A Good Yule to You All!

[Greendruid]

Last night was our celebration of Yule/Winter Solstice/Alban Arthuran. Much revelry and merriment was had as friends joined us to warm the longest night of the year, although it was already pretty warm outside for the time of year. It seems that the sun has entertained the thought of coming back :rofl: so I bid you all a grand new cycle of the growing light as we take another trip around the sun!

[Michael]

Last night was our celebration of Yule/Winter Solstice/Alban Arthuran. Much revelry and merriment was had as friends joined us to warm the longest night of the year, although it was already pretty warm outside for the time of year. It seems that the sun has entertained the thought of coming back :rofl: so I bid you all a grand new cycle of the growing light as we take another trip around the sun!

And a merry happy Yule to you too! :party:

And yes, it certainly isn't a white christmas around here either. We've seen no snow at all yet this year.

[nanacat]

Happy Holidays to all of you, and to your families. I wish you much joy, celebration, a loving, accepting look back at this past year's joys and follies, and a hopeful look towards our New Year with its *possibilities* (always!) for both individual and world peace. Bless all of you!!!!

[Donkey]

A green Yule here, though a light dusting this morning. I don't anticipate a white Christmas either.

Am certainly looking forward to the days getting longer again, though.

[NickKIELCEPoland]

Belatedly, a merry Yule, Christmas, and whatever else to everyone.
I am a great fan of this forum, and have especially enjoyed chats with Michael, MeMyselfandI, Donkey, The Drunks, Greendruid, pramjockey and so on. A special thanks to Michael for doing such a good job as moderator.
We have had our differences, but I have respect for all that I have mentioned, and some others.
I look forward to more discussions in 2012 :)

Incidentally, some of you may already know this, but the word 'yule' derives from pre-Christian Germanic traditions.

The Scandinavian word for Christmas is 'jul', pronounced 'yule' and 'juletid' means Christmas time, so very similar to 'yuletide'. I believe that Scandinavian languages are the only ones in Europe where the main word for Christmas has nothing to do with Christianity, although of course, in English the word 'yule' or 'yuletide' exists, and is sometimes used to give things a certain style.

According to this link...
http://snl.no/jul
... which is a highly respected Norwegian encyclopaedia, Yule was celebrated with beer, which was to be drunk in honour of the gods.

[Michael]

Incidentally, some of you may already know this, but the word 'yule' derives from pre-Christian Germanic traditions.

The Scandinavian word for Christmas is 'jul', pronounced 'yule' and 'juletid' means Christmas time, so very similar to 'yuletide'. I believe that Scandinavian languages are the only ones in Europe where the main word for Christmas has nothing to do with Christianity, although of course, in English the word 'yule' or 'yuletide' exists, and is sometimes used to give things a certain style.

According to this link...
http://snl.no/jul
... which is a highly respected Norwegian encyclopaedia, Yule was celebrated with beer, which was to be drunk in honour of the gods.

English usually has two words for everything - one derived from Latin-French roots (Christmas) and the other derived from German roots (Yuletide).

It is one of the reasons English is so rich in word choices.

[NickKIELCEPoland]

Michael, very often of course, what you say is spot on, and there are a Germanic and a Latin word.

However, in this case, I think you were a bit hasty in declaring Christmas a Latinate word. After all, Christianity came to England long before the Normans.

According to the Catholic encyclopedia...
"The word for Christmas in late Old English is Cristes Maesse, the Mass of Christ (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08374c.htm), first found in 1038"
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03724b.htm
So it seems both yule and Christmas are Germanic in origin, and that it is only religion which is different, in the two words.
That said, the word "mass" may have come from Latin, before the Normans, in which case, we are both kind of right.
;)

[NickKIELCEPoland]

PS: I think mass comes from the Latin word for table (mensa).
But the combination Christ and mass was apparently done by the Anglo-saxons, so the combination of two non-Germanic words, can be called a Germanic word.

A bit like the word "walkman", which consists of two non-Japanese words, but which was coined by the Japanese, making it, kind of, a Japanese word.

Television can also be called an English word, since it was coined in Britain (I think), even though tele is Greek and vision is Latin.

[Greendruid]

PS: I think mass comes from the Latin word for table (mensa).
But the combination Christ and mass was apparently done by the Anglo-saxons, so the combination of two non-Germanic words, can be called a Germanic word.

A bit like the word "walkman", which consists of two non-Japanese words, but which was coined by the Japanese, making it, kind of, a Japanese word.

Television can also be called an English word, since it was coined in Britain (I think), even though tele is Greek and vision is Latin.

'Christ' is definitely a Greek word - khristos, meaning 'the annointed one' (from the Greek verb khriein, 'to annoint') - that's from Greek class in first year undergrad but it stuck with me. Incidentally, khristos is just a translation itself of the Hebrew word masiah (annointed one), which also comes into English by way of Latin as 'messiah'.

Language is a wonderfully circuitous thing!

[Donkey]

'Christ' is definitely a Greek word - khristos, meaning 'the annointed one' (from the Greek verb khriein, 'to annoint') - that's from Greek class in first year undergrad but it stuck with me. Incidentally, khristos is just a translation itself of the Hebrew word masiah (annointed one), which also comes into English by way of Latin as 'messiah'.

Language is a wonderfully circuitous thing!

I reckon that the word "Christ" came to the North from Greek, but definitely via Latin...

[Greendruid]

I reckon that the word "Christ" came to the North from Greek, but definitely via Latin...

Not necessarily. Especially with it being a religious word it may very well have made a direct route to English via the Bible and biblical transcriptions of those books being written in Greek. I don't know, I'm just suggesting an alternate route. Both are possible and a third route is indeed that both routes were 'taken' simultaneously. This is precisely why I love language and the ways that it travels.