Adventures in Etymology – Telling Tales
In today’s Adventure in Etymology we’re telling tales about the origins of the word tale. A tale [teɪl] is: * a narrative that relates the details of some real or imaginary event, incident, or case; story * a literary composition having the form of such a narrative * a falsehood; lie * a rumor or piece of gossip, often malicious or untrue It used to mean: * number, tally, quota * account, estimation, regard, heed * speech, language * a speech, a statement, talk, conversation, discourse * a count, declaration It comes from the Middle English tale [ˈtaːl(ə)] (personal narrative, account), from the Old English talu [ˈtɑ.lu] (account, reckoning, tale, narration) from the Proto-West Germanic *talu (narration, report, assessment, judgement, calculation, counting), from the Proto-Germanic *talō (narration, report), from the PIE *dol-éh₂ (reckoning, calculation, fraud), from *del- (to reckon, calculate) [source]. Some words from the same Proto-Germanic root include tell in English, taal [taːl] (language) in Dutch and Afrikaans, Zahl [tsaːl] (number, numeral, figure) in German, tala [ˈtʰaːla] (a speech, button, number) in Icelandic, tala [ˈtɑːˌla] (to speak, tell, talk) in Swedish, and tale [ˈtˢæːlə] (speech, talk, discourse; to speak, talk) in Danish [source]. Here’s a video I made of this information: Video made with Doodly – an easy-to-use animated video creator [affiliate link]. Here’s a silly little ditty I wrote in 2019 called Tall Tales: Simon Ager · Tall Tales / Storïau asgwrn pen llo I also write about words, etymology, and other language-related topics, on the Omniglot Blog, and I explore etymological connections between Celtic languages on the Celtiadur. You can also listen to this podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Stitcher, TuneIn, Podchaser, PlayerFM or podtail. If you would like to support this podcast, you can make a donation via PayPal or Patreon, or contribute to Omniglot in other ways.