Another one without a specific
date attached to it. Heart comes from the Old English heorte, which could mean heart, breast, soul, mind, or even desire.
Heorte comes from the Proto Germanic khertan- (yes, a K!) and before that,
the Proto Indo European kerd-, meaning heart. Interesting
factoid of the day: the reason heart has an “ea” spelling is because it used to
have a long vowel sound, meaning “ee” instead of “ah”. It’s one of the many
cases in etymology where you’ll find pronunciation shifted but spelling didn’t.
Frigging spelling.
Sources
Tony Jebson’s page on the
Origins of Old English
University of Texas at Austin
Linguistic Research Center
I wonder if the K was silent?
ReplyDeleteHeart still means all those things even today.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder kids struggle with spelling.
Very cool that "desire" can be attributed to the root of "heart." Makes perfect sense. :)
ReplyDeleteFrigging spelling.
ReplyDeleteLove it.
I love this: "heorte, which could mean heart, breast, soul, mind, or even desire". That makes perfect sense.
ReplyDeleteLoving that heart can mean so many beautiful things :)
ReplyDeleteSuzanne @ Suzannes Tribe
xx
Don't write a new intro every day. Keep the same one explaining what you're doing for the challenge. We all skim it anyway.
ReplyDeleteDesire and heart used the same word? That makes an odd sort of sense.
I like that word.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad my blogging day happened to fall on 'H.' :)
But what about "hart," hmm?
ReplyDeleteHi JE .. I love finding out where words come from - always and thankfully have always been reasonably good at spelling ..
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this - cheers Hilary
It's interesting that heart has always had ties to the emotional definition it has now, not the physical thing beating in our chests. This is fascinating, as always. It's also interesting to see how pronunciation has changed but the spelling hasn't.
ReplyDeleteLove your post! <33
ReplyDeletePlease visit my blog, www.thatgirlybookworm.blogspot.com
I'm doing the A-Z Challenge and my theme focuses on books and the title of the letter of the day!
Love your post! <33
ReplyDeletePlease visit my blog, www.thatgirlybookworm.blogspot.com
I'm doing the A-Z Challenge and my theme focuses on books and the title of the letter of the day!
Ha! Spelin iz relativ.
ReplyDeleteFun post today; I'm enjoying learning snippets of etymology from your blog.
This is A. Catherine Noon, visiting from my blog at http://acatherinenoon.blogspot.com for the A-Z Challenge, #327 on the list. Happy blogging!
I didn't expect the k beginning and I'm trying to pronounce heorte.
ReplyDeleteNice post.
ReplyDelete