To be quiet
An ancient word for quiet led to a steaming heap of words — not all of them sounding all that…quiet.
Words in Old Persian,Old Church Slavonic, Avestan, & Old Norse led etymologists to construct the Proto-Indo-European word *kwyeə-, meaning to rest or be quiet. The big idea is that there must have been some unwritten mother-tongue that led these disparate groups to use similar-sounding words that all meant about the same thing.
*Kwyeə- gave us the English word quiet in about 1300. A couple centuries later it also gave us acquiesce, quiescent & quietude. It also gave us a word roughly meaning super-quiet — the word requiem.
Apparently being free & clear gives one a sense of quiet, so those who were free & clear of debt, discharged, at liberty, or unmarried, were said in the 1200s to be quit. Hmmm. A legal form of being free & clear is to be acquitted. In time, the freeing sense of quit took over in popular usage: to release, let go or abandon. This free & clear meaning also gave birth to the word quite, (someone who is quite intelligent could also be labelled clearly intelligent).
And because truly getting some rest & quiet takes a little time, *kwyeə- also gave us the words while & awhile.
Last but not least, *kwyeə- gave us the word coy. Coy’s original meaning (in the 1300s), was quiet. It only took a hundred years for its meaning to ooze from quiet through placid & gentle to shy & bashful.
All that from quiet. Any thoughts? Please let me know in the comments section.
Big thanks to Sioux Thompson for inspiring this post & to this week’s sources, Merriam Webster, Collins Dictionary, Etymonline, Oxford Dictionaries, & Wordnik.
I WENT TO VERDI'S "REQUIEM" PLAYED BY SANTA BARBARA SYMPHONY A FEW DAYS AGO. IT WAS ANYTHING BUT QUIET. A JOYOUS NOISE.
ReplyDeleteI love a joyous noise. I'm leaving this reply to test the comment system, Steve. For some reason, Blogger isn't letting Charlie comment. :-(
DeleteAll fascinating. And it makes perfect sense. I remember people in Yorkshire said the word "coo-eye-eh"-very drawn out, dropping the final consonant with a faint glottal stop. Sounded very like the hypothetical "Kwyea" However you say it, I think we need more of it in our chaotic world.
ReplyDeleteAh....quiet. One of my favorite words and states of being. Quietude. Like the attitude of one's surroundings? And requiem is what I seek when I head into nature. These words bring me peace and are inspiring me to take a walk through the fog to the bay. Thanks you!
ReplyDelete