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What does the e. m. English word fra mean | ||
Tags: Meaning of words | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5565 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 9 of 15 12 August 2011 at 12:45am | IP Logged | ||
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I think it means 'from' as in 'from which' but I would say it wasn't used by Shakespeare because it is Early Modern Scots not English - you find 'fra' in Scots writers like Robert Baillie, Samuel Rutherford and James VI and I but rarely in English writers.
I could be wrong and no doubt some clever person will find an English fra, but i've seen it in e.m. Scots writing and never English writing (and early modern British history is my job). Edited by Elexi on 12 August 2011 at 12:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5599 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 10 of 15 12 August 2011 at 2:22am | IP Logged | ||
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Maybe the fra is a Scandinavian loan word. Danish "fra" means also "from". Scots was heavily influenced by Wiking settlers.
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| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5228 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 11 of 15 12 August 2011 at 5:05am | IP Logged | ||
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It is in Scots nowadays, but remember that King James I of England was also King James VI of Scotland--and he was
born in Scotland, so it makes sense that he would use it in his Demonology. It does come, as Cabaire suggests, from Old Norse fra (long a), which ultimately derives from Proto-Indo European "*pro-", which is also where we get "pro" from, through Latin. Remember this makes sense because by Grimm's law, the "p's" of Proto-Indo European became "f's" in the Germanic languages (cf. "pater" to "father", "pes" to "foot"). So "pro" (Latin) vs. "fra" (Germanic). There's actually a whole bunch of related words here. The original base in PIE was pr-, and meant something like forward motion. So that became fr- in the Germanic languages, like I said, which gives us words like "forward" and "from," "forefather," etc. Through the Latin branch it became "per" and "prae" as well, which means it's the parent of most words that use the per- and pre- (the descendent of prae) prefixes, too. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 12 of 15 12 August 2011 at 10:56am | IP Logged | ||
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A lot of James's writings were translated into English, but I don't see any evidence that Daemonologie ever was -- and even if it had been, the name of the book gives away that it's Scots: it ends -ie where an English name would have ended -y: Daemonology.
So the best place to look for words is the Dictionary of the Scots Language. James's writings were very important to the compilers of the Dictionary of the Older Scots Tongue (DOST), one of the components of the modern website. The core meaning of "fra" is "from", but from in some languages also acts in time, where it means "since" (consider "from an early age") and since also means "because". Well, according to the DOST, "fra" covers all this ("cause", whence "because", is a French borrowing, and was more common in Middle English than Scots). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5565 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 13 of 15 12 August 2011 at 12:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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IIRC James' Daemonologie also reflects Scottish scholarship on the subject of demonology and witchcraft
which varied from English learned opinion by being much nearer to continental European theory. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| amethyst32 Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5649 days ago 118 posts - 198 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, French | Message 14 of 15 12 August 2011 at 1:20pm | IP Logged | ||
You must have read my mind; I was just wondering what on earth "Daemonologie" is anyway. I suppose it's really quite obvious from the structure of the word, but I never stop being amazed by the things that people have taken seriously over the years! :) Edited by amethyst32 on 12 August 2011 at 4:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6659 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 15 of 15 12 August 2011 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Amazing what one can get out of watching a movie and pursuing ones curiosity.
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