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Thursday, October 29, 2009

History Fear of the Unknown

Posted by Brendan Kiley on Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 9:56 AM

The other day at the Henry—where several shows are currently kicking ass, from the Mapplethorpe Polaroids to achingly honest (and noble) photos of a timber town—somebody was saying the word "uncouth" didn't used to mean rude. "Uncouth" used to mean unfamiliar. That somebody was right:

uncouth

O.E. uncuð "unknown, uncertain, unfamiliar," from un- (1) "not" + cuð "known, well-known," pp. of cunnan "to know" (see can (v.)). Meaning "strange, crude, clumsy" is first recorded 1513. The compound (and the thing it describes) widespread in IE languages, cf. L. ignorantem,, O.N. ukuðr, Goth. unkunþs, Skt. ajnatah, Armenian ancanaut', Gk. agnotos, O.Ir. ingnad "unknown."

So many foreign languages—Old English, Old Norse, Latin, Goths, Sanskrit, Old Irish, Greek, Armenians—whose words for "foreign" were so closely related. Can you imagine some Goths and some Romans, or some ancient Indians and some ancient Irish meeting on a road somewhere? Each group sizes up the other, recognizes the weirdness, then turns into itself and mutters "uncouth"—using very close words to describe the distance between the people.

(I feel like I should be in a college dorm room with a bong or something: "Language, maaaaaan.")

Comments (4) RSS

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"(I feel like I should be in a college dorm room with a bong or something: "Language, maaaaaan.")"

Not exactly. What you wrote about the meeting is called analysis and synthesis. It is generally regarded as a sign of maturity.

Smoking a bong on the other hand.....

Posted by hartiepie on October 29, 2009 at 10:02 AM

Linguistics 101 dude...ahem yes they all came from proto Indo Aryan ... ever wonder why blonder Germanic "Aryan" sounds like Persian "Iran" ?
cuo can cunning ... I woot that they all met on the road of the chariots down there in the steppes of the Ukraine & lower Hungary area and these language families developed BEFORE the tribes speaking them moved from there to Celticland Iberoland Scandieland Germanland Italyland Greekland etc.

This is why saying globalization is new is dumb.

Check out the Horse, the Wheel and the Chariot ...

Posted by chalant and gruntled... on October 29, 2009 at 10:05 AM

Can something be "couth"?

Posted by The Amazing Jim

on October 29, 2009 at 10:58 AM

1. In the U.S. we call it "Indo-European"; the Nazis liked the terms Indo-Germanic and Indo-Aryan, so we avoid those now.

2. In normalized Anglo-Saxon texts (linguists generally prefer the term "Anglo-Saxon" over "Old English," but that's not a big deal), it's usually spelled "uncūþ."

3. The sense of "cunnan" is not merely "to know" but has connotations of "to know how" and "to be able." Our words "can" and "could" come from this same word. So "uncūþ" means "unknown" or "unfamiliar" but also has connotations such as "unable," "inept," etc. These connotations exist in the other languages' words as well.

5. The word "know" and the word "cunnan" are closely related; if we respell the roots as "kno-" and "kun-" you can see that more clearly.

4. The Latin is formed from in+gno- (= un+know). The Greek from an+gno- (= un+know).

Posted by Simac on October 29, 2009 at 10:58 AM