FabSwingers.com forum: Eleven & Twelve, Anglo-Saxons & Stuff

By *ohnjones3210 OP Man
13 weeks ago

Chester

So, I have some weird fascinations with many different subjects, and etymology is one of them. So, here's the story of Eleven & Twelve, for those of you who are interested in the weird goings on of my mind.

Ladies, make sure you put your pads on or a towel underneath, because you're going to be soaking wet by the time you reach the bottom of this - it really is that sexy.

So, if you think about it, these two words 'eleven' and 'twelve' are weird. Why do we have them? Why not oneteen and twoteen? Why do they have weird endings? What's going on?

Well, if we go right back in time, we get some clues. To start with, the earliest records show that the British Isles were inhabited by mostly Celtic tribes, although English is not at all a Celtic language, so it's nothing to do with those guys. After the Celts, the isles were conquered by the Romans, but these two words were not Latin either (although we do have a lot of Latin-based words in our language).

After the Roman military left, our islands had a massive influence from Proto-Germanic tribes who came over to settle, in particular the Angles and the Saxons (from around Denmark area). These tribes basically became the heart who we are today and this is the origin of these words.

Some will argue that our roots are more French or Latin (or even Celtic), but I disagree. If you look at the very core of our language, it's all Proto-Germanic. The most primitive words; mother, father, brother, sister, one, two, three, house, field, food, hound, gate, path, etc - they're all from a Proto-Germanic origin. Anyway, I digress...

Basically, the words Eleven and Twelve are proto-germanic. They literally mean; "one-left" and "two-left". In old high german, eleven was "einlif". In old Saxon, twelve was "twelif". See that? "Ein-lif" - "One left". If you imagine you're counting sheep or something on your farm, you count with your fingers... Ahh, I've got ten (a full hand) and two left. How many sheep have you got there Olaf? I've got two left. (10+2).

As languages develop, they sometimes get further and further apart because of accents, laziness, vowel shifts and foreign influence. In old english, what was originally "einlif" became "enleofan" and "twelif" probably became something like "twoleofan".

For those of you who know German, you'll be aware of some known diversions that have seperated English from German as they've grown older. For example, 'f' in German has sort of 'v' sound in English. If you replace the 'f' above with 'v', you start to see what's going on. So, for example "enleofan" becomes "enleovan". Ofcourse, if you pronounce that, you can clearly hear "eleven".

Incidentally, eleven in German is just "elf", so, at some point, something happened with the vowel "I" in German, "einlif" probably became "enlf", but because it's not easy to say, they'd have silenced the 'n' which left them with "elf". Lazy Germans! Likewise, German "zwölf" is remarkably similar to our "twelve".

Also, you'll notice that all Proto-Germanic languages have a similar style, some diverging more than others.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this bit of neuro-divergent stuff on a Friday afternoon.

Have a good day!

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By *icecouple561Couple
Forum Mod
13 weeks ago

East Sussex

Absolutely fascinating! I find this stuff so interesting.

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By *icecouple561Couple
Forum Mod
13 weeks ago

East Sussex

^^ and isn't sarcasm

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By *electableicecreamMan
13 weeks ago

The West

Fascinating! I never research etymology but I love it when it comes my way.

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By (user no longer on site)
13 weeks ago

So interesting, i didn't know this!

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By *icecouple561Couple
Forum Mod
13 weeks ago

East Sussex

I always wonder if 'le canif ' (pocket knife) is the root of knife.

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By *ohnjones3210 OP Man
13 weeks ago

Chester

"^^ and isn't sarcasm"

Haha, thanks. I'll do some others at some point. I think it really is fascinating.

Here's another one that's just come to mind though; Spider. It's also from Proto-Germanic.

In Danish it's "Spinder" (pronounced like spinner). In German it's "spinne" (pronounced like shpeener). We have a noun; spinner. It's ofcourse "one who spins"...

And literally, a spider is a spinner (of silk). Imagine it, two thousand years ago, "hey look at this black thing with eight legs - what it it?" "I don't know but it's spinning silk into webs - it's a spinner". Then forever after it was known as a "spinner" because it spins silk.

So yes, spider, spinder, spinner comes from Proto-Indo-European "spen", to "spin".

What's also interesting is that we are quite special in that, have you noticed that sometimes we have two completely different words for one thing? How bizarre, but we do! We kept Roman words as well as our Proto-Germanic words and used them both.

The Romans called spiders "Arachnids". In English, we have two words for spider. In the Latin languages though, they appear to just have the Latin word.

It's weird isn't it?

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By *ags73Man
13 weeks ago

glasgow-ish

Good post OP

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By *wist my nipplesCouple
13 weeks ago

North East Scotland, mostly

I bloody love this, OP. One left, two left! Brilliant.

Is this post essentially ND catnip?

Mrs TMN x

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By *icecouple561Couple
Forum Mod
13 weeks ago

East Sussex

"^^ and isn't sarcasm

Haha, thanks. I'll do some others at some point. I think it really is fascinating.

Here's another one that's just come to mind though; Spider. It's also from Proto-Germanic.

In Danish it's "Spinder" (pronounced like spinner). In German it's "spinne" (pronounced like shpeener). We have a noun; spinner. It's ofcourse "one who spins"...

So yes, spider, spinder, spinner comes from Proto-Indo-European "spen", to "spin".

The Romans called spiders "Arachnids". In English, we have two words for spider. In the Latin languages though, they appear to just have the Latin word.

It's weird isn't it?"

Humans are weird.

I really struggle to learn languages b that don't have their roots in Latin or Saxon type. Japanese and Greek are particularly difficult I find

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By *ornucopiaMan
13 weeks ago

Bexley

It would be interesting to know what the numeral naming etymology is in Swahili and Gujarati.

Many East Africans use an aternative finger counting method where the thumb itself is used to count th twelve finger joints.

When i first observed twelve segment counting I realised straight away how duodecimal originated. Its great advantage is that you can count on one of tour hands while moving things with the other.

If you don't need both hands for moving items around, you can easily count up to 144 accurately and efficiently.

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By *ansoffateMan
13 weeks ago

Sagittarius A

Very interesting indeed.

See those Germans really do have ways of making us talk.

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By *ohnjones3210 OP Man
13 weeks ago

Chester

"^^ and isn't sarcasm

Haha, thanks. I'll do some others at some point. I think it really is fascinating.

Here's another one that's just come to mind though; Spider. It's also from Proto-Germanic.

In Danish it's "Spinder" (pronounced like spinner). In German it's "spinne" (pronounced like shpeener). We have a noun; spinner. It's ofcourse "one who spins"...

So yes, spider, spinder, spinner comes from Proto-Indo-European "spen", to "spin".

The Romans called spiders "Arachnids". In English, we have two words for spider. In the Latin languages though, they appear to just have the Latin word.

It's weird isn't it?

Humans are weird.

I really struggle to learn languages b that don't have their roots in Latin or Saxon type. Japanese and Greek are particularly difficult I find"

Yes, I'm the same. You'd have thought that the easiest language for us would be German/Danish. They have the same roots AND use the Latin alphabet, but in my opinion, they're not the easiest.

I have a basic understanding of;

Spanish

German

Polish

I find Spanish to be the easiest - by far because it's grammatically simple, it's logical and literal.

German I find ok, but I find many words to be completely bizarre or misleading. For example "bitteschön". It means "beautiful please" but they use it to mean "thanks". What?!? A few days ago I was reading something and no f*cking idea what it was trying to say. It was saying something like "mir gefallen". To me that means "something fell on me". But it turns out that if something has fallen on someone, that it means that that person "liked it". What?!? Then you come across absolutely bizarre names like "Mark Zuckerberg", Mark sugar mountain? Albert Einstein... Albert One Stone. Guys, seriously?!? What were you smoking when you come up with these words and names?!?

Polish; the grammatical complexity makes it absolutely ridiculous. There are three genders and seven cases. That's without mentioning other complexities within the language. However, when it comes to pronunciation, it's extremely literal and easy. There's nothing really unexpected as far as I'm aware.

Incidentally, talking of names, there's a Czech billionaire who wants to buy Royal Mail. His name is Daniel Kretinsky, I could be wrong, but my gut tells me that that means something like "Daniel Moron", "Daniel Idiotson", "Daniel Moronson", "Daniel progeny of Morons", "Daniel son of Morons" or something similar. 😂

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By *ophieslutTV/TS
13 weeks ago

Central

Thanks so much OP.

. I'm in heaven

. Hope this could be frequent and regular

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By *ell GwynnWoman
13 weeks ago

North Yorkshire

"I bloody love this, OP. One left, two left! Brilliant.

Is this post essentially ND catnip?

Mrs TMN x"

Yep! This is good shit

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By *ohnjones3210 OP Man
13 weeks ago

Chester

Thanks everyone, yeah, I'll see what I can do!

I have plenty of things like this to talk about.

Ps. Have you all mopped your floors and/or changed your sheets? 😂

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By *wist my nipplesCouple
13 weeks ago

North East Scotland, mostly

"Thanks everyone, yeah, I'll see what I can do!

I have plenty of things like this to talk about.

Ps. Have you all mopped your floors and/or changed your sheets? 😂"

I just slipped in Mrs TMN’s juices and banged my funny bone. Thanks for that.

Mr TMN

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By *usurrusCouple
13 weeks ago

North West.

Then this surely follows that if England is named after the Angles.....

Angland becomes England.

Then had we been named after the Saxons we would live in......

Sexland?

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By *atnip make me purrWoman
13 weeks ago

Reading

Similar to the same words in dutch

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By *ohnjones3210 OP Man
13 weeks ago

Chester

"Thanks everyone, yeah, I'll see what I can do!

I have plenty of things like this to talk about.

Ps. Have you all mopped your floors and/or changed your sheets? 😂

I just slipped in Mrs TMN’s juices and banged my funny bone. Thanks for that.

Mr TMN "

Next time, I'll sell non-slip mats an hour before then.

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By *ohnjones3210 OP Man
13 weeks ago

Chester

"Then this surely follows that if England is named after the Angles.....

Angland becomes England.

Then had we been named after the Saxons we would live in......

Sexland? "

Bahahahahahaha, we'd have been called "Saxony" or "Great Saxony"! Nice logic there though, very nice.

Just to let you know though, there's an area that the Saxons traveled across called "Doggerland". Google it. 😂

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By *ulieScrumptiousWoman
13 weeks ago

North West

I love this! ❤️

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By *dventurousSexplorersCouple
13 weeks ago

Fantasy Land

Great post OP, more of this please mate I find this kind of stuff absolutely fascinating too. I bore Skye to death half the time with origins and histories like this. I have a feeling me and you could have some dangerously long conversations 😂 hahaha

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By *ohnjones3210 OP Man
13 weeks ago

Chester

"Great post OP, more of this please mate I find this kind of stuff absolutely fascinating too. I bore Skye to death half the time with origins and histories like this. I have a feeling me and you could have some dangerously long conversations 😂 hahaha"

Bahaha, you've just reminded me of something. Years ago when I was on here last, a friend of mine arranged to meet up with a couple at a bar.

The men got on so well that they ended up having 10 games of pool and about 8 pints each. The woman got a taxi home and slated him on her profile on the couple status as a time-waster!

😂😂😂😂

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By *rthur30Man
13 weeks ago

Warrington

More please!

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By (user no longer on site)
13 weeks ago

I live in Hackney which was an Anglo saxon settlement. Hackney was known as Haca'sey, a name that means high ground in marshland owned by Haca who was a local Dane landowner.

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By *ohnjones3210 OP Man
13 weeks ago

Chester

"I live in Hackney which was an Anglo saxon settlement. Hackney was known as Haca'sey, a name that means high ground in marshland owned by Haca who was a local Dane landowner. "

Yes, it's interesting stuff isn't it Miss Flame?

Yes! A "ney"/"neg" is Saxon for island! You'll probably find that all high grounds in your area end with "ney". Possibly 2,000 years ago, your area was submerged in water, so they actually were islands! I don't know for sure though.

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By *ohnjones3210 OP Man
12 weeks ago

Chester

Hey everyone, I made a part 2. See it below;

https://m.fabswingers.com/forum/swingers/1652998

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By *tealthbomber2024Man
12 weeks ago

southend-on-sea

I don't know about the women, but I wanked off to that story.

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By *ulieScrumptiousWoman
12 weeks ago

North West

"Hey everyone, I made a part 2. See it below;

https://m.fabswingers.com/forum/swingers/1652998"

You posted it in Swingers Chat! I feel tricked! 😂😂

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By (user no longer on site)
12 weeks ago

Brilliant and I’m not taking the piss this time 👏🏽👏🏽 thank you for this nugget of education 👍🏽

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By *ohnjones3210 OP Man
12 weeks ago

Chester

"I don't know about the women, but I wanked off to that story."

Bahahahaha! I'm not going to lie, the keyboard was all sticky as I typed it out.

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By *ohnjones3210 OP Man
12 weeks ago

Chester

"Hey everyone, I made a part 2. See it below;

https://m.fabswingers.com/forum/swingers/1652998

You posted it in Swingers Chat! I feel tricked! 😂😂"

Ooooooooops, so I did! 😂

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By *ohnjones3210 OP Man
12 weeks ago

Chester

"Brilliant and I’m not taking the piss this time 👏🏽👏🏽 thank you for this nugget of education 👍🏽"

Lols, any piss taking is welcome. 😂

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By *amie HantsWoman
12 weeks ago

Atlantis

I’ve always wondered why and now I know! I love stuff like this

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By *ohnjones3210 OP Man
12 weeks ago

Chester

"I’ve always wondered why and now I know! I love stuff like this

Well there you go Miss Hants. Check the next one out. It's long though.

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