What is it about?

Old English, like most medieval European languages, was influenced by Latin. Many previous works have focused on Latin loanwords. However, in this paper I examine the form Latin masculine proper names (e.g. Marcus) take when they enter the Old English language. The main question I try to answer is: Do names generally look like Latin or like Old English, or perhaps a mixture of the two?

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Why is it important?

This work studies some linguistic items —proper names— that tend to be overlooked in linguistic analysis due to their peculiarities. It shows that although they are normally dismissed, they can offer insights concerning our general understanding of how the adaptation of loanwords in Old English works and demonstrates that many factors —morphological, syntactic and also textual— must be taken into account in order to understand the mechanisms of adaptation.

Perspectives

Writing this article was a great pleasure mainly because it widened my perspectives as a researcher. I had never worked with loanwords or topics related to Latin influence on Old English, but as I regularly had problems with the morphological tagging of Latin names while working on "The Old English Martyrology", I decided I needed to study this issue thoroughly to be able to analyse these items correctly and consistently. During the research process, I have discovered a whole new field that I find very attractive. I will certainly do more research on related topics and hope that others find the article interesting enough and leads them to investigate how proper names can help us understand processes of loans adaptations better.

Esaúl Ruiz Narbona
Universidad de Sevilla

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This page is a summary of: The inflection of Latin masculine proper names in The Old English Martyrology, NOWELE North-Western European Language Evolution, June 2023, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/nowele.00072.rui.
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