Every fortnight I go to a class which is called Saxish – which is about the Saxon language, and its variations in different parts of England an at different times over the centuries. It’s not a class to teach the language,. although we are learning some along the way, it is more a discussion group, and topics range far and wide, geographically and historically.
Each session the leader gives us some ‘homework’ a couple of words to look up and explore, choosing ones which have a different origin from what we might expect.
This week we are looking at the word pay; I guessed it came from the French ‘payer’… no doubt from an old french version, and probably from a Latin word… but am I right?
First of all I realised that the meaning has changed – we think of pay as receiving something, usually money, as a reward for a service or a thing – and pay is a very as well as a noun. The meaning originally however meant something like to appease, or to satisfy or even pacify, and yes, it does come from the French, originally old French ‘paier’, and from the Latin ‘pacare’.
Another interesting thing I discovered, the French word arrived with the Normans, and gradually it was adopted into the everyday language, but there had been a word before that, ‘yelden’ or ‘yielden’ (I guess that has become yield which as a verb can mean to give way or as a noun, produce) which came from the Old English ‘ġieldan’ which meant to pay; there was also a Middle English verb, ‘schotten’ meaning to pay or make a payment, which in turn had developed from Old English ‘scot’ or ‘ġescot’ a payment.
I think that will do for my homework!
Lois Elsden 