Saturday, April 11, 2015

A-to-Z Challenge: J

Today we’re looking at journey, and there’s more crazy letter switching!



Journey showed up in the early thirteenth century with pretty much the same meaning, coming from the Old French journee. Before that, in Vulgar Latin, it was actually diurnum, day, and in classical Latin, it’s diurnus, daily or daylong. Yes, that’s a d-to-j switch we’re talking about. I can’t explain the switch, but the reason journey is what we know it as is because of Middle English. Their word for journey meant a day, which got stretched to a day’s work, and then a day’s walk. From there, it morphed into what we know it as today.

Crazy, right? Oh, and if you want another j word that comes from diurnus, we have journal. That one makes more sense. Slightly.

Sources

11 comments:

  1. Journal does make more sense. It's fun to realize that the word journey went through from being a day to length of time.

    You can find me here:
    ClarabelleRant

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  2. So journey used to mean in a day - which make 'a day's journey' a redundant statement with the original meaning :). Journal does make a kind of sense.
    Tasha
    Tasha's Thinkings | Wittegen Press | FB3X (AC)

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  3. That's interesting that there was a d-to-j switch. Journal makes a bit more sense.

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  4. I wonder how close it can be pinpointed when a word changes and who changes it and where the change started.

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  5. So fascinating with the d-j; and funny when I think journey now I don't think day's walk, I think a longer period of time passing

    betty

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  6. If the journey was only a day's walk, that would be simple...

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  7. "D" and "J" are the same sound. "D" is cut short; "J" is dragged out. Make the two sounds and pay attention to your tongue as you do it.

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  8. Of course when you apply journey into the world of Tolkien, it ends up taking a lot longer than a day, and sooner or later your relatives have you declared dead and start selling off your worldly goods and moving into your hobbit house.

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  9. Very interesting facts about the word journey.
    Shawn from Laughing at Life 2

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  10. Journey seems to be a popular word today.

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  11. "Journeyman" used to mean a man who showed up for a day's work, or something like that. So that kind of makes sense now.

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