Re: [tied] Wyrd

----- Original Message -----
From: "Max Dashu" <maxdashu@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 5:00 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Wyrd


> Piotr, is Wyrd then also related to weordhung (the voiced d) and
weordhscipe, worship? What about worth and worthy?

[Note: The OE letters <þ> {th} and <ð> {dh} were equivalent and interchangeable. Despite the fact that modern phonetic alphabets employ /ð/ for "voiced dental fricative", in OE either letter could stand for a voiceless or voiced fricative, depending on the context. The voicing was prdictable (chiefly intervocalic) and therefore non-contrastive. The words above could be spelt <weorþung> or <weorðung> (here the fricative was voiced), <weorþscipe> or <weorðscipe> (voiceless).]

Thw relationship of <weorþ> 'worth (a. & n.), price, value; honour, respect' (PGmc. werþa-, as if from *wertom) to <weorþan> is uncertain. Formally, there are no obstacles, but the semantic relation is dubious. Perhaps the "missing link" is *-werða-/*-warða- 'turned (towards), facing', found in compounds (Eng. -ward(s)), which might have developed a metaphorical meaning like 'equivalent', and hence 'worth, value' etc.

> And more distantly, to Sanskrit vartina or pravartini?

To begin with, the Skt. verb root {vRt} (<vartate>, etc.) is related, and so is everything that derives from it within Sanskrit, which means a host of words with meanings derived from 'turn, go round, roll, turn out, take place, occur, become, ........' (like Eng. turn, <vartate> has scores of senses and subsenses).

Piotr