"Path of Fire" and other dangerous paths: a translation of Bachchan's अग्नि पथ and some philological discussion (including Proto-Germanic *paþaz)

Harivanshrai "Bachchan" Shrivastav (November 27, 1907 – January 18, 2003) was a poet of Chhayavaad literary movement. One of his poems is अग्नि पथ ("Path of Fire"), which was used as the title for the award-winning film of the same name, starring his own son, Hindi film superstar Amitabh Bachchan.

अग्नि पथ

अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ!

वृक्ष हों भले खड़े,
हों घने, हों बड़े,
एक पत्र-छाँह भी माँग मत, माँग मत, माँग मत!
अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ!

तू न थकेगा कभी!
तू न थमेगा कभी!
तू न मुड़ेगा कभी!-कर शपथ! कर शपथ! कर शपथ!
अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ!

यह महान दृश्‍य है-
चल रहा मनुष्‍य है
अश्रु-स्वेद-रक्‍त से लथपथ, लथपथ, लथपथ!

अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ! अग्नि पथ!

Path of Fire
The path of fire! The path of fire! The path of fire!

There may stand excellent trees,
they may be dense, they may be big.
But don't ask, don't ask, don't ask,

even for the shade of a single leaf!
The path of fire! The path of fire! The path of fire!

You will never tire!
You will never halt!
You will never turn!--

Give your word! Give your word! Give your word!
The path of fire! The path of fire! The path of fire!

This is a mighty sight--
Man is walking,
Drenched, drenched, drenched,

by tears, sweat, and blood!

The path of fire! The path of fire! The path of fire!

Some philological analysis:

Bachchan employs a high level of तत्सम (tatsama) vocabulary (words borrowed from Sanskrit), in preference to tadbhava (तद्भव) vocabulary (native Hindi/Urdu words inherited from Sanskrit) and borrowings from Persian and Arabic, in this poem. Thus:

• Sanskrit अग्नि (agni) "fire" rather than the Hindi tadbhava (तद्भव) word आग (āg)
• Sanskrit वृक्ष (vr̥kṣa) "tree" rather than something like Hindi पेड़ (peṛ)
• Sanskrit मनुष्‍य (manuṣya) "man" rather than Hindi/Urdu आदमी (ādmī) [borrowing from Perso-Arabic]
• Sanskrit पत्र (patra) "leaf" rather than Hindi पत्ता (pattā)
• Sanskrit अश्रु (aśru) "tear (as in crying tears)" rather than Hindi आंसू (āṁsū) [Both Sansrkti aśru and its descendant Hindi āṁsū derive from PIE *dak̂ru "tear", which is also the source of English tear and Latin lacrima (> English lachrymose)]
• Sanskrit रक्‍त (rakta) "blood" rather than Hindi/Urdu खून (khūn) [borrowing from Persian]
• Sanskrit स्वेद (swed) "sweat" rather than Hindi/Urdu पसीना (pasīnā) [note that Sanskrit swed is obviously cognate with English sweat]
• Sanskrit पथ (path) "path" rather than something like Hindi/Urdu रास्ता (rāstā) [borrowing from Persian]

Note that the last word is obviously cognate with English path, but this does not reflect a common inheritance. Rather English path is the result of a very early borrowing into Germanic (as Proto-Germanic *paþaz) from some Iranian language (cp. Avestan pɑntɑ, genitive pɑθɑ 'way', Old Persian pɑthi-), possibly Scythian, due to early contact between Germanic and Iranian peoples. Sanskrit path and the Iranian forms like Avestan panta/pɑθɑ (and thus the Proto-Germanic borrowed *paþaz) are all ultimately from PIE *pent (which is also the root underlying English find; see Watkins[1]:65).

We find this borrowed word path used early on in English (OE pæð), one of the few p-initial words in Old English (due ultimately to the rarity of the phoneme*b in PIE). One very evocative use of pæð in Old English is found in the following passage from the epic poem Beowulf, describing the hero's approach to the fen-lair of the troll-woman:

Oferēode þā æþelinga bearn

stēap stānhliðo stīge nearwe

enge ānpaðas uncūð gelād

neowle næssas nicorhūsa fela.

Beowulf ll.1408-11

The noble prince then traversed

the steep stone slopes, the narrow ways,

the tight single-file paths, the uncanny fords,

the precipitous headlands, the many nests of water-monsters.

These two poems are thus linked in their descriptions of difficult paths...and even employ the same word, path: due to the fact that Bachchan avoids the Iranian (Persian) borrowing rāstā "path", and because the Beowulf-poet opts for the Iranian borrowing path.

References:

[1]Watkins, Calvert. 2000. The American Heritage dictionary of Indo-European roots. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2nd edn.

Odin and Frigg sat in Hlithskjolf and looked over all the worlds: a recently-discovered Viking-age silver figurine

Óðinn ok Frigg sátu í Hliðskjálfu ok sá um heima alla.

(from the prose introduction to the Grímnismál in the Poetic/Elder Edda)

"Odin and Frigg sat in the Hlithskolf ("Gate-Shelf") and looked over all the worlds."

This small figurine, which was found by the local amateur archaeologist Tommy Olesen on 2 September 2009 during Roskilde Museum’s excavations at the small village Gammel Lejre, is the first Viking-age depiction of Odin in his seat Hliðskjálfu:

Odin (Óðinn) figurine found in Lejre

(silver with inlays of niello)

[early 10th century]

Weight: 9 grams

Height: 17.5 mm

Width: 19.8 mm

Depth: 12.4 mm

Odin enthroned on his seat Hliðskjálf, from which he may see into all the worlds.

Notable features:

• Left-eye appears to be damaged ["Old One-Eye"].
• Two ravens sit on the throne [Odin's ravens: Huginn ("Thought") and Muginn ("memory")].
• Behind the throne are two dogs?/wolves? [Odin's wolves: Geri ("ravenous one") and Freki ("greedy one")].
• Necklace may represent Odin's ring, Draupnir ("the dripper"), a gold ring from which every ninth night falls eight gold rings of equal weight.
• This is the first early depiction of Odin on his throne Hliðskjálf ("gate-bench"?, "protection-bench"?).

The representation of Odin with both ravens and wolves is symbolic of his status as Valföðr "Father/Lord of the Slain" (as in Völuspá 1). Ravens and wolves (along with eagles) are a Germanic convention for representing the death and destruction of the battlefield. This "Beasts of Battle" theme (Magoun[1]) often appears in Germanic poetry, as in the following selection from Beowulf, from the end of the speech of the messenger who comes to tell the Geats of Beowulf's fall during his fight with the dragon. The messenger predicts that without the protection of their king, the Geats will be slaughtered by their enemies (Old English wæl is cognate with Norse val):

Forðon sceall gār wesan

monig morgenceald mundum bewunden,

hæfen on handa, nalles hearpan swēg

wīgend weccean ac se wonna hrefn

fūs ofer fǣgum fela reordian,

earne secgan hū him æt ǣte spēow

þenden hē wið wulf wæl rēafode.

Beowulf ll.3021b-27b

Therefore, many a spear,

morning-chilled, shall be grasped in hand,

held in fists; no sound of harp

will waken the warriors, but rather the black raven,

eager above the doomed, will have much to say,

to recount to the eagle, of how he feasted to the full

when he and the wolf looted the field of the slain.

For more on this figurine, see these pages from the Roskilde Museum in Denmark: here and here.

Swedish archaeologist Dr. Martin Rundkvist argues that the figure is in fact Freya; for more discussion on this, see here and here.

References:

[1]Magoun, Francis P., Jr. 1955. "The Theme of the Beasts of Battle." Neuphilologische Mittelungen 56: 81-90.

another angle

The goddess Frigg and her husband, the god Odin, sit in Hliðskjálf and

gaze into look into "all worlds" and make a wager as described in Grímnismál.

[From Gjellerup, Karl. 1895. Den ældre Eddas Gudesange. Copenhagen: P.G. Philipsens Forlag.]

Slayed in a Slade: An etymological indulgence

My blog moniker notwithstanding, the surname Slade is not related to the verb to slay, rather it derives from the Old English word slǣd (or slēd, slēad), a neuter common noun (see Bosworth & Toller[1]:881), which can denote a range of different topographical features (the exact sense apparently depending on the dialect):

"A valley, dell, or dingle; an open space between banks or woods; a forest glade; a strip of greensward or of boggy land."

In Old English the word occurs primarily in charters (documents recording a grant of land or other privilege), used in the description of property boundaries:

Of þere ealdan dic a be graue to wulf slæde.

"From the old ditch, by the grove, to the Wolf-Slade."

[Ch 661 (Birch 1009) B15.8.312: 0018(10)]

Þanon norð on wiðig slæd.

"Thence north to the slade of willows."

[Ch 345 (Birch 550) B15.8.82: 0006 (3)]

Andlang englunga dene swa wæter wile yrnan in hæþenan byrigels a be wyrtwalan in barfodslæd and swa on timberslæd in stepacnolles scydd on hanslædes heafdan innan grenan weg.

"Along Engel's Dell, as the water runs, to the heathen burials by the lower-side of the Boarfodder Slade and so on to the Timber-Slade (wooded valley?) in the twist(?) of the high knoll in upper-side of the Rooster-Slade within the green path."

[Ch 104 (Birch 216) B15.8.15: 0002 (1)]

In Middle English it appears with similar meanings; below follow quotations where slade seems to mean something like "valley":

He dremeth ofte..hou he clymbeth up the banckes And falleth into Slades depe.

"He dreams often...how he climbs up the banks and falls into the slade's deep."

[(1393)John Gower, Confessio Amantis, IV.2727]

And soo he [Launcelot] rode in to a grete forest all that day / and neuer coude fynde no hyghe waye / and soo the nyght felle on hym / and thenne was he ware in a slade of a pauelione of reed sendel.

"And so Lancelot rode into a great forest all that day, and never could find no high way, and so the night fell on him, and then he became aware of a pavilion of red linen in a slade."

[(1470)Syr Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, VI.5]

There by a lytyll slad sir Launcelot wounded hym sore nyghe unto the deth.

"There by a little slade Sir Lancelot wounded him sorely, nearly unto death."

[(1470)Syr Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, VI.5]

For drede lest þou be ouerthrowe And falle so depe into the slade, That euer after it myght turne to shade.

"And fear least you be overthrown and fall so deep into the slade that ever after it might turn to shade."

[(1475)Peter Idley, Instructions to His Son, 1.846]

And my favourite---essentially slayed 'em in a slade, with alliterating slogh ("slay"), sleghly ("cunningly") and slade---found in an early English translation of The Aeneid (where in þe slade moue means "in the mouth of the valley"):

Þai..Slogh hom doun sleghly in þe slade moue.

"They struck them down ('slayed them down') cunningly in the mouth of the slade."

[(1540)John Clerk of Whalley Lancashire, The Gest Hystoriale of the Destruction of Troy, 7005]

We also find slade used metaphorically in the sense "slopes/valleys of clouds", as in:

The skyes in her coloures rake, Þe therke sladdes of clowdes blake: This reioyceth me above.

"The sky rushing in her colours, the dark slades of black clouds: this cheers me up."

[(1500), A speech of delight, 19-21]

All of these common noun usages of slade appear to be archaic/obsolete in modern English (though perhaps they survive in certain dialects?). The most recent example in Oxford English Dictionary[2] for slade as a common noun is from the end of the 19th-century:

Over the slade they took their way, where the purple carpet was patterned with round hollows.

[(1899) A. MORRISON, To London Town 5]

The usual form of the surname, Slade (rather than slæd or slad), derives from the dative singular form (the case often employed after prepositions like in, from etc.), reflecting the fact that the surname originally denoted the place of residence, i.e. "the person who lives in a slade". Indeed in late Old English and Middle English we find records like:

Robertus de la Slade. ("Robert of the Slade")

[(1221)Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, (during the reign of) Henry III]

Laur. de Slade. ("Laurence of Slade")

[(1296)The Three Earliest Subsidies for the County of Sussex in the years 1296, 1327, 1332]

Johannes atte Slade. ("John at the Slade")

[(1345)Rymer's Foedera (1816-69) :: Foedera, conventiones, literae]

The forms de la and de reflect Norman French patterns (interestingly, slade is treated as feminine in Norman French; though of course French has no grammatical neuter gender so it had to assign slade to either masculine or feminine). Atte is a contracted form of at þe "at the".

Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (including Essex)

The earliest use of Slade as a proper noun is the name of the early Anglo-Saxon king of Essex, Sledd (or Sledda), who married Ricula, the sister of King Æthelbert of Kent. One of the East Saxon genealogies for Sledd is given below:

Offa sighering, sighere sigberhting, sigberht sawearding, saweard saberhting, saberht sledding, sledd æscwining, æscwine offing, offa bedcing, bedca sigefugling, sigefugl swæpping, swæppa antsecging, antsecg gesecging, gesecg seaxneting.

"Offa, son of Sighere, son of Sigberht, son of Saweard, son of Saberht, son of Sledd, son of Æscwine, son of Offa, son of Bedca, son of Sigefugl, son of Swæppa, son of Antsecg, son of Gesecg, son of Seaxneat."

[London, British Library, Add. MS 23211 (9th-c.?), in Sweet[3]:179]

The form Sledd instead of Slæd appears to reflect the changes in the system of front vowels found in the Old English of Kent (neighbouring Essex) during the 9th-century, which included the changes æ > e , ǣ > ē (see Campbell[4]:§288-§291). Although Sledd's father Æscwine/Eorcenwine is sometimes credited with the foundation of the kingdom, the genealogies included in the works of William of Malmesbury and John of Worcester (Chronicon B) treat Sledd the first king of Essex. In the genealogy cited above, Sledd is treated as a descendant of Seaxnēat, the mythical founder of the Saxons. (On King Sledd of Essex, see further Yorke[5].)

However, in more modern times, the surname Slade appears to have been most commonly found in the southwest of England, particularly in Devon.

As shown by the map above, Slades were also found in the neighbouring county of Somerset, where another "B. Slade", Sir Benjamin Julian Alfred Slade, Bt., has his ancestral seat, Maunsel House (which his ancestors appear to have acquired in the 18th-century), where Geoffrey Chaucer is said to have written part of Canterbury Tales.

Other famous Slades include Felix Slade, who endowed professorships at Oxford, Cambridge, and University College London, as well as endowing scholarships which led to the establishment of the Slade School of Fine Art in London; and Madeleine Slade, daughter of the British Rear-Admiral Sir Edmond Slade, who left England for India to work with Mohandas Gandhi (who gave her the name Mirabehn) during the Quit India movement.

For more genealogical information on Slades in the USA and UK, see Jim Slade's excellent site SladeGenealogy.net. [On the Maryland Slades, see the genealogy research of the late John Pearce available here.]

Earlier etymology of SLADE:

The range of meanings we find for the word slade seem to point to its original sense as being something like "slope", compare the cognate dialectal Norwegian slad [neuter] (also slade[masculine]), "a slope, a hollow". And thus the Proto-Germanic root underlying slade must be cognate with Proto-Germanic*slid- "to slip, slide" (from Proto-Indo-European *sleidh-), from which root is derived English slide (from Old English slīdan) as well as sled (from Middle Low German sledde) and sleigh (from Middle Dutch slēde "sled"), see Watkins[6]:80.

The Proto-Indo-European form *sleidh- is an extended form of the more basic Proto-Indo-European root *(s)lei-, from which, with other extensions, we derive a number of other words in English, including lime (as in bird-lime, on which see here), and slip. The latter word, slip, is also cognate with the name given to the eight-legged horse, Sleipnir "the slippery(?), the glider(?)", belonging to the Norse god Odin (more properly Óðinn, whose name in Old English is Wōden; both from Proto-Germanic *Wōd-inaz "raging, mad, inspired", itself from the Proto-Indo-European root *wet- "to blow, spiritually inspire"; see Watkins[6]:101), as depicted below:

[Odin riding Sleipnir, 18th-century illustration in MS NKS 1867 4°, Danish Royal Library]

[Odin riding Sleipnir, 8th/9th-century Ardre picture stone (Gotland, Sweden)]

References:

[1]Bosworth, Joseph and T. Northcote Toller. 1898. An Anglo-Saxon dictionary. London: Oxford University Press.

[2]The Oxford English Dictionary, September 2009 rev. ed.

[3]Sweet, Henry. 1885. The oldest English texts. London: Early English Text Society.

[4]Campbell, Alistair. 1959. Old English grammar. Oxford: Clarendon.

[5]Yorke, Barbara. 1985. "The kingdom of the East Saxons". Anglo-Saxon England 14:1-36.

[6]Watkins, Calvert. 2000. The American Heritage dictionary of Indo-European roots. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2nd edn.

Old English citations are taken from the University of Toronto's Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus; Middle English citations are taken from the University of Michigan's electronic Middle English Dictionary.

Mooяээffoɔ: On elvish realism and déjà vu from another perspective

An interesting word I came across in an essay by Tolkien:

Mooreeffoc, The oddness of everyday things when suddenly (and usually unintentionally) viewed from a new perspective.

Tolkien, while addressing the topic of fantasy-writing, uses this word in a discussion of what he seems to view as a "lower kind" of fantasy:

And there is (especially for the humble) Mooreeffoc, or Chestertonian Fantasy. Mooreeffoc is a fantastic word, but it could be seen written up in every town in this land. It is Coffee-room, viewed from the inside through a glass door, as it was seen by Dickens on a dark London day; and it was used by Chesterton to denote the queerness of things that have become trite, when they are seen suddenly from a new angle. That kind of "fantasy" most people would allow to be wholesome enough; and it can never lack for material. But it has, I think, only a limited power; for the reason that recovery of freshness of vision is its only virtue. The word Mooreeffoc may cause you suddenly to realize that England is an utterly alien land, lost either in some remote past age glimpsed by history, or in some strange dim future to be reached only by a time-machine; to see the amazing oddity and interest of its inhabitants and their customs and feeding-habits; but it cannot do more than that: act as a time-telescope focused on one spot. Creative fantasy, because it is mainly trying to do something else (make something new), may open your hoard and let all the locked things fly away like cage-birds. The gems all turn into flowers or flames, and you will be warned that all you had (or knew) was dangerous and potent, not really effectively chained, free and wild; no more yours than they were you. The "fantastic" elements in verse and prose of other kinds, even when only decorative or occasional, help in this release. But not so thoroughly as a fairy-story, a thing built on or about Fantasy, of which Fantasy is the core. Fantasy is made out of the Primary World, but a good craftsman loves his material, and has a knowledge and feeling for clay, stone and wood which only the art of making can give. [J.R.R. Tolkien, "On fairy-stories", Tree & Leaf, pp. 77-78]

Going back to Chesterton, we find the remark to which Tolkien refers ("elvish realism" would have attracted his attention, no doubt):

Herein is the whole secret of that eerie realism with which Dickens could always vitalize some dark or dull corner of London. There are details in the Dickens descriptions -- a window, or a railing, or the keyhole of a door -- which he endows with demoniac life. The things seem more actual than things really are. Indeed, that degree of realism does not exist in reality: it is the unbearable realism of a dream. And this kind of realism can only be gained by walking dreamily in a place; it cannot be gained by walking observantly...That wild word, "Moor Eeffoc," is the motto of all effective realism; it is the masterpiece of the good realistic principle - the principle that the most fantastic thing of all is often the precise fact. And that elvish kind of realism Dickens adopted everywhere. His world was alive with inanimate objects. [GK Chesterton, Charles Dickens CW15:65]

Finally, in Dickens' original:

The coffee shops to which I most resorted were, one in Maiden Lane; one in a court (non-existent now) close to Hungerford Market; and one in St Martin’s Lane, of which I only recollect that it stood near the church, and that in the door there was an oval glass plate with ‘COFFEE ROOM’ painted on it, addressed towards the street. If I ever find myself in a very different kind of coffee-room now, but where there is an inscription on glass, and read it backwards on the wrong side, MOOR EEFFOC (as I often used to do then in a dismal reverie), a shock goes through my blood. [Forster, Life of Dickens, I:ii, 'Hard Experiences in Boyhood' 1822-4]

Oddly enough, none of these texts mention the fact that "COFFEE-ROOM" seen backwards from the wrong side of the window wouldn't be "MOOR-EEFFOC", but rather "MOOЯ-ƎƎוּוּOƆ":

Be that as it may, Mooreeffoc is a rather useful word. I've experienced mooreeffoc from time to time with English words: suddenly an ordinary word in English like knight or gnomic will look foreign to me, as if it were Norwegian or German.

Experientially, mooreeffoc is disorientating, rather like the sensation of déjà vu. (which leads one to wonder: is mooreeffoc another "glitch in the Matrix"?)

Since I've only ever seen mooreeffoc in print, the question remains: how to pronounce it?

[ˈmɔːɹɛfɒk]/[ˈmɔːɹɛfɑːk] (UK/US)?

Some other online comments on mooreeffoc:

Royal Holloway Victorian blog

American Chesterton Society blog

Bumpits: On compounding and unhappy orthography

A (relatively) new product I noticed in the local CVS:

As I understand it, the "Bumpits" product is a plastic insert/comb that "bumps up" the hair, making it look fuller. The choice of orthographical representation for the product is very unhappy though...

At first glance, I read it of course as "Bum Pits". Pits often functions as a shortened version of "arm pits". And when pits is combined with bum--whether the latter is interpreted as bum, "a homeless person; a lazy and dissolute (and often unwashed) person", or bum "buttocks"--the result is not a product many people would want to purchase. (I'll spare readers visual representations of either of these interpretations...)

A Google search reveals that I'm not alone in finding the orthographic representation of "bump its" as "Bumpits" an unfortunate choice: see here, for instance.

The orthography problem is worsened, I believe, by the fact that function words, like pronouns, are not the most frequent members of compound words in English. So while both bump and bum are perfectly fine common nouns that any self-respecting nominal compound would be happy to include, pit, as a noun, is a much more likely candidate for nominal compounding than the pronoun it. So I think English speakers' natural inclination (at a subconscious level), when faced with a choice between "bump-its" and "bum-pits", is to choose the latter interpretation, since the Noun-Noun combination of "bum-pits" is a more typical example of compounding than a Noun-Pronoun combination like "bump-its".

What I don't understand is why the possibility of the unfortunate readings didn't occur to the "Bumpits" marketing people. I mean, the idea behind the name isn't bad, appealling to the sense of "bump it up (a notch)". And though, as discussed above, the pattern of compounding in English favours Noun-Noun over Noun-Pronoun, the former interpretation could have been effectively suppressed by means of a thoughtful choice of orthographic representation.

That is, why write it as a single word: Bumpits? Why not Bump Its or Bump-Its? Or, if they liked the idea of a single word, why not discourage the reading "bum-pits" in some other way, e.g. BumpIts or Bumpits?

Rum, Chutney, & Lime: On Trinidadian musical refashioning and some obscure etymologies

In Trinidad & Tobago and Guyana (as well as Saint Vincent and the Grenadines) there is a popular form of music called chutney soca, which is more or less a blend of soca and Bollywood music. Soca music itself represents the Trinidadian development of Caribbean calypso music (and the word soca appears to be an abbreviated form of soul calypso). In chutney soca, one may find instances of Hindi-English codeswitching and codemixing. And, in fact, some chutney soca songs are refashionings of old Bollywood songs.

One nice example of this is Ravi B's "Rum is Meh Lover" (2007?), which retains the refrain akelā hūṁ maiṁ "alone am I" from its model, the song "Akela Hoon Main", sung by Mohammed Rafi, from the 1962 Hindi film "Baat Ek Raat Ki". The Trinidadian refashioning keeps both the tune and the refrain (akelā hūṁ maiṁ) of the original Bollywood song, but the remainder of the lyrics is something rather different from its Hindi model.

Here are the two songs:

"Akela Hoon Main" (1962) - Mohammed Rafi [subtitled]

"Rum is Meh Lover" (2007?) - Ravi B

I leave it to my readers to examine the musical and lyrical developments from Mohammed Rafi's original to Ravi B's revision; and turn instead to an etymological investigation of three words which occur in (or are associated with) Ravi B's "Rum is Meh Lover": rum, chutney, and lime (in the Trinidadian slang sense "hanging out")--all three of which have rather obscure etymologies.

The theme of "Rum is Meh Lover" is, unsurprisingly, "rum" (apparently a popular theme in chutney soca songs), which brings us to the first of our obscure etymologies: rum "spirit distilled from various products of the sugar-cane (esp. molasses and dunder), and prepared chiefly in the West Indies and Guyana".

The earliest citation the OED[1] has for rum is from 1639 (spelled rhum):

1639 J. JOSSELYN Jrnl. 24 Sept. in Acct. Two Voy. (1674) 26 Captain Thomas Wannerton..drank to me a pint of kill-devil alias Rhum at a draught.

In this citation we find another early name for rum, i.e. kill-devil, which appears first with the meaning "a recklessly daring fellow" in ca1590 (OED[1]):

c1590 MARLOWE Faust. iv, ‘Did ye see yonder tall fellow..? he has killed the devil.’ So I should be called Kill-devil all the parish over.

Though there of course seems to be a possible connection between rum-drinking and recklessness, kill-devil in the sense of "sugarcane-based alcohol" actually appears to be a folk etymology (or eggcorn) from French guildive--which is itself of unknown origin (Skeat[2])--though likely the form of this folk etymology was influenced by the pre-existing word kill-devil in the sense "reckless fellow".

A couple of other early instances of rum:

1661 Cal. State Papers Col. Ser. (1661-8) 42 That the former orders concerning rum, sugar, and hammocks be still in force.

1667 WARREN Descr. Surinam vi. 17 Rum is a Spirit extracted from the Juice of Sugar-Canes, commonly, twice as strong as Brandy.

Skeat[2] suggests that rum is a truncation from rumbullion/rumbowling, for which we also have early attestations with the sense of "sugarcane-derived alcohol" (though these are later than the 1639 rhum):

c1651 in N. D. Davis Cavaliers & Roundheads Barbados (1887) 112 The chiefe fudling they make in the Island is Rumbullion, alias Kill-Devill, and this is made of suggar canes distilled, a hott, hellish and terrible liquor.

1672 HUGHES Amer. Physitian 34 They..make a sort of Strong-Water, they call Rum or Rumbullion, stronger than Spirit of Wine.

The OED[1] also suggests rumbustion as another possible source of rum:

1652 Mercurius Politicus No. 90. 1435 Partly [through] the Brandewin wherewith we have furnisht him, the spirits of Rombostion, which our men there make him, and other good hopes we give him, he becomes very valiant.

However, the possible sources of either rumbustion or rumbullion are equally obscure. Though the latter exists in present-day Devonshire vernacular English, there it has the sense "tumult, uproar"; it thus seems rather unlikely that this modern form is a continuation of early rumbullion "sugarcane-derived alcohol".

Skeat[2] suggests that rumbullion/rumbustion may be derived from ramp in the sense "a merry frolic"; however this meaning is not attested until the end of the 17th century, the earliest attestation being from 1696:

1696 G. G. LANSDOWNE She-gallants IV. 57 Be pleas'd Madam, to dispatch us, for I have promis'd to play at Ramp to Night, with some Ladies.

Ramp enters English from Norman French, originally with the sense "to rear up" (said of animals, especially in the heraldic jargon form rampant "(of a four-legged animal) standing on the sinister hind foot with the forepaws in the air, the sinister above the dexter" [ca.1200]). The meaning "rear up" is later broadened to "rush, storm, or rage with violent gestures; behave in a furious or threatening manner":

c1405 (c1390) CHAUCER Monk's Prol. (Hengwrt) (2003) l. 16 Whan she cometh she raumpeth in my face And crieth false coward wrek thy wyf.

And then undergoes further reanalysis as "bound, rush, or range about in a wild, lively, or excited manner":

1569 E. FENTON tr. P. Boaistuau Certaine Secrete Wonders Nature xi. f. 30, The rage was so cruell that men were forced to climbe trees like birdes, others ramped vpon the mountaines

Still later perhaps reanalysed (with melioration) with the sense of "play, sport"; but this meaning occurs only in the nominal form as in the above Lansdowne citation. The phonologically-similar word romp does occur as a verb with the meaning "to play, sport, or frolic in a very lively, merry, or boisterous manner", but only in the 18th-century (and further the connection between ramp and romp is not entirely certain):

1709 STEELE Tatler No. 15.para2 This careless Jade was eternally romping with the Footman.

Norman French ramp itself is a borrowing from a Germanic form with the sense "bend, turn", as in dialectal English rimple "wrinkle" from Old English hrympel "wrinkle, fold"; these ramp/rimp forms derive ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European [PIE] root *(s)kerb-, which is an extended form of *(s)ker- "to turn, bend". From *(s)ker- with various extensions derive a number of English words: shrink from Old English scrincan "to wither, shrivel up" from Proto-Germanic *skrink- from PIE *(s)kre-n-g-; ring from Old English hring from Proto-Germanic *hringaz "something curved" from PIE *(s)kre-n-gh- (see Watkins[3]:78). Skeat's suggestion would thus have rum derive ultimately from a root meaning "curve, bend, turn".

In principle there is no real difficulty with extensive semantic change from "curve" to "sugarcane-based alcohol", other words have more unlikely etymologies. However, it seems to me (on other grounds) that there is a more likely etymology for rum. In 16th- and 17th-century English we find rum used as a 'canting' word (=argot, or secret language), meaning "good, excellent, fine". For instance:

1567 HARMAN Caveat (1869) 84 Rome vyle [=] London.

1621 B. JONSON Gipsies Metam. (Rtldg.) 619/2 For the roome-morts [=good women], I know by their ports..They are of the sorts That love the true sports.

More relevantly, it appears in the collocation rum bowse or rum booze "a good drink, i.e. wine or liquor", again from the 16th-century on:

1567 HARMAN Caveat (1869) 83 Rome bouse, wyne. Ibid. 86 This bouse is as benshyp as rome bouse. [=This booze is as good as rum booze]

1641 BROME Joviall Crew II. Wks. 1873 III. 391 This Bowse is better then Rum-bowse.

So a more likely etymology for rum "sugarcane-based alcohol" seems to me to be: rum bowse/rum booze "good drink, i.e. wine or liquor" with ellipsis to rum and semantic narrowing to "sugarcane-derived liquor".

The early etymology of 'canting' rum "good, pleasing, excellent" is also unclear. Skeat[4]:408 derives it from the Romani (Gypsy) word rom meaning "a Gypsy" hence "good" from a Gypsy point of view (though he also notes the other meaning of rum, "strange, odd", which he suggests is from the same Romani word, but from an outsider's point of view, thus "suspicious"). Romani is an Indo-Aryan language, and Romani rom derives from a form corresponding to Sanskrit ḍomba- "man of low caste living by singing and music" (Turner[5]:no.5570), cp. Hindi ḍom "low caste person". Since rum in this sense represents an argot word, Romani makes good sense as a source, since argot words often derive from "the language of groups that are marginalised in society and thus often forced into illegal or criminal activities...[i]n English...especially Romani" (Hock & Joseph[6]:301).

The other possible source of 'canting' rum "good, pleasing" that occurs to me is that it derives from a South Asia Indo-Aryan language like Hindi or Bengali--though the 16th-century is perhaps a bit early for such borrowings, at least if it was borrowed directly. However, there are Indo-Aryan words of the sort Hindi ramnā "to enjoy (a woman)", Marathi ramṇẽ "to loiter idly", Nepali ramāunu "to be pleased" (all of which derive from the Sanskrit root √ram-, originally meaning "to rest", later "to take pleasure in"; which is possibly cognate with Greek ἠρέμα /ēréma/, cf. Pokorny[7]).

Our next word with an obscure etymology is chutney, as in the musical genre chutney soca, which represents a metaphorical extension of chutney "Indian sauce/relish". Chutney itself is a clear borrowing from Hindi caṭnī "sauce, relish, pickle, seasoning". Further, caṭnī is clearly related to the Hindi verb caṭnā "to taste"; however, the pre-Hindi etymology of caṭnā "to taste" is not as clear. Similar words meaning "taste" are found in the other Indo-Aryan languages (and in Romani), but though these are clearly cognate, they have no obvious Sanskrit source. Turner[5]:no.4673 provides an earlier Prakrit cognate caṭṭēi "licks", and suggests that the hypothesised root *caṭṭ- "lick, taste", from which all of these appear to derive, may be onomatopoeic in origin (see also Prakrit caḍḍaï "eats").

Finally, in the Ravi B song above, we find the Trinidad-specific slang word lime, meaning roughly "to hang out (with friends), to idle" (and thus is semantically-connected with Sanskrit √ram- and its modern Indo-Aryan descendants like Marathi ramṇẽ "to loiter idly", and thus possibly with rum as well... (see above)). For an extended study of the Trinidadian practice of "liming", see Eriksen[8].

The word lime seems to first appear in Trinidad with this sense sometime in the 20th-century, but its etymology is considered obscure.

Dr. Eriksen alerted me to one suggested etymology of Trinidadian lime/liming: as deriving from limey "a British sailor", in the sense "act like a limey (when he's ashore); i.e. relaxing and doing nothing". The term limey is a truncated version of lime-juicer, originally referring to British sailors and British ships--deriving from the fact that in the British navy the consumption of lime-juice used to be enforced (as an antiscorbutic). [Limey was later used (in a rather pejorative sense) to refer to English (and British) immigrants to the former British colonies (especially Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa).]

1859 CORNWALLIS New World I. 58 Turn that lime-juicer out.

1891 C. CREIGHTON Hist. Epidemics I. 596 Hawkins, it will have been remarked, was no bigoted ‘lime-juicer’.

1888 D. SLADEN Austral. Ballads & Rhymes 31 They'd seen old stagers and limey new chums.

1954 T. S. ELIOT Elder Statesman III. 93 Everyone would sneer at the fellow from London, The limey remittance man for whom a job was made.

Lime here thus refers to the fruit of that name--which itself has a rather interesting etymology, being a Wanderwort (word that spread throughout a number of languages, typically through trade; typical examples include sugar, candy, and computer). English lime is a borrowing from French lime, which was borrowed into French from Arabic līm, which itself is a borrowing from Persian. The Persian word appears to have been borrowed from some Indian language; we find a number of words for "lime" or "lemon" in the modern Indo-Aryan languages, often with many variant forms in each languages, e.g. Hindi nimbū, nībū, nīmū, lī̃bū, līmū; Gujarati lĩbu, lību. In Sanskrit we find both nimbū-/nimbūka- as well as limpāka-, which are the source of the varying words in the modern Indo-Aryan languages (Turner[5]:no.7247). The Sanskrit forms appear to be borrowings from Austro-Asiatic, specifically from some Munda language, cf. Mayrhofer[9]. So if Trinidadian liming does in fact derive from limey, then the word's ultimate source is in eastern India (e.g. Orissa).

I tentatively suggest another possible etymology for Trinidadian lime/liming: that it derives from (bird-)liming: "to smear (twigs or the like) with bird-lime (a viscous sticky substance prepared from the bark of the holly and used for catching small birds), for the purpose of catching birds", often metaphorically; or "to catch with birdlime", again often metaphorically (OED[1]). Examples of the metaphorical use of lime (as both verb and noun):

1593 SHAKES. 2 Hen. VI, I. iii. 91 My selfe haue lym'd a Bush for her. [I myself have limed a bush for her, i.e. set a trap for her]

1692 R. L'ESTRANGE Fables ccclxxix. 350 Those Twigs in time will come to be Lim'd, and then you're all Lost if you do but touch 'em.

c1386 CHAUCER Wife's T. 78 A man shal winne us best with flaterye, And with attendance and with bisynesse Been we ylymed bothe moore and lesse. [A man may win us best with flattery, and with attendance and with busyness, we're often limed, the greater and the less.]

a1822 SHELLEY Ess., Def. Poetry (1840) I. 39 Lucretius had limed the wings of his swift spirit in the dregs of the sensible world.

1863 THORNBURY True as Steel II. 152 Love..is like birdlime; the more we struggle, the more entangled our wings get.

1870 M. BRIDGMAN Rob. Lynne II. iii. 64 He was..limed this time [matrimonially].

I see two possible routes that the metaphorical sense "catch or snare" of lime could have been extended along which would lead to the Trinidadian sense "hang out, loiter, idle". The first is if bird-liming was seen as an idle practice (which alas I don't have any evidence for), then liming could have been reinterpreted as "idling".

A limed bird

The second possible route is if lime "to catch or snare" developed an intransitive sense of "to be caught or stuck in a place" (cp. the above Bridgman quotation), which then was further reanalysed as metaphorically "caught or stuck (in a place) by idleness".

If either of these theories are on the right track, then Trinadadian lime/liming has an long etymological history, dating back to Proto-Indo-European. Early attestations of lime (as a noun) in the sense "sticky substance for catching birds" are found in Old English:

a700 Epinal Gloss. 133 Bitumen, lim. [i.e., glossing Latin bitumen]

a1000 ÆLFRIC Colloq. in Wr.-Wülcker 95 Ic beswice fugelas hwilon mid neton mid grinum mid lime. [I snare birds sometimes with nets ginned with (bird)lime.]

Old English lim "lime" itself can be traced back to the PIE root *(s)lei- "slimy", from whence derives not only lime, but also slime (from Old English slīm), slippery (from Old English slipor "slippery"), slick (from Old English slīcian "to make smooth"); as well as oblivion, from Latin oblīvīscī "to forget" (< "to wipe, let slip from the mind"; ob- "away"), and litotes "a form of understatement", from Greek lītos "plain, simple". In Sanskrit we also find the reflex lināti, layate "sticks, stays". (See Watkins[3]:80.) [For another reflex of the PIE root *(s)lei-, slade, see here.]

Ravi B has thus (unwittingly) led us on a rather interesting etymological voyage--I won't claim that the journey has been either smooth or certain, but at least for rum and the Trinidadian lime we have explored some new attractive possible etymologies. Chutney may ultimately be onomatopoeic (think: smacking your lips); rum may derive from a Sanskrit word originally meaning "rest" and later "to take pleasure in"; liming "hanging out" may have first referred to catching birds with a sticky substance made from holly-bark, deriving ultimately from a PIE word meaning "slimy".

References:

[1]The Oxford English Dictionary, September 2009 rev. ed.

[2]Skeat, Walter. 1887. "Notes on English etymology". Transactions of the Philological Society 20/1:690-722.

[3]Watkins, Calvert. 2000. The American Heritage dictionary of Indo-European roots. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2nd edn.

[4]Skeat, Walter. 1901. Concise dictionary of English etymology. Oxford: Clarendon, 2nd edn.

[5]Turner, Sir Ralph Lilley. 1966-1985. A comparative dictionary of the Indo-Aryan languages. 4 vols. London: Oxford University Press. [reprinted, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1999.]

[6]Hock, Hans Henrich & Brian D. Joseph. 2009. Language history, language change, and language relationship. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2nd edn.

[7]Pokorny, Julius. 1958. Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Bern and München: Francke Verlag.

[8]Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. 1990. "Liming in Trinidad: The art of doing nothing". Folk 32. [online version]

[9]Mayrhofer, Manfred. 1953-. Kurzgefaßte etymologische Wörterbuch des Altindischen. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter.

No Woman No Cry ≠ No Pain No Gain: On negation in Jamaican Creole

In the course of searching for examples of linguistically interesting phenomena in reggae music (for my historical linguistics class), I have naturally had occasion to research some of the songs of the great Bob Marley, one of most well-known of which is "No Woman, No Cry". I have encountered various interpretations of the line "no woman, no cry"--one predominant one being "if you have no woman, you have no reason to cry" (on the model "no pain, no gain"), another being "there is no woman who does not cry" (see here for representative interpretations and discussion). The correction interpretation seems to be "no, woman, don't cry" as evidenced by the line "oh little darling, don't shed no tears".

Interestingly, Dawes[1]:119 remarks that the actual lyrics are "no woman, nuh cry", where nuh is equivalent to Standard English don't. But in the version of the song I was most familiar with, the live 1975 performance in London, the refrain is clearly "no woman, no cry":

(1) "no woman, no cry" [Live! (London 1975)]

[full song on Youtube here]

However, in fact, in the earlier Natty Dread recording of 1974 the line can be heard clearly as "no woman, nuh cry":

(2) "no woman, nuh cry" [Natty Dread (1974)]

[full song on Youtube here]

So, did Marley (intentionally or otherwise) eliminate the Jamaican Creole [JC] shibboleth nuh in his live London performance?

Possibly, since, at least to my ear, another JC shibboleth has disappeared in the Live! (1975) version: little as /likḷ/ (see the posting "A 'Likkle' sound change in Jamaican Creole English"):

(3) “oh lik-oh likkle (/likḷ/?) darlin’, don’t shed no tears; no woman, nuh cry” [Natty Dread 1974]


(4) “oh my little (/liɾḷ/?) darlin’, don’t shed no tears; no woman, no cry” [Live! 1975]

So did Marley 'decreolise' the song in the live 1975 London performance? Is this what accounts for theno/nuh and little/likkle variation? The data are complicated by the fact that later in the Natty Dread version of the song (at 2:29) the line sounds like "no woman, no cry"--just as in the 1975 Live! version:

(5) "no woman, no cry" [Natty Dread at 2.29]

Are we then simply dealing with some sort of free (or prosodically-conditioned) variation between no and nuh? Is nuh the unstressed version of no in JC?

Turning to descriptions of JC morphosyntax: Patrick[2] states that the simplest and most common sentential negation in JC is no, which is reducible to nuh /na/, adding that most JC speakers also have a tense-neutral form duon[t]. Adams[3]:34-5 provides examples of JC sentential negation occurring as don' (~duon[t]) and no:

(6) Dem don' cook herly. ("They don't cook early.")

(7) Him no say. ("He doesn't say.")

For the negative imperative, Patrick[2] notes that either no or duont may occur, but he says that no "requires an expletive verb bada (< bother) while duont, being verbal, requires none", as in (7) and (8), respectively.

(7) No bada gwaan bad. ("Don't misbehave.")

(8) Duont gwaan bad. ("Don't misbehave.")

So neither "no woman, nuh cry" nor "no woman, no cry" matches Patrick's description of JC negative imperatives: that is, in JC it seems that we should expect either "no woman, duont cry" or "no woman, no bada cry". [Doing a google search for "no bada cry", I do find one example: fast car alone mi drive dawg...............................joke, no bada cry (from Wheels Jamaica).]

Do both the Natty Dread and Live! versions of the line represent some sort of compromise between JC and "Standard" English (a mesolectal form)? Or is nuh also a possible negation in JC negative imperative, with the Live! version "no cry" representing a decreolised/hypercorrected negation? Or are both no and nuh possible JC negative imperative forms?

Another possibility: is "no woman, nuh cry" really an imperative? Could the "nuh" actually be naa?

Naa is a form Patrick[2] explains as a coalescence of no with the progressive particle a, adding that the latter occurs both "for [present] progressive and for periphrastic future". Representative examples:

(9) Nabadii na a kom ina mai aus. (Roberts[4]:36)

"Nobody is going to come into my house."

(10) Don’t me done tell yuh seh me na go do nutten again. (Sistren[5]:70)

"Haven’t I told you already that I’m not going to do anything further?"

Thus could "no woman, naa cry" then mean "no woman is going to cry"? [Note that JC has negative spread, as can be seen in examples like (9) and (10).] In which case, the Live! version "no cry" would again represent a decreolised/hypercorrect form.

My suspicion is that both no and nuh will turn out to be possible mesolectal negative imperative negators (this is suggested also by the sporadic occurrence of "no cry" in the Natty Dread version). Still, whatever the case, it is interesting that Marley's live London performance of "No Woman, No Cry" seems to suppress JC shibboleths found in the Natty Dread version.

Perhaps native JC speakers and creolists could weigh in here?

References:

[1]Dawes, Kwame. 2002. Bob Marley: Lyrical genius. London: Sanctuary.

[2]Patrick, Peter L. 2004. “Jamaican Creole: Morphology and syntax.” In A Handbook of Varieties of English. Vol 2: Morphology and Syntax, ed. Bernd Kortmann, Edgar W Schneider, Clive Upton, Rajend Mesthrie & Kate Burridge. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 407-438. [online prepublication draft]

[3]Adams, L. Emile. 1991. Understanding Jamaican Patois: An introduction to Afro-Jamaican grammar. Kingston (Jamaica): Kingston Publishers.

[4]Roberts, Peter. 1973. "Speech of 6-year-old Jamaican children". Society for Caribbean Linguistics Occasional Paper No. 1. Mona (Jamaica): University of the West Indies (Caribbean Language Research Programme).

[5]Sistren, with Honor Ford-Smith. 1987. Lionheart Gal: Life-stories of Jamaican Women. Toronto: Sister Vision.

[6]Durrleman-Tame, Stephanie. 2005. "Notes on the Left Periphery in Jamaican Creole". Generative Grammar in Geneva 4:113-157. [web-version]