Tag: language

Anthropomorphic ideas and further thoughts about living

From here
An·thro·po·morph·ic /ˌænθrəpəˈmoɚfɪk/ adjective
1 : described or thought of as being like human beings in appearance, behavior, etc.
▪ a story in which the characters are anthropomorphic animals

2 : considering animals, objects, etc., as having human qualities
▪ anthropomorphic beliefs about nature

The reason I have posted this is that I know as a child I saw chairs and tables and houses a living beings.And the windows were eyes,the door a mouth.When I was looking up where the word “door” originated it came  a thousand years ago from the word for mouth.So human beings did see the way I used to see….and no doubt further back that’s why they saw trees inhabited by living spirits for example.Everything was alive and had a personal quality.That could be frightening if you saw storms and gales that way.Maybe at some level we do still think that way and ascribe motives to the beings in the storm who want to harm us

Some people still believe in demons but I don’t.Epileptics were regarded ad possessed by demons until quite recently.

I prefer different language…. it’s a way  of attacking other people saying they are possessed by demons, which I object to.

And it creates problems .by saying that you push afflicted people away.Some folk say that because demons are mentioned in the Bible they must exist.Well,remember much of what was written was explained in ways accepted then as they knew nothing of the medical science we know now.Even great prophets can only use the concepts which exist  in the era in which they live.And also translations alter the meaning inadvertently.The Bible was not written originally in English.

The problem of evil and whether there is an evil principle as an opponent of God is very complex  and wondering about does not to my mind help me to live better .I trust in God whatever that means.

Pronunciation – Why is the ‘w’ silent in “sword”? – E at the English Language and Usage

pronunciation – Why is the ‘w’ silent in “sword”? – English Language and Usage.

This is a useful site.I enjoy looking things up.As I suspected the w at the beginning of WRONG used to be pronounced in the past.It’s old Anglo-Saxon or Norse..I wonder how many scholars learn these now?

 

The mind has its eye …. the soul’s window

I am cleaning the wind’s eyes tomorrow and  my eyes.You have to clean windows in Spring time because the sunshine shows up the dirt.Reading about the origin of the word “window” made me think how all language was originally metaphor and that poetry and song preceded speech in the way we know it now

What I find the most fascinating is that language evolved,not in universities but in the lives of ordinary people and their needs from economic,to artistic to religious.I think now our language can seem dead which points to the importance of poetry.We don/t want the only new words to be those made up by advertisers or by newspeak in technology..Babies learn to speak one or even two or three languages….Strange how many children here leave school functionally illiterate…the learning process goes wrongWe should place a higher value on ourselves and our natural abilities and not worship the experts.Our senses are our windows and inside we have our  mind which even has its own eye..and though that eye we see God

“The eye with which we see God, is the eye with which God sees us”

from  Meister Eckhart.[Sermons]

The origin of the word “window”

This is article very interesting especially  as we rarely learn much now about the connection of English with Old Norse.No doubt the Government don’t believe it will add to our ability to gain employment stacking the freezers in supermarkets with horsemeat burgers or similar activities.

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Etymology of the word

WINDOW

The word window originates from the Old Norse ‘vindauga’, from ‘vindr – wind’ and ‘auga – eye’, i.e. “wind eye“. In Norwegian Nynorsk and Icelandic the Old Norse form has survived to this day (in Icelandic only as a less used synonym to gluggi), in Swedish the word vindöga remains as a term for a hole through the roof of a hut, and in the Danish language ‘vindue’ and Norwegian Bokmål ‘vindu’, the direct link to ‘eye’ is lost, just like for ‘window’. The Danish (but not the Bokmål) word is pronounced fairly similarly to window.

Window is first recorded in the early 13th century, and originally referred to an unglazed hole in a roof. Window replaced the Old English ‘eagþyrl’, which literally means ‘eye-hole,’ and ‘eagduru’ ‘eye-door’. Many Germanic languages however adopted the Latin word ‘fenestra’ to describe a window with glass, such as standard Swedish ‘fönster’, or German ‘Fenster’. The use of window in English is probably due to the Scandinavian influence on the English language by means of loanwords during the Viking Age. In English the word fenester was used as a parallel until the mid-18th century and fenestration is still used to describe the arrangement of windows within a façade. Also, words such as “defenestration” are in use, meaning to throw something out of a window.

From Webster’s 1828 Dictionary: Window, n. [G. The vulgar pronunciation is windor, as if from the Welsh gwyntdor, wind-door.][3]