It strikes me as humorous that England is named after an obscure piece of land 400 miles from it's own shores. Do you remember your world history class in high school (it was the one with the overly flirtatious girl in it - yeah, that one)? Remember tales of the Jutes, Angles, Saxons and other historic clans of derring-do? These folks lived in Northern Europe and had eager aspirations to export their culture to distant lands. The Angles lent their name to a newly conquered colony we now call... wait for it... England.
But this isn't a blog about language, this is about word roots. Let's get to the botton of it, where did those ambitious old Angles get their name. Stop right there! Did you notice something? "Angles" That's like "angle", right? You know, the corners of a shape. Right? Right!
The Angles of yore got their name from the shape of their homeland (which is now part of Germany, at the northern tip on the Baltic Sea). That's it. Note this image of the ancient Angle homeland. Apparently, the original land was mapped from Flensburg to Schleswig to Kappeln, creating an angular (there it is again) shape on a map. The people who lived in an angle-shaped land were called Angles. It's funny really. One of the most common words and languages on the planet comes from a quirky shape of land roughly the size of New York City. (It's kind of like asking people from Michigan where they live. They hold up a hand and say, "I'm from right here" and point to a knuckle on their ring finger. Michigan is shaped like a mitten - we should call the place Mittenland. They act like it, after all.)
That's it. England is named for the people who live on a piece of land shaped like a angle. But we can take this just a little further - that's the fun of it! Look at the map again, look just north of Kappeln. Notice that little bay that is formed by the hook of land on the east? Hook... Hey, what's that fancy word for fishermen? Angler, that's it. Why are fishers call anglers? Because of what is at the end of their line - an angle. That little angle-shaped hook lent its name to the whole sport.
Let's see what's left in the botton of the barrel here. Oh yes, can you think of an angle-shaped part of your body? Let's stay on task, think about the bottom of your leg - your... wait for it... ankle. Yup. Same deal. Your leg turns an angle to get to your foot, so just call it that.
All these words, from England to ankle, derive from an ancient IE root ank meaning angle. Pretty straightforward, pardon the pun.
No small contribution, England and English are two of the most common proper nouns on the globe. The word "English" gets 1.8 billion hits on a Google search (by way of comparison, "love" only got 1.4 billion hits). The English language is the second most commonly spoken language in the world with 480 million tongue-waggers. (Variants of Chinese is most common with about 1 billion speakers, but English is the most common second-language learned, adding another 600 million speakers. So, yeah, English is a pretty big deal.)
But this isn't a blog about language, this is about word roots. Let's get to the botton of it, where did those ambitious old Angles get their name. Stop right there! Did you notice something? "Angles" That's like "angle", right? You know, the corners of a shape. Right? Right!
The Angles of yore got their name from the shape of their homeland (which is now part of Germany, at the northern tip on the Baltic Sea). That's it. Note this image of the ancient Angle homeland. Apparently, the original land was mapped from Flensburg to Schleswig to Kappeln, creating an angular (there it is again) shape on a map. The people who lived in an angle-shaped land were called Angles. It's funny really. One of the most common words and languages on the planet comes from a quirky shape of land roughly the size of New York City. (It's kind of like asking people from Michigan where they live. They hold up a hand and say, "I'm from right here" and point to a knuckle on their ring finger. Michigan is shaped like a mitten - we should call the place Mittenland. They act like it, after all.)That's it. England is named for the people who live on a piece of land shaped like a angle. But we can take this just a little further - that's the fun of it! Look at the map again, look just north of Kappeln. Notice that little bay that is formed by the hook of land on the east? Hook... Hey, what's that fancy word for fishermen? Angler, that's it. Why are fishers call anglers? Because of what is at the end of their line - an angle. That little angle-shaped hook lent its name to the whole sport.
Let's see what's left in the botton of the barrel here. Oh yes, can you think of an angle-shaped part of your body? Let's stay on task, think about the bottom of your leg - your... wait for it... ankle. Yup. Same deal. Your leg turns an angle to get to your foot, so just call it that.
All these words, from England to ankle, derive from an ancient IE root ank meaning angle. Pretty straightforward, pardon the pun.
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