Gold
When it first showed up in the early thirteenth century,
gold was just an adjective, not a name of a metal. It didn’t get attached to
the metal of that color for another two centuries. The word “gold” comes from the Old English gold, which evolved from the Proto Germanic gulth and further back, the Proto Indo European ghel, which means yellow/green (in fact, in my colors post I mentioned
that ghel is the origin word for yellow).
In other words, gold is basically saying “that metal that’s yellow”.
Silver
Silver comes from the Old English seolfor and
Mercian sylfur, which meant silver or
money. In Proto Germanic the word is silubra,
but from there it’s uncertain because Proto Indo European bequeathed arg- (shine, white) which gave us the
Latin argentum and even the word argent here in Modern English. Silver jumped in over a thousand years ago (possibly of
Asian extraction) and just stayed and now we use it to describe the shining
white metal.
Tin
Tin comes from the Old English tin (I’ll never be
able to pronounce that!) and Proto Germanic tinom.
There’s nothing further back than that as Latin uses a completely different
word, stannum.
Most European countries use variations of both the Latin and Proto Germanic for
tin to differentiate between the raw form of the metal and the plate form of
it.
Platinum
Unlike the other words here, platinum first showed up as a
metal, and relatively recently in 1812.
Its name comes from Latin, of
course, but that was from the Spanish word platina
or plata,
which means silver. Apparently when it was first discovered, it was thought of
as a lesser form of silver.
Aluminum
Or “aluminium”, for you UK types. It’s another one that didn’t
show up until 1812.
Its oxide form “alumina”, actually came first, and was named from the classical Latin alumen, which means alum, a salt used in medicine, tanning and dyeing among other things.
Sources
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English
Orbis Latinus
Gold really hasn't been a word for long.
ReplyDeleteYou know, there's a comic book (or was) from DC with heroes made of metal.
ReplyDeleteOkay, so that explains why the element symbol for silver is Ag (from the Latin) and tin's symbol is Sn, but where does Au for gold come from? Must be from the Latin again, right?
ReplyDeleteSeolfor has such a good ring to it.
ReplyDeleteAs to Andrew's comment, yes, there are characters created by a scientist out of metal... with personalities. Not sure if they're around in the post-reboot at DC...
The word platina reminded me of another word I came across while doing research for a new project--patera. Patera is defined as a shallow dish was often used by the ancient Greeks. And now I see one has absolutely nothing to do with the other, but that's just how my brain works, which I guess I should be grateful it works at all. (:
ReplyDeleteHave you ever checked out the Encyclopedia of Crystal, Gem and Metal Magic? It's a fantastic resource for helping you place these elements into fantasy writing. This rundown on metals of your reminded me of that. :)
ReplyDelete