Monday 9 December 2013

Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources

The Guardian rapporte:
Dictionary completed after a century in preparation
...The 17th, and final, part of The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources is published this week, drawing on more than 1,400 sources from the sixth to the 16th century, including the Domesday Book, the Magna Carta and the Bayeux tapestry.

Latin was used for writing and record-keeping across Europe by clergy, scientists, philosophers, and lawyers for more than a thousand years after the fall of the Roman empire. Medieval British Latin was particularly distinctive because it was affected by the diversity of native spoken languages, including English, French, Irish, Norse, and Welsh...

The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources explyique:
As society in Britain developed, bringing technological, social, and administrative changes, new words had to be invented or borrowed so that people could, for instance, refer to each part of the machinery of a mill, to parts of ploughs and carts and ships, or to the enormous variety of feudal dues and taxes when they were writing financial accounts, charters or legal records. As a result we find new words such as essewera meaning a drain, ditch or weir, ultimately deriving from Classical Latin ex and aqua and leading by way of Anglo-Norman and Old French forms of the word to the modern English word sewer.

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