I showed my wife a striking photo of hop pickers at work; neither of us had had any idea that hops grew vertically and had to be picked that way. Then (of course) I got onto the word hops, which the OED told me had been around since the 15th century (c1440 “Hoppe, sede for beyre..hummulus, secundum extraneos,” Promptorium Parvulorum 245/2) and was inherited from Germanic:
In 15th cent. hoppe, < Middle Dutch hoppe, Dutch hop = late Old High German hopfo (Middle High German hopfe, German hopfen); medieval Latin hupa (for *huppa); ulterior origin obscure.
The Wikipedia article mentioned that hops are dried in an oast house, and we agreed that oast is a funny-sounding word; it goes back to Old English (OE “Siccatorium, cyln uel ast,” Antwerp Glossary 239) and has a more ancient etymology:
Cognate with Middle Dutch ast, est, eest (Dutch eest), Middle Low German eist, probably < a suffixed form (verbal adjective) of the same Indo-European base as ad n.¹; compare classical Latin aestās summer, aestus heat, boiling, bubbling, tide, and also the first element of the Germanic personal name Aistomodius, lit. ‘fiery mind’ (2nd. cent.). Compare east n.²
That ad¹ is “A pyre, spec. a funeral pyre. Also: fire as a means of burning bodies” and only lasted until the 13th century:
Cognate with Old Frisian ēd peat (for fuel), Old Saxon ēd pyre, Old High German eit hearth, pyre (Middle High German eit) < the same Indo-European base as (with various different stem formations) ancient Greek αἶθος heat, classical Latin aedēs hearth, house (see edifice n.), Early Irish áed fire.
And east² is an English regional (south-western) equivalent of oast.
Thanks for that! It resonates with something tasty I discovered not long ago. I make a tasty tea with hops. Just get yourself some hops (which are available dried online; try to get the flowers and not the compacted pellets which brewers seem to prefer), boil some water, turn off the heat, toss in a couple of flowers, and steep for a few minutes. It tastes like a very, very light IPA. I also brew a tea from malted millet. I grind a tablespoonful for two cups of water, add some dried mint, some anise seed, and some licorice, and steep for a while. Drink beer if you like, but beer has gluten, which doesn’t like me.
a very, very light IPA
Sounds good ! Without all those strange symbols whose meaning I can never remember.
Well, according to the Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen:
Which would mean the word might ultimately be related to Gm. Haufen (and hüpfen and Hüfte) and Engl. heap.
I found this interesting description of brewing history and the introduction of hops, which it would be pointless to reiterate here, since you can read the article.
https://maidensandmanuscripts.com/2019/01/01/a-history-of-beer-brewing-in-germany-and-the-low-countries/
Medieval beer did not contain hops, but other herbs were used. Some accounts I have read suggest that some of the herbs may have been hallucinogenic. This beer was called gruit.
I wonder whether this is the origin of the Irish word for “brewery”, which is grúdlann. -lann is a suffix meaning the place where something goes on.
Hop tea is supposed to make you drowsy. I wonder how far back this knowledge goes. The medieval monks spent a lot of time studying and growing medicinal herbs.
I’d like to see a book about the history of hops. The article I linked is interesting, but I can’t help feeling there’s still more there.
I immediately thought of the old jingle:
Turkeys, heresy, hops and beer
Came to England all in one year
After some searching I found this: https://www.mebondbooks.com/2017/07/24/the-reformation-had-a-little-help-from-hops-maybe/
Gruit surely is too Dutch to be older in English than turkeys and heresy.
De Gruyter must have made it. Expensive stuff, I suppose.
There is another Germanic hop word, Scandinavian humle
To quote Wiktionary humle for Norwegian:
“From Old Norse humli, probably from Proto-Slavic *xъmelь.[1] Compare with Danish humle, Swedish humle, Faroese humli, humla, Icelandic humall.”
xъmeľь:
“Commonly derived from either Germanic, Indo-Iranian or Turkic.
See Old Norse humli, Ossetian хуымӕллӕг (x°ymællæg) and Proto-Turkic *kumlak respectively.”
The weird thing about it is the convergence of Russian xmeľ “hop” šmeľ “bumblebee” – and identical convergence in Norwegian humle (both).
Two more zoos of humle-hop words:
Humulus:
“From Medieval Latin humulus, also humalus, humulo, humolo, humlo, humelo, humlonaria and many other forms, an 8th-century Latinization of Frankish *humilo, known from Old English hymele, Middle Low German hommel, Middle Dutch hommel, North Frisian Hommel, Hummel, Old Norse humli, humall, considered like *malt (“malt”) from Proto-Slavic *molto (“malt”) to be from Proto-Slavic *xъmeľь (“hop”), like Hungarian homló, komló, Eastern Mari умла (umla), Western Mari ымыла (ymyla), Erzya комля (komľa), Moksha комля (komľa, “hop”) from Proto-Turkic *kumlak or Old Iranian in view of Ossetian хуымӕллӕг (x°ymællæg, “hop”).”
(I marked the OE form)
houblon
(1407) Du moyen français houbelon, de houppe suffixé avec -elon et avec une sonorisation du \p\ en \b\ inexpliquée, de l’ancien français hoppe (« bière houblonnée »), du néerlandais hop.
L’ancien français hoppe (« bière houblonnée ») était en usage dans les parlers du Nord et en wallon et il a supplanté l’ancien judéo-français homlon (« houblon ») qui survit encore dans les toponymes des départements de l’Aisne et de la Somme ; de l’ancien bas francique *humilo de même sens → voir humle en suédois et norvégien, le latin médiéval en a tiré humulus (« houblon » 822). Le mot d’origine franque a été évincé par son concurrent néerlandais, ce dernier correspondant à une amélioration de la technique de la brasserie dans les Pays-Bas et en Flandre.”
Oh, thanks. I meant to look up that half-remembered connection to humle, but forgot..
Note that the word is old enough in Germanic to have made it into French through Frankish and to have (quasi-)cognates in Old English and Old Norse. There’s a certain discrepancy between the various stories here. I wonder if maidhc’s link could have it the wrong way around.*
* Though I do know that other herbs were used in traditional brewing. Bog myrtle (Myrica gale) was common in Norway.
@TE, there is a Moroccan word for carrot which in Arabic is borrowed from Berber and in Berber is borrowed from Arabic.
That’s great!
If you mean the Berber-Arabic word, I of course mean that it is likely neither Arabic nor Berber:)
The problem with Berber is [x].
Ah, I withdraw my awe!
@LH, I think presently any serious scholar is aware of the situation with carrots, but it occasionaly arises elsewhere.
You’re a specialist in a family A and you have a hard time explaining some word. Being in somewhat less intimate relationships with other families you point at the family B as the most likely source. Because… it has this word too.
Now, you’re a specialist in a family B and you have a hard time explaining some word. Being in somewhat less intimate….