Announcement: Bursary for study of Anglo-Norman

The Anglo-Norman Dictionary (www.anglo-norman.net), an AHRC funded project held at Aberystwyth University, would like to invite expressions of interest in a post-graduate bursary fund supporting research on Anglo-Norman.

(Aberystwyth Univeristy, Old College)

(image taken from http://sirgarblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/redevelopment-of-aberystwyths-old.html)

Over the next four years, five bursaries, of up to £1000 each, will be available to support post-graduate students and their research on projects related to Anglo-Norman. Applicants will be able to make use of the considerable resources available at the Dictionary office, including editions of Anglo-Norman works as well as a vast library of works on Anglo-Norman, Romance linguistics, etymology and lexicography. As visiting scholars at Aberystwyth University, applicants will also be able to make use of the university library as well as that of the National Library of Wales. Applicants may be asked to give a short research presentation to the department or write a blog post about their research.

The bursary is intended to be used towards the cost of travel and accommodation in Aberystwyth. Applicants should submit a short description of their research for consideration as well as a summary of potential expenses.

(excerpt from MS Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, Bettisfeld 18)

Expressions of interest and any questions should be directed the editors, Dr Geert De Wilde and Dr. Heather Pagan at anglonormandictionary@gmail.com by December 1st, 2017, for travel in 2018.

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WoM: Anglo-Norman at the inn (Manières de Langage)

– Syre, ou pensez vous chivacher anoet? – Sire, a la prochene ville, si Dieu plest. – Sire, que l’apellez la prochyin ville? – Sire, l’apellent Oxone, verement. [...] – Ore, sire, ou serromes loggez quaunt nous voignomes la? – Syre, a le Molyn sur le hope en la rewe de Northyate est le meillour hostelle d’icelle ville come je suppose ( Man Lang ANTS 71.1-23) ( ‘Sir, where do you intend to ride tonight?’ – ‘Sir, to the next town, God permitting’ – ‘Sir, what do you call it, the next town?’ – ‘Sir, they call it Oxford, to be sure’ [...] ‘Well, Sir, where will we stay when we get there?’ ‘Sir, at [the inn with] the sign of the Mill in Northgate Street – it is, in my view, the best hostel of this town’ ) A genuine Anglo-Norman conversation between travellers sorting out their accommodation for the night? Or is this a polite exchange between two itinerant knights, excerpted from some epic romance? Perhaps, the setting of the scene for a fabliaux? Then again, the somew

Word of the month: Nice! An Anglo-Norman insult.

English speakers may be surprised to learn that the etymology of nice is not very nice at all and that its semantic development is unparalleled in the Romance languages. This word, which style guides recommend that you avoid as it both ubiquitous and nearly devoid of all meaning, has a most complicated semantic evolution. The word nice is attested quite early in French – ca 1160 and has its roots in the Latin nescius , an adjective meaning ‘ignorant, unknowing’. [1] The word was used in French (and other Romance languages) in Middle English (c. 1400) to disparage people, actions and sayings as silly or foolish. This is the meaning the word retained in the Romance languages, though in French the word is rather uncommon today though you may find it in some older texts to refer to someone as simple or naive, such as those the TLF cites: Un brave homme, un peu nice, appelé Monthyon ( Pommier, Colères, 1844 , p.66) The semantic development of the word nice in English is a rat

Word of the month: nuncheon

It is mid-afternoon and the editorial team of the Anglo-Norman Dictionary is producing XML files of the latest batch of new entries for N-. They have been sitting in front of their computers and processing the data for about six hours now, and their typing fingers are noticeably slowing down. It is still too early to call it a day, but minds are inevitably beginning to wander. Fortunately, a resolution for the growing three-o’clock malaise is found in the Oxford English Dictionary under the word ‘ nuncheon ’, that is, ‘a drink taken in the afternoon; a light refreshment between meals; a snack’. ‘Nuncheon’ is a word labelled as archaic or regional – the sort of vocabulary encountered in nineteenth-century novels: Sir Walter Scott still wrote ‘I came to get my four-hours’ nunchion from you’ in his novel Fortunes Of Nigel (1822), and in Charlotte Mary Yonge’s Love and Life (1880) a sister tells her siblings ‘I will give you some bread and cheese and gingerbread for noonchin ’.

Anglo-Norman words

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