The origins of ERCOMAI
porson
porson at ix.netcom.com
Fri Jun 7 13:39:29 EDT 2002
Dale wrote:
> Anglo-Saxon, has "go, went,
>gone", with the "go/gone" principal parts coming from the Germanic heritage
>(viz., German "gehen") and the "went" coming from the Romance heritage
>(viz., Latin "venire, vedire"; French "venir")
Anglo-Saxon in fact had at least three common words for what we express
as "go":
1.) gan;
2.) wendan;
3.) lithan (can't e mail the rune "thorn" so th).
I think our beer drinking Old English linguistic ancestors probably in
this instance did not have to francogallify what appears to be a good
Anglo-Saxon usage. While there are other direct and indirect instances of
this Romance influence (M.E. aks > ask from O.E. acsian [the older form
still preserved in both dialect and mispronunciation], the metasthesis
apparently for reasons of euphony), went is probably not such an example.
So, when the heroes varied the honeyed delights of the meodsehtla with
the fermented juice of the grape mis en bouteille au chateau, in all
likelihood they went from the keg to the oak cask in the spirit of hie
wendedon rather than that of venerunt or ils sont venu.
By the way, I've been gathering literary references to beer and wine in a
variety of languages, and despite my fondness for the fermented juice of
the grape, I am being led to the opinion that beer drinkers are a
happier, more balanced lot than their wine counterparts.
Porson
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