LL-L "Etymology" 2003.03.01 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: Gary Taylor <gary_taylor_98 at yahoo.com>
Subject:  Etymology

Hi all

Criost?ir (I knew it would happen sooner or later,
that I'd write your name and be stuck due to getting
two unintelligable symbols - sorry) wrote

'It seems absurd to me - why would Old English lack a
word for such a
fundamental concept as 'down' when it had 'up' and why
would it
formulate a
new word based on a substantial semantic shift from a
Celtic borrowing?'

Yeah it does seem absurd, but then it's one of those
concepts that the Germanic languages seem to have
difficulties dealing with. I've never been happy with
the Hochdeutsch 'hin- or herunter' - it doesn't seem
as compact to me as 'down'. Scandinavian languages use
a cognate of '(be)neath' - also not really having the
same uniqueness of meaning as the word 'up'.

The word 'down' is of course also used in the North
and South Downs in the South of England - where it has
the soul meaning of 'hill'. Words do change their
meanings so I don't see why the etymology shouldn't
remain the same as you read as a child. One of the
largest areas of Celtic borrowings into English is
with geographical terms. The word 'down' in the sense
of a hill was not needed, as English had the word
'hill', but due to lack of a nifty word for 'down'
it's understandable why the word '(a)down' should
develop into its current meaning (but why not a word
like 'ahill'??)

A couple of questions remain though - why do the
Germanic languages seem to have this lack - is this a
general Indo-European feature - and how do the other
Lowland languages cope with this? (Sorry if this is
off subject).

Gary

ps. hints as to how I can see the characters correctly
would be appreciated - I know you've (Ron) already
said this, but until now I've been trotting off to an
internet café and have only now got internet access on
my own computer.

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