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The etymology of Yulemath

Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2016 6:09 pm
by caedmon
Possible Hobbit culture rather than Dunedain....

Where (in-universe) does the math in Yulemath come from?

Re: The etymology of Yulemath

Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2016 6:22 pm
by caedmon
ok, I think I answered this for myself....


The professor took it from the Anglo-Saxon: mǽþ which means 'mowing/harvest' and took on the meaning 'time-off holidays'.

SO this would be like saying, "We get time off after we bring the harvest in.", or, "We take of two days of the six days of Yule. We call those days the YuleMath."


http://bosworth.ff.cuni.cz/022245


http://middleearthrangers.org/forum/vie ... ath#p16118

Re: The etymology of Yulemath

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2016 5:08 am
by Manveruon
Makes sense to me! Good sleuthing!

Re: The etymology of Yulemath

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2016 3:48 pm
by Udwin
Huh. I'd never come across that word in my previous Old English studies, so that's a good find. After-math makes a bit more sense now.
That's a decent explanation--since 'mǽþ' is already an existing word-- but I'd always assumed that '-math' was simply JRRT's 'wearing down' of the '-monaþ' ('month') found in the name of many months in the Germanic calendar, which Tolkien 'borrowed' for the names of the Mannish/Shire calendars. Solmath (February; 'mud-month'--late winter gets soggy), Wedmath (August; 'plant-month'), Blotmat (November; 'blood-month', owing to sacrifices), and the aforementioned Yulemath of course.