GalacticCactus Forum

Forums => English & Linguistics => Topic started by: Noemon on November 23, 2005, 09:32:55 AM

Title: Yule = Thule?
Post by: Noemon on November 23, 2005, 09:32:55 AM

I was just typing a work ticket into my system in faux Elizabethan English (because, you know, it's a slow day), and was thinking about the "Y" like character that used to be used to represent a "th" sound (the name of the character is escaping me at the moment, but you know what I'm talking about).  Anyway, it dawned on me that since "Thule" was a word that meant...what, cold?  winter?  something like that, anyway, it was possible that the word "Yule" was actually "thule", and had just been taken into modern English with a "Y" sound by mistake.

So, am I on to something, or did I just make up my own folk etymology for the word "Yule"?

Title: Yule = Thule?
Post by: Mr. Anderson on November 23, 2005, 02:18:48 PM

The thorn character?  I remember Jonathon talking about it a while back and how it was replaced with "y" because they looked similar and something about typesets...

Title: Yule = Thule?
Post by: Brinestone on November 24, 2005, 08:41:17 AM

< ---- is very interested to find out the answer to this.

Title: Yule = Thule?
Post by: Brinestone on November 24, 2005, 08:52:36 AM

Okay, the short answer is no, it's not thule. It's been pronounced with a "y" sound from Old English on. Jonathon can give you more info on specifics.

Title: Yule = Thule?
Post by: Jonathon on November 24, 2005, 11:12:53 AM

It comes from a common Germanic word of ultimately obscure origin. There are cognates in other Germanic languages.

I'm not familiar with any word like thule meaning "cold" or "winter," though.

Title: Yule = Thule?
Post by: pooka on November 25, 2005, 05:27:50 AM

Some ski cartop carrier is called Thule.

Title: Yule = Thule?
Post by: Mr. Anderson on November 26, 2005, 06:43:52 PM

It's a Swedish company.  I've heard a lot of people pronounce it "too-lay," but I have no idea if that's right.  Maybe Jonathon knows.

Title: Yule = Thule?
Post by: Teshi on November 27, 2005, 08:41:27 AM

EDIT: Ah, I'm seeing the light of what we're talking about! This below is the "thule" which Noemon is confusing with "yule"...

Quote

1. a. The ancient Greek and Latin name (first found in Polybius's account of the voyage of Pytheas) for a land six days' sail north of Britain, which he supposed to be the most northerly region in the world.

b. transf. As the type of the extreme limit of travel and discovery, chiefly (after Latin usage) in the phrase ultima Thule (farthest Thule); hence fig. the highest or uttermost point or degree attained or attainable, the acme, limit; the lowest limit, the nadir.

2. Archæol. (with pronunc. ({vdftheta}u{lm}l, {vdftheta}ju{lm}l)). Used chiefly attrib. to designate a prehistoric Eskimo culture widely distributed from Alaska to Greenland c 500-1400 A.D. [From the name Thule (now Dundas), a settlement in N.W. Greenland.]

So it is losely linked with the idea of "cold".

However, all the examples the OED lists (I heart the OED, in case you hadn't noticed  have the Thule with a "Th" not a {th}.

Quote

c888 K. ÆLFRED Boeth. xxix. §3 O{edh} {edh}æt iland {th}e we hata{edh} Tyle. c893 {emem} Oros. I. i. §27 Be westannor{edh}an Ibernia is {th}æt ytemeste land {th}æt man hæt Thila. a1000 Boeth. Metr. xvi. 15 An i{asg}lond..{thbar} is Tile haten. c1374 CHAUCER Boeth. III. met. v. (Camb. MS.), {Th}e last Ile in {th}e see {th}at hyhte tyle [v.r. tile]. 1387 TREVISA Higden (Rolls) I. 325 Tyle is sixe dayes seillynge oute of Bretayne. 1598 SYLVESTER Du Bartas II. ii. IV. Columnes 230 From Africa to Thule's farthest Flood. 1613-16 W. BROWNE Brit. Past. I. v, Monster-breeding Nyle Or through the North to the unpeopled Thyle.

The things in curly brackets stand for the things that didn't copy and paste- that's what they came out as.

Also, point of interest:

Quote

  (Thule has been variously conjectured to be the Shetland Islands (so app. in Pliny and Tacitus), Iceland, the northern point of Denmark, or some point on the coast of Norway.)

 :cool:

EDIT also: Yule, on the other hand...

Quote

a900 O.E. Martyrol. 1 Jan. 12 Ianuarius, {th}æt is on ure {asg}e{th}eode se æftera {asg}eola. Ibid. 10 Dec. 216 Se mona{edh} ys nemned on leden Decembris ond on ure {asg}e{th}eode se ærra [{asg}eola.

Again, the wiggly brackets are what happened when I copy and paste. I'm assuming {asg} is the "y" of yule, but honestly, the spelling is really messed up. Later, it's written as yowle, yold, Iol, {ygh}ole.

*head asplode*

Title: Yule = Thule?
Post by: Noemon on November 28, 2005, 10:14:50 PM

Thanks for the detail Teshi!  Somehow I thought that Thule was of Old English rather than Latin origin.  Not sure why I thought that.

 

Title: Yule = Thule?
Post by: Teshi on November 29, 2005, 08:30:43 AM

It sounds that way. There are a lot of short "th" words in Germanic/OE.