A lesson on philosophy due to a lesson on English and German language

[Gen.Mannerheim]

Well, this one might just tell us that the English are weirdos. Far as I can tell- by which I mean "as far as I can google", naturally- most Romance and Germanic languages use words literally meaning "horseman" or "rider", like the French chevalier and German ritter, and non-Germanic, non-Romance languages use either equivalent terms, like the Basque zaldun or Welsh marchog, or direct borrowings, like the Irish ridire, Czech rytíř or Albanian kalorës. The only non-English departure from this is the Slovene and Serbo-Croatian vitez, derived from the old Germanic wiking, warrior. The English seem to be the only people in Europe who've derived their word for an armed, mounted warrior and associated lower-gentry with their historical role as retainers, and it's not really self-evident what unique thought-patterns the English might possess that would have lead them to this.

Sometimes, language is just weird for no particular reason, or at least no reason that's particularly satisfying.

I feel that there's probably a correlation between the lack of heavy/light cavalry in late Saxon armies and the evolution the the word knight. The main body of the late Saxon armies was the infantry, particularly the huscarls. By the time of Harold Godwinson, huscarl seems to have meant the personal freemen warriors directly funded by the King,a system started by Knut the Great. However, the English word for Medieval heavy cavalry isn't housecarl.

In the Saxon language, cniht seems to have been a general term for a servant or retainer of a lord. It doesn't take a big mental leap to see how the term for servant would be used to describe this new form of martial retainer imposed by their new overlords.

@Traitorfish Where does the convention of translating the Roman 'equestrian' as 'knight' (which has always bothered me) fit into that?

Do you have a better English term to describe a landed class that was (at least according to the classical sources) responsible for providing mounted military service to the state?

 

[Traitorfish]

I feel that there's probably a correlation between the lack of heavy/light cavalry in late Saxon armies and the evolution the the word knight. The main body of the late Saxon armies was the infantry, particularly the huscarls. By the time of Harold Godwinson, huscarl seems to have meant the personal freemen warriors directly funded by the King,a system started by Knut the Great. However, the English word for Medieval heavy cavalry isn't housecarl.

In the Saxon language, cniht seems to have been a general term for a servant or retainer of a lord. It doesn't take a big mental leap to see how the term for servant would be used to describe this new form of martial retainer imposed by their new overlords.

It's possible, but I'm not certain. In the first place, the Anglo-Saxon warrior class were typically mounted, but they fought as mounted infantry rather than as cavalry. Access to horses and their horsemanship were markers of status as on the continent. Also, the Scandinavians were similarly late to adopt Frankish cavalry tactics, but like German used words meaning "horseman". Second, the term doesn't seem to have emerged in the form we know it until the early fourteenth century, by which point the English would have been under Norman rule for eight or nine generations, and would have been as familiar with the continental mounted knight as anyone else in Europe.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

It's possible, but I'm not certain. In the first place, the Anglo-Saxon warrior class were typically mounted, but they fought as mounted infantry rather than as cavalry. Access to horses and their horsemanship were markers of status as on the continent.

However horse ownership and horsemanship is a mark of status, and did not necessarily influence how people conceptualized the noble's role in warfare. The lack of the use of mounted troops on the field may have cast a large shadow on the Saxon communal identity.

Also, the Scandinavians were similarly late to adopt Frankish cavalry tactics, but like German used words meaning "horseman".

Yeah, I don't really have a response to that one. Outside of just explaining the English term as one of those quirk of language, the Scandinavian dissimilarity does throw a monkey-wrench into any explanation. My initial response was going to be that perhaps it's due to the continuing influence of Early/Middle German on Danish, and by extension Scandinavian vocabulary; something which Middle English lost by their disconnection with the Germanic speaking North Sea world post-1066. However, a quick survey just showed that Knight in Scots-Gaelic & Irish is ridire, so

Second, the term doesn't seem to have emerged in the form we know it until the early fourteenth century, by which point the English would have been under Norman rule for eight or nine generations, and would have been as familiar with the continental mounted knight as anyone else in Europe.

Not attested to in written sources. That doesn't preclude its long use in the Middle English vernacular. People think that English has a lot of synonyms now. Before the beginning of (unofficial) standardization of vocab due to the printing press, Middle English had a ridiculous number of possible words in use. We didn't even have a single word for eggs!

 

[Lexicus]

Do you have a better English term to describe a landed class that was (at least according to the classical sources) responsible for providing mounted military service to the state?

Can't we just say "equestrian"?

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

Can't we just say "equestrian"?

But the word equestrian doesn't have any military or political subtext, which exists in the Latin word. Knight was probably considered to be the English word with the closest similar meaning.

 

[Lexicus]

But the word equestrian doesn't have any military or political subtext, which exists in the Latin word. Knight was probably considered to be the English word with the closest similar meaning.

It does if you know anything about Roman history, though, and if you don't know anything about Roman history referring to them as "knights" comes with some highly misleading connotations.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

It does if you know anything about Roman history, though, and if you don't know anything about Roman history referring to them as "knights" comes with some highly misleading connotations.

True enough, however doesn't equestrian have the same problem in reverse? To the English speaker, equestrian conjures up images of posh riders preforming on horseback, not that of a minor noble with societal obligations.

While I agree that knight can give the impression of a feudal warrior/noble lord feudal relationship, the English definition of equestrian equally doesn't do the Roman class justice. But again, can you think of a better term then knight?

 

[Lexicus]

While I agree that knight can give the impression of a feudal warrior/noble lord feudal relationship, the English definition of equestrian equally doesn't do the Roman class justice. But again, can you think of a better term then knight?

Not if we're excluding "equestrian".

 

[MilesGregarius]

Not if we're excluding "equestrian".

Or "horseman" or "rider" or "cavalier."

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

Not if we're excluding "equestrian".

You haven't given a reason why equestrian is a better English term other than "I don't like knights".

Remembering back to my Roman history professors in undergrad, they tended to use the Latin Equites.

 

[Lexicus]

Or "horseman" or "rider" or "cavalier."

Cavalier might do it.

You haven't given a reason why equestrian is a better English term other than "I don't like knights".

Because, as I said, 'knights' has connotations that make it outright jarring, to me anyway, when the word is applied to a classical Roman context. I mean, you mentioned that this was a landed class, which I suppose is true, but as I learned Roman history the Equites were actually in charge of a good chunk of the non-agricultural economic activity in the empire since Senators had to pretend to be idle landowners or whatever - they were notable because so much of their wealth was not simply tied to landholding.

Of course, my prejudice against "knights" might simply boil down to my having encountered it relatively early in my Roman-knowledge-acquisition-process and scoffing at it because I knew there were no knights in ancient Rome and I needed something to be cooler than

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Honestly my whole start was utterly misguided.
I thought I saw a cheap opening. But really it was not.
I stressed context, jet only argued with single words.
Really, I stand by my statement, but I haven't made a good case for it.
The truth is: I have immense extensive expierence with both languages, but demonstrating the principle difference I encountered would be immense work, because duh, language are complex beasts.
So you are free to disagree. But I am right. I just can not be asked to invest 30 hours of intense study to produce a thread a handful will barely consider.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I find it hard to believe that "widerlich" is the only word for "widerlich" that German has.

I mean surely it has different words for the sensation of human excrement oozing between your bare toes, and the sensation that one feels when looking at David Cameron.

You are right, there are, in both languages.
I just think the options of the German language to do so are more cultured in so far as that they are more extreme and refined at the same time (yeah I know that is one flattering assessment). They, IMO, are so because the meaning of each word is more, grammatically and in terms of general use, depended on the whole sentence and perhaps the whole paragraph. And that puts a certain restrain of complex norms on it. It forces it be more considerate. But also potentially more obtuse.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I don't think "Knights" sounds right in reference to the Romen Equites either. ("Cavalier" seems even worse.) I'm fine leaving the word untranslated, or with using "Equestrians," but in English would tend to prefer the term "Gentry."

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

I mean, you mentioned that this was a landed class, which I suppose is true, but as I learned Roman history the Equites were actually in charge of a good chunk of the non-agricultural economic activity in the empire since Senators had to pretend to be idle landowners or whatever - they were notable because so much of their wealth was not simply tied to landholding.

Yeah, that's really the problem with trying to give a concrete definition of label to a social/political class in a Kingdom/Republic/Empire with almost a thousand years of cumulative history. What it meant to be in each section of society, what they did, and how one entered such a class was always evolving.

For the record, my "defense" of knights (or rather early historians use of it) was less because of the landed aspect. I think it works as a fit because it describes a large class of lower nobility who were responsible for providing a wide range of military and civic duties to their state.

I don't think "Knights" sounds right in reference to the Romen Equites either. ("Cavalier" seems even worse.) I'm fine leaving the word untranslated, or with using "Equestrians," but in English would tend to prefer the term "Gentry."

Ooh, I kinda like gentry...

 

[Borachio]

In that case how about "gentleman" as a translation of "equestrian"?

 

[sophie]

Eh, I don't really make that association, although I tend to read equites as equites and what books I read on Roman history call them equites so *shrug*.

That said, I've been reading Romance of the Three Kingdoms recently and it's a tidge jarring to see characters being appointed titles like "Marquis" and the hullaballoo many of the characters make over, say, Cao Cao assuming the title of Duke is intriguing. Obviously the British hierarchical system of Baron-Viscount-Earl-Marquess-Duke-Prince-King-[Emperor] didn't exist in either 3rd/4th c. China nor under the Mings, so it'd be interesting to me to learn what the actual titles were and what they actually meant in a larger socio-political context.

 

[MilesGregarius]

In a similar vein to knight vs assort horse riding terms:

Furniture vs Möbel-mueble-mobilia-meubles-meubilair, et cetera

 

[Borachio]

Oh right.

But furniture means something furnishing, supplying or providing. Even door handles and road signs are referred to as "furniture".

While meuble comes from the Latin for movable.

So the French have "meuble" for stuff that you can move between "immeubles" (meaning houses, which generally speaking are not movable).

Apparently, furniture (meaning chairs and tables) is unique to English, etymologically speaking.

 

[MilesGregarius]

But how/why does English differ so from German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch, not to mention Albanian, Swedish, Russian, Polish...