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... As I described earlier, there were many changes during the Old English (OE) period of development, not least in the amount of new words which swelled the lexical coffers of the language so, It can be of interest here to see if any of the words: holly, holy and mount, entered Britain along with the invaders. My main sources of reference, unless otherwise noted, are the Oxford Concise Dictionary of English Etymology (1996) (OCDEE) or its digital equivalent at: https://www.oxfordreference.com. It seems logical to start with holly because we know the Holly tree existed in Celtic times. We also know that it exists today and therefore it seems reasonable to assume that it existed 700 - 1100 AD and would need a name. The OCDEE tells us that it was then called holegn - meaning literally ‘to prick’ - and it’s not difficult to see some relation with the word holly. Neither is it difficult to see some relation to the invading Germanic languages in the Old Saxon word hulis with the same meaning so we can safely assume that holegn arrived with the invaders. While the first recorded evidence is from the twelfth century, shortly after the end of the OE period, the word would have become established in the OE period. These changes take time. We even know how it was pronounced. During my education, the phonetics (sound system) of the language was never one of my favourite areas. I crammed in enough to get me through the exams and accumulated a great deal of notes in the process. I am now thankful for the latter for there I can read that, despite the seemingly weird spelling, Old English is not hard to pronounce. You simply pronounce every letter! The sounds are pretty much the same as those we have now and most are even represented by the same letter. One exception, however, is the letter ‘g’ - as in holegn. Apart from being used for the sounds which we now spell with ‘g’ (garden, beggar, and pig) it was also used to represent the sound we now, sometimes, spell with ‘y’ (yard, yacht, and yesterday). A third sound represented by ‘g’ no longer exists in English. This sound can best be described, by me, as the sound you make at the beginning of what we northerners would call a good, old-fashioned ‘hockle’ – ‘clearing one’s throat’ to the uninitiated. It still exists in Dutch, German and Spanish and, according to my notes; there is still a hint of it in the Liverpool dialect! That type of ‘g’ sound has disappeared but in modern English spelling it left a trail, in the ‘w’ of words like law, draw and bow (of ship), as spelling reforms attempted to reproduce the ‘hockle’ sound of ‘g’ in the Germanic words lag, drag and bog. That ‘g’ still remains in the spelling of some other Germanic languages - including Swedish from which those examples are taken. Moving on to mount I’m also assuming, that like holly, the phenomenon mount/hill was around throughout the period under discussion and there must have been a word with which the invading Anglo-Saxon settlers could refer to it. The entry for mount in the Oxford Concise Dictionary of English Etymology (1996) tells us that the OE word was munt and that it had two other meanings: ‘earthwork’ and ‘mound’, but both became obsolete. It doesn’t seem like too big a step from munt to mount but that change doesn’t appear to have taken place before the OE period ended at the beginning of the twelfth century. That leaves ‘holy’. We’ve already seen that there are some similarities in form which may have assisted the transition between holegn and its modern English equivalent ‘holly’. Were there also similarities between holegn and the OE word for ‘holy’ which could account for the transition of ‘holly’ to ‘holy’ at that time? Could the two words have sufficient similarity to allow a slip of the tongue which started the ball rolling, so to speak? The short answer to that is no, the reason being that England was still in the grip of the ‘spiritual’ invasion and the language of choice for all matters ecclesiastical was Latin, recently brought by the Irish monks, and sanctus would have been the word in use, as in Sanctus Spiritus meaning, as it does to this day, Holy Ghost. So, holy, with any religious connotation, did not appear to exist. From that, I draw the conclusion that, while the name Holly Mount was possible during the Old English period, its transformation to Holy Mount was not. However, there was another word, from the OE period – the Old Saxon word halig (pronounced similarly to Harley + that ‘hockle sound’ on the ‘g’). It is clearly Germanic in origin, being related to the Old Dutch heilig and the Old Norse heilagr but it had no religious meaning. It appears, instead, to have meant “of good augury” (a good sign/omen) or “inviolate” (free or safe from injury or bad health). It has not been possible to find out what it meant in pre-Christian times but probably meant “that must be preserved whole or intact”. www.etymonline.com Indeed, the word ‘whole’ seems to have been derived from hal and I’m told by a Scottish acquaintance, an English teacher, that the first half, hal, lives on in the expression “hale and hearty”. I haven’t been able to research that yet but it would appear reasonable to me. Anyhow, it was this word, halig that eventually, over a few centuries, became the word ‘holy’ which we know today. I’ll be having a closer look at its transition shortly and bringing it closer to home - in Durham. By way of anecdote: halig was also a close relative of the Old High German word heilig – the first part of which most of us can recognise from a popular greeting of a certain German furor. Now, you’d be forgiven for asking why anybody would use the word holy in reference to Adolf Hitler. The answer is that while the OE word halig has, over a few centuries, changed its meaning the Old High German word, heilig, has not and therefore retains its connotations of good health and good luck. To be continued …