LL-L 'Etymology' 2006.09.26 (01) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 26 September 2006 * Volume 01
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From: Heather Rendall [HeatherRendall at compuserve.com]
Subject: LL-L 'Etymology'

New thread


Can anyone on the forum help with the following please?

I was reading a book on a village where Anglo-Saxon strip farming methods
continued into this century.

They kept using the term 'sike' to mean a strip of meadow lying along a
stream/brook or river

In our Anglo-Saxon Charters we have reference now and then to a 'sic',
which is defined as a very small stream.

There also appears in a couple of charters the expression " siht ferth"
which is not properly understood but which is thought to be an alternative
name of a known stream brook called along various sections of its length
Baele / Foulbrook/ Laybrook . But I have wondered - as it seems to be
applied to 2 different streams - whether it means something like ' the
passage/length of the stream'.

Does the word 'sic' mean anything to Lowlanders?
Could 'siht' be related or is it a different word altogether?
And could 'sike' be derived from 'sic' with a change of meaning?

Many thanks for any and all comments

Heather

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From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Etymology

Hi, Heather!

Good to hear from you, and thanks for the new thread! I hope things have improved
for you.

In Low Saxon, I can think of _syk_ (_Siek(e)_ [zi:k]]. It roughly corresponds to
German _Senke_ (related to _sinken_ 'to sink') and English 'dip', 'hollow',
'gully' or 'swale' (and also 'sink' in an archaic sense), usually low-lying
marshy ground with a rivulet running through it.  It is similar to Low Saxon
_brouk_ (_Brook_, _Brauk_, cognate of English "brook"), though this one isn't
necessarily swampy, or 'wetland' as we call it now, denotes any meadow alongside
a brook (_beek_, _bek_) or denotes the land *and* the water that runs through it. 

(Cf. Scandinavian (_á_ >) _å_ etc., meaning 'river', cognate of German (_auja_ >
_ouwa_ > _ouwe_) _Au_ 'grassy banks of a river', formerly also 'river'. My point
is that waterways and their banks often became synonymous and then got
semantically split in different varieties. What means 'river', 'brook' etc. in
one variety came to mean 'banks' in related varieties, and in other varieties it
may denote the water and the banks together.)

_Syk_ can also denote any type of 'dip', 'swale', etc., not necessarily one with
a rivulet, though 'wetland' tends to be implied. Old Saxon has _sīk_, also in
this sense.

Old English has _síc_ in both senses (i.e., with and without water running
through it), as has Middle English _sīch(e)_, from which "sitch" developed in
Southern and Midland dialects of England.

Old Norse has _sík_, Icelandic _síki_, Norwegian _sik(e)_, and Danish _sig_ (<
Middle Danish _siig_ and _sige_), all in the same sense.

I have a feeling that _siht_ represents a separate group, related to Modern
German _seicht_ 'low and shallow', 'shallow', possibly related to Low Saxon _syd_
(_sied_ [zi:t]) 'shallow', 'low(-lying)' (> _sydland_ ["zi:tla.nt] 'low-lying
tract of ground').

I hope this helped a bit and others have more useful things to add.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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