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The History of English Podcast
Episode 39: Not Lost in Translation
00:49:45
The early Christian Church in Britain gradually embraced English as a way to spread to the message of the Church to the masses. This required the translation of Christian words and concepts from Latin into English. In this episode, … Continue reading →
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Kevin
Welcome to the History of English Podcast, a podcast about the history of the English language. This is episode 39, not lost in Translation. In this episode, we're going to explore how the early Christians in Britain used English words to understand a religion which came to them in Latin. This process required the first large scale translation of foreign words into English. But this process had to overcome two a relatively small English vocabulary and Germanic religious traditions, which were very different from those of Christianity. But before we begin, let me remind you that the website for the podcast is historyofenglishpodcast.com and you can contact me by email@KevinistoryofEnglishPodcast.com and you can follow me on Twitter glishhistpod. And once again, a big thank you to those of you who've made donations to the podcast through the website. I sincerely appreciate the support and I have some big ideas planned for later in the year. We're soon going to turn to the Viking invasions and the Norman Conquest, and then sometime during the summer, we're going to transition into Middle English. Meanwhile, I'm also working on a written version of the history covered in the podcast, and my current plan is to have it available around the time that we conclude the Old English period. The written version will cover everything from the original Indo European period through the Old English period. And when I eventually complete the entire history of English, I'll probably do a second volume covering the Middle and Modern English periods. So for those of you who've inquired about a written version, that's the plan. Also in this episode, I'm going to be exploring excerpts from a couple of Old English poems, Cadmon's Hymn and the Dream of the Rood. And I'm putting both the Old English and Modern English versions of those poems on the website. So you can just go to episode 39 if you want to see the poems written out. So let's go ahead and turn to this episode. And I concluded last time by noting that the rise of monasteries in Britain ultimately led to a marriage of Latin and English. And for the first time anywhere in Western Europe, a local vernacular was starting to be used in conjunction with Latin to bring the message of the Church to the people. But it's important to keep in mind that prior to this point, Latin and English had been segregated, occupying different worlds. Latin had been the language of the Church and English had been the language of the people. And those two didn't mix. The Church had considered English a pagan language, unfit for Church business. But that started to change at the end of the 7th century, many local people were joining those new monasteries that were popping up around Britain. And most of the monks and nuns and support personnel spoke English as their native language. So a degree of bilingualism emerged within those monasteries. And last time I told the story of the cowherd Cadmun, who's the first known poet to use English poetry to promote Christian themes and ideas. And this led to an epiphany within the Anglo Saxon Church. English, the local vernacular, could actually be used as a tool to spread the message of the Church. Now, converting kings and royal courts was essential to this process. But ultimately the message had to reach the people. And in order to reach the ordinary people, the missionaries needed to be able to speak to them in their own language. Remember, most people were illiterate and books were very rare. But throughout the Anglo Saxon culture, poetry was listened to by all classes of society. And that poetry became a very powerful way to spread the message of Christianity. In many ways it was like the radio or television of its day. It was a way to reach the masses. And it should be noted that at this early date, the idea of fusing Christianity with with the local vernacular was really unique to Britain and English in the rest of Western Europe it was strictly Latin as far as the Church was concerned. But Anglo Saxon Britain was starting to be an exception and that illustrates how powerful and influential regions like Northumbria had become. From around the same time as Caedmon, we have another story which illustrates how English was starting to be co opted by the Church. This particular story comes to us via the 12th century English historian, William of Malmesbury. It tells us about Aldhelm, who was a scholar and a poet in Malmesbury in the south of England. Aldhelm lived around or shortly after the time of Cadman. He was the first abbot of the monastery at Malmesbury and he was a very highly regarded poet. Most of his poems were written in Latin and he was one of the innovators of a particular style of Latin verse called Hermeneutic Latin, which has a very complicated and elaborate structure. And we actually still have some of those Latin poems which he composed. But this is the story of English. And William of Malmsbury tells us that Aldhelm also wrote poems in English and he set those English poems to music. So they were really songs which he performed. Unfortunately, all of his English poems have been lost to the centuries. Now, being a devout abbot, Auld Helm wanted to spread the Christian message to all the people in town. So he started hanging out at the End of a bridge, which was a major crossing point in town. And he stood there and he sang his religious songs in English. And crowds would gather to hear the songs in their own native language. And we're told that many people were brought to the church by old Helm and his religious songs. So here we have the story of an abbot who was basically a bard or a minstrel, standing at a bridge, using Old English poetic verse to bring people to the church. And once again we see that early marriage of Christianity and English. But in order for English to spread the message of the Church, it meant that Latin terms and Christian concepts had to be translated into English. And that wasn't as simple as you might think. The Germanic gods and the Christian God were very different. Germanic gods like Woden and Thor were warrior gods, and they reflect the importance of the warrior tradition in Germanic culture. But the Christian tradition emphasized forgiveness, altruism and self sacrifice. Christianity itself evolved out of the Mediterranean religious tradition with many concepts and ideas that were very foreign to the Germanic pagans. It was a monotheistic religion with one God, but there were three aspects to that God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. So there was a subtlety and a complexity in the Christian message which was difficult to convey with traditional Old English words. So those bards and poets had to figure out how to represent those new ideas. And ultimately, they did it in two different ways. First, where they could, they translated Latin words and concepts into English. So in the process, they had to reinvent and reimagine the language. And they had to find ways to make English words express all of those new Christian concepts. But sometimes there simply was no way to translate a word or concept into English. Remember that the original English vocabulary was a tiny fraction of what it is today. So in many cases, the Anglo Saxons began to do something which they had previously been very reluctant to do. They began to borrow outside words into English. Now, this is a very important point, because one of the defining characteristics of modern English is its willingness to borrow words from other languages. But up to this point in the history of English, it appears that English speakers were reluctant to borrow words from other languages. We've already seen that the Anglo Saxons borrowed only a small handful of words from the native Celtic speakers. The original Old English language was a fundamentally Germanic language with very few non Germanic words. Now, their ancestors back on the continent had borrowed a few Latin words from the Romans in the earlier centuries. But by this point, most Anglo Saxons probably had no idea that words like street and sack and wall had been borrowed from another language. So it appears that the Anglo Saxons were inclined to rely upon their own native word stock as much as they could. But that started to change around this time, late in the seventh century, when English poets began to borrow Latin words to express these new Christian concepts. So at this point, we have these two fundamental events occurring within the language. In the remainder of this episode, I'm going to focus on the first of those two events, the translation of Latin words and concepts into English. And in the next episode, I'm going to focus on all of those new Latin words which were borrowed into English at this point. But together, both of those events fundamentally changed the English language. So let's look at how English poets and minstrels use the limited vocabulary of Old English to make it fit those new philosophical ideas. And the best place to begin is with the poem which started it all, Caedmon's Hymn. I concluded the last episode by reading the poem in Old English. This time, I want to take you through the poem to show you how Caedmon used Old English words in new ways. The first line of the poem was, ny schulen hergen heven riques werd. The line can be literally translated as now we must praise the heavenly kingdom's guardian. New is now schulen is shall. Hergen is an old English verb which meant to praise. So ny schulen hergen is now shall praise. The poem is actually missing the pronoun we, which was not unusual. Old English poems often omitted a word here and there to make the rhythm work properly. So the actual translation is now we shall praise. So all of that is very traditional Old English. But what are we praising? In the second half line, Caedmon tells us that it is the heven riekes werd, the heavenly kingdom's guardian. In other words, God. And this is really a good example of an Old English poet using a traditional Germanic stock phrase to describe the Christian God. So let's look a little closer at that phrase. Haven rikes werd. Haven is heaven. Rikes is kingdom. That's that same Germanic root word that we keep coming across in the podcast. Rikkes eventually became riccia and then rich in modern English, and it's cognate with rex in Latin and Reich in German. So heaven ricus is heavenly kingdom. And the last word is werdau, which later became ward and then warden in modern English. Again, we've seen that word before. Remember that the French borrowed that word from the Franks, and they had a problem with that w sound at the beginning of the word so in French, the word went from warden to guardian. So modern English actually has both versions of the word warden and guardian. So hevenriques werd is heavenly kingdom's guardian. Now, the reason why this particular phrase is so significant is because it was derived from a common stock phrase in Germanic poetry. A couple of episodes back, I discussed how poets used stock phrases, and they would fill in the blank with a word which satisfied the required alliteration. Well, werd is one of those stock phrases meaning blank warden or guardian. In Beowulf, the Danish king Hrothgar is referred to as Beohord werd, which was the ring horde, warden or guardian of the ring hordes. And Beowulf describes himself as Folkesward, which was the folk's warden or guardian of the folk or the people. The monster in Beowulf is described as Beorgiswerd, the barrow, warden or guardian of the barrow. And in the poem the Seafarer, the cuckoo bird is described as Sumerusw, summer's guardian. And in Germanic culture, a king was often referred to as rikeswerd, a kingdom's guardian. So this was a very Germanic term, and it reflects the notion of a king as a warrior or guardian who protects his kingdom. In fact, Beowulf uses that particular phrase to describe Hrothgar in the Beowulf poem. But Cadmon took this standard Germanic term for a king and he applied it to the Christian God. So rikes werd became haven rikes werd, heavenly kingdom's guardian. And again, this is the first instance of that Germanic term for a king being applied in a Christian context. In the third line of the poem, Cadmon describes the universe created by God as werk Wuldevader, the work of the wonder father, or the father of wonder. And this is another new term for God, using native Old English words, the wonder father. In the next line, Caedmon looks for another way to describe the Christian God. The original Germanic tribes back on the continent had developed a word which referred to military service, which, as you might imagine, was a common undertaking. The word was very old because the Goths had a version of the same word. The Gothic version was triugan. Since a soldier's life was hard and difficult, the word came to mean suffering or enduring. It came into English as dre, which is a word which has long since disappeared. But it passed from the Germanic tribes on the continent into French, and it re entered English after the Normans invaded. This later borrowing gave us the modern word drudge. But that original Germanic word meaning Dragon military service created another important word in Old English. The word was trichten, and it meant a military leader or chief. And that very old, very Germanic word for a warrior chief was borrowed by Cadmun. Cadmun described God as Eki trichten. Eki meant eternal, and it's actually cognate with the word ever, as well as the French word eternal. All of those words came from the same Indo European root word. So the term eki dricton meant eternal chief and is usually translated as eternal lord. In fact, this became a very common term in Christian literature written in Old English. Cadmon actually used the phrase twice in the nine lines of his short poem, but the term quickly died out after the Normans arrived. But again, in this term, we see the Germanic concept of a warrior chief being applied to the Christian God, and he became the eternal chief. In the next couple of lines, Cadmon wants to express the idea that God created the sky in the heavens. Now, heaven is an Old English word, but the pre Christian version of the word just meant sky in the same way that we refer to the heavens today to mean the sky and the stars. So Caedmon says that God created helvon Torufa, heaven, as a roof. This particular phrase was a direct reference to the traditional Germanic religions, which often described Woden's Valhalla as a great hall in the sky. And the creation of Valhalla was often described in detail with the final piece of the roof being placed on top. So Kadmon hearkens back to that idea when he says God created heaven as a roof. But in creating that roof, Caedmon couldn't use the term create, and he couldn't describe God as a creator, because create is a Latin word which didn't come into English until after the Normans. So he used the word shope, the original version of our word shape. Remember that this was the same word used for a poet in Old English. A poet was a shaper of words. So God created the heavens by shaping them in much the same way that a Germanic poet shaped words to create poems. And this connection was certainly no coincidence. Caedmon was clearly playing with words here, because he then describes God as hali Schuppen, the holy shaper. By the way, the general Anglo Saxon word for creation was a compound word, froomschaft, literally from shaping from. Froom was an early variation of our modern word from. But in this particular compound, it referred to a point or place of origin. So froomschaft was origin shaping. So in Kadman's hymn, God shaped the Heavens. But then he needed to create the earth, or more specifically, the material world. So Caedmon expressed that idea in the next couple of lines, and once again, he borrowed from the traditional Germanic notions of middle earth. Now, earth is an Old English word, but it simply meant soil or dirt or ground. So Caedmon needed to express the idea that the material world which surrounds us is distinct from the heavens above us and the underworld of spirits below us. So he used the term midengert, literally, the middle garden or middle yard. Midden was middle, and gerd was the original version of the word yard. We've also seen that word before. The G sound at the beginning shifted to a Y sound, as so often happened in Old English words, and that gave us the word gard. You might remember that the Frankish version of that word passed through French into English, and the French retained that original G sound and gave us the word garden. So midengerd was the middle garden, but in many modern English versions of the poem, it's often translated as middle dwelling or middle earth. So here you can see how Tolkien's later concept of middle earth was influenced by these early Anglo Saxon traditions. But for Cadmon, it was simply his way of using native Old English words to describe the material world caught between heaven and hell. He then gives us a final euphemism for God, and he returns to that stock phrase which I began with werd. Well, he had just used that term meedengerd for middle garden, so he needed to maintain the required alliteration with the word which began with the m sound. So with the use of that stock phrase, he created the term mon cunest werd, literally mankind's guardian. But again, in that term, mankind's guardian, we see the Germanic notion of a protector of the people, someone who defended the people from external dangers and threats. It's really the same idea as Beowulf, who arrived to protect the Danes by killing the monster Grendel. Well, that's what Germanic heroes did. They were glorious and brave protectors. And Cadmun describes God as not just the protector of a specific tribe or nation, but but a protector of all of mankind. So you can see how Cadmon used his English words to convey the ideas associated with the biblical creation story, and also how he mixed traditional Germanic notions of heroism with the new religious concepts introduced by the Christian Church. And note that he didn't use any Latin or Greek words. It was strictly English. And it showed that English could be used to convey those ideas, at least in the hands of a gifted poet. Or word shaper. As I noted last time, Caedmon lived in the early part of a period known as the Northumbrian Renaissance. This was the period when literacy and arts and culture were exploding around this northernmost kingdom, and literacy was a relatively new concept. So even artists sought to incorporate writing into their artwork. So it's not surprising that many of the artifacts produced during this period reflect a combination of both artistry and literacy. I discussed the Lindisfarne Gospels in the last episode, and that book was also a work of art. Another example of this fusion of artwork and literacy is the Ruthwell Cross, a large, elaborate stone cross which was produced in the northern part of Northumbria in what is today southern Scotland. I mentioned the Ruthwell Cross back in episode 25, about the Germanic runes. The cross was constructed shortly after the time of Cadmun, late in the 7th century or early in the 8th century, and it contains inscriptions in both Latin and the Germanic runes. The runic symbols follow along the edges of the vertical base of the cross, and the runic inscription is written in Old English. It's actually a short excerpt from an Anglo Saxon poem called the Dream of the Rood. And the timing here is kind of important. When the runes were deciphered a few centuries back, scholars recognized the passage as part of the Dream of the Rood poem. But our only surviving copy of that poem comes from the Vercelli Book, one of those four surviving manuscripts which I discussed last time. The Vercelli Book is that book located in Vercelli, Italy, and like the other books, it was compiled around the year 1000. So our only full version of the poem was written down about two or three centuries after the inscription on this particular cross. So this cross confirms that the poem was a much older poem, which had been around for a long time before the full version was written down in the Vercelli book. Now, I should note that some scholars think the runic inscription was added a little bit later, after the cross was constructed. But runic writing gradually disappeared as the Alphabet became the standard way of writing English. So even if the inscription was added a few years later, it was probably added much closer to the date of the cross itself than the date of the Vercelli book. Also, the version of the poem on the cross is somewhat different from the later written version in the Vercelli book. So that also suggests that a period of time had elapsed between the cross inscription and the final written version. But either way, the inscription is another example of the fusion of English verse and the new Christian message. In fact, there are some scholars who think Cadmon was the poet who actually wrote the Dream of the Rood poem. But there's simply no way to know that for certain. Now, before we look at the inscription, I should tell you a little bit more about the history of that cross, because that history impacted the inscription. After Scotland became a Protestant nation, the Church of Scotland General assembly passed an act to demolish what it considered to be idolatrous monuments. And that was in the 17th century. As a result, many of these old crosses were destroyed, including the Ruthwell Cross. It was broken into pieces and scattered around the church grounds. But in the early 1800s, the cross was pieced back together. Unfortunately, some of the pieces were never recovered, and some of the pieces that were recovered were damaged and worn down. So even though most of the runic inscription survives, a few parts of it are damaged or missing. But since we have the full version of the poem in the Vercelli Book, scholars have been able to decipher the missing pieces. I should also note that the poem is like most Old English poems in that it doesn't have a title. The Dream of the Rude was invented in later centuries, but it's also sometimes called A Vision of the Cross. Now, the word rude in the title is derived from the Old English word for cross. It was spelled R O O D, at least in the West Saxon dialect, which was the dialect used for the Vercelli Book. You might remember that the poem is written from the perspective of the cross and it describes the crucifixion of Christ. But cross is a Latin word which wasn't in the English language at that point. So the Anglo Saxons used their native word rude, which may be cognate with the modern English word rod, but there's some disagreement about that. Now, in many respects, the Ruth Bowl Cross is a perfect example of the blend of Christianity and pagan Germanic cultures. The cross has inscriptions in both Latin and English. The Latin inscriptions are in the Roman Alphabet, and as I said, the English inscriptions are in the native Germanic runes, the closest thing the Anglo Saxons had to a native Alphabet. And the poem is also a blend of the two cultural traditions. The subject matter of the poem is the crucifixion of Christ, but the story is told in the poetic tradition of the Anglo Saxons. It's important to put the excerpt contained on the cross into the larger context of the full poem. The full version of the poem contained in the Vercelli book begins with a first person narrative. In one modern translation, it begins, Listen, I will tell the best of visions. What came to me in the middle of the night when voice bearers dwelled in rest. So, initially the narrator is unknown, but slowly it's revealed that the narrator is not in fact a person. It's a cross, inanimate object. The full version of the poem reads again, this was very long ago. I remember it still, that I was cut down from the edge of the wood, ripped up by my roots. They seized me there, strong enemies, made me a spectacle for themselves there, commanded me to raise up their criminals. Now, this technique of telling a story from the perspective of an inanimate object, part of the Germanic tradition, as we'll see in a future episode. The old English poets loved to compose riddles where an object would describe itself in very general terms and the reader or listener had to guess what the object was. So the poet who composed the Dream of the Rood was following that same tradition again. Once it's revealed that the narrator is a cross used for the crucifixion of criminals, we begin to see the Christian elements fusing with the Germanic structure of the poem. And at that point, Christ is introduced into the poem, and that also happens to be the portion which is written on the Ruthwell cross. The first part of the inscription is damaged, but it describes Christ disrobing and climbing upon the cross. Then the inscription includes the following passage in old ich riche kuning hevonis haford helda ichna dorosta be smeared un ket min be ergud ich meath bloda be stamed, begotten of das gumund sidden. In modern English, the passage reads, I held high the powerful king, heaven's lord. I dared not bend. Men mocked us both together. I was slick with blood, sprung from the man's side. Now, this passage is a good example of the synthesis between Germanic poetry and Christian themes. First, we get the description of Christ, and once again we see Germanic terms for nobility being used in a religious context. So Christ is described as the powerful king, rychna kuening, rich king. But we know that the word rich originally meant powerful, not necessarily wealthy. And the poet follows that term with the phrase helvenus haford, heavenly lord. And this term is also very notable because it's the first known example of the word lord being used in a Christian context. The word lord is an Old English word, and it was yet another name for a noble in the sense of lords and ladies. So much like guardian, king and richten, this was another secular term applied to Christian use. The version of the word lord, which appears in the Ruthwell Cross inscription is llavard. And over the centuries, the two syllable word has been slurred and shortened into a single syllable. But the word lord was originally a compound word. It combined the original version of the word loaf, as in a loaf of bread, with the same word werd, meaning ward or guardian. So it was hlaf, werd, loaf, guardian. And this is yet another example of that stock phrase blank guardian. And hlafwaerd had slurred into lavard by the time of the Ruth Bowl Cross inscription, and lavard later slurred into lord. So how did the compound word lofgardian come to mean a noble? Well, the answer lies in the first part of that compound, the word loaf. Old English actually had the word loaf, which was hlof, and the word bread, which was breod. Bread is one of the few Old English words which has actually retained its original spelling. But in Old English, loaf was actually the more common term. After the Norman Conquest, the word loaf kind of fell out of use for some reason, and the word bread became the more common and more general word. Now, bread was very, very important to the Anglo Saxons. Like most ancient peoples, it could be cooked all year long, so it wasn't seasonal like most foods, and it was a staple of the Anglo Saxon diet. So it was important to protect and secure the bread once it was baked. So the loaf guardian was the head of the household, usually the husband or the father. And if that sounds kind of crazy, think about the modern term breadwinner, which is a more modern term, but it has a very similar meaning. So hlavarrd came to mean head of household, and from there it was extended to mean a prominent or noble person. Today, when we think of the word lord in its secular sense, we often think of the word lady, as in lords and ladies. And that association is not an accident, because the word lady is formed from that same word meaning loaf. Lady was originally lafdia, derived from hlaf meaning loaf and dia, meaning maid. So it meant loaf maiden. But the connection to bread actually goes back even further than that. The word dia, meaning maiden, originally referred to a person who makes dough. In fact, that word dia is cognate with the word dough. So it originally meant a dough maker, but it later took on a more general sense as a maiden. So the term hlaftia, meaning loaf maiden, was actually kind of redundant in the original sense of the words. It literally meant a loaf dough maker. But you can see how important bread was to the culture. So in early Anglo Saxon culture, each household had a loaf maker and a loaf guardian. The wife made the bread and the husband protected it. And the word for loaf maker or loaf maiden became lady, and the word for the loaf guardian became lord. So to the Anglo Saxons, the word lord always had an implied sense of a guardian because it was actually part of what was originally a compound word. And the poet who composed the dream of the root was well aware of the sense of the word as a guardian. So hlavarrd or loaf guardian became the heavenly hlavard, the heavenly lord. And from there we get the modern Christian use of the term lord in its Christian context. By the way, since I am discussing the importance of bread in ancient societies, I should note that the word companion from Latin is literally the person with whom you share bread. In Latin, com meant with and pan meant bread. So a companion was the person who was with you while you ate your bread. So let's return to the dream of the rood. After using terms like powerful king and heavenly lord, the poet then uses a line which is one of the most quoted lines in the poem. Ich was mith bloda be steamed of thesgumen sidon. If we break it down, it reads, each was Meath. I was with. Blede be steamed, blood be steamed. But it meant moist or wet with blood. Begotten of. Begotten of thesgumen sieden, the man's side. Remember, gumen was another word for man in Old English, as in breedgmen mean, meaning bridesman. So if we break it down, we can actually start to recognize it in modern English. So the whole line in modern English reads, I was wet with blood sprung from the man's side. Now, this line is important because it shows how the poet combined elements of Germanic paganism with Christianity. You see, Germanic heroes were warriors, they battled their enemies and they often found themselves covered with blood. Let's compare this passage about Christ on the cross to the story of Beowulf. At the end of the Beowulf poem, Beowulf battles a dragon. And in his last moment of victory, having defeated the dragon, he finds himself covered with blood and dying, and he's attended to by a loyal thane. In the so called Donaldson translation of the poem, the passage reads, then with his hands the Thane, good without limit, washed him with water. Blood besmeared the famous prince, his beloved lord sated with battle. He knew well he had lived out his days death very near. So we see that Germanic heroes sometimes faced a great battle where they were battered and bloody and eventually died. So the Dream of the Rood alludes to this tradition when Christ is described as a powerful king and heavenly lord, and he's bloodied on the cross before dying. But the image of a bloodied cross has another significance in Germanic religious culture. In native Anglo Saxon religions, it was common to sacrifice an animal and spread the animal's blood on an object to ward off evil spirits, a word developed from this practice. The word blood was an Old English word, blood with deep Indo European roots. And the process of sprinkling blood on an object as part of a religious ritual was called bletsian. And this word became blazon in Middle English and bless in modern English. So the word bless is actually a native English word which is derived from the word blood and specifically derived from the process of sprinkling blood on an object as part of a religious ritual. And in Old English, the word bless was extended to the new concepts introduced by Christianity. It was used to translate the Latin word benedicare, which meant to consecrate by religious rite or word. So instead of consecrating with blood, it came to mean consecrating with words or other rituals. By the way, another Old English word for blood was dreyer, which specifically meant blood dripping from a cut or wound. It actually originated from the same Indo European root which produced words like drip, drop and droop. So the word dreary meant something that was bloody or dripping with blood. And it survives in modern English as the word dreary. Over time, it's come to mean something dark, gloomy or melancholy, but it still retains the original sense of something dripping. So we speak of a dreary day, meaning a wet and gloomy day. So, as you can see, the Ruth Whel cross is a good example of this early marriage of Germanic and Christian philosophies. And we can see how native English words were being appropriated to new religious uses. Outside of Caedmon's hymn and the Ruthwell Cross, we have lots of other examples of this process which have survived into modern English. One of the best examples is the word God, a native Old English word. It its original meaning was simply a deity. And of course, there are many gods in the original Germanic culture. Woden, Thor, tiu, and many others. But within Christianity, a monotheistic religion, it became the God, the Supreme Being. Apparently, the Anglo Saxons didn't feel the need to borrow the Latin word deus. Their native word would do just fine. Now, a common myth or misunderstanding is that the word God is cognate with the word good, it seems like a reasonable assumption, but it's not true. The word good derives from a completely different Germanic and Indo European root, but the similarity can create some confusions. A good example of this confusion is one of the most common words in the English goodbye. We naturally assume that the good in goodbye means well, good, as in good day or good evening. But it actually means goodbye, God. It derives from an early Middle English saying, God be with you. As you may know, French has the word adieu, and there we see the Latin word for God, deus. So adieu literally meant to God in French, but that was actually a shortened version of the original French phrase, which was adieu vous comment, which was I command you to God. And after the Normans arrived in Britain, the phrase was translated into English as God be with you, in the same way that French ultimately shortened the French version to just adieu. English speakers did the same thing. God be with you was shortened to simply God be, and later goodbye. The change from God to good was probably influenced by phrases like good day and good night and good evening, which were already in the language. Another example of the common confusion of good and God is the word gospel. A lot of people think that the word derives from the word God, but actually it comes from the word good. And it represents a literal translation of the Greco Roman term evangelium, which gives us words like evangelist and evangelical. The original Greek word meant good news, so the Anglo Saxons adopted a literal translation of the word good and spell, which meant story or message in Old English. So the good spell meant good message or good tidings. But later English speakers were once again confused with the similarity between good and God. They thought that the word was derived from the word God, so the pronunciation shifted from good spell to godspell to gospel. The newly Christian Anglo Saxons also had to translate the Latin word sanctus, which gives us later words like sanctify and sanctuary, as well as words like sacred and saint. So they decided to use an Old Germanic word which has deep Indo European roots. The original Indo European word kilo meant undamaged or undiminished. The word passed into the Germanic languages, and under Grimm's Law, the K sound at the front shifted to an H sound and it produced two very closely related words in Old English. One word was hol. The original version of our modern word hole, W H o L e. The other English word was helen. The original version of our word heal. To heal something was to fix it, cure it, or make it whole. And that's the word which the Anglo Saxons decided to use for the Latin word sanctus. In the same way that a healthy person was intact and whole and unviolated by sickness or disease, something that was sacred was also whole or unviolated. So the word holy was appropriated to describe something sacred. So holy meant pure or uncontaminated. And in that sense we can see the connections between holy, whole, heal and health, all of those words being closely connected Old English words derived from the same ultimate root. I should also note that the word holy was pronounced holly in Old English, and that original pronunciation has survived in the word holiday, which is literally a holy day. I should also remind you here that the word Catholic comes from a Greek phrase which meant on the whole or about the whole, and it later came to mean universal. So we see the same idea within the original Greek terms as well. The Anglo Saxons also had to translate the Latin word for unchristian or unholy behavior. So they used a native Germanic word which meant a transgression or improper act. The word was sin, and it thereafter took on a very specific religious meaning. In the Christian Church, it was important to confess one's sins. This was the confession. But confess and confession are Latin terms which entered English after the Norman Conquest. So the Anglo Saxons had to find a way to express the concept of making confessions and receiving absolutions. So they used the native word srivan, which basically meant the process of writing something down or documenting it. So a person making a confession to a priest was documenting or publishing his sins in much the same way that a writer documents or publishes his ideas when he writes them down. Now, you may have noticed that the Old English word srivan resembles our modern word scrivener. And that's not a coincidence. Scrivener comes from Latin. But it appears that the Old English word schrievan was derived from an earlier Germanic word. And that original Germanic word was likely borrowed from the early Romans, who were much more accustomed to writing. So srivan is ultimately cognate with Latin derived terms like scrivener as well as scribe and script. So srivan was now used by the Anglo Saxons to mean the process of making a confession. The noun form was shrift, meaning the actual confession and giving of absolution. A short shrift was a confession that was cut short. And this was particularly the case with condemned prisoners who were often given only a few seconds to make their confession to a priest before they were executed. And that phrase has survived into modern English. Today, the term short shrift means any activity or event which is cut short or which receives insufficient attention. Now, when a person converted to Christianity, they were usually baptized. But Old English didn't have the word baptize. Instead, the Anglo Saxons chose to use the word dupun, which meant to immerse. Even though baptized was later borrowed into English after the Normans, the original word dupan survives in the modern word dip. And speaking of baptized, there's a connection between the word baptize and the word epiphany. In modern English, an epiphany is a sudden insight or realization about something. But it was originally the name of a Christian festival which commemorated the baptism of Christ. The festival was typically held on January 6th. But rather than borrow the very un Germanic word epiphany, the Anglo Saxons came up with a very English way of expressing the same idea. Since the festival commemorated the day Christ was dipped in water, the holiday came to be called bath day, pronounced almost exactly the same way in Old English. So between epiphany and bath day, we can see how one term sounds very sophisticated and the other sounds very, well, unsophisticated. But that just reflects how the Anglo Saxons had to translate those Latin concepts into their somewhat limited English vocabulary. Now, in addition to baptism, prayer is also a very important part of Christianity. But again, pray is another Latin word which arrived after the Normans. The Anglo Saxons used their own word, bidon, which meant to ask or request something. That word survives in the modern word bid. In some cases, bid actually has two different meanings in modern English. Usually we think of it as an offer or proclamation. So if we bid on something at an auction, we're using the word in that sense. And if we forbid something, we're using it in the same sense as a proclamation. But this sense of the word bid comes from a different Old English word, the word baodan. But we also have the word bid in the sense of bidding someone farewell. And that use of the word bid comes from a different Old English word, the same word which the Anglo Saxons used for pray. To bid someone farewell originally meant to ask or request permission to leave. So in earlier English, you might bid someone farewell, or you might bid to God for good health or good fortune. Sometimes worshippers would maintain a string of round stones or metal balls, and they would use that string to count their prayers. But remember, they weren't called prayers in Old English, they were called bids or beads. So you didn't count your prayers on the string, you counted your beads. And that's the ultimate origin of the word bead. B, E, A D. So an incredibly common English word like bead derives from this process of converting Latin words and Christian concepts into Old English. Now, earlier in the episode, I mentioned the word heaven, which originally meant the sky. And that word was appropriated for the Christian concept of the place where Christians go when they die. And you might remember from my discussion about the early Germanic tribes that the word hel was a Germanic word for the watery underworld of the dead. The Old Testament had used the Greek word Hades, but the Anglo Saxons chose to appropriate that Germanic word hel. And over time, the concept evolved from its original notion of a dark, watery underworld to its Christian notion of a place with fire and brimstone. Of course, Hell's most famous resident is the devil, another Germanic word converted to Christian use. The original Hebrew version of the Old Testament used the word Satan or Satan. When the Old Testament was translated into Greek, Satan was translated as diabolus, which meant slanderer. The Latin translation basically just used the same Greek word. And that word gives us a modern word like diabolic. But the Anglo Saxons looked for a native word to describe the fallen angel, so they used diavol, which meant an evil spirit or devious person, and the devil got his modern English name. Now, a few episodes back, we looked at Ethelbert's Laws of Kent, which were called the domus because the words law and judgment hadn't entered English yet. So when the Anglo Saxons had to translate the word judgment day, they used their native word for judgment, and judgment day became doomsday, a word which still survives into modern English. So, as you can see, the Anglo Saxons were originally inclined to use native English words where they could. But the limited vocabulary of Old English could only do so much. And gradually, the Anglo Saxons began to adopt Latin words rather than trying to find English ways of saying the same thing. Next time, we'll look at that process and we'll explore a lot of the Latin words which came into English long before the Normans arrived. This will mark the first large scale borrowing of foreign words into the English language. So until next time, thanks for listening to the History of English podcast. SA.