CHAT: OE

Thomas Leigh scripsit:

> For that matter, I wonder
> when the negative adverb became "not" after the verb instead of "ne" before
> the verb, which was the Old English form.
The "ne" was too evanescent in pronunciation.  By the late ME period it
could no longer carry the weight of negation, and we find sentences like
"I ne know not".  Later it vanished altogether, as its exact equivalent is
now doing in French.

> I wonder if "not" derives from
> naught (Old English naht < na-wiht "no thing"), i.e. "nothing".
Indeed it does.

> English words are fascinating things. Did you know, for example, that
> "nostril" developed out of the Old English nas-Þyrel "nose-hole"? And the
> word "Þyrel" itself derives from the word Þurh (through) -- a hole is
> something that a thing can pass through.
Our word for "window" probably would have been "eyethirl" or the like
if it hadn't been displaced by an Old Norse borrowing.  Evidently the
Old English thought of windows as primarily for seeing through, whereas
the Old Norse thought of them as primarily devices to let the air in.

--
There is / One art                      John Cowan <jcowan@...>
No more / No less                       http://www.reutershealth.com
To do / All things                      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
With art- / Lessness                     -- Piet Hein

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