tellan

Forms

tellan (third-person singular present teleþ, past singular tealde, past plural tealdon)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-West Germanic *talljan, from Proto-Germanic *taljaną (“to count, to tell”).^[1][2] The verb has cognates in Old Norse telja, Old Frisian tella, Old Saxon tellian and Old High German zellen, all meaning “to count” or “to tell”.^[3][4][5]

Orel derives the Proto-Germanic verb from the noun Proto-Germanic *talą, and Holthausen connects it with talu (“tale, account”) and tæl.^[3][4] Köbler refers it, with a query, to the root Proto-Indo-European *del- (“to aim, to reckon”).^[5]

The double ⟨ll⟩ is the West Germanic gemination before /j/, and the ⟨e⟩ is the i-umlaut of the /æ/ that /a/ had become: Ringe and Taylor set out the chain *talljan > *tælljąn > tellan.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is first recorded in the Pastoral Care of Hatton 20, written 890×897, in the sense “to consider, to account”: of King Saul it says that at first he fled the kingship & tealde hine selfne his suiðe unwierðne “and counted himself quite unworthy of it”.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

Bosworth and Toller set the narrative sense, “to tell, to recount”, first, then “to count, to reckon”, and the senses “to consider, to account (someone to be such and such)” and “to impute, to assign”.^[8] The poetry uses it mostly in the sense “to consider”: Klaeber's Beowulf glossary gives only “account, reckon, consider”.^[9] Beside the regular past tealde Bosworth and Toller note forms that follow telian, such as telede.^[8]

The word lived on as Middle English tellen, whose senses run from “to speak, to say” to “to count”, now English tell.^[10][11]

Timeline

• 890×897 – tealde hine selfne his suiðe unwierðne “counted himself quite unworthy” in the Pastoral Care.^[6][7]
• s. x med. – eall þæt ic ðe ær tealde “all that I told you before” in the Old English Boethius.^[12][7]
• s. x/xi – nytte tealde “counted useful” in the Beowulf manuscript.^[13][7]
• s. x ex. – For nahte he tealde “he counted as nothing” in Ælfric's Catholic Homilies I.^[14][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. to tell, narrate, recount.^[8][15]
2. to count, reckon, calculate.^[8][5]
3. to consider, account (someone or something to be such and such).^[8][9]
4. to impute, attribute, assign.^[8][15]

Word family

• ātellan
• betellan
• ġetellan
• tōtellan
• unteald

Descendants

• Middle English tellen (→ English tell; Scots tell)^[1]

Related words

• tæl
• talian
• talu
• telian

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 238
3. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 400
4. ^ a b Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 344
5. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. tellan
6. ^ a b Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 499
7. ^ a b c d e Healey, Antonette diPaolo; Price Wilkin, John; Xiang, Xin, eds. (2009), Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project
8. ^ a b c d e f Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement, p. 975
9. ^ a b Fulk, R. D.; Bjork, Robert E.; Niles, John D., eds. (2008), Klaeber's Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg, 4th ed., Toronto: University of Toronto Press (glossary), p. s.v. tellan
10. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
11. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 296
13. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 344
14. ^ Gneuss, Helmut; Lapidge, Michael (2014), Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p. 407
15. ^ a b Sweet, Henry (1896), The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 193