Discussion
Wit, unker, git: The lost medieval pronouns of English intimacy
markus_zhang: For anyone curious as me:git means You two.
vintermann: "Listen baby, they're playing uncer song...""Git should get a room!"
frogulis: Boy that unc/uncer looks tantalisingly close to modern German uns/unser. Wiktionary seems to have it descending from a different PIE root, n̥s vs n̥h -- I'm not at all familiar with PIE though.
eigenspace: That was my first thought too!
nhgiang: You two addYou two commitYou two push
shakna: n̥ is just the "not" prefix. The "ero" is the real root. The prefix applies to the root first, and then the other pieces have their meanings, usually. (Its a reconstructed language. There are both exceptions and things we don't know.)"n̥-s-ero-" is sort of < "not" next-is-plural "mine" >.So, plural-(invert mine). Or roughly close to "we"."n̥-h-ero-" is sort of < "not" next-is-inclusive-plural "mine" >.So, plural-(group (invert mine)). Or roughly close to "us".But both are pretty close to the same meaning. High German maintained a lot of PIE, and is very close in a lot of ways. Though... Welsh is closer.
lqet: uncer seems to come from Proto-Germanic unkeraz (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic...) while our (and the German equivalent unser) seem to come from Proto-Germanic unseraz (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic...) (like modern-German unseres, "ours", or Old-English usser).
eigenspace: I found this article quite interesting, and couldn't help but feel there's something that's emotionally lost when we got rid of the dual-forms. The example from Wulf and Eadwacer where "uncer giedd" was translated to "the song of the two of us".Somehow that just doesn't land the same.
heresie-dabord: > Somehow that just doesn't land the same.I fear that a modern colloquial rendering would disappoint yet further: our besties tune
zukzuk: If you found this interesting, you might want to check out The History of the English Language podcast.I’m surprised how much I’m enjoying it. And I can’t believe I have 195 episodes left.
