23T13:53:33.768-05:002011-04-23T13:53:33.768-05:00Metaphony is actually quite common in the Romance ...Metaphony is actually quite common in the Romance languages, just not in the standard ones, although Spanish <i>ie ue</i> began as metaphonic forms of VL <i>e o</i>, but now have become universal. Many varieties of Italian mark number by metaphony: see "Metaphony Revisited" by Andrea Calabrese, which contains many useful examples.<br /><br />Hlaford: There was a sound change /er/ > /ar/ in Early Modern English that was eventually partially reversed in the 19th century. <i>Ferthing, sterre, ferme</i> were respelled to match the new pronunciation, but <i>servant, sermon</i> were not, though we know that in the 18th century they were <i>sarvant, sarmon</i>. A few words retained the <i>er</i> spelling and the /ar/ pronunciation, as <i>sergeant, clerk, derby</i>; the last two were reverted to a spelling pronunciation in American English, though not the related proper names <i>Clark, Darby</i>. Finally, some words split into two, one with <i>er</i> and one with <i>ar</i>, as <i>person/parson, university/varsity</i>.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-38915613620078111532011-04-23T13:48:14.184-05:002011-04-23T13:48:14.184-05:00Metaphony is actually quite common in the Romance ...Metaphony is actually quite common in the Romance languages, just not in the standard ones, although Spanish <i>ie ue</i> began as metaphonic forms of VL <i>e o</i>, but now have become universal. Many varieties of Italian mark number by metaphony: see <a href="" rel="nofollow">"Metaphony Revisited"</a> by Andrea Calabrese, which contains many useful examples.<br /><br />Hlaford: There was a sound change /er/ > /ar/ in Early Modern English that was eventually partially reversed in the 19th century. <i>Ferthing</i>, like <i>sterre</i> and <i>ferme</i>, was respelled to match the new pronunciation, but <i>servant</i> and <i>sermon</i> were not, though we know that in the 18th century they were <i>sarvant</i> and <i>sarmon</i>. A few words retained the <i>er</i> spelling and the /ar/ pronunciation, as <i>sergeant, clerk, derby</i>; the last two were reverted to a spelling pronunciation in American English, though note the related proper names <i>Clark, Darby</i>. Finally, some words split into two, one with <i>er</i> and one with <i>ar</i>, as <i>person/parson, university/varsity</i>.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-16288411679487074822011-04-18T13:31:14.125-05:002011-04-18T13:31:14.125-05:00"sun-land-people" is not given in the No..."sun-land-people" is not given in the Nomenclature, which is where the note is taken from. It must be a guess, but with all its difficulties it's the best I can think of. To refer to the people, <i>Sunlendingas</i> might be preferable in that context, since the Rohirrim usually use <i>Eorlingas</i>, <i>Helmingas</i> as opposed to CS <i>Beornings</i>, <i>Entings</i> etc.<br /><br /><i>Sunnlendinga-fjórdungr</i> and other derivatives are mentioned in Cleasby-Vigfusson s.v. <i>sunnr</i>, a work Tolkien was well acquainted with. BTW, today I realised that <i>fjórdungr</i> means just "quarter" and it's cognate to <i>Farthing</i> - another toponym with the <i>-ing</i> ending. It doesn't show umlaut today, but it did in ME <i>ferthing</i>. Tolkien stated that he based his "Farthings" on <i>thriding</i> (Nomenclature), but isn't it possible that he was aware of the Icelandic divisions too?Hlafordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01570318115206193131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-47557886919236984272011-04-16T19:55:18.563-05:002011-04-16T19:55:18.563-05:00Hlaford, great comment as usual!
And yes, OE –ing...Hlaford, great comment as usual!<br /><br />And yes, OE –<i>ing</i>, in masculine nouns, usually signals “son, people, clan of” or “associated with”, which applies to the other Tolkien examples I have given (e.g., Beornings). In feminine nouns, it’s equivalent to –<i>ung</i>, and has a gerundive function (e.g., <i>bodung</i> “preaching”, <i>rǽding</i> “reading”).<br /><br />I checked PE17 for any further comment on Sunlending, but there is nothing more there. In RC, is the offered translation Wayne and Christina’s, or Tolkien’s? One cannot tell, but I think it’s the former. It wouldn’t be <i>people</i> (plural), in any case, would it? Such would be, following Tolkien’s own models elsewhere, either *Sunlendings or *Sunlendingas.<br /><br />Thanks very much for pointing out the Icelandic example of this word. I was unaware of it, but thus prompted, I checked my copy of Zoëga’s Old Icelandic Dictionary (which Tolkien himself knew), and found <i>sunn-lendingr</i> “a man from the south of Iceland”, and an adverb, <i>sunnan-lands</i>, “in the south part of the country”. Again, Tolkien says he had “sun”, not “south”, in mind (though these are related in the Germanic languages), but these are still nice finds that further demonstrate the umlaut process. :)Jason Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05809154870762268253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-14859123321058388092011-04-16T12:34:02.021-05:002011-04-16T12:34:02.021-05:00It is also atypical to see the –ing suffix used of...<i>It is also atypical to see the –ing suffix used of a place, as opposed to a people</i><br /><br />What makes it actually unusual is that it should be combined with <i>-land</i>, because <i>-ing</i> in English toponyms is mostly found in combination with personal names as patronymic or possessive (other than some instances where it means "meadow", which can hardly be the case here) and then turned into a toponym, either by itself or by the addition of yet another suffix. It can also be adjectival, but then one might have expected the construction to be the other way around, as in <i>Stoningland</i> (= Gondor). In RC:541 <i>Sunlending</i> is translated as "sun-land-people" (that is "sunland" + <i>-ing</i>), and all in all this seems to be the best interpretation. Anyway, <i>Sunlending</i> fits the alliterative verse there better than just <i>Sunland</i>.<br /><br /><i>Sunlending</i> could also be read (more poetically) as OE "landing-place of the sun", with <i>lending</i> as in <i>Scippelending</i>, <i>Cnarlendding</i> (see Ekwall, <i>English Place-names in -ing</i>, pp. 24-5). But then it wouldn't be a literal translation of <i>Anórien</i>, and one may suppose that Tolkien would have mentioned this in his note.<br /><br />[<i>Sunnlendinga-fjórdungr</i>, BTW, was one of the traditional divisions of Iceland, where <i>sunn(r)-</i> means "south". But of course Tolkien in the Nomenclature explicitly denied this could be the intended meaning.]Hlafordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01570318115206193131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-55621403410946180952011-04-15T17:13:42.658-05:002011-04-15T17:13:42.658-05:00Ah, you’re right; my mistake! Thanks for pointing ...Ah, you’re right; my mistake! Thanks for pointing this out, Brig.<br /><br />So, Sunlending is a direct calque of Anórien (with the Sindarin element <i>anor</i> “sun”) and <i>not</i> a reference to Harad. In spite of the error, it is still quite clear that umlaut is in operation in the Englsh (~ Rohirric) word “Sunlending”. It is a bit strange that the Rohirrim would call Anórien Sunlending when the Shire preserved Sunlands, a word clearly related, for Harad. It is also atypical to see the –<i>ing</i> suffix used of a place, as opposed to a people (cp. Eorling, Beorning, Barding).Jason Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05809154870762268253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9050528436539921312.post-76776673603259496602011-04-15T16:56:03.850-05:002011-04-15T16:56:03.850-05:00Returning to Middle-earth, another example from To...<i>Returning to Middle-earth, another example from Tolkien follows the same pattern: Sunlands, but Sunlending, each used only once in the novel, in reference to the far southern regions of Harad.</i><br /><br />I remember squire noting, as he worked on his article on "The South" in Tolkien, how "Nomenclature of <i>The Lord of the Rings</i>" indicates that "Sunlending" does not in fact refer to Harad, but to Anórien. The name appears in <i>LOTR</i> when a poet of Rohan describes Théoden leading "six thousand spears to Sunlending, / Mundburg the mighty under Mindolluin".N.E. Brigandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17601573470596905112noreply@blogger.com