"cynning" =? king

[Charles C Doyle]

Joel--

The OE word for 'king" was commonly spelled "cying"--probably pronounced somewhat like modern English "king."  As was common in OE, spellings--and perhaps pronunciations--varied widely (remember: monkish individuals doing the spelling were not always wholly fluent in the language or the writing system!).  Your spelling seems not improbable.

--Charlie

________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Joel S. Berson [Berson at ATT.NET]
Sent: Monday, June 06, 2011 12:20 PM

"The Cynning (King) has the highest group memberlevel that allows him
all the other privileges as well as the ability to delete content
from the group area and ban members from the group."

 From http://www.ancientsites.com/aw/group/position/32409

The page is titled
"<http://www.ancientsites.com/aw/Group/32408>Angelcynn: The History
of Anglo-Saxon England
The history of the Germanic kingdoms of England, from the Saxon
Advent to the Norman Conquest."

(1)  Not in OED, even in a quotation.  Is it an English word?  Old
English?  There is no headword even for "cyn" (although that seems to
be an O.E> spelling for "kin") or for "cynn".

(2)  How the devil is it pronounced?  sinning? kinning? cunning?

Joel

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