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Reassessing the semantic history of OE brēad / ME brēd1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 April 2016

SARA M. PONS-SANZ
SARA M. PONS-SANZ*
Affiliation:
School of English, Communication and Philosophy, Cardiff University, John Percival Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, United Kingdompons-sanzs@cardiff.ac.uk
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Abstract

Our etymological understanding of PDE bread has been influenced, to a considerable extent, by Otto Jespersen's comment that ‘An Englishman cannot thrive or be ill or die without Scandinavian words; they are to the language what bread and eggs are to the daily fare.’ This article analyses the evidence behind the possibility that PDE bread might represent a Norse-derived semantic loan, i.e. that OE brēad acquired the meaning ‘bread’, which was more frequently expressed by OE hlāf, because of the influence of its Viking Age Norse cognate (cp. OIc brauð ‘bread’). On the basis of an in-depth study of the attestations of OE brēad and hlāf and their early Middle English reflexes, as well as the use of their cognates in various Germanic languages, the article challenges the traditional view that OE brēad originally meant ‘piece, morsel of bread’ and concludes that Norse influence is not needed in order to account for the semantic history of PDE bread.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , March 2017 , pp. 47 - 67
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

1

I am very grateful to the two anonymous reviewers and Prof. Laurel Brinton for their comments and suggestions in connection with a previous version of this article. I would also like to acknowledge the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (project FFI2014-56583-P).

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