[XeTeX] Off topic (interesting) question

[Jens Bakker]

May be, this is a misunderstanding by some teachers who do pronounce it „istory“ or a joke by some students, in English this word is pronounced with an „h“, and therefore it seems to be impossible to write it without an „h“ but to pronounce it with an „h“ at the beginning of the word, according to the customs of English orthography.

Best wishes,
Jens Bakker


> Am 20.08.2022 um 11:27 schrieb Philip Taylor (Hellenic Institute) <P.Taylor at Hellenic-Institute.Uk>:
> 
> On 20/08/2022 10:21, Apostolos Syropoulos via XeTeX wrote:
>> 
>> Someone claimed that English people (I say
>> more generally English language speakers)
>>  learn at school why you write history and
>> not istory. Since I do not know I'd this holds, I
>> am asking: Is this true? Does someone who
>> has graduated from high-school know the
>> reason why this happens?
> No, the matter was never raised during the period that I was at school (1952–1963).  We were told that the subject was called "history" and that was that.  The OED  <https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/87324?rskey=cuajcV&result=1#eid>has this to say —
> 
> Etymology: In Old English < classical Latin historia (in post-classical Latin also istoria (7th or 8th cent.)) (see below);
> 
>  
> subsequently reborrowed < (i) Anglo-Norman and Old French istorie, estoire, historie, Anglo-Norman and Old French, Middle French estorie, Anglo-Norman and Middle French, French histoire, Old French, Middle French hystoire, Middle French histore account of the events of a person's life (beginning of the 12th cent.), chronicle, account of events as relevant to a group of people or people in general (1155), dramatic or pictorial representation of historical events (c1240), body of knowledge relative to human evolution, science (c1265), narrative of real or imaginary events, story (c1462),
>  
> and its etymon (ii) classical Latin historia (in post-classical Latin also istoria (7th or 8th cent.)) investigation, inquiry, research, account, description, written account of past events, writing of history, historical narrative, recorded knowledge of past events, story, narrative, in post-classical Latin also narrative illustration (from 12th cent. in British sources) < ancient Greek ἱστορία inquiry, knowledge obtained by inquiry, account of such inquiries, narrative, in Hellenistic Greek also story, account < ἵστορ- , ἵστωρ or ἴστορ- , ἴστωρ (ancient Greek (Boeotian) ϝίστωρ ) (noun) judge, witness, (adjective) knowing, learned ( < an ablaut variant         (zero-grade) of the stem of οἶδα to know (see wit v.1 <https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/229569#eid14146062>) + -τωρ , suffix forming agent nouns) + -ία -y suffix3 <https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/231080#eid14065428>.
>  
> Old French forms in e- arise as alterations of earlier forms in i- , which was unusual in this position in Old French; Middle French forms in h- show remodelling after classical Latin historia .
>  
> Compare Old Occitan estoria , Catalan història (14th cent.), Spanish historia (1220–50; also as †estoria ), Portuguese história (14th cent.), Italian storia (1690; a1374 as †istoria ). Compare story n. <https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/190981#eid20448430>
> The Latin word was earlier borrowed into Old English as stær (also ster , steor ) history, narrative, story (perhaps via Celtic; compare Early Irish stoir , Middle Breton ster ); the length of the stem vowel of the Old English word is uncertain, and the phonology is difficult to explain (see further A. Campbell Old Eng. Gram. (1959) §§507, 516, 545, 565, and (for a summary of views) A. H. Feulner Die griechischen Lehnwörter im Altenglischen (2000) 248–51):
> 
> Philip Taylor
> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://tug.org/pipermail/xetex/attachments/20220820/b15fbec3/attachment-0001.html>