TSL Asylum floor 5.5 - The Asylum strikes back

[Deloria]

*Drags himself out of bed and immediately pounces upon the AS dictionary*

I feel guilty for keeping you up so late, but I also really, really love you. It was a very good conversation.

As you can see, "Die" (which is the German Fem Nom and Fem Acc, as well as the Plural Nom and Fem, I think)

All words become feminine in the plural, so yes.

they also use "steorfan"

Any relation to "starve"?

"Wund wearð Wulfmær, wælræste geceas"

That is ridiculously pretty. I want to hear it.

Well, if we turn to our wonderful friend the OED, we get:

Etymology:  Early Middle English dēȝen, dēghen, corresponding to Old Norse deyja (originally døyja, Old Swedish and Old Danish döia, Danish döe, Swedish dö), Old Frisian deia, deja, Old Saxon dóian, Old High German touwan, Middle High German töuwen; these represent an Old Germanic strong verb of the 6th class *daw-j-an, past tense dôw, past participle dawan-, the strong inflections being retained in Old Norse (dó- < *dów, dáinn < *dawans). In the other languages and in English a regular weak verb. No instance of the word is known in Old English literature (its sense being expressed by steorfan, sweltan, or the periphrastic wesan déad, past tense wæs déad: see dead adj. 1d) hence it is generally held to have been early lost in Old English (as in Gothic, and as subsequently in all the continental West Germanic languages), and re-adopted in late Old English or early Middle English from Norse; but some think that the facts point rather to the preservation of an Old English díegan, dégan, in some dialect; the word appears to have been in general use from the 12th cent., even in the s.w. dialects (see Napier in Hist. Holy Rood, E.E.T.S., 1894). The Middle English dēȝen, dēghen came regularly down to 1500 as deye, which was retained in the North as dey, dē, dee (still current from Lancashire to Scotland); but in standard English dēghe was in 14th cent. (in conformity with the common phonetic history of Old English eh, eah, eoh, as in dye, eye, fly, high, lie, nigh, thigh, etc.) narrowed to diȝe, dighe, whence the later dye, die.

* Deloria feels a little guilty for using her incredible boyfriend to indirectly gain access to the OED for her nefarious schemes.

[darthkiwi]

* Deloria feels a little guilty for using her incredible boyfriend to indirectly gain access to the OED for her nefarious schemes.

You have been USING me, madam! Ah well, it's for etymology so it's in a good cause

It was a very good conversation.

And yes, it was a marvellous conversation.

Regarding the pronunciation of "w" in AS: I'm pretty sure the ASs pronounced "w" as it is pronounced today. This is partly because there are a lot of words which use "w" and are recognisably Modern English: "word", "wundor", "weorc" (work), "weallan" (to well up), and I can't help thinking that, since these words are so similar to their modern equivalents, and since all that stands between Modern English and AS is 1000 years and a French invasion (plus odds and ends like "bungalow"), it seems most natural that they'd be pronounced with a "w" sound. We're pretty sure that there are other consonant sounds which were used in a similar way to their modern equivalents - for example, "circe" is the AS word for "church", and the "c"s are pronounced as modern "ch"s; "scip" is the AS word for "ship" and "sceadu" the word for "shadow", and the "sc" is pronounced as modern "sh". The same goes for "ecg", AS for "edge": the "cg" is pronounced the same as modern "dg". Most changes in sound in the transition to ME were in the vowels rather than the consonants: "weorc" shortened to "work", "stan" deepening to "stone", "ceald" changing to "cold", and it seems that changes to consonants were relatively rare (except in cases where consonants were altered within or added to common words such as "him" becoming "them" and "ma" becoming "more"). So it seems most likely that "w" wouldn't change much.

Of course, this is largely speculation and we can never be certain. But some better evidene is the way in which AS was written before "w" came about. Take a look at Caedmon's hymn, the oldest bit of AS poetry we have:

Nu scilun herga hefenricæs uard
metudæs mehti and his modgithanc
uerc uuldurfadur sue he uundra gihuæs
eci dryctin or astelidæ.
he ærist scop ældu barnum
hefen to hrofæ halig sceppend
tha middingard moncynnæs uard
eci dryctin æfter tiadæ
firum foldu frea allmehtig

Translation:

"Now we should praise the guardian of the heavenly kingdom, the creator's might and his conception/forethought/thoughtfulness, the work of the glorious father, just as he, eternal Lord, previously established each of the wonders/miracles. He first shaped heaven as a roof for the sons of men, holy Creator; then mankind's guardian, the eternal Lord, almighty Lord, afterwards made middle-earth, the earth for men."

There are a number of places where spelling deviates from later AS. Most notably, "weard" is written as "uard", "weorc" as "uerc", "wuldor" as "uuldor" and "wundra" as "uundra". To me, this suggests that "w" is, literally, a way of writing a "double-u"; after all, if you say "uundra" it sounds identical to "wundra". Of course, it's possible that the first "u" should be read as a "v" and the second as a "u", but I'm not sure if the practice of using "u" and "v" interchangebly arose before the medieval period.

Regarding starve: Look! More OED!

Etymology:  A Common West Germanic strong verb, which has become weak in modern English: Old English steorfan (past tense stearf, plural sturfon, past participle storfen) corresponds to Old Frisian sterva (West Frisian stjerre, North Frisian sterwe), Old Saxon sterƀan, (Middle) Low German, (Middle) Dutch sterven, Old High German sterban (Middle High German, modern German sterben), to die, < Germanic root *sterƀ- ( < starƀ- < sturƀ-).

A root of identical form, and possibly of identical origin, occurs in Old Norse stiarfe weak masculine, ? epilepsy, stiarf-r, stir-finn obstinate, starf toil, effort, starfa to toil. It has been suggested that the primitive sense of the root may have been ‘to be rigid’, which might account both for the sense ‘to die’ of the West Germanic verb and for the meanings of the Old Norse words. On the other hand, as the Germanic form may equally well represent pre-Germanic *sterp- and *sterbh-, it is possible that the West Germanic and the Old Norse words may be unconnected.
 
The conjugation of the verb has remained strong in the continental Germanic languages. In English the strong forms of the past tense became obsolete in the 15th century, and those of the past participle in the 16th cent. The transitive (causative) use, which arose in English in the 16th cent., is not paralleled in the other languages.

So yes, steorfan is the origin of starve

[Deloria]

* Deloria feels a little guilty for using her incredible boyfriend to indirectly gain access to the OED for her nefarious schemes.

You have been USING me, madam! Ah well, it's for etymology so it's in a good cause

But many relationships are unspoken agreements to use each other. My needs and reasons for being in such an arrangement just happen to be different to those of others and consist of wearing pretty dresses reasonably often, having wonderful conversations about etymology and aesthetics, going to May Balls, and being with you forever.

[Delling]

There are a number of places where spelling deviates from later AS. Most notably, "weard" is written as "uard", "weorc" as "uerc", "wuldor" as "uuldor" and "wundra" as "uundra". To me, this suggests that "w" is, literally, a way of writing a "double-u"; after all, if you say "uundra" it sounds identical to "wundra". Of course, it's possible that the first "u" should be read as a "v" and the second as a "u", but I'm not sure if the practice of using "u" and "v" interchangebly arose before the medieval period.

The u-vs.-v issue is a Latin one (as that is the language that lent AS that alphabet ). V's are much easier to etch. Given that they used a "u" before they had a "w", it is natural to assume that the "w" that came later served to distinguish the semivowel/approximant/consonantal u from the vocalic u. In the Renaissance, an attempt was made to fix up Latin which had a similar issue with v/u and i/y (the "j" was born to mark the consonantal i, which is pronounced like a y, I know why, do you know why, y? *gets back on topic* And an attempt was made to use the usually found in script (handwriting) u for the vocalic version and the usually found in carvings/engravings v for the consonantal version. I'm not sure how well either effort stuck really, but at least we got "j" out of it. )

To my knowledge, the voiced labial fricative sound we associate with "v" is largely of Germanic/Slavic origins or in some cases (ie- Greek) came about through the decay of other labials (Classical Greek /beta/ -> Modern Greek /veta/ (/.../ indicates pronunciation); possibly also the case in Gaelic mh and bh).

[icarus]

WEhy did nthe guardcats scratched me?  I didn´t do anything

[Haids1987]

Because cats are EVIL. All of them.  Even the nice ones.   And they're lazy.


*WARNING: Language.  Lots of language.

[Delling]

As you can see, "Die" (which is the German Fem Nom and Fem Acc, as well as the Plural Nom and Fem, I think)

All words become feminine in the plural, so yes.

To say that all words become feminine in the plural is a bit of an oversimplification (but no moreso than the common ignorance of the grammatical notion of common gender). It is more proper 1) to class the plural as having no-gender or morphologically speaking to speak of a "plural gender" which may be taken to be grammatically and logically distinct from the masculine and feminine (this sort of crossing over of usually distinct grammatical categories (in this case the notions of "number" and "gender") can be found in extreme cases) or 2) to say that all nouns and adjectives in the plural assume a common gender which has some forms syncretic with the feminine singular (I actually was going to offer STILL MORE options but... stopped myself). I'd say 2 has the most historical credence, etc. (Except modern linguists have decided to ignore the existence of the common gender in favor of social commentary: Mein Gott! The "common" gender is always the same as the masculine! What benighted chauvinism! )

Regarding the pronunciation of "w" in AS: I'm pretty sure the ASs pronounced "w" as it is pronounced today. ... So it seems most likely that "w" wouldn't change much.

Of course, this is largely speculation and we can never be certain. But some better evidene is the way in which AS was written before "w" came about. Take a look at Caedmon's hymn, the oldest bit of AS poetry we have:

I would say that the record of Caedmon's hymn about confirm that those u's were marking consonantal-u qualities, cf. contemporary Latin, where i was both i and y and u was both u and w.

I would think that German "die" and AS þa are cognate: -ie as diphthong seems to mark the loss of a -yuh sound (the i as a y, e as a schwa), "dyuh" to me resembles the palatalization of d to mock the sound of a progressively lost dental fricative, ie- þ.

Because cats are EVIL. All of them.  Even the nice ones.   And they're lazy.


*WARNING: Language.  Lots of language.

Cats are wonderful.  

[icarus]

where are the monthly candies??  haven't seen one in ages

[Delling]

Tess has not been around to dole them out and CC has disappeared more or less. 'tis a great sad.

[icarus]

maybe we can make an escape plan and escape all  to the candy store

[crayauchtin]

Maybe the Asylum is secretly inside a candy store. Where do you think they get it all from?

*gasp*
Maybe WE'RE candy?!?!?!

[Haids1987]

I WANT TO BE A CUPCAKE!!

[crayauchtin]

A cupcake isn't candy. Pay attention!

[Haids1987]

A girl can dream! Unless...wait...it IS 1.5 hours before I normally wake up. Am I dreaming?!

[icarus]

Yes you are. And if you don't wake up soon it will become a nightmare

[Haids1987]

[crayauchtin]

I guess you never woke up. WHY would you not wake up? We're all in a nightmare now! All you had to do was set an alarm! Whyyyyyyyyyy??? *munches on my candy arm* Well, that's not so bad.

[icarus]

Whhieieieieieiieieie, I want to make such a cupcake monster as in Haids1987´s post.
(I've got the stuff for that)

[Deloria]

Yes, Haids, shame on you! I take it we have to defeat the cupcake monster before the dream can end?

[Haids1987]

But don't you all know?  It's a cupcake!

ALL WE MUST DO IS EAT IT TO DEATH!
*Attempts a bite*