Re: CHAT: "Nik"names :) (was Re: Middle Initials)

Eric Christopherson wrote:
>On Mon, Feb 19, 2001 at 10:30:53AM -0600, Andrew D Chaney wrote:
> > On Monday, February 19, 2001, at 07:20 AM, Andreas Johansson wrote:
> >
> > > Of course, English takes a sort of middle ground in that it happily
> > > uses both "k" and "c" alot - do this have anything to do with the
>heavy
> > > Romance influence on it in medieval times?
> >
> >
> > I'm no expert on Old English but flipping through my Old English Grammar
> > and Reader leads me to believe that "c" was the standard notation in Old
> > English.  So I wonder where we picked up the "k".  From differences
>between
> > dialects, perhaps???
>
>Just a conjecture here, but maybe it was from Norse influence?
I find that hard to believe - I can't see there being much Norse influence
after 1066, and at that time the Norse themselves were only in transisition
from Runic to Roman writing. There can't've been many Norse spelling
conventions in function at that time.

After 1066, French of course became in primary written language, and French
of coure relies on "c" and "qu" for /k/. So presumeably we have to blame the
late-medieval british writers and printers for the electic mix of c's and
k's in modern English. If they had some specific inspiration, I'd still be
happy to know.

                                                     Andreas
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