I have an inkling…

I used the word ‘inkling’ in the story I’m writing at the moment, and had a little ponder on where the word might have come from. I thought it might be something to do with printing, from the early days maybe where there was an actual ink put on actual plates, and the people using it might get inky, or be called inklings… But no, I’m wrong.

Apparently the word is older than printing, and comes from Old English, from inca, meaning a suspicion or a doubt; inca progressed into Middle English and became a verb, inclen, which is to hint or to speak in an undertone. However, before Old English there was a root which went back much further and was much older,  to a Proto-Indo-European word yenǵ which meant illness; the word travelled forward in time to Proto-Germanic inkô, to ache or to regret… I had never thought of a connection between ache and regret, but doesn’t aching just describe how you feel when you really, really regret something, and almost physical not merely mental or emotional sensation? Inkling can also be compared to the ‘lost twin’ language of Old Frisian, to the word jinc  which means angered; English’s other cousin,  Old Norse, has the word ekki  which means pain or grief – and again, aren’t those two emotions so closely connected? Ekki has moved into modern Norwegian as ekkje which means lack and/or pity.

This is just what I have managed to find out, I’m not an expert, but there is a wonderful and very interesting article which contains a much more detailed explanation of inkling here:

http://blog.oup.com/2011/08/inkling/