Spring
On my little part of the
globe, spring has arrived. I can almost hear my mom saying, “Spring
has sprung, the grass has ris. I Wonder where the flowers is.”
Our English word
spring is somewhat unique when it comes to labeling the season between
winter and summer. Two French terms and one Latin one referring to that same
season, printemps, primevère, & tempus primum, mean first time, or first season. The Danish word voraar and the Dutch word vorjar both mean fore-year. The German word Frühling, and Middle High German word vrueje both mean early. The Haitian Creole folks put a different spin on their equivalent, with sous, meaning source. All of these, however, have to do with firstness, earliness, beginnings.
season, printemps, primevère, & tempus primum, mean first time, or first season. The Danish word voraar and the Dutch word vorjar both mean fore-year. The German word Frühling, and Middle High German word vrueje both mean early. The Haitian Creole folks put a different spin on their equivalent, with sous, meaning source. All of these, however, have to do with firstness, earliness, beginnings.
The English word spring, which became popular in the 1540s, once springing time went out of vogue
and long after the Old English springan
had faded away, focuses on something entirely different. The season spring sprung forth from the
verb spring, meaning to
leap, burst forth or fly up. It came from Proto-Indo-European, sprengh, which meant rapid
movement. Its Sanskrit & Greek equivalents, sprhayati & sperkhesthai
meant desires eagerly, & to hurry.
What do you suppose was up
with those Englishfolk, breaking with linguistic tradition & associating
the first, the early, the beginning season
with active, radical concepts like leaping,
bursting forth & flying up?
Then again, look at
English spelling rules.
In this week’s comments
section, I hope you’ll note some plans for your spring, or some thoughts
about spring, or maybe even an English-inspired wacky way to spell spring…