Alliteration in Culture - PDF Free Download

Alliteration in Culture Also by Jonathan Roper CHARMS AND CHARMING IN EUROPE CHARMS, CHARMERS AND CHARMING: Internati...

Author: Jonathan Roper (editor)

68 downloads 2272 Views 2MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!

Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

Alliteration in Culture

Also by Jonathan Roper CHARMS AND CHARMING IN EUROPE CHARMS, CHARMERS AND CHARMING: International Research on Verbal Magic ENGLISH VERBAL CHARMS

Alliteration in Culture Edited by

Jonathan Roper University of Tartu, Estonia

Selection, Introduction and Editorial Matter © Jonathan Roper 2011 Chapters © their individual authors 2011 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978–0–230–23264–8

hardback

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Alliteration in culture/edited by Jonathan Roper. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978–0–230–23264–8 (hardback) ISBN-10: 0–230–23264–7 (hardback) 1. Alliteration. I. Roper, Jonathan, 1969– P311.A66 2011 414'.6—dc22 2011004366 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

This book is for Ellen Marigold Roper

This page intentionally left blank

Contents List of Illustrations

ix

List of Tables

x

Notes on the Contributors

xi

Introduction: Key Topics in the Study of Alliteration Jonathan Roper 1

2

3

4

Love, Silver and the Devil: Alliteration in English Place-Names Jeremy Harte

21

Alliteration in English-Language Versions of Current Widespread European Idioms and Proverbs Fionnuala Carson Williams

34

Alliteration in Inaugural Addresses: From George Washington to Barack Obama Helena Halmari

45

Purposely to Please the Palates of Pretty Prattling Playfellows Paul Cowdell

62

5

Dealing Dooms: Alliteration in the Old Frisian Laws Rolf H. Bremmer Jr

6

Restrictions on Alliteration and Rhyme in Contemporary Swedish Personal Names with an Old Germanic Retrospect Lennart Hagåsen

7

8

9

1

74

93

Alliteration in the Þrymskviða and in Chamisso’s German Translation Larissa Naiditch

109

Alliteration in Iceland: From the Edda to Modern Verse and Pop Lyrics Kristján Árnason

123

Alliteration Involving /s/ in the History of Icelandic Poetry Ragnar Ingi Aðalsteinsson vii

141

viii Contents

10 Alliteration in Mongol Poetry György Kara 11 Around Analysis and Hypothesis of Hungarian Alliteration Vilmos Voigt

156

180

12 Alliteration in (Balto-) Finnic Languages Frog and Eila Stepanova

195

13 Alliteration in Somali Poetry Martin Orwin

219

14 Alliteration in Sign Language Poetry Michiko Kaneko

231

Index

247

List of Illustrations 3.1

Alliteration per 1000 words

52

3.2

Comparison of first vs subsequent inaugural addresses

55

14.1 Sequence of signs from Wim Emmerik’s ‘Desert’

241

14.2 The sign sequence from Rita DeSarker’s ‘Rose’

242

14.3 Three signs from Penny Beschizza’s ‘Grass’

242

14.4 Signs from Nigel Howard’s ‘Deaf’

243

ix

List of Tables 3.1

Summary of the corpus

49

3.2

The ten presidents with the least alliteration per 1000 words

51

The ten presidents with the most alliteration per 1000 words

53

The ten addresses with the most alliteration per 1000 words

54

The ten presidents with near-average alliteration scores in chronological order

57

3.3 3.4 3.5 9.1

Alliteration with ‘s’

146

9.2

Over-alliteration in first and second line, secondary alliteration side by side and separately

152

14.1 Sound patterns and examples 14.2

Contrast of plain and bent handshapes in their semantic categories

x

233 240

Notes on the Contributors Ragnar Ingi Aðalsteinsson is both a published poet and a researcher of metrics. He is currently an adjunct in Icelandic at the University of Iceland, while also writing both poetry and textbooks, as well as professional journal articles, especially on metrics. Kristján Árnason is Professor of Icelandic Linguistics at the University of Iceland. He has done work on sociolinguistics, historical phonology and metrics. Among his publications in the latter fields are Quantity in Historical Phonology: Icelandic and Related Cases (1980, reprinted 2009), and The Rhythms of dróttkvætt and Other Old Icelandic Metres (1991, reprinted 2000). Rolf H. Bremmer Jr is Senior Lecturer in Medieval English and, by special appointment, Professor of Frisian at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands. He has published widely in both fields, most recently An Introduction to Old Frisian. History, Grammar, Reader, Glossary (2009) and, as co-editor with Kees Dekker, Practice in Learning: the Transfer of Encyclopaedic Knowledge in the Early Middle Ages (2010). Paul Cowdell was a professional actor before entering the academic world. A member of the Folklore Society, he won the Society’s President’s Prize for an essay on an unpublished agricultural protest song. He is currently researching contemporary belief in ghosts at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. He has published articles on cannibal ballads, occupational ghost stories, and folklore about rats. Frog is presently a Research Fellow at the University of Helsinki Department of Folklore Studies, Finland. His research focuses on the transmission and evolution of Finno-Karelian and Germanic mythological narratives and poetics within the broader context of the circumBaltic cultural area. Lennart Hagåsen works at the Department of Onomastics (Namnarkivet i Uppsala) of the Institute for Language and Folklore (Institutet för språk och folkminnen) in Uppsala, Sweden. His specialities are the study of the morphophonology of Swedish personal names (first names and surnames) and interpretations of Swedish place-names. He has also published some articles on Slavonic word formation. xi

xii Notes on the Contributors

Helena Halmari is a Professor of Linguistics in the Department of English at Sam Houston State University, USA. She has published in the areas of bilingual code switching and discourse analysis. She is the author of Government and Codeswitching: Explaining American Finnish (1997) and co-editor (with Tuija Virtanen) of Persuasion across Genres: a Linguistic Approach (2005). Jeremy Harte is a researcher into the overlap between folklore and the landscape, especially places of encounter with the supernatural. His books include Cuckoo Pounds and Singing Barrows, The Green Man, English Holy Wells and Explore Fairy Traditions. He trained as a museum professional, and is curator of the Bourne Hall Museum, UK. György Kara, long-time Professor of Inner Asian studies at ELTE University of Budapest, currently Professor at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA and member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, has published on Altaic and Tibetan philology, including Chants d’un barde mongol (1972), Books of the Mongolian Nomads (2005) and Dictionary of Sonom Gara’s Erdeni-yin Sang (2009). Michiko Kaneko works at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Bristol, UK, where she is pursuing research into the linguistic aspects of sign language poetry and metaphor and symbolism in the language of visual-manual modality. Larissa Naiditch is Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Linguistics of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, where she teaches Gothic, Old Icelandic, Old and Middle High German, as well as several topics in general linguistics. Her fields of scientific interest include the history and dialectology of German, comparative grammar and phonology of Germanic languages, languages in contact, and poetics. Martin Orwin is Senior Lecturer in Somali and Amharic at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK. He teaches both languages and his research centres on language use in Somali poetry, particularly the metrical system. Jonathan Roper works at the Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore at the University of Tartu, Estonia. He is interested in traditional linguistic genres. Eila Stepanova is based at the University of Helsinki’s Department of Folklore Studies, Finland, where she is presently working on the language, structure and compositional strategies of Karelian laments in

Notes on the Contributors xiii

the contexts of local, regional, Finnic, Russian and Baltic cultures. She is a board member of the Juminkeko Cultural Foundation and other organisations. Vilmos Voigt is Professor of Folklore, Eötvös Loránd University, Faculty of Philosophy, Budapest, Hungary. He graduated from the same university. His main interests are comparative folklore, comparative religion, aesthetics and semiotics. Fionnuala Carson Williams is a folklorist specialising in proverbs, who has contributed to projects and meetings such as the Association of International Paremiology’s Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Proverbs. Her book Wellerisms in Ireland was published in 2002.

This page intentionally left blank

Introduction: Key Topics in the Study of Alliteration Jonathan Roper

In a sense the international study of alliteration is only now beginning. The phenomenon of the repetition of word-initial sounds (to give a simple definition of alliteration) is a widespread one, found in a significant variety of languages and text-types, but rarely has it been itself the focus of study. It is a topic which has fallen out of fashion without ever having been very fashionable. If we look at the monumental dictionary of Old Germanic culture and language put together a century ago by Hoops, we find ten pages dedicated to ‘Stabreim’ (1911–19: 4, 231–40). But when we turn to the recently completed revision of this dictionary, a work which has grown to 35 volumes from the original four, we find alliteration receives half as many pages of coverage in a work which is itself many times larger (Hoops 1973–2008: 29, 435–40). To date, most discussion of alliteration has been made in passing, and scholars who take alliteration as central to their studies, such as Jeep (1995, 2006), or who take it as key data with which to view some other phenomena, such as Minkova (2003), remain few in number. Much of the scholarship that does exist on alliteration is on alliterative verse. The ‘renascence of interest in alliterative meters’ that Gade and Fulk (2000: i) spoke of shows no signs of lessening, and yet, even here, we find another sign of the relative neglect of alliteration, in that the terminology that is used to discuss it is in no way as developed as that which has developed over the centuries to discuss rhyme. True, scholars in particular research traditions have developed intriguing concepts, such as ‘alliterative haze’ (Sarv 1999, used in an Estonian context), ‘alliterative rank’ (Brink 1920, Cronan 1986, used in a medieval English context), ‘colliteration’ (Burke 1941: 370), ‘cluster alliteration’ (e.g. in Minkova 2003), the distinction between ‘strong alliteration’ and ‘weak alliteration’ (used in a Baltic Finnic context), and the distinction between 1

2

Alliteration in Culture

‘alliterating’ and ‘staving’ (Jeep 1996: 34). However, these terms, which might very well be applicable within other research traditions, have remained somewhat buried in their original contexts, and have not yet gained a wider circulation among international scholars. So, the purpose of the present volume is to turn the focus onto alliteration. But alliteration cannot be studied in isolation. Alliteration occurs not in the abstract but in culture: in specific text-types in specific languages at specific times. The rules and conventions associated with alliteration vary accordingly, as do its connotations. This volume thus presents a broad range of specific examples of the use of alliteration in a variety of languages and text-types. Drawing on these chapters, we can begin to make some initial generalisations as to alliteration’s powers and properties. The book can be seen as falling into three sections: Chapters 1–4 cover alliteration in various English text-types, Chapters 5–9 deal with alliteration in other Germanic languages and Chapters 10–14 address alliteration in other languages. To deal with the first of these sections first, we can note that discussion of alliteration in English has been, aside from pioneering contributions such as Schwarz (1923) and Dury (1996), largely confined to the field of verse. Such work on alliterative metre includes landmarks such as Skeat (1868), Oakden (1930, 1935), Lehmann (1956), Turville-Petre (1977) and Minkova (2003), joined most recently by Putter et al. (2007) and Putter and Jefferson (2009). Yet, while alliteration’s role in English poetic metre ended half a millennium ago (see though Turville-Petre (1977: 125) and Phelpstead (2004)), alliteration is still alive and well in English prose: in proverbial comparisons, tabloid headlines and the names of characters in children’s literature, to give just three examples. The genres (or perhaps we should say ‘micro-genres’, in the case of character names) in which alliteration plays a part are close to speech and often considered ‘low’ stylistically, but are no less important for that. The four chapters that deal with anglophone alliteration in this collection are similarly dedicated to speech genres (or speech-like genres): inaugural addresses, tongue-twisters, field-names and proverbs. The collection is opened by Jeremy Harte’s discussion of alliteration in English place-names. As befits a collection with the title Alliteration in Culture, as well as identifying alliterations within his set of names, he also identifies some cultural aspects of alliterative usages. Alliterative fieldnames in particular, but also alliterative names of streets and buildings, generally are, he claims, scurrilous or deprecatory. While this type of assertion is open to abuse (during my marking days I remember often encountering over-imaginative explanations as to what ‘the effects of alliteration’ were), Harte here succeeds in giving convincing examples, and avoids the

Jonathan Roper 3

danger of going too far: ‘Long Lane is hardly evidence for a native tendency to alliterative coinages; what else could you call a lane that wasn’t short?’ He also provides an alternate (or complementary?) hypothesis for the use of alliteration in his material, suggesting that the use of alliteration may traditionally be a rhetorical indication of name-ness for entities as diverse as flowers, pubs and spirits. Harte also observes that ‘dell’ and ‘parlour’ rarely occur as place-name generics outside of alliterative names. This observation reminds us of the presence of certain words in Old and Middle English alliterative poetry which are rarely found in prose or in rhymed verse (on this see e.g. Brink 1920 and Turville-Petre 1977: 69–92). No doubt these words may have had a ‘poetic’ character to them, but there is also little doubt that their presence is also often alliterativa causa. Carson Williams, whose background is in the study of proverbs and wellerisms, addresses the presence of alliteration in current anglophone proverbs and idioms. Her choice of using the EUROPHRAS (the European Society for Phraseology) list of common European proverbs and idioms in determining her corpus is a shrewd one in that, though it provides her with a rather limited amount of material (less than 200 items in total), it permits the comparison of the anglophone data with their francophone and germanophone equivalents. Using an implicitly broad definition of alliteration, she finds that it is more than twice as common in anglophone proverbs as it is in anglophone idioms (approximately 30 and 13 per cent respectively), figures which, perhaps surprisingly, parallel the figures for the francophone material, but which are lower than in the germanophone material (especially the germanophone proverbs, 40 per cent of which she discerns as alliterative). Alliteration has long been recognised as characteristic of many fixed phrases – John Ray compiled a list of alliterative proverbial comparisons in English (‘Proverbial Similies, in which the quality and the subject begin with the same letter’) nearly three and a half centuries ago (Ray 1670: 201–3) – and this is surely a topic that demands continued investigation. Carson Williams’ work also alerts us to the possible interactions of alliteration and word class (she points specifically the role of idiom-final nouns) that should also figure in future research. We next come to Helena Halmari’s consideration of alliteration in the inaugural addresses of American presidents. Hers is an interesting, yet happily well-bounded, corpus of material. She explicitly sets forth the forms of alliteration she will consider, rejecting, for example, eye alliteration (i.e. purely visual recurrence as in ‘cat’ and ‘ciao’), figuræ etymologicæ, merely grammatical words (e.g. ‘of’, ‘by’, ‘the’, etc., as opposed to content words such as ‘government’ and ‘people’). She also rejects alliterations that fall across sentence boundaries. Having set out

4

Alliteration in Culture

her criteria, she calculates the rate of occurrence per thousand words for each of the presidents, and is thus able to classify certain of them as heavy, moderate or average alliterators (the last category being the one in which Barack Obama, somewhat surprisingly, appears). From this solid statistical basis, Halmari goes on to make intriguing observations on stylistic aspects of alliteration and its strategic usage, touching on, among other things, the question of populism. Halmari’s approach is statistically sophisticated, and she rightly observes that her choice of criteria is key to her findings: ‘changing even one of these seven criteria may lead to differences in the results reported on here’. Paul Cowdell addresses the hyper-alliterative genre of tongue-twisters. Following an introduction which covers the genre in other languages, he turns to focus on English examples. As befits both a former professional actor and a contemporary folklorist, he discusses tongue-twisters as a continuing ‘part of the occupational practice of performers’, but does not neglect their use by others, such as speech therapists, and policemen testing sobriety. Cowdell’s awareness of the social aspects of this form, including the latent double entendres of certain tonguetwisters, provides an example of one of the uses of alliteration in culture, and his discussion of the invocation and avoidance of obscenity in tongue-twisters brings to mind the often alliterative relations between taboo words and their noa counterparts, e.g. ‘God’ and its replacements ‘gosh’, ‘golly’, ‘goodness’, ‘Gordon Bennett’. Alliteration is a linguistic phenomenon found not just in English but in all the Germanic languages, since at least the fifth century, to judge by the Gallehus inscription. Indeed, given the developments in the English stress system, it may be a phenomenon more common in the other members of the group. The next five chapters tackle alliteration in the Germanic languages, specifically in Frisian, Swedish, Icelandic and German. Dury in his review of alliteration studies nominates Jacob Grimm as the figure with whom ‘we may start a history of modern studies of alliteration’ (1996: 21). Writing nearly two centuries ago, he (1815) drew attention to the presence of alliteration in early Germanic law codes. Since Grimm drew especially on Frisian data in making the claims he did, it is only appropriate that we have a chapter dealing specifically with alliteration in the Old Frisian legal texts. Bremmer addresses critically the scholarship on the laws from Grimm on, including the important work of Buma and Szadrowsky, and the more sceptical findings of Baum (1986), before going on to note that far from this being a practice with purely Germanic roots, the influence of Latin rhetorical training and the example of canonical authors such as Cicero and Augustine (and above all, of the Vulgate Bible) is likely to

Jonathan Roper 5

have been just as significant. In this, the drift of his work is close to that of Norman Blake, who emphasised the role of the rhetoric training associated with the artes prædicandi and ‘the new approaches to dialectic’ (Blake 1992: 514–15) as distinguishing the prose style of contemporaneous early Middle English writers from their Old English predecessors. After such observations, Bremmer then goes onto provide three illuminating close readings, including an intriguing case of two parallel but independent Frisian translations from Latin, only one of which alliterates in its target language. Hagåsen’s chapter is unique in this collection in that he focuses on the intriguing phenomenon of the avoidance of alliteration. His data sets are the 3000 commonest Swedish surnames, and a selection of male and female first names. In both cases, his focus is on names with two elements such as ‘Klintberg’ (a ‘dithematic surname’) or ‘Sven-Göran’ (a ‘double first name’). His rigorous, statistically informed analysis suggests name-givers avoid using alliteration (and also rhyme) for stylistic reasons: the ‘playfulness and verve’ of alliteration may make too ‘conspicuous and even ridiculous’ an impression. Comparing this and the previous chapter shows some of the profoundly different stylistic connotations alliteration has in different text-types and cultures: while Bremmer shows that opting for alliteration in Frisian legal texts can endow a text with the feel of the archaic, Hagåsen shows the avoidance of alliteration in Swedish name-giving is also a stylistic choice, this time to avoid giving the impression of the ridiculous. But Hagåsen also shows us that the general tendency to avoid alliteration can be affected by historical factors. Prestige trumps the sense of ridiculous in the cases of the noble associations evoked by the old Swedish name, Sten-Sture, or the ready-made borrowing from German, Lise-Lott. Larissa Naiditch in her contribution focuses on the problems facing a translator of alliterative verse, taking up the case of the Old Icelandic poem Þrymskviða and its translation into German more than half a millennium later by Adalbert Chamisso. As she points out, unlike many modern translators, whose use of alliteration is generally spray-on rather than structural, Chamisso aimed at preserving the alliterations of his original. This is not the path taken by every translator of alliterative verse: versions displaying Rebsamen’s (2004) tenacious attempts ‘to adhere strictly to the rules of alliteration’ are rare. We might compare Rebsamen with Rein Sepp, who, as well as attempting to preserve alliterations in his Estonian translation of Beowulf (1990), also attempts to preserve the midline pauses too. Here, the translation of alliterative verse led to the introduction of a new verse measure into Sepp’s target

6

Alliteration in Culture

language due to his decision to eschew the simpler option of using the existing Estonian alliterative trochaic tetrameter and to faithfully use a longer line with a cæsura. Naiditch’s translator is also a suitably dogged one, and she shows how he succeeded in maintaining the complex fornyrðislag rules in his German version. Indeed, given the unfamiliarity of his contemporary audience with alliterative verse, he uses a maximal amount of alliteration: a paradoxical exaggeration of the original to render it truly in its target language. Naiditch’s contribution leads us into two Icelandic chapters, which conclude the section of the book dealing with Germanic alliteration. The reason for the special treatment given to Icelandic in this volume is that, as both of our Icelandic authors point out, in contrast to the situation in the other Germanic languages, alliterative poetry has survived in Icelandic till the present. In the first of these chapters, Árnason provides us with an overview of Icelandic verse practice from skaldic times to the present day, in which we can see that, despite language change and metrical innovation, alliteration has maintained its role. Just as there is a view current in much of the anglosphere that a text is not really poetry unless it rhymes, we are led to conclude that in Iceland a text is not really viewed as poetry unless it alliterates. Even in Icelandic free verse, alliteration remains a key feature. It is only to be expected that the views of poets and critics as to the correct role of alliteration are key, and Árnason guides us through their sometimes conflicting views, reminding us of the common ground in this discussion, namely that all agree that alliteration is integral to poetic form. He also discusses a remarkable example of the pull to alliterate: alliterative Icelandic versions of Elvis Presley lyrics. The second of these chapters, that of Aðalsteinsson, provides further evidence of the extraordinary resilience of alliteration in Icelandic poetry. The discussion here is more tightly focused, though dealing with a substantial corpus of 7325 line pairs. Aðalsteinsson is investigating the varying treatment of one particular sound (and its combinations) in Icelandic alliterative verse over the centuries. One of the aims of this book has been to expand the vocabulary available to us for discussing alliteration, and in his close study, Aðalsteinsson uses a series of technical terms, including equivalence class, gnystuduls, s-alliteration, epenthetic alliteration, over-alliteration and secondary alliteration, which may well prove useful to students of other alliterative traditions. In the final third of the book, we turn to alliterative practices outside the Germanic language group: in eastern Europe, Asia and Africa, as well as alliteration (or an analogue of it) in a non-Germanic language current

Jonathan Roper 7

in Britain. The first of these chapters is by György Kara, and focuses upon Mongol verse traditions. Alliteration is predominant in such traditions from the earliest (thirteenth century) document till today and throughout the full gamut of poetic genres, including translations into Mongolian. Kara guides us through the various forms, both line-internal and line-external, that alliteration can take and the interaction of alliteration with other forms of sound patterning in his valuable exposition of this little-known tradition. He also turns at the conclusion of the chapter to the question of potential Mongol influence behind the presence of alliteration in Manchu and Turkic poetry. This same question of the interrelations of alliterative versification among Mongols, Turks, Uighurs and Uzbeks is also touched upon in the following chapter by Vilmos Voigt. His chief focus, however, is alliteration in Hungarian. For Voigt, Hungarian alliteration is eye alliteration: ‘alliteration and not assonance: it uses letters and not sounds’. Though there are early examples of alliteration in Hungarian texts, Voigt sees it as a late, literary development rather than an ancient Finno-Ugric inheritance. Similarly to Bremmer, Voigt draws on the importance of pan-European Latin rhetorical models in his account. Another form of Finno-Ugric alliteration, that of the Finnic languages found on the eastern shores of the Baltic, such as Finnish, Karelian and Estonian, is discussed in the following chapter by Frog and Stepanova. Alliteration in such languages has been the topic of an important (and multilingual) scholarly tradition, which includes work by Sadeniemi (1951), Laugaste (1970) and Leino (1986). The authors have mastered both the primary data and the multilingual research traditions, and bring these to us in a concise and logical form. The presence of initial syllable stress in the (Baltic-) Finnic languages could be taken to suggest the use of alliteration in the verse traditions of these languages dates back a long way. But in the absence of early surviving manuscripts, and given that the data they draw on mostly date from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the authors wisely draw back from any such assertions. There may have been some interaction with neighbouring Germanic traditions, but the Germanic and Finno-Ugric alliterative traditions may just as well have developed independently due to their shared prosodic feature of initial syllable stress (Roper 2009: 91). The question is one vexed by a lack of evidence, and is underlain by the even more interesting (and unanswerable?) question of why the Germanic and Finno-Ugric languages share this typologically unusual feature of initial syllable stress, i.e. is Germanic initial stress a result of Finno-Ugric influence? Or indeed is the presence of initial stress in both

8

Alliteration in Culture

Germanic and Finno-Ugric the result of influence from a third, now lost, language group? While many may have some sense of Finnish and Karelian alliterative verse, not least from its representation in The Kalevala, the authors usefully cover lesser known traditions from this part of the world, such as Ingrian and Seto verse in their chapter, as well as the somewhat different performance traditions of yoik and lament. Martin Orwin provides us with an overview of yet another little known alliterative tradition in his contribution. In contrast to the language groups we have been discussing, Somali has no initial syllable stress (indeed, it is a pitch-accent language without stress), so the presence of alliteration in its metrical system is something of a surprise to outsiders. As he describes the situation, we can observe that alliteration in Somali can be a line-internal device, as in the Germanic and Baltic-Finnic languages, but also a line-external phenomenon, as in some of the Turkic languages (Gasparov 1996: 38). His well-exemplified discussion concludes with a look at three particular poems in which ‘alliteration is used creatively in different ways’. The most daring of the chapters is the last one, authored by Michiko Kaneko. She attempts to extend the concept of alliteration outside the sphere of spoken language. One homology between spoken and signed language was mentioned early in the book by Cowdell, who brought our attention to the ‘finger fumbler’ as a sign language equivalent of the ‘tongue-twister’: a block of sign language difficult to articulate due its repeated or alternating movements. But Kaneko is going further than this here. And yet, perhaps hers is not such an outlandish move when we recall that we already use the term ‘eye alliteration’ to refer to a phenomenon denoting a visual and non-audible recurrence. Sceptics will respond that the potential parallel is less convincing when we recall that such eye alliteration is often identified precisely in order for it to be dismissed in contrast to ‘real’ alliteration. So, while there are certainly recurring formal elements in sign language, especially when used artistically, the key question here is, is there any equivalent of the initial sound in sign language? Kaneko says there is – handshape. Kaneko’s contribution is also daring in her discussion of sound symbolism and the motivation for the choice of alliterating sounds. While sound patterning does have an effect on its hearers, it is difficult to say exactly what that effect is, or how that could be separated from other linguistic features. Even those who do not accept Kaneko’s proposed analogy may well learn much about alliteration conceptually by comparing it to recurrent initial features in quite other artistic and communicative systems.

Jonathan Roper 9

Key topics In one sense the thread that links all these contributions is topical: they treat alliteration and its uses in a variety of cultures, encompassing verse and prose, speech and writing, its avoidance and its retention, how it can structure verse, and how it can strengthen attempts at persuasion. But looking beyond the topical, we find that these chapters, while diverse in subject matter and approach, possess three main areas of commonality: the interaction of alliteration and phonology, alliteration and stylistics, and alliteration and semantics. Phonology To begin with the first of these areas, we can note that behind the brief definition of alliteration I began with there lie a whole series of complications arising from what is considered as the same sound. This is more than the question of how different languages divide up possible sounds into phonemes, though this is clearly part of it too. The least questionable instances of alliteration occur between examples of the same single consonantal phoneme. But what about cases where there is a cluster of consonants at the beginning of a word? And what about cases where there is no initial consonant at all? These circumstances are the ones that alliterative traditions deal with in different ways, and as Aðalsteinsson reminds us the same tradition can vary in its treatment of such circumstances over the course of history. Another question is, can visual conventions overpower our auditory perceptions? Are alliterations which are visually disguised, e.g. that between ‘crown’ and ‘king’, less likely to be used in a highly literate age? Conversely, has the visual fact that both ‘sea’ and ‘shell’ begin with the letter <s> obscured the auditory distinction between the phonemes /s/ and /ʃ/ ? While these phonemes do not alliterate in Old English verse, the conventions had changed by the Middle English period when there are examples of these sounds linked in alliterative verse. But this linking is not confined to English: Frog and Stepanova give a Karelian example in which /s/ and /ʃ/ are considered to alliterate in Chapter 12. In Old Germanic verse, alliteration of consonant clusters beginning with /s-/ were subject to special rules. For example, in Old English alliterative verse, words beginning /sp-/ can only alliterate with words beginning with /sp-/. Words beginning /st-/ or /sk-/ are similarly restricted. While this rule applies to s + voiceless stop, it does not apply, or does not apply so stringently, to other clusters beginning with /s-/ such as /sl-/ or /sw-/, or for clusters without s, such as /tr-/, /kw-/ or /fl-/, etc. These

10

Alliteration in Culture

conventions largely disappeared in the course of time, and thus we see that Hagåsen does not try to follow them by, for example, denying alliterativity to the elements of the surname ‘Sundström’. He accepts that /s/ alliterates with the cluster /st/, although he does take pains to label such phenomena (with a nod to ‘imperfect rhyme’) ‘imperfect alliteration’. But in Icelandic, the rules governing s-alliteration have tightened over time as Aðalsteinsson reminds us in his contribution, and a larger number of conventions face the poet. These two paths of development serve to show that consonantal clusters, especially clusters beginning with /s-/, are typically an area of complexity in alliterative systems. As Harbert (2007: 69) notes, the complexity associated with alliteration involving s-clusters may arise as /s/ can be considered extra-syllabic, i.e. outside the syllable, and thus not subject to the generally applicable constraints regarding sonority. He also notes the not insignificant fact that in Germanic languages /s/ (or, in some cases /ʃ/) is the only sound that can begin a tri-consonantal cluster. Other attempts to unpack these rules can be found in Suzuki (1996) and Minkova (2003), while discussions focused on specific instances of cluster alliteration can be found in Griffith (1997: 27–9, 2005: 149, 165–6) and Bredehoft (2005: 65–6). One of the earliest usages of the term ‘cluster alliteration’ seems to be that by Krishna (1983: xviii, xxv). Another area where traditions can diverge is in their treatment of zero onset. In Germanic practice any initial vowel can alliterate with any other initial vowel, but in Balto-Finnic practice a vowel typically alliterates only with itself. (Even the exceptions in Balto-Finnic practice tend to confirm the rule, in that in cases where the front vowel /e/ is not linked with /e/ (or /ei/), it is far more likely to link with fellow front vowels /i/ or /ø/ than with back vowels (Sarv 2000: 73).) The interaction of steady-state vowels and diphthongs is another complicating issue that touches once more on the question of how close a phonetic similarity is required between sounds, and which conventional matches apply in a particular tradition. There is some treatment of how one set of traditions deals with diphthongs in Chapter 12. Many have felt the need to explain the promiscuous nature of Germanic vowel alliteration. Some, such as Classen (1913), invoked a past period when each vowel alliterated only with itself, a practice now partially disguised by sound change. Others have invoked now lost initial sounds such as glottal stops (most recently Minkova 2003) or ‘lax glides’ (Jacobson 1963) to argue that onset alliteration was once the rule. (The initial glottal stops are paralleled by Somali alliterative uses as illustrated in Chapter 13.) But are any such explanations necessary?

Jonathan Roper 11

Comparative evidence shows that it is perfectly possible for alliterative systems to have holes. Take for example the Finnic system: although, as Abondolo (2001: 88) remarks, a ‘certain amount of alliteration in Finnish is difficult to avoid’ (like rhyme in Italian), it is still conventional for a significant minority of lines within longer Finnic alliterative poems to have no alliteration (Leino 1986: 134). Yet another area of tension arises when more than one set of onset correspondences are found in a single unit of verse (various examples of this go by the names of ‘cross’, ‘secondary’, ‘incidental’ and ‘double’ alliteration among English medievalists). Whether this is a virtue or a fault depends not just on large-scale cultural variables, but in some cases on the tendencies of the poet and the taste of the audience (some consideration of this is given in Aðalsteinsson’s chapter). And then there is the whole matter of phonological stress. Although there are century-old studies on alliteration in languages such as French (Riese 1888) or Italian (Taylor 1900), etc., alliteration as a phenomenon involving initial sounds is especially salient in languages where the first syllable of a word is usually stressed. Thus it is that alliteration plays a role in the native metres of languages in the Germanic, Finno-Ugric and Mongolian groups, all dealt with in the chapters that follow. We can also note that Ray, in picking out ‘the quality’ and ‘the subject’ amongst the possible choice of words in his proverbial comparisons (1670: 201–3), is focusing on content words (such as busie or bee), rather than grammatical words (such as of, the or as), and thus has implicitly recognised the significance of the interaction between alliteration and stress. But despite the close association of alliteration with stress in many systems, alliteration, as Orwin discusses in this volume, is also prevalent in Somali tradition, even though Somali is not a language in which the concept of stress plays a phonological role. Furthermore, Somali alliteration is not just line-internal as that in some Turkic languages, but often line-internal as in the initial stressed languages. The motivation for Somali alliteration is thus something of a mystery. What happens in stressed languages when stress and primacy do not co-occur in the same syllable? Words in Germanic do not always have initial stress – they may be loans, or they may have prefixes. In times, places and text-types where the heard is more vigorous than the read, stress will trump spelling. In Old Frisian, ‘bihut’ and ‘biheleth’ were considered to alliterate, but, as Bremmer points out here, not on the /b/ of the unstressed prefix, but on the /h/ of the stressed root. However, as I have not tried to harmonise the contributors’ terminology (they

12

Alliteration in Culture

come from different research traditions and any standard international terminology has yet to be developed), approaches differ in this volume. Thus we find that in Carson Williams’ chapter a visual approach to alliteration is taken that sees, for example, the phrase ‘below the belt’ as alliterative. For others, who consider that it is not the onset of the first syllable, but that of the first stressed syllable which is relevant, this would not be alliterative, whereas they would on the contrary accept words such as ‘accredited company’ as alliterative. Reading the chapters in this volume, it becomes hard to believe in such a thing as a comprehensive and culture-free set of rules governing alliteration that could apply universally to all languages in all periods. But we have just the same situation with rhyme: in different cultures and at different times, certain correspondences will be considered as acceptable rhymes, and certain others will not. Although there may be much resemblance in the rules of rhyme in different times and places, there is no universal, unchanging set of conventions to be had (and this quite apart from the reality of sound change over time, and phonetic, if not phonemic, variation within different dialects of the same language). The issue of avoiding alliteration is one which can involve both phonological and stylistic considerations. The strong trend in Germanic verse for alliterations to involve the penultimate stressed syllable and to avoid alliterating on the final stressed syllable of the verse line, and the similar, though not quite so strong tendencies in Balto-Finnic verse (sometimes considered morphologically rather than metrically as the ‘winnowing principle’) have a purpose – they are there to signal that the words form a line and that the line is now ending. In this context it is worthy of notice that Orwin mentions that word-boundary rules lead to restrictions on the locality of alliteration in Somali alliterative verse. But alliteration might be avoided for stylistic as well as for metrical reasons, as Hagåsen shows us in his study of Swedish names. Alliteration is desirable in some times, places and text-types, and undesirable in others. Stylistics When a feature, in this case alliteration, is widespread in certain registers and text-types and little known in others, it is likely to carry stylistic implications. In modern English, those implications are mainly ‘low’: childish, oral, working-class. A representative perception of alliteration in English literary culture is provided by John Sutherland (2006: 91): would-be Dickenses assumed that the spluttering consonantal alliteration in the titles of Pickwick Papers and Nicholas Nickleby were

Jonathan Roper 13

the easy way to public favour. So, in March 1839, the consumer could have chosen among: Valentine Vox, the Ventriloquist; Will’s Whim, Consisting of Characteristic Curiosities; Charley Cox; David Dreamy (illustrated by ‘Peter Pallete’) and Paul Periwinkle or the Pressgang. It seems that the lowish status of the works he lists and our contemporary association of alliterating character names with children’s literature have influenced his sense of alliteration here as ‘spluttering’. Yet alliteration can have positive connotations too, as Árnason and Bremmer discuss in their chapters. The former notes that the use of alliteration in postmedieval Iceland may well have already been ‘partly symbolic of the Nordic provenance of the forms’, while the latter suggests that the use of alliteration in the Old Frisian laws is part of an archaising strategy, aimed at calling up the ancient authority of time-honoured procedures. And we might note that alliteration can still have authoritative, or at least persuasive, associations in modern English, where the trick of ‘alliterative restatement’ is often used to underline a point just made. In one article from The Times by Tom Dart, we find no fewer than four such uses where a statement is made, and then is restated alliteratively: The trouble is, we do not remember Keegan for the beginnings. It is the dusks that stick, not the dawns. The light is dazzling, but how quickly and dramatically it sets. And the man who arrived as a Messiah leaves a mess. ... Money for transfers was always important to Keegan during his managerial career. He liked to buy big. ... To the supporters it was simple: Keegan first, no equals. The Messiah does not answer to middle-management. (Dart 2008: 92–3) A similar use of alliteration as reassertion can be found in Geertz’s discussion (1971: 4) of the role of the anthropologist: We are the miniaturists of the social sciences, painting on lilliputian canvases with what we take to be delicate strokes. We hope to find in the little what eludes us in the large, to stumble upon general truths while sorting through general cases. Geertz elegantly shifts from alliterating on the nouns in the first half of this sentence to the verbs in the second, before going on to then undermine the well-crafted (and too foreclosing?) sense of conclusion by beginning the next sentence ‘At least I hope to ...’. Alliteration can

14

Alliteration in Culture

play a similarly concluding role in poetry, as is illustrated by the last lines of some of Shelley’s late lyrics: ‘From the sphere of our sorrow’, ‘Make once more my heart thy home’, ‘Then wake to weep’, ‘Follow with May’s fairest flowers’, ‘Wail, for the world’s wrong!’. This last line is a good example of alliteration in an inflationary context: whereas the typical Shelleyan line lacks alliteration, and thus only one alliteration (two sounds) are needed to stand out, in this Dirge the average line does contain two identical initial consonants, and so here three identical onsets are needed to stand out. While the associations of alliteration may be mainly low in Modern English, this does not seem to have been the case in Old English, where the most dignified poetry, including religious works, used alliteration, and where parents (like modern Somalis or ancient Hungarians, as we learn in Chapters 13 and 11) gave their children names that alliterated with their own (Barley 1974). A reading of Harte’s chapter can give us a sense of the historical processes involved in our stylistic perceptions, by showing how the first recorded appearances of alliteration in derogatory field-names in thirteenth-century documents comes on the heels of the ousting of alliteration by rhyme in poetry in the south and east of England. Harte also suggests that over time the use of alliteration with this derogatory feel increased, suggesting on the basis of his own study of compounds involving ‘beggar-’. On the face of it, if we consider the contributions to this volume, it seems that from its role in courtly poetry invoked by Árnason, Aðalsteinsson and Naiditch or the judicial codes described by Bremmer, alliteration (in the Germanic world at least) has come a long way downhill via the derisory early modern field-names of Harte to the tonguetwisters (Cowdell) and tabloid headlines of today. And yet, given how little we know about low style in the ancient Germanic world, why should we assume alliteration had no role to play there? Perhaps the trajectory is not from ancient high to modern low, but from ancient high and low to modern low alone: the change being the absence of alliteration in modern high registers alone. But then again, is alliteration exclusively stylistically low today? The titles of modern and late-modern novels (and biographies) are one of the micro-genres where alliteration is far from uncommon, even in ‘high’ culture. Sutherland might well refer to the alliterative titles Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility as wittily elegant than as ‘spluttering’. Alliteration is not always as selfadvertising of itself as it is in tongue-twisters. For example, unpublished work by Emma Hawkes on newspaper headlines has demonstrated that broadsheet headlines often have a rate of alliteration approaching that

Jonathan Roper 15

of their tabloid counterparts, albeit that their alliterations are often more disguised. Once again, more work on alliteration is needed – this time on the true extent of its (possibly covert) stylistic range. A question begged by much previous stylistic research touching on alliteration is what a typical level of alliteration would be in prose. When Ray (1670: 201–3) set apart those proverbial comparisons in his collection which contained alliteration in their own list (which preceded the list of comparisons not so marked), he was doing so implicitly on the basis that the presence of alliteration in 1 in 4 (36/143) examples was a non-random and significant phenomenon. Harte in this volume is likewise probably on safe ground when he states that as 1 in 5 derogatory field-names in Shropshire are alliterative, alliteration is characteristic of, and overrepresented in, this type of name. But what if only 1 in 8, or 1 in 12 had been alliterative – would such a rate have still allowed us to see derogatory field-names as an alliterative genre? Or would it have been something we might have expected as occurring at random? There is a natural background rate of alliteration in everyday language, which, if we could calculate it, might be used to judge a specific text (or text-type) against. In their different ways Ross (1950), Baum (1986) and Bredehoft (2001) have tried to calculate such a rate, but there is no consensus between them. More statistically informed work on this question would be helpful. Semantics The third key topic in the study of alliteration, though perhaps hardest of all to discuss successfully, is that of the interaction between alliteration and semantics. The topic is a tricky one, as alliteration can be seen as arbitrary and as overemphatic. ‘Alliterative verse is not a good medium for precise expression’ wrote Sisam (1953: 60), and many have agreed that the use of alliteration can have a semantic cost. Take the (alliterative) pairing ‘neither rhyme nor reason’. This sets up an opposition between language involving sound patterning (rhyme) and the semantic precision of language unconstrained by the requirement to pattern sound (reason). A bad poet may stretch sense for the sake of a rhyme, and he may do the same for the sake of an alliteration. Perhaps he would be even more likely to when we consider the lineinternal character of much alliterative verse as against the line-external character of most binding by rhyme. This situation means that alliterations will need to be sought more frequently than rhymes. Even though rhymes are usually phonologically heavier, and rhymed lines are often shorter, the fact remains that the poet must seek four to six linked words every two lines of alliterative verse as against two linked words

16

Alliteration in Culture

in a rhyming couplet. The suspicion of arbitrariness hangs over even the greatest alliterative verse: while some have attempted to argue that the North Danes in Beowulf represent a different people from the West Danes, and yet another from the South Danes, etc., others suspect all such formulations refer to the selfsame Danes, and are motivated not by geography but alliterative need (Magoun 1949). While there can be no art with redundancy or filler, arbitrariness is not so obviously a useful trait. Robert Frost sometimes played a game where he tried to guess which word in a rhyme pair the poet had thought of first, and which was chosen to support the first – the same game can certainly be played with alliterative poetry. Alliterative formulations are often drained of specific meaning. When Heine speaks of the Holy Alliance with ‘allen Kroaten und Kosaken’ (Perraudin 2000: 134), he is not specifically referring to Croats and Cossacks, he is referring to any old eastern Europeans and could have exemplified this using other nationalities, but chose these alliterativa causa. Likewise when a radio announcer declares ‘from Hamlet to Harry Potter, we all love a good story’ (Radio 4, 2008), she does not refer to those works in particular, but to the full gamut of narratives including older and contemporary works, classic and popular works, and adult and children’s literature. And to give a final example, while the author of Lust in Translation (Druckerman 2007) draws on data from ten countries, the subtitle The rules of infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee draws on just two of them. This is not done in order to highlight these places specifically, but again to suggest that the work is comprehensive, covering a wide range of locations from far away to close to (her American) home. In such contexts, the alliteration tells us to take the people, books, places, etc. not as specific instances but as standing in for a general set. Such alliterative metonymy is far from uncommon. Does alliteration underscore meaning? Frog and Stepanova think not, at least as far as the Baltic Finnic traditions are concerned: ‘[alliteration plays] foremost a textural function rather than exhibiting a clear tendency to fall on or unite words where emphasis or association is anticipated in a sentence’. But not all scholars might agree that this is the case in Germanic alliterative verse, where alliteration falls on the root syllables of content words. Furthermore, the fact that, as Halmari points out, alliteration often occurs in parallel constructions means that alliteration and syntax can work together in underscoring meaning. They can also be counterpointed for artistic effect. More could be said on the topics outlined above, as well as others, such as the parallels and interrelations between alliteration and other

Jonathan Roper 17

forms of sound repetition, especially, but not exclusively, rhyme. The fact that tongue-twisters (as we see in Cowdell’s chapter) frequently feature other sound repetitions than repetition of initial onset, e.g. in ‘How many chucks could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?’ we also find rhyme (wood, could), repetition of entire syllables (could, could; wood-, wood-, wood; chuck, -chuck, chuck, -chuck, chuck), and repetition of word-initial onset with non-word-initial onsets (chucks, woodchuck), reminds us that alliteration need not be considered in isolation from other forms of sound repetition. A sign of this is the fact that terms describing rhyme can very well be borrowed to describe alliteration, e.g. perfect and imperfect alliteration, morphological alliteration, eye alliteration. But such considerations are for another day. This collection of work will have done its job if it succeeds in opening up the field of alliteration studies for further development – and future areas for investigation are many. A word on symbols used in the book may be in order. Alliterations are often marked out by underlining in the chapters in this book (e.g. Big Brother). (An exception to this is the chapter on Mongolian alliteration where all of the rich, interlocking sound patterning is marked in bold font.) Paul Cowdell’s observation of the fact that while the ‘Peter Piper’ tongue-twister entered oral circulation, the ‘Oliver Oglethorpe’ one did not serve as an apt reminder that not all alliteration to the eye is alliteration to the ear. To represent the difference between spellings and sounds, we here follow the linguistic convention of using angled brackets for written symbols (graphemes), and slashes for sounds (phonemes). For example, the first letters of the word ‘phoneme’ itself are , whereas the first sound is /f/. An example of the usefulness of this convention is that it allows us to show that while all six of initial

symbols in ‘Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers’ represent the same phoneme /p/ (as indeed the medial

of Piper and the medial of Pepper also do), the five symbols of ‘Oliver Oglethorpe ogled an owl and an oyster’ represent four different phonemes /ɒ, əʊ, aʊ, ɔɪ/. Some of the chapters in this book were first delivered as papers at a conference also entitled ‘Alliteration in Culture’ organised by the Folklore Society and held at the Warburg Institute in London on 19–20 January 2007, while others were specially commissioned for this volume. I would like to thank all those who helped me in organising that conference, and my colleagues at the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition at the University of Sheffield, and the Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore at the University of Tartu as well. This research project was supported by the European Union through the

18

Alliteration in Culture

European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence in Cultural Theory). The book is dedicated to a speaker of two languages in which alliteration has a key role.

References Abondolo, Daniel. 2001. A Poetics Handbook: Verbal Art in the European Tradition. Richmond: Curzon. Barley, Nigel F. 1974. ‘Perspectives on Anglo-Saxon Names’. Semiotica, 11: 1–31. Baum, Bärbel. 1986. Der Stabreim in Recht. Vorkommen und Bedeutung des Stabreims in Antike und Mittelalter. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Blake, Norman. 1992. ‘The Literary Language’. In Blake, Norman (ed.), The Cambridge History of the English Language, Vol. 2: 1066–1476. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bredehoft, Thomas A. 2001. ‘Estimating Probabilities and Alliteration Frequencies in Old English Verse’. Old English Newsletter, 34 (1): 19–23. Bredehoft, Thomas A. 2005. Early English Metre. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Brink, August. 1920. Stab und Wort im ‘Gawin’. Eine stilistische Untersuchung. Halle: Niemeyer. Burke, Kenneth. 1941. The Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Classen, Albert. 1913. On Vowel Alliteration in the Old Germanic Languages. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Cronan, Dennis. 1986. ‘Alliterative Rank in Old English Poetry’, Studia Neophilologica, 58: 145–58. Dart, Tom. 2008. ‘Heartaches by the Number as Flame Dies for an Old Romantic’. The Times, 5 September: 92–3. Druckerman, Pamela. 2007. Lust in Translation: the Rules of Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee. New York: Penguin. Dury, Richard. 1996. English Alliterative Phrases. A Linguistic Study and a Lexicon, Part 1. Bergamo: Stamperia Stefanoni. Gade, Kari Ellen and R. D. Fulk. 2000. Bibliography of Germanic Alliterative Meters. Kalamazoo, Mich.: Old English Division of the Modern Language Association of America. Gasparov, Mikhail. 1996. A History of European Versification. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Geertz, Clifford. 1971. Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Griffith, Mark. 1997. Judith. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. Griffith, M.S. 2005. ‘Verses Quite like cwen to gebeddan in the Metres of Boethius’. Anglo-Saxon England, 34: 145–68. Grimm, Jacob. 1815. ‘Von der Poesie im Recht’. Zeitschrift f ür geschichtliche Rechtswissenschaft, 2: 25–99. Harbert, Wayne. 2007. The Germanic Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hoops, Johannes. 1911–19. Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Strasbourg: Karl J. Trübner.

Jonathan Roper 19 Hoops, Johannes. 1973–2008. Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, 2nd edn, ed. Beck, Heinrich, Dieter Geuenich and Heiko Steuer. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Jacobson, Roman. 1963. ‘On the So-Called Vowel Alliteration in Germanic Verse’. Zeitschrift für Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung, 16 (1–3): 85–92. Jeep, John. 1995. Alliterating Word-Pairs in Old High German. Bochum: Brockmeyer. Jeep, John. 1996. ‘Alliterating Word-Pairs in Old High German: Approaching a Rhetorical Evaluation’. American Journal of Germanic Linguistics and Literatures, 8: 33–67. Jeep, John. 2006. Alliterating Word-Pairs in Early Middle High German. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Hohengehren. Krishna, Valerie. 1983. The Alliterative Morte Arthure: a New Verse Translation. Lanham, Md./London: University Press of America. Laugaste, E. 1970. Начальная и внутренняя аллитерация в эстонских народных песнях. Тарту: Тартуский государственный университет. Lehmann, Winfred. 1956. The Development of Germanic Verse Form. Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press. Leino, Pentti. 1986. Language and Metre: Metrics and the Metrical System of Finnish. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Magoun, Francis P. 1949. Danes, North, South, East, and West in Beowulf. In Kirby, Thomas, A. and Henry Bosley Woolf (eds), Philologica: the Malone Anniversary Studies. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, pp. 20–4. Minkova, Donka. 2003. Alliteration and Sound Change in Early English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oakden, J.P. 1930. Alliterative Poetry in Middle English. Part 1: The Dialectal and Metrical Survey. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Oakden, J.P. 1935. Alliterative Poetry in Middle English. Part 2: A Survey of the Tradition. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Perraudin, Michael. 2000. Literature, the Volk and the Revolution in Mid-Nineteenth Century Germany. Oxford: Berghahn. Phelpstead, Carl. 2004. ‘Auden and the Inklings: an Alliterative Revival’. Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 103: 433–57. Putter, Ad, Judith Jefferson and Myra Stokes. 2007. Studies in the Metre of Alliterative Verse. Oxford: The Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literatures. Putter, Ad and Judith Jefferson. 2009. Approaches to the Metres of Alliterative Verse. Leeds: Leeds Studies in English Texts and Monographs. Radio 4. 2008. The World Tonight. 24 November. Ray, John. 1670. A Collection of English Proverbs. Cambridge: W. Morden. Rebsamen, Frederick. 2004. Beowulf. An Updated Verse Translation. New York: HarperCollins. Riese, Wilhelm. 1888. Alliterierender Gleichklang in der Französischen Sprache Alter und Neuer Zeit. Halle: Plötz. Roper, Jonathan. 2009. On Finnic and English Alliterative Metres. In Kilpiö, Matti, Leena Kahlas-Tarkka, Jane Roberts and Olga Timofeeva (eds), Anglo-Saxons and the North. Tempe, Ariz.: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, pp. 89–108. Ross, A. S. C. 1950. ‘Philological Probability Problems’. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society B, xii: 19–59.

20

Alliteration in Culture

Sadeniemi, Matti. 1951. Die Metrik des Kalevala-Verses. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Sarv, Mari. 1999. ‘Regilaul: Clearing the Alliterative Haze’. The Electronic Journal of Folklore, 10: 127–40. Sarv, Mari. 2000. Regilaul kui Poeetiline Süsteem. Tartu: Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum. Schwarz, Mia. 1923. Alliteration im Englischen Kulturleben Neuerer Zeit. Greifswald: H. Adler. Sepp, Rein. 1990. Beowulf. Anglo-Saksi Eepos. Tallinn: Eesti Raamat. Sisam, Kenneth. 1953. Studies in the History of Old English Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Skeat, W. W. 1868. ‘An Essay on Alliterative Poetry’, In Hales, J.W. and F.J. Furnivall. 1867–68. Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript: Ballads and Romances. 3 vols. London: Trübner, Vol. III, pp. xi–xxxix. Sutherland, John. 2006. Victorian Fiction: Writers, Publishers, Readers, 2nd edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Suzuki, Seiichi. 1996. The Metrical Organization of Beowulf: Prototype and Isomorphism. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Taylor, Robert Longley. 1900. Alliteration in Italian. New Haven: Tuttle, Morehouse and Taylor. Turville-Petre, Thorlac. 1977. The Alliterative Revival. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.

1 Love, Silver and the Devil: Alliteration in English Place-Names Jeremy Harte

Abstract The use of alliteration in place-names, especially the field-names coined by nineteenth-century farm workers, is one of many rhetorical structures employed in the creation of names. These confound ordinary models of place-name formation since they do not offer a literal description of their referents; instead, the alliterative names are often lengthy and cumbersome. The social role of these names extended beyond that of simply labelling their referents. They preserve for us the views of an otherwise unrepresented social class on the difficulties of working land and the value set on its productivity, coupled with the denigration of poor places, other communities and socially excluded outsiders. Comparison with other rhetorical practices, such as the transfer of foreign names to denote local places, shows that alliteration was a deliberate practice to mark out names which expressed values as well as facts.

There is more to place-names than geography. They do not just label places: for a native speaker, they hold allusions, memorials, even poetry. Certainly the evocative sound patterns of names have been celebrated by poets from John Milton to John Masefield and beyond. But the rhetorical power of names, to which this is such powerful testimony, has often been treated as something irrelevant to their interpretation. Toponymy, the study of place-names and their origins, has conventionally dealt with them merely as references. When a descriptive phrase becomes adopted as a name, it is assumed that this phrase was chosen because it was the best and simplest description of the place, and that in its 21

22

Alliteration in Culture

new status as a name it will function as a pure signifier, easier to remember than a grid reference, perhaps, but serving essentially the same function. This is too partial a view. The sense of many names depends, not just on their current designation or the meaning of their original elements, but on the expectations of rhetoric and performance that people bring to their living use. We will learn much about the communities that coined these names if we look at the stylistic markers which distinguish them. Take Pudding Pie Pightle, a field at Great Bentley in Essex.1 It is not an easy name to say, with that triple repetition of initial plosives, but the awkwardness of the name for its regular users – for the farmer or his labourers, who would need to talk about the field in their daily work – is compensated by its onomatopoeic effectiveness. The soil of Pudding Pie Pightle was (one gathers) as sticky and intractable as its name: a clinging suet or dough of undrained land that tugged at the feet. The name is a recurrent one, with examples such as Pudding Pie Mead at Alkington (PN Gl 2:211 – for this and other abbreviations, please see the list of Abbreviations at the end of the chapter). Pudding Poke – where poke is the ME word for the bag that puddings are boiled in – appears at Kirkby Lonsdale (PN We 1.26) and three times in Leicestershire (PN L 3:145, 4:148, 4:164). Plum Pudding Piece at Edgefield (PN Nf 3:123) is another triple alliteration, and Plum Pudding appears on its own at Waltham St Lawrence (PN Berks 1:115). Derbyshire alone contains a Pudding Patch, Pudding Pie, Pudding Plate and Pudding Poke, as well as a Plum Pudding (PN Db 3:757), and other variants of the theme include Poose Pudding (1723) at Waithe (PN L 4:181), Pan Pudding at Wem (PN Sa 5:256) and Pudding Pits at Runham (PN Nf 2:21). Thus the recurrent /p/ is retained in variant forms of the name, a principle which is followed in other alliterating names. Hungry Hill can be found in variant forms including Hungry Hall at Hatfield (PN Hrt 287), and Hungry Highland at Heath (PN Db 2:263). Hungry Hill is one of the most widespread of the alliterating names of this type. John Field knew of 50 examples,2 of which 11 are recorded from Hertfordshire alone (PN Hrt 256, 265, 267, 274, 279, 287, 290, 293, 294, 304, 305), most of them to be found in the areas of poor soil, for when they called land ‘hungry’, the labourers meant that it needed continual feeds of manure to support crops, and never seemed the better for it.3 Several of these names are early. Hertfordshire has three from the thirteenth century, beginning with Hungerhelle (1204) at Standon (PN Hrt 304, and cf. 256, 294). There are two more thirteenth-century forms from Bedfordshire (PN Bd 79) and a Hungerhull (1272) at Shipton (PN Sa 3:203). In other counties the medieval forms are found with different generics – with

Jeremy Harte

23

hæcc in Hungerhacche (1385) at Fletching (PN Sx 2:346), and with ON haugr in Hungerhowe (1281) at Hemsby (PN Nf 2:55). The wealth of medieval forms for Hungry Hill is unusual. Most of the derogatory names for infertile land appear in the modern period, typically from the era of the tithe maps or a little earlier. Some, like the Pudding- and Hunger- names, describe the condition of the soil; Shivery Sham at Marston (PN O 1:181) is almost onomatopoeic for unstable, flooded ground. But more often the names give a voice to the resentment of the labourer who toiled on such poor soil. The complaint begins with Breakebacke Close (1662) at Treeton (PN WRY 1:163), and an unlocated Ye Breake Back (1698) in Derbyshire (PN Db 3:759). The emphatic /p/ is used to good effect at Poor Pightle at Wokingham (PN Berks 1:145), Poverty Patch at Prees in Shropshire4 and the venomous Poison Pightle at Thatcham (PN Berks 1:193; found also as Poison Piddle at Stratfield Mortimer, PN Berks 1:219). Mount Misery, which appears three times in Surrey (PN Sr 371), paints the same picture, and so does the heartfelt Place of Pain at West Felton in Shropshire.5 Hopeless Hoppet and Lousy Lubbel (PN Hrt 263) are clearly insults of some kind, although the original sense has become a little incoherent. Alliteration seems to be characteristic of field-names in this period, particularly among those coinages which are idiomatic rather than literal. Conclusions of this kind must be reached cautiously; we cannot just pick all the alliterative names out of local toponymy, and make claims for their rhetorical significance, without allowing for coincidences. The set of generics in English field-names is not very large, while the situations that need toponymic expression are finite, so some repetition of letters is to be expected. Long Lane is hardly evidence for a native tendency to alliterative coinages; what else could you call a lane that was not short? The same goes for Deep Dale, Fair Field, Goose Green, Lammas Lands and Poor’s Piece. And then there is a small number of alliterative names whose significance baffles the best efforts of the English Place-Name Society, such as Catch Cow (PN Db 3:759-60), which may mean what it says, or something quite different. Sussex has the splendid Hobbs Haste, Bachelor’s Bump and Waddle’s Wish (PN Sx 421, 510 and 500) – but then Sussex is rich in quirky names. These one-off coinages are curious, but it is the recurrent names which seem more likely to prove a general principle. A single instance of Hills and Holes, the name of a major medieval quarry at Barnack (PN Nth 230), could be put down to a local labourer with a gift for words; but when another quarry at Warsop is also called Hills & Holes (PN Nt 103), not to mention fields at Darlton (PN Nt 297),

24

Alliteration in Culture

at Essendine (PN Ru 147) and at three separate villages in Norfolk (PN Nf 2:5, 2:35, 3:93), then independent invention must be ruled out. The sense of English field-names is often expressed through such names, which recur in one county after another. The agricultural workers who coined these must have had a lively grasp of the forms of rhetoric, even if they did not know its terms, leaving philologists of a later generation to wonder ‘that a man who knew not so much the names of his tools, should be able to work after that fashion with ’em’.6 A glance at John Field’s Field-Names finds the following tropes in common use: • • • • • • •

Simile – Bitter As Gall Metaphor – Cream Pot Litotes – Good Enough Irony – Hundred Acres (for a small field) Sarcasm – Mount Pleasant (for land which is anything but) Personification – Quarrelsome Hyperbole – Worst That Ever Was Seen

together with a number of bahuvrihi compounds such as Fillcup or Kill Devil, fields which do not in fact fill cups or kill devils, but ones where the harvest is so plentiful it makes plenty of beer, or whose cultivation is so onerous that even the Devil would be killed if he attempted it. It is noticeable that many of the alliterative field-names are also figurative. Thus we have personification in Pickpocket (at Siston, PN Gl 3:68), Pickpocket Close at Thorne (PN WRY 1:6), and Pickpockets Mead at Essendon (PN Hrt 311) – evidently an unprofitable field that surreptitiously stole away the farmer’s money. The popular Barebones – at Stanwell (PN Mx 208), at Milson in Shropshire (Foxall 1980: 25), at Kintbury (PN Berks 2:230) – looks as if it is describing the kind of field where rocks peer up through thin topsoil, but analogy with the equally popular Bare Arse7 shows that it is really a personified name for a field which will reduce its owner to skin and bone. Other names allude to the miseries of the farmer who has lost out in cultivating such poor soil. Subject to Great Goings Out (at Hurley, PN Berks 1:64), his purse will soon feel a Pennyless Pinch (at Brimpsfield, PN Gl 1:147) and once he is Pinchpoor (at Siston, PN Gl 3:68), he will be reduced to wearing Bare Blankets (at Wreay, PN Cu 1:167). His hard work can only end in Cold Comfort (at Tetbury Upton, PN Gl 1:113, and Dowdeswell, PN Gl 1:170). When he gets home, it will be to a Cold Kitchen (at Brixton Deverill, PN W 120, and Charlton Abbots, PN Gl 2:5; Coal Kitchen (1765) in Shere, PN Sr 252), with nothing to look forward to except a Cold Christmas (at Thundridge, PN Hrt 206).

Jeremy Harte

25

On the other side of the balance, there are some alliterating fieldnames with a more cheerful air. Great Gains were to be expected at Buscote (PN Berks 2:355, though there was also a Small Gains nearby); God’s Gift at Natland (PN We 1:114), Make Merry at Ham & Stone (PN Gl 2:227) and Pleasant Place at Brightwell (PN Berks 2:516) suggest that sometimes toil was rewarded. But these are the exception. Honey Hill at Wokingham (PN Berks 1:144) looks at first glance as if it belongs with the Cream, Butter and Syllabub names that express fertility through images of sweet, rich food. But Field8 notes that ‘in Cambridgeshire, Honey is found usually to occur in marshy areas’, and this would also explain the presence of three Honey Holes in Lincolnshire, the first dating from 1601 (PN L 5:45, 5:119, 5:140). Comparison with the many Honey Lanes shows that the imagery is one of runny yellow mud, just as the pudding names allude to the clingier sort. Alliteration, then, is one of a range of devices used by labourers in the fields to make their point, and there is no doubt that the choice of alliterating words was deliberate: out of 62 derogatory field-names cited for Shropshire, 12 are alliterative, a much higher proportion than could be expected by chance.9 This is quite different from the formation of earlier settlement names, which seem quite indifferent to any play on initial sounds. Old and Middle English coinages with generics such as le¯ah, tu¯n and worþ do not show any particular preference for qualifiers beginning in /l/, /t/, or /w/. The only settlement names to show any preference for alliteration are those with distinctive affixes – a kind of formation which becomes common in the thirteenth century. Already by this time Stratton Strawless was marked out from other Strattons by its affix, ‘said to have been given because the heavy clay of the ground made corn growing unprofitable’ (PN Nf 3:103); but ‘strawless’ seems so forced a way of expressing this idea that alliteration must have been a governing factor in its choice. Hunger- is found as an affix, but only in names of a later date: Hungry Hardwick occurs in 1766 as an informal affix for what is usually Monks Hardwick in St Neots (PN Hu 265), and the hamlet of Hungry Hatton in Child’s Ercall first appears under that name in 1808 (PN Sa 5:133). Alliterative affixes mark out settlements that are too wet (Moreton in the Marsh) as well as those that are too dry (Dry Doddington, Willoughby Waterless) but the practice is not so common as to rule out coincidence. In any case, the name may not be as derogatory as it seems. Dry Drayton, Driedraiton (1218) (PN Ca 153), is only dry by Cambridgeshire standards, and offered a better standard of living than the nearby Fen Drayton. But Frog Firle, which was distinguished

26

Alliteration in Culture

in this way in 1288 (PN Sx 2:416), can hardly have been meant as a compliment, and the contrasted Pig Firle is not much better. Thorpe Thewles, ‘immoral Thorpe’ since 1265,10 is a more studied piece of insult. From the 1200s onwards, alliteration has been used for scurrilous or derogatory effect – first in a few distinctive settlement names, and then in a tradition of field-names that begins with Hungry Hill and then widens out in the modern period to encompass a much wider range of reference.11 It may not be coincidence that the thirteenth century saw alliteration as a governing principle in poetry superseded, at least in south-eastern England, by the French principle of rhyme. As alliteration lost its status in high culture, it came to seem more appropriate as a vehicle for cynical or mocking forms. Certainly it works this way in blasons populaires, those stereotyped expressions used by one village to dismiss or sneer at the inhabitants of the next. These circulated widely in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century village culture, and included one attributed to Shakespeare: Piping Pebworth, dancing Marston Haunted Hillborough, and hungry Grafton …

12

This may sound a mere jingle, but the labourers who used alliteration in coining field-names did so for deliberate effect, not just because they liked the sound. This is clear from the lack of interest in this feature when it came to the adoption of names from elsewhere. The idea of remoteness could be expressed alliteratively, as in the name Seldom Seen, found as ‘a nickname for a field in a remote part of the parish’ at Patney (PN W 501), and more remotely still to describe a farm at Alston (PN Cu 1:179), near the top of Flinty Fell and a long way from anywhere else. But it is much more common for remoteness, like other commemorative or derogatory senses, to be expressed by other strategies. The most usual of these is transference, the relocation of names that belong to other places onto the familiar landscape of home. There was a rich repertoire of names for remote geographical locations – from Gibraltar and Newfoundland to Van Diemen’s Land – but these do not show any preference for alliteration.13 Evidently the transference of names was itself a trope marking out these field-names as a rhetorical production, and alliteration was not needed as well. The only time that a transferred name is modified by alliteration is in the coinage Little London, which appears as might be expected in the home counties and the south-east – Sussex, Hertfordshire, Middlesex – but

Jeremy Harte

27

is also recorded as far north as Derbyshire.14 ‘Little’ generally has a disparaging, ironic tone when it is used in figurative names. Little Venice at Westminster, on the Grand Union Canal, is not (one gathers) a patch on the real thing; and when miners’ communities in the Rhondda were referred to as Little Moscows, the name not only referred to their Communist allegiance but gently satirised its insignificance in British politics. Most of the places called Little London were insignificant indeed. Lunnon at Scarrington in Nottinghamshire was not even a farm but ‘the site of a hamlet where about ten families lived … The cottages were mud and thatch and the place was often jocularly referred to as ‘Little London’. As the cottages fell empty they were condemned and became ruinous’ (PN Mx xxxii). Some alliterative names may have taken on a new sense through being transferred. In London, Silver Street appears among medieval streetnames. Stow15 mentions it as ‘Siluer streete, (I thinke of siluer smithes dwelling there)’. This suggests that even in his time the derivation was opaque, but his etymology does at least make sense in a city whose streets were able to support eponymous communities of candlewrights, cordwainers, needlers, paternosterers and other specialist trades. The same could be said for the fourteenth-century form of the name in Lincoln.16 But all the other Silver Streets are modern, most of them being found in small towns and villages, which could never have provided employment for silversmiths: the earliest forms are Silver Streate (1623) at Cheshunt (PN Hrt 221) and Silver Street (c.1630) at Edmonton (PN Mx 68). Billockby in coastal Norfolk, with its Silver Street recorded in 1595, makes a poor showing as a centre of the jeweller’s trade; this is an isolated lane in an area of deserted medieval villages (PN Nf 2:51). Several instances of the name were collected by antiquarians from 1800 onwards in the misguided belief that these were survivals of Latin silva, which does at least show that the name no longer carried an obvious sense by then. Local enquiry might be able to confirm if these streets are low and flat, in which case Silver Street could have been transferred from London with ironic reference to the shining surface of a flooded road. It is possible that this might apply also to their exemplar, since the London street is Selvernestrate (1279),17 from the adjective seolfern, and this seems to refer to the road itself rather than its inhabitants. As this suggests, alliteration is used in street–names to signal a derogatory judgement, just as it is in field-names. Variations on Raton Rowe, ‘row of rat-infested houses’, are found in most medieval towns. Like other alliterative names, this is first found in the thirteenth century, and cannot be much earlier, raton having been borrowed by Middle

28

Alliteration in Culture

English from French about this time. Vicus de Ratunrowe appears in 1288 at Norwich (PN Nf 1:130), followed by Ratonsrowe (1301) at Shrewsbury (PN Sa 4:7), Ratounrowe (1308) at Nottingham (PN Nt 16), and le Ratoun Rowe (1330) at Derby, afterwards Rotten Rowe (1540) (PN Db 2:449). Development to Rotten Row, keeping the derogatory sense as well as the alliteration, followed when the original qualifier became opaque in the early modern period; at Nottingham, the same street is Raton Rowe in 1653 and Rotten Row in 1652 (PN Nt 16). The name then spread out into the countryside, and from villages we have Rotten Row at Lyneal (PN Sa 5:51), and Rotten Row (1610) at Braughing (PN Hrt 191). Howlet Hall at Brent Pelham (PN Hrt 185) is another disparaging name for a derelict building, an alliterative example from a small but widespread genre of pretentious names for ruined barns or cottages which make their ironic point by compounding an animal name as qualifier with some generic suited to a grand house. The magpie, haggass in Yorkshire dialect, was one of these derogatory animals, at home at Haggass Hall as well as the earlier Hagaste-Howse of 1548 in the West Riding.18 Gloucestershire has several names of this kind, including two examples of the alliterative Cats Castle (at Slimbridge, PN Gl 2:248, and Uley, PN Gl 2:255; other names of this type are discussed in PN Gl 4:199). Elsewhere, alliteration may alert us to a disparaging sense that might not be otherwise obvious. Troy Town – literally a maze, and metaphorically a muddle – seems likely to have been used for slum buildings; it appears twice in Dorset, at Puddletown (PN Do 1:322) and at Iwerne Courtenay (PN Do 3:40, as Tray Town). Love Lane, which is more common than its variant Lovers’ Lane, suggests romance to the modern ear. We might imagine a quiet country track winding through hedges sweet with honeysuckle on its way to the long grass – but we would be wrong. In the city of London, the not very salubrious Lovelane (1336), just off Wood Street, was one of four medieval streets with this name,19 and given the location they are likely to have been given over to prostitutes. Pretty much any form of sexual activity which did not take place at home in the marital bed was condemned in the Middle Ages, and the Love Lanes of medieval Salisbury (PN W 21), Reading (PN Berks 1:173) and Bristol (PN Gl 3:92) seem to have been fairly seedy alleyways. Early modern references are also urban,20 and their context is not always romantic. Love Lane at Stepney was previously Cutthroat Lane (1746) (PN Mx 157). Place-names are typically bestowed by the older and more steady sector of the community. They probably did not think much of young people enjoying themselves. Gaudy Green at Gloucester (corruptly as Gandy Green (1549), PN Gl 2:129) and Giddy Green at Wool in Dorset,

Jeremy Harte

29

from ModE gaudy, ‘festival’, may be using their alliteration to add a note of disapproval, since the modern forms have clearly been influenced by other disparaging words. The tendency of place-names to express the world view of what Elizabethans liked to call ‘honest sage and discrete persons’ is shown at its clearest in the names which define and exclude marginal people – the thieves, rogues, Gypsies and whores who were driven (often literally) to the edge of settlement. Beggars Bush is one of the commonest of these names,21 and like the other alliterative names is found ringing the changes on other generics beginning with the same letter; there is a Beggars Bridge at Eton Wick (PN Bk 237), a Beggars Barn at Hartfield (PN Sx 2:369; this was Beggersbush, 1564), and a Beggarman’s Bank at Edstaston (PN Sa 5:244); Beggar’s Banks is also found at Nackington in Kent.22 A survey by Phil Quinn of 28 Beggar- names in Somerset and Gloucestershire found that all but 7 had bush as the generic.23 The earliest of these instances dated from 1740, most of the rest coming from tithe maps; significantly, the few medieval forms employ other generics, compounding beggere with þorn or welle. Here, as elsewhere, a deliberate move to alliteration is seen in names of the eighteenth century onwards. The bush may have provided shelter from sun and rain, or it may have been an agreed spot for depositing gifts of food and clothing while keeping the beggars out of town; many of them are on boundaries, crossroads and other marginal situations. But there are also connotative implications, since X’s Bush, like X’s Tree or Cross, is the kind of name that often marks liminal and haunted places. The beggars are being cast in the outcast role of ghosts or suicides. Quinn quotes24 the memories of children in Tickenham who would scurry past the Devil’s Hole where travellers squatted, unsure whether it was the tramps or Satan that they were most frightened of. The Devil plays many parts in place-name formation. Some of the names that refer to him are, apparently, to be understood literally as haunted places; some allude to local legends; some are variations on the derogatory description of poor land.25 But the theme of alliteration runs through all types. The Devil’s Den at Preshute (PN W 308) is a megalithic site; there is another Devil’s Den at Thatcham in Berkshire (PN Berks 1:192), where the referent is not so clear, a third in woodland at Coulsdon (PN Sr 47) and a small strip of wood at Linley (PN Sa 3:168). Devil’s Dell at Enfield (PN Mx 213) and Devil’s Dingle in Spoonhill Wood at Much Wenlock (PN Sa 3:254) seem also to have been woodland, though Devil’s Dream at Rowton near Shrewsbury (PN Sa 2:13) is inscrutable. These forms show, once again, the importance

30

Alliteration in Culture

placed on keeping the alliterative sound in variant forms of the name, even though dell is otherwise rare as a generic. Puck Pits is also a very common name, with medieval forms. The alliteration here may be accidental, since pucas were ubiquitous in the medieval landscapes of southern England, and it was common for spirits and demons of all kinds to be found in a pytt. But a definite preference for alliteration shows up in other names for the haunts of supernatural beings, including Bogle Burn at the Eildon Hills,26 Grimes Graves near Thetford,27 Pixies’ Parlour on Dartmoor,28 and Coldpixey’s Cave at Boldre in Hampshire.29 There is at least one triple alliteration, Hob Hurst’s House, a chambered barrow at Beeley in Derbyshire.30 Hob Hurst owes his name to a wrong analysis of an earlier *Hobthurst (from ME hob, OE þyrs) which has been rearranged to suggest that he is the hob o’ th’ hurst – producing an alliterative name in the process. He is not the only supernatural creature to be distinguished in this way. A brief reference to Jennifer Westwood’s Albion31 will summon up the Bullbeggar, Bloody Bones and Peg Powler, along with the Man-Monkey, Herne the Hunter, and Robin Round-cap, not to mention the Flayed Bull of Bagbury, the Gytrash of Goathland, the Demon Drummer and the Devil’s Dandy Dogs. Evidently alliteration is a marker, not just for place-names based on the supernatural, but for the spirits themselves. The coinage of elaborate alliterative names for supernatural creatures – for beings which would never, one supposes, have impinged on the human world at all if they had not been called by name – shows how much more there is to onomastics than a straightforward need for names to define referents. Naming is a rhetorical process which can still take place regardless of the material absence of anything to be named. Pudding Pie Pightle was material enough, and so were all the other soggy, stony, lumpy, hungry and lonely fields which had been marked out with alliterative names by farmworkers. But here, too, the tradition of naming was performative rather than referential. In calling these fields by the picturesque names that they did, labourers were less concerned to choose an easy label for designation than to say what they thought about the land itself. Names have many functions. If we pay close attention to the rules by which they are composed – and alliteration is one of the most obvious of these – then we may find that there was more poetry than might at first have been suspected in the round of rural life.

Jeremy Harte

31

Notes 1. J. Field, A History of English Field-Names, London: Longman, 1993, p. 41. 2. J. Field, English Field Names: a Dictionary, Newton Abbot/London: David and Charles, 1972, pp. 111–12. 3. Field, History of Field-Names, pp. 82–3. 4. H.D.G. Foxall, Shropshire Field-Names, Shrewsbury: Shropshire Archaeological Society, 1980, p. 25. 5. Ibid., p. 25. 6. Such was the judgement of Jesus College on Walter Shandy’s argumentative powers – Sterne, Tristram Shandy, bk 1, ch. 19. 7. Field, Dictionary of Field-Names, p. 13. 8. Field, History of Field-Names, p. 42. 9. Foxall, Shropshire Field-Names, p. 25. 10. Allen Mawer, The Place-Names of Northumberland and Durham, Cambridge University Press, 1920, p. 196. 11. But there is one context in which alliteration is not derogatory – in the choice of pub names. Here, like the other idioms in use for signs, it seems to function as a marker to say ‘this is a curious name, so you can tell it is a public house, not an ordinary private one’. The range of alliteration is enormous, though unlike the field-names there is little repetition, and as with pub names in general, descriptive names such as Castle of Comfort are outnumbered by metonymic ones taken from the most disparate fields of reference – not just the traditional Blue Boar, but Big Ben, Bilbo Baggins, Bunch of Bluebells, and Battle of Britain. A rich harvest can be found in L. Dunkling and G. Wright, Pub Names of Britain, London: JM Dent, 1994. 12. R. Palmer, The Folklore of Warwickshire, London: Batsford, 1976, p. 17. 13. There is an exception in Botany Bay, which is often used to name fields that were remote, or were distrusted and feared as much as the penal colony; but it is the only alliterative name in this very large group. 14. I am dubious about the ‘fields called Little London, of which we have examples in Alveley, Munslow and Oswestry … set aside for cattle drovers en route to London’ (Foxall, Shropshire Field-Names, p. 24). This sounds like a fanciful derivation. 15. J. Stowe, A Survey of London, ed. Charles Lethbridge Kingsford, vol. 1, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908, p. 299. 16. A. Room, The Street Names of England, Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1992, p. 96. 17. E. Ekwall, Street-Names of the City of London, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954, p. 76. 18. Diana Whaley, ‘Watching for Magpies in English Place-Names’. In Padel, O.J. and Parsons, N. (eds), A Commodity of Good Names: Essays in Honour of Margaret Gelling, Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2008, pp. 286–99, at p. 288. 19. Ekwall, Street-Names of the City of London, pp. 165–6. 20. Room, Street Names, p. 48. 21. Field, Dictionary of Field-Names, p. 17. 22. Ibid., p. 108. 23. P. Quinn, ‘Beggars Bush: a Study of Liminality and Social Exclusion’, Third Stone, 33, 1999: 13–15. 24. Ibid.

32

Alliteration in Culture

25. Hell Hole, which Field, History of Field-Names, p. 106, says is ‘distributed fairly widely’, from Durham to Berks, is topographical rather than derogatory; at Myddle in Shropshire, Hell Hole contained ‘a well or spring … so fluent, that the water seems to boil up’ (R. Gough, The History of Myddle, ed. David Hey, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981, p. 69), and in the same county the name is applied to fields flanking the Heath Brook at Stoneacton in Rushbury, as if the hole were a feature of the river (PN Sa 3.195). 26. J. Westwood, Albion: a Guide to Legendary Britain, London: Granada, 1985, p. 457. 27. L.V. Grinsell, Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain, Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1976, p. 134, and cf. Grymesgraue 1272⫻1307 at Briningham, PN Nf 3.117. 28. R. St Leger-Gordon, The Witchcraft and Folklore of Dartmoor, London: Hale, 1965, p. 21. 29. Grinsell, Folklore of Prehistoric Sites, p. 111. 30. Ibid., p. 158. 31. Westwood, Albion, p. 457.

Abbreviations PN Bd – Mawer, Allen and Frank Stenton, 1926, The Place-Names of Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire, English Place-Name Society 3. PN Berks – Gelling, Margaret, 1973–76, The Place-Names of Berkshire, English Place-Name Society 49–51. PN Bk – Mawer, Allen and Frank Stenton, 1925, The Place-Names of Buckinghamshire, English Place-Name Society 2. PN Ca – Reaney, Percy, 1943, The Place-Names of Cambridgeshire, English PlaceName Society 19. PN Cu – Armstrong, Aileen M. et al., 1950–52, The Place-Names of Cumberland, English Place-Name Society 20–2. PN Db – Cameron, Kenneth, 1959, The Place-Names of Derbyshire, English PlaceName Society 27–9. PN Do – Mills, A.D., 1977–89 (and ongoing), The Place-Names of Dorset, English Place-Name Society 52–3 and 59/60. PN Gl – Smith, Albert Hugh, 1964–65, The Place-Names of Gloucestershire, English Place-Name Society 38–41. PN Hrt – Gover, John, Allen Mawer and Frank Stenton, 1938, The Place-Names of Hertfordshire, English Place-Name Society 15. PN Hu – Mawer, Allen and Frank Stenton, 1926, The Place-Names of Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire, English Place-Name Society 3. PN L – Cameron, Kenneth, 1985–2001 (and ongoing), The Place-Names of Lincolnshire, English Place-Name Society 58, 64/5, 66, 71, 73, 77. PN Lei – Cox, Barrie, 1998–2004 (and ongoing), The Place-Names of Leicestershire, English Place-Name Society 75, 78 and 81. PN Mx – Gover, John, Allen Mawer and Frank Stenton, 1942, The Place-Names of Middlesex apart from the City of London, English Place-Name Society 18. PN Nf – Sandred, Karl Inge, and Bengt Lindström, 1989–2002 (and ongoing), The Place-Names of Norfolk, English Place-Name Society 61, 72, 79.

Jeremy Harte

33

PN Nt – Gover, John, Allen Mawer and Frank Stenton, 1940, The Place-Names of Nottinghamshire, English Place-Name Society 17. PN Nth – Gover, John, Allen Mawer and Frank Stenton, 1933, The Place-Names of Northamptonshire, English Place-Name Society 10. PN O – Gelling, Margaret, 1953, The Place-Names of Oxfordshire, English PlaceName Society 23–4. PN Ru – Cox, Barrie, 1989–92, The Place-Names of Rutland, English Place-Name Society 67–9. PN Sa – Gelling, Margaret, 1990–2006 (and ongoing), The Place-Names of Shropshire, English Place-Name Society 62/3, 70, 76, 80, 82. PN Sr – Gover, John, Allen Mawer and Frank Stenton, 1934, The Place-Names of Surrey, English Place-Name Society 11. PN Sx – Mawer, Allen and Frank Stenton, 1929–30, The Place-Names of Sussex, English Place-Name Society 6–7. PN W – Gover, John, Allen Mawer and Frank Stenton, 1939, The Place-Names of Wiltshire, English Place-Name Society 16. PN We – Smith, Albert Hugh, 1967, The Place-Names of Westmorland, English Place-Name Society 42–3. PN WRY – Smith, Albert Hugh, 1961–63, The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire, English Place-Name Society 30–7. (Unless otherwise stated, field-names derive from the tithe maps of c.1840 or other early nineteenth-century sources.)

2 Alliteration in English-Language Versions of Current Widespread European Idioms and Proverbs Fionnuala Carson Williams

Abstract This chapter looks in a quantitative way at the frequency and kinds of alliteration caused by the repetition of a sound in adjacent words, or words close together, in idioms and proverbs, usually the sound of initial consonants, a feature which has been long-standing in both of them. It compares what is found in idioms with what is found in proverbs. The chapter first gives a few examples of the contemporary use of alliteration in idioms in advertisements, the media, and so on, and discusses its relative effectiveness. It then turns to corpora of European idioms and proverbs which have been identified as current and widespread. It draws attention to the fact that, within them in English, many of the proverbs contain rhyme, whereas only one idiom does. Other remarks note that all of these idioms with alliteration end with a noun and that in most cases the final noun is part of the alliteration. Stress is also significant in the placing of alliteration in idioms and usually falls on that last noun and the word with the matching sound. Various patterns in the alliteration are analysed and the commonest sounds for it are analysed. In the corpus of idioms under consideration although only about 13 per cent contain alliteration it is the most consistent feature. On the other hand, in the body of proverbs examined, alliteration is more than twice as common, partly, no doubt, because proverbs are generally longer than idioms and thus provide greater opportunities for it. Another difference in the alliteration between idioms and proverbs is that the proverbs also show more variety in the kinds of alliteration used. A few of the items considered here occur as both idioms and proverbs and the alliteration remains constant in both forms. While the emphasis in this essay is on English-language idioms and proverbs, it makes a few comparisons with 34

Fionnuala Carson Williams

35

French and German versions. The conclusion of the findings is that while alliteration is a feature in varying degrees of both these corpora of proverbs and idioms it is the most consistent stylistic feature of these idioms and is therefore particularly significant.

Alliteration has long been a feature of European idioms and proverbs; for instance, a proverb which we find in current use ‘Barking dogs seldom bite’ can be traced back in English to about 1275 while the everyday idiom ‘to buy a pig in a poke’ can be tracked back almost as far – to about 1300.1 A decade ago, after years of dedicated research, the veteran Hungarian scholar Gyula Paczolay, whom I salute here, published the 100 or so proverbs which were the most widespread across many languages in Europe.2 Many idioms are also international and at present a number of scholars, led by EUROPHRAS, the European Society of Phraseology,3 are pursuing a similar goal, that is, to determine the most widespread idioms.4 Many scholars have noted that alliteration is a feature of proverbs and idioms, and Wolfgang Mieder, in his wide-ranging bibliography of international proverb and phraseological scholarship, has located over 100 articles which mention or focus on this.5 The work of Paczolay and EUROPHRAS provide an opportunity to examine alliteration in a quantitative way in the most widespread proverbs and idioms currently used in Europe. What is the purpose of alliteration? Alliteration is a languageenhancing marker which viewers, listeners and performers find attractive. It draws attention to the message. How much more appealing is the slogan ‘No tap tax!’ graffito noticed on hoarding on the Ravenhill Road, Belfast, January 2007, and also on the nearby Ormeau Road, March 2007, than the original ‘No water rates’?6 Similar alliteration about the same issue has also been taken up in a more official medium, a broadsheet newspaper: ‘Tap tax issues face challenge for votes’.7 The slogan ‘No tap tax’ is an effective and satisfying use of alliteration, with just enough to make it memorable. Too much alliteration can become confusing, for example the publicity for the musical ‘Chicago’ used on posters and billboards in Belfast in June 2007 ‘Chicago “Sexy, sassy, sultry, seductive, sensual, slinky, sophisticated”’ which is apparently a quote from a review in the newspaper the Independent on Sunday.8 A well-known local bakery also used alliteration at the same time, but in a more restrained way, ‘It’s not just Belfast bred. It’s better bread … because of our new improved recipe.’9 In its simple form, the one which I have illustrated and the one which I will discuss here, alliteration is

36

Alliteration in Culture

the repetition of a sound in adjacent words, or words close together and, in English, this is usually the sound of initial consonants, as in ‘a pig in a poke’, although more complex repetitions also exist, particularly in poetry and song. While people create their own alliteration in everyday speech, alliteration is a more expected and regular feature of both fixed and freer forms of oral narrative. Fixed forms, as well as being used straightforwardly, are also juggled about in performance; for example, I recently heard the following exchange between two male colleagues: First colleague (SÓC, born 1966 and reared Poleglass, West Belfast) That map’s good. Second colleague (AMcA, born 1980, from Banbridge, County Down) It’s a lot clearer than that one. First colleague Yeah. It’s crystal, isn’t it? which is a contemporary and obvious reference to the age old idiom ‘as clear as crystal’.10 These tried and tested idioms with alliteration are so familiar that graphic designers can allude to them without even showing words; for example, a recent advertisement on Translink’s Metro buses in Belfast, which was displayed on them both inside and outside, for Grafton Recruitment, an employment agency, simply had a photograph of a big, open peapod with regularly sized peas and the firm’s contact details. To me this was an allusion to the alliterative idiom ‘as alike as two peas in a pod’, conveying the message that the agency could perfectly match up recruits and jobs.11 As I mentioned at the beginning, the work of Dr Paczolay and EUROPHRAS provides an opportunity to look at alliteration in the most widespread proverbs and idioms currently used in Europe. A noticeable difference between these proverbs and idioms in general (not just those with alliteration) is that many of the proverbs rhyme whereas only one of the idioms, ‘to be in seventh heaven’, rhymes. The widespread idioms, however, might be said to usually display certain metres or, at least, recurring, and therefore predictable, stress patterns. A noticeable similarity between the proverbs and the idioms is that the majority are metaphoric: all but two of the widespread idioms are metaphors. Several of these metaphors refer to animal behaviour, both domesticated and wild, non-native species, for example ‘to bury one’s head in the sand’ (like the ostrich), meaning ‘wilfully to ignore danger’. Other idioms refer to pastimes as in ‘to play a trump card’, or to customs, even those outmoded or obsolete, as in ‘to raise one’s hat’ and ‘to throw down the gauntlet’.

Fionnuala Carson Williams

37

Many refer to clothes, such as ‘to tighten one’s belt’, and to the human body, as in ‘to lose one’s head’. A few refer to nature and agriculture, such as ‘to find a needle in a haystack’. While some idioms in current use are ancient, for example the biblical ‘to cast pearls before swine’, others are of more recent creation, such as ‘the tip of the iceberg’, which, if not emanating from the fate in 1912 of Belfast’s Titanic, certainly gaining currency because of that tragedy.12 Others of recent origin include ‘to be on the same wavelength’ and ‘to give someone the green light’ noted on the webpage of a local newspaper: ‘An application to upgrade Craigdun Castle, near Cullybackey, has been given the green light by planners.’13 None of the classic colour idioms like ‘as red as a rose’ is amongst the top 100. Work on the definitive most widespread idioms in Europe is still in progress but it seems that not all of them occur in English. A circular which I received in 2005 showed that 90 of the interim list of 100 occur in English. Likewise, fewer than 100 also occur in German and French. Ninety-eight have been located in German while 92 have been located in French. In the following part I will concentrate on the English-language versions of the widespread idioms. In English the vast majority of widespread idioms end in a noun, as in ‘to wear the trousers’, and all of the idioms with alliteration end with a noun, as in ‘to add fuel to the flames’. In practically all cases of idioms with alliteration the alliteration is formed between this final noun and some other word, not necessarily the one immediately beside it. Stress is a significant factor, as the stress almost always falls on the last noun and on the word with the matching sound, as in ‘a ˡbolt from the ˡblue’. A good example of the stress in use in this idiom was heard on 27 May 2007 on Radio Ulster’s Seven Days, ‘a lunchtime look at what’s new on the newsfront’, as the programme is described on Radio Ulster’s website.14 It is a programme introduced by Karen Patterson in which a group of invited guests discuss current affairs. The idiom turned up in a discussion about the decision to construct a new ‘peace wall’ in the grounds of an integrated school in North Belfast. Note how, in this context, not only is the stress at the end of the idiom on the last noun, but that the idiom itself, in both cases, is at the end of a sentence and therefore followed by a pause, making it stand out: Karen Patterson I’m looking at a quote here from the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education and they knew that the matter was under debate certainly for some months but they described the decision to go for a wall as a ˡbolt from the ˡblue. Now, can that be right?

38

Alliteration in Culture

Suniel Sharma (Independent Member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board) I don’t believe that. Like, as far as I understand, and talking to people within the Police Service and the NIO [Northern Ireland Office] this was not a ˡbolt from the ˡblue. This, there was a fair bit of consultation, I mean, nobody took this decision lightly and rightly so, eh, it harks back to the bad old days but it was essential, in the short term hopefully, for the security of the community who are suffering sectarian attacks. Here is another example with a different idiom but displaying the same final position in context: ‘She had a personal relationship with God … but she’s lost her religion. It was because of all the scandal in the church. She’s thrown the ˡbaby out with the ˡbathwater.’15 As illustrated, the stress usually falls on the last noun and on the word with the matching sound. The one exception in the stress pattern in the idioms in the interim list is ‘to lead a ˡdog’s life’ where the main stress is on ‘dog’s’ rather than ‘life’. The usual structure amongst all of the 100 widespread idioms is: verb + definite article + noun, for example, ‘to break the ice’. So, when alliteration occurs in this, the commonest structure, the verb and the noun begin with the same sound as in this example ‘to swim against the stream’. Naturally, the form of the verb will change according to person and tense. This means that the number of syllables between the two words with the same initial sound can vary as, for example: she’s swim/ming against the/stream (4 syllables) as opposed to I swam/against the/stream (3 syllables) or he’s throw/ing in the/towel (3 syllables) as opposed to I threw/in the/towel (2 syllables) ‘To square the circle’, meaning ‘to try to achieve the impossible’, falls into this category, and the idiom is also arresting not only because of its alliteration but because of the opposition in meaning between the words ‘square’ and ‘circle’. With idioms which have other structures come other kinds of alliteration and the second commonest kind of alliteration involves nouns only. Some idioms contain two nouns and some of these begin with the same sound, for example the one we met earlier, ‘to buy a pig in a poke’,

Fionnuala Carson Williams

39

and another, ‘to add fuel to the fire’. In both of the types described the words with the same initial sound are separated by other words, but the intervening words are always all unstressed. One not so far on the interim list but which, judging from work by Dr Paczolay, perhaps should be, has not only two nouns but also a verb which begin with the same initial sound – ‘to make a mountain out of a molehill’. This, of course, exists as both an idiom and a proverb ‘Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill’ and Dr Paczolay has located it, mainly as an idiom, in 39 different languages.16 The third kind of alliteration engages adjectives and nouns, for example ‘to play the first fiddle’ and ‘like a red rag to a bull’. Here a noun and its adjacent qualifying adjective begin with the same letter. An archaeological colleague, AMcA, who was mentioned earlier, used the latter on 3 January 2007 in a conversation he had with me about his car being stolen: ‘It [his car] was left in a secluded street. It was like a red rag to a bull’, were his words as I recall them. One idiom which does not fit into any of the three categories just described is ‘to hit below the belt’. In this exception the alliteration is formed between a preposition and a noun but, like the others above, the intervening word is unstressed. Sometimes alliteration is avoided. Take the alliterative idiom ‘to play the first fiddle’, meaning ‘to have the leading role’. While it is known in English (the actress Joanna Lumley, for instance, used it in her autobiography No Room for Secrets), it is not nearly as common as the unalliterated idiom with a similar metaphor ‘to play second fiddle’ meaning ‘to be subordinate’, as noted recently in a review of Otherwise Engaged: the Life of Alan Bates by Donald Spoto: ‘In those early films’, Spoto rightly notes, ‘Bates seemed happiest as second fiddle, despite his leading-man looks.’17 The only idiom with alliteration which does not fit into any of the structures and the stress pattern just described is ‘to burn the candle at both ends’, where the verb and adjective begin with the same sound but are separated by a stressed word ˡcandle: ˡburning the ˡcandle at ˡboth ends. The sound /b/ is, in fact, the commonest sound for the alliteration in the idioms in the EUROPHRAS list. It may well also turn out to be the commonest used by copywriters. Here is another recent example highlighting a night away, which was actually an incentive to fill in a questionnaire about a garden festival: ‘A break will help you blossom.’18 The range of initial sounds used in the widespread idioms is limited to eight. Besides /b/ there are /f/, /g/, /l/, /p/, /r/ and /s/, with three examples of /s/ ‘to see things through rose-coloured spectacles’, ‘to square the circle’ and ‘to swim against the stream’, two of /f/ ‘to play the first fiddle’ and ‘to add

40

Alliteration in Culture

fuel to the flames’, and the rest, e.g./g/ ‘to give someone the green light’, /p/ ‘to buy a pig in a poke’, have just one each. For /b/, besides ‘to burn the candle at both ends’, we have four others including ‘to burn one’s bridges’, ‘like a bolt from the blue’ and ‘to throw the baby out with the bathwater’. This last was aptly used by a consultant physician in a recent radio interview, advocating that adequate facilities for the whole community be maintained at hospitals instead of their becoming totally specialised: ‘It’s a pity to throw the baby out with the bathwater’, meaning ‘to destroy what is good about a situation … while trying to improve it’.19 In a few idioms the sound of the alliteration is repeated within another word or words, for example ‘s’ in ‘to swim against the stream’ which adds to the poetic effect. Some idioms have variants without alliteration, for example ‘to swim against the stream’ is also known in the variant ‘to swim against the tide’. I do not know which is more common but, of course, ‘tide’ can only apply to the sea and perhaps the choice of variant is determined by the significance of the sea in some places, which may take precedence over alliteration. Another idiom which can vary is ‘to look at/see things through rose-coloured/rose-tinted spectacles/glasses’ which again affects the degree of alliteration. Although ‘glasses’ rather than ‘spectacles’ is the commoner way to refer to those visual aids, the ‘spectacles’ variant of the idiom appears to be commoner, probably because of the satisfaction that the alliteration gives. An example of this was noted recently: Paul McKenna, hypnotist from the south of England, was being interviewed on the BBC radio programme Desert Island Discs and said of his failure to be objective about someone, ‘That’s what happens when you’re in love: you see someone through rose-coloured spectacles.’20 Amongst the 90 idioms identified by EUROPHRAS which are found in the English language 12 of them, that is, about 13 per cent, have alliteration. The proportions in German and French idioms in the same list were not dissimilar (14 out of 92, and 11 out of 98) but, naturally, not with the same idioms. Only two idioms display alliteration in all three languages: to buy a pig in a poke die Katze im Sack kaufen acheter le chat en sac and to swim against the stream gegen den Strom schwimmen nager contre le courant

Fionnuala Carson Williams

41

Dr Paczolay included some idioms in his research which gives us a chance to see to what extent alliteration carries across in the same idiom in other European languages apart from English, German and French; ‘to buy a pig in a poke’, for instance, has been located by Paczolay in 38 languages, about 14 of which seem to contain alliteration.21 Idioms and proverbs can either acquire or lose alliteration when they move into another language. The idiom in German without alliteration ‘das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten’ takes on alliteration in English. Wolfgang Mieder has made a dedicated study of it: ‘“(Don’t) Throw the Baby Out with the Bath Water”: the Americanization of a German Proverb and Proverbial Expression’.22 Two idioms in French have more extended alliteration than any found in any of the English idioms: one, now archaic, with three similar sounds ‘se parar des plumes de paon’ [‘to wear borrowed plumes’, literally, ‘to adorn oneself with peacock plumes’] and one with four ‘réchauffer un serpent sur son sein’ [‘to warm up a viper in one’s bosom’]. Another idiom in French has more complex alliteration, with two pairs of sounds in each (if one counts ‘comme’, ‘like’), /k/ and /s/ ‘comme un coup de tonnerre dans un ciel serein’ [‘like a bolt from the blue’, literally, ‘like a clap of thunder in a serene sky’]. This device of using two pairs of alliterated words with different initial sounds to arrest attention continues to be coined as we will see in the following contemporary slogans although, even in these, as in the idioms created in the past, it is less common than simply one repeated sound. I saw it in a United Kingdom-wide campaign by the National Union of Students, the ‘SSHH! Campaign’, which was to encourage students to keep their noise levels down at night. As a part of this the Student Union at the Queen’s University of Belfast had a large banner with ‘Silent Students Happy Homes’ on public view at the start of term in October 2006.23 Alliteration in about 13 per cent of idioms may not seem significant; however, are there any other commoner stylistic features which idioms regularly display? Well, while some have predictable rhythm, only one rhymes and only a few display assonance. Alliteration is therefore the most consistent stylistic feature of these idioms, although it is much less common here than in riddles and in tongue-twisters (cf. Cowdell in Chapter 4). If we turn now to proverbs we can examine how many of Paczolay’s 100 or so most widespread European proverbs display alliteration. About 30 per cent of them (32 out of 106), contain alliteration in their English versions; for example, ‘All that glitters is not gold’ (the comparable figures for French and German are 34 out of 106, and 43 out of 106, respectively).

42

Alliteration in Culture

Alliteration is therefore more than twice as frequent in widespread anglophone proverbs as in widespread anglophone idioms. Proverbs usually contain more words than idioms which, no doubt, affords more opportunities for alliteration. It is also immediately evident that there is more variety in the kind of alliteration amongst these proverbs. Like the idioms, there is alliteration (in this case, eye alliteration) involving verb and following noun, for example ‘Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.’ There is also alliteration involving noun and noun, for example ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’, and alliteration involving adjective and following noun, for example ‘A small spark makes a great fire.’ In addition there is alliteration between noun and following verb, as in ‘When the cat’s away the mice can play’, between adjective and verb, as in ‘A barking dog never bites’ and between noun and following adjective, as in ‘There is nothing new under the sun.’ Oftener than in idioms the words that share the same initial sound are not proximate, nevertheless the alliteration still impacts because it is reinforced by the stress, for example One ˡswallow doesn’t make a ˡsummer. A few proverbs have what might be called incidental or background alliteration, where the alliteration is not backed up by the stress. One example of this relatively rare occurrence is When the ˡcat’s aˡway the ˡmice can ˡplay. Individual proverbs can also display both alliteration and assonance, for example ‘All roads lead to Rome.’ This is even sometimes bolstered by the repetition of entire morphemes, as in ‘They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind’, and even words ‘So many men so many minds.’ Indeed, returning to the second commonest proverb in Europe, ‘As you sow, so you reap’, the alliterated words are homophones. A few of the idioms can also be found as proverbs, for example the one we met earlier, ‘to throw the baby out with the bath water’ which is also found as the proverb ‘Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.’ We also find ‘to burn the candle at both ends’ as ‘You shouldn’t burn the candle at both ends’, and ‘to burn one’s bridges’ as ‘Don’t burn your bridges’ and so on. Whether in shorter idiom form or in full proverb form as, often negative, commands, the alliteration is maintained. Besides what I have already mentioned about alliteration, the similarity of the sounds in these fixed expressions frequently has a tonguetwister effect which discloses their oral origin. ‘Many men have many minds’, ‘He who laughs last laughs longest’, ‘As you sow, so you reap’ and ‘like a red rag to a bull’, and so on, bring with them a very particular combination of sounds which requires careful enunciation (cf. Cowdell in Chapter 4). This adds variety to the normal rhythm of speech and

Fionnuala Carson Williams

43

thus helps to engage users and listeners. The message of proverbs is, however, paramount and constant across a range of languages and alliteration is secondary to this. Nevertheless it remains an expected and important feature of numerous current European proverbs.

Notes I wish to acknowledge the help provided by Bairbre Ní Fhloinn, Yasmina Khelifi and J. B. Smith for assisting in the work that went into this chapter. 1. F.P. Wilson, reviser and editor, with an Introduction by Joanna Wilson, The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs Compiled by William George Smith, Oxford, 3rd edn 1970, reprinted 1975, pp. 31 and 95 respectively. 2. G. Paczolay, European Proverbs in 55 Languages with Equivalents in Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, Chinese and Japanese. Európai Közmondáok 55 Nyelven arab, persa, szanszkrit, kínai és japán megfelelökkel, Veszprém, Hungary, 1997. 3. EUROPHRAS, European Society of Phraseology, Europäische Gesellschaft für Phraseologie, Société européenne de phraséologie http://www.europhras. unizh.ch 4. http://www.piirainen.homepage.t-online.de/questionnaire.html ‘Widespread Idioms in Europe and Beyond, a Cross-Linguistic and Cross-Cultural Research Project. Questionnaire, idioms (1) – (100).’ 5. See entries under ‘alliteration’ in the index to W. Mieder, International Bibliography of Paremiology and Phraseology, 2 vols, Berlin and New York: Peter Lang, 2009. 6. The Northern Ireland Office planned to introduce additional water rates but this has proved extremely unpopular and has prompted a movement called ‘Communities against the Water Tax’. 7. Belfast Telegraph, 23 February 2007, p. 10, with this as part of the heading ‘Correspondent David Gordon sets out the limited options facing a new Tap Tax Minister – and candidates [standing for election to the Northern Ireland Assembly] answer the question: Will water charges stay or go under your administration?’ 8. ‘Chicago’ ran at the Grand Opera House, Belfast, from 19 to 30 June 2007. 9. Noticed in June on a bus shelter poster on the Ormeau Road, Belfast. This is an illustrated poster for the Ormo Bakery (the bakery derived its name from the district of Ormeau and it was originally situated on the Ormeau Road, only moving recently). Between the two sets of dots is a cartoon machine with ‘Ormo Belfast Bread’ on it. 10. 11 January 2007. 11. This poster campaign ran in the winter of 2006. Curiously, when I rang Grafton Recruitment to ask about it, and possibly get a poster, the employee there said that this had not been why the peapod had been used and that they had been disappointed with the graphics. 12. Michael McCaughan, curator at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland, in a personal communication several years ago suggested that this idiom might be linked to the Titanic. Over the years I have sent him many references to the idiom

44

13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22.

23.

Alliteration in Culture in context, mainly in the media, and it is certainly used, more often than not, in connection with something sinister. http://www.ballymenatimes.com/cullybackey?articleid=1618304 This is on p. 1 of the Ballymena Times site with a date of 5 June 2007, originally published in the printed version of the newspaper on 10 July 2006. http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/radio/ CH, English-language teacher and translator, 50s, born and reared in South Dublin, as I recall her talking about her mother on 3 June 2007. Paczolay, European Proverbs, pp. 409–12. Catherine Shoard, ‘Let Him Eat Cake’, in the ‘Culture’ supplement of The Sunday Times [Irish edn] 3 June 2007, p. 43. Flier available at the Garden Festival, Hillsborough Castle, County Down, 8–10 June 2007; the flier was green with this in large white lettering on one side and the questions on the reverse. http://www.gardenshowireland.com Professor Marks, Chairperson of Surrey County Hospitals, interviewed on PM, a BBC Radio 4 teatime news programme, on 5 December 2006. BBC Radio 4, 27 May 2007. Paczolay, European Proverbs, pp. 342–5. W. Mieder, ‘“(Don’t) Throw the Baby Out with the Bath Water”: the Americanization of a German Proverb and Proverbial Expression’. Western Folklore, 50 (4), 1991: 361–400, with seven illustrations. Also in W. Mieder, Proverbs Are Never Out of Season: Popular Wisdom in the Modern Age, New York, 1993, pp. 193–224, with four illustrations. I am very grateful to Ben Preston, President of Queen’s Student Union, for giving me details of the campaign and for sending me a ‘SSHH! Campaign’ poster.

3 Alliteration in Inaugural Addresses: From George Washington to Barack Obama Helena Halmari

Abstract This chapter looks at alliteration in one of the sub-genres of political speech, the inaugural addresses of the presidents of the United States. The data cover all the delivered inaugural addresses (56 altogether), from George Washington to Barack Obama, comprising over 130,000 words and over 3000 instances of alliteration. Based on quantitative analysis, careful comparisons are made between the amount of alliteration in various presidents’ speeches and the nature of their presidencies. Even though the most alliterating presidents come from recent years (George W. Bush, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton), the numbers do not strongly support the argument that alliteration has become more common during recent times. However, alliteration does seem to be related to populism: many presidents with populist approaches resort more to its use. Most of the early presidents used it sparingly, but its use increased with Andrew Jackson, the first ‘populist’ president. With the era of ‘virtual presidency’ and broadcast inaugurals, alliteration has come to serve as a stock device of popular audience appeal. Yet, huge fluctuations in the amount of alliteration occur from president to president. The study also suggests another connection: many presidents judged by their contemporaries as relatively successful seem to resort to alliteration in modesty. Their alliteration scores are average – not among the highest and not among the lowest. For example, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan belong to these ‘average alliterators’. Laudable political oratory does not, hence, encourage the overuse of any rhetorical device. Alliteration in political speeches may be seen as a double-edged sword: if overused, it may invite ridicule from the 45

46

Alliteration in Culture

intellectual elite, but if used sparingly, it lends auditory power to one’s rhetorical appeal.

It was Spiro Agnew’s abundant use of alliteration (nattering nabobs of negativism; pusillanimous pussyfoots; hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history) in reference to his political opponents of the late 1960s that popularised this stylistic device and, for decades, raised political speechwriters’ awareness of its use.1 In this study I will investigate fluctuations and trends in the political use of alliteration both before and after Spiro Agnew: I will look at 220 years of alliteration in a highly visible sub-genre of political speeches – the inaugural addresses of the 44 United States presidents, from George Washington to Barack Obama. Specifically, I will discuss the notion of populism in relation to alliteration, attempting to show that populist presidents seem to resort to alliteration more readily than non-populist presidents, who tend to be more moderate alliterators. Inaugural addresses represent a narrowly defined genre, where conventions and consequent audience expectations function as strict constraints. Common topics, such as ‘freedom, responsibility to one’s fellow man, and the pursuit of happiness’ (Moore 2007: 631; see also Campbell and Jamieson 1990), reoccur from address to address, and the structures of the addresses share many features as well. Several rhetorical devices are shared; Mieder, for instance, has analysed the use of proverbs as a common trend in inaugural addresses (2005: 147–86). Alliteration, the focus of this chapter, is found in all 44 inaugural speeches. The reasons for choosing to study alliteration in inaugural addresses are manifold (see e.g. Mieder 2005: 147), but the main motivation to look at just one clearly defined genre is that it allows us to avoid any shifts in alliterative patterns dictated by register variation. The data cover the years from 1789 to 2009, 220 years, which is a period long enough to show a developmental trend, should one exist. Also, conflicting attitudes about the rhetorical effect of alliteration support the focus on just one genre. On the one hand, there is the belief that good rhetoricians use alliteration. In an article in the American Scholar, Douglas L. Wilson portrays President Lincoln as the ‘persuader’, whose ‘writing proved to be timely, engaging, consistently lucid, compelling in argument, and most important of all, invested with memorable and even inspiring language’ (2006: 31). In his book The Eloquent President: a Portrait of Lincoln through his Words, Ronald C. White, Jr. mentions, more than once, Lincoln’s use of alliteration

Helena Halmari

47

specifically as one ‘of his favorite rhetorical devices’ (2005: 214, 300). In an earlier study on the rhetoric of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, I have noted that both of these presidents used alliteration liberally (Halmari 2005), and both of them have earned reputations as excellent orators. Therefore, resorting to alliteration is often seen as a sign of a competent speaker (cf. Coard 1959). On the other hand, prescriptive handbooks in rhetoric have been known to consider alliteration objectionable. The following advice is from a handbook titled Modern Composition and Rhetoric by Jensen, Schmitz, and Thoma from the year 1935: ‘... alliteration, the repetition of a sound at the beginning of consecutive words, should generally be avoided in prose’ (1935: 399). Kredenser (1968) calls it a ‘booby trap’ and writes: ‘Alliteration may have its place in poetry, and even in some prose, but when it turns up in ordinary writing, it can make a sentence ridiculous’ (1968: 75). Studies of developing composition skills indicate that children already at elementary and junior high school level can be enthusiastic users of alliteration (e.g. Bean 1974, Hill 1973), this fact implying that the use of alliteration does not necessarily indicate high levels of rhetorical skills. Then, of course, George W. Bush (whom few have claimed to be a ‘great communicator’) used it as well. In fact, in his first inaugural address (2001), Bush employed alliteration more than twice as much as Washington, Adams, Theodore Roosevelt, Truman and Hoover; Bush’s alliteration count in his first inaugural address was higher than any other US president’s.2 These contradictory notions of alliteration seemed somewhat puzzling. Is alliteration connected with either strong or weak rhetorical skills? Should there be a happy medium in the use of alliteration? And, are there any trends in the use of alliteration in the inaugural addresses over the 220 years? The initial hypothesis was that the quantity of alliteration in inaugurals is a reflection of ‘populism’: in general, I expected to find that the founding fathers used alliteration sparingly, its use increasing gradually starting with Andrew Jackson – the latter being the first ‘populist’ president. I also hypothesised that with the era of ‘virtual presidency’ and broadcast inaugurals, alliteration would have come to serve as a stock device of popular audience appeal. It was also hypothesised that, despite variation in the quantity of alliteration, its simple occurrence within the text of inaugural addresses has remained conventional and expected from the time of the founding fathers till the present. These were the initial hypotheses. But it turns out that the picture is quite a bit more complex. If alliteration is a ‘populist’ rhetorical device, why would its use go up

48

Alliteration in Culture

already with John Quincy Adams, who certainly cannot be regarded as a populist president (see Figure 3.1 below)? And while there has been a slight overall increase in the use of alliteration in the inaugural addresses (as the black trend line indicates in Figure 3.1), there have been peaks and valleys in its use, some presidents (or in recent times their speechwriters)3 clearly resorting more to this rhetorical device than others. Another issue is variation from one inaugural address to another by the same president in the case of those presidents who were elected to more than one term (see Figure 3.2 below). While some were fairly consistent in the number of alliterations per 1000 words from their first address to the second one (e.g. McKinley), for others there have been great differences between the first and the subsequent addresses (Washington, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Clinton and George W. Bush).

Definition and data In order to detect patterns in the diachronic aspects of the use of alliteration, I have chosen to quantify its use as a starting point. As the data source (summarised in Table 3.1) I have included all the inaugural addresses by the American presidents, from George Washington to Barack Obama. Obama is the forty-fourth president (actually there have been only 43 different men in total; Grover Cleveland was the twenty-second and the twenty-fourth having not served consecutive terms). Thirty-eight of the 43 have given inaugural addresses. The five presidents who did not give inaugural addresses (because they inherited the job) are John Tyler (1841–45), Millard Fillmore (1850–53), Andrew Johnson (1865–69), Chester A. Arthur (1881–85), and Gerald Ford (1974–77). Of the 38 presidents who have given inaugural addresses, 22 have given only one address. The most recent president, Obama, is included in these 22; the remaining 21 ended up serving one term only. Sixteen presidents were elected for more than one term and gave thus two addresses, except for Franklin D. Roosevelt, who served four terms. Hence the data consist of altogether 56 inaugural addresses. As the source for the addresses I have used The Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents (edited by Hunt 1997). The texts in Hunt’s edition have been checked verbatim against the bartleby.com website and corrected and added to in the few instances where there were discrepancies. The bartleby.com website includes a complete collection of the inaugural addresses up to George W. Bush. The most recent inaugural address,

Helena Halmari

49

that by Barack Obama, was accessed at http://www.whitehouse.gov/ blog/inaugural-address/ (‘President Barack Obama’s inaugural address’). On this website, both the text and the video are available. The text published on the website was compared against a text published by Penguin Books (Obama 2009: 3–14), and both texts were verified against the video. In the case of a few discrepancies between the published written texts and the actual spoken address, the video was held as the authoritative source, on which for instance the word count was based. The discrepancies were minor, consisting only of two repetitions that had been omitted in the written texts and some contracted forms that had been edited to read as non-contractions (e.g. when we’ll was spelled out as we will). The data corpus, drawn from the 38 presidents and 56 inaugural addresses, consists of 131,643 words (Table 3.1; see also the Appendix). Altogether, these 56 inaugural speeches included 3143 instances of alliteration (Appendix: Alliterations for the entire corpus). In the literature, definitions of alliteration vary. For the purpose of quantification, alliteration must be unambiguously defined. Here, I have used the following seven criteria: 1. Phonology (not orthography) determines what alliterates. No ‘eye-alliteration’ is included. (The inaugural addresses are written, first and foremost, for a listening audience.) • included: citizens of the senate (Washington, 1789), let every nation know (Kennedy, 1961), justice and generosity (T. Roosevelt, 1905) • excluded: in help honorably given (Eisenhower, 1957)

Table 3.1 Summary of the corpus 22 × one inaugural

22 (Adams, Quincy Adams, Van Buren, W. H. Harrison, Polk, Taylor, Pierce, Buchanan, Hayes, Garfield, B. Harrison, T. Roosevelt, Taft, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, G. Bush, Obama)

15 × two inaugurals

30 (Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, Cleveland, McKinley, Wilson, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, G. W. Bush)

1 × four inaugurals

4 (F. Roosevelt)

Total: 38 presidents

Total: 56 inaugurals (131,643 words)

NB Cleveland is counted as the twenty-second and twenty-fourth president.

50

Alliteration in Culture

2. Repetition is not counted as alliteration. (Repetition is a different rhetorical device.) • excluded: ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished (F. Roosevelt, 1937), power to stop evil, power to do good (F. Roosevelt, 1937) 3. Only content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs), i.e. words that are ‘chosen’ and not required by the grammar, are looked at. (Function words cannot be chosen to the extent that content words can.) • included: perils and penalties (Harding, 1921), freedom impelled and independence inspired (Harding, 1921), sublime sacrifice (Harding, 1921), today or tomorrow (Harding, 1921) • excluded: why we should fear (T. Roosevelt, 1905) 4. The initial sounds of words have been looked at; not the stressed syllables. (Initial word selection is not likely to happen based on stress placement in any given word.) • included: reconstruction, readjustment, restoration (Harding, 1921) • excluded: unwilling to witness (Kennedy, 1961), peculiarly improper (Washington, 1789) 5. Only three words can intervene between the words that are counted to alliterate. (Alliteration is based on proximity of alliterating elements.) • included: fulfillment of our whole faith (Eisenhower, 1953) • excluded: peril of our government by the people (Cleveland, 1893) 6. Words are not treated as alliterating if they cross a sentence boundary. (Alliteration is conventionally understood as a sentence-internal or phrasal phenomenon.) • excluded: ... our whole people. May we pursue ... (Eisenhower, 1957) 7. Proper names and titles have not been counted. (Like function words, proper names are not chosen by the speaker to the extent that content words are.) • excluded: ... Senator Mitchell, Speaker Wright, Senator Dole ... (Bush, 1989)

Results and discussion The instances of alliteration were counted according to the above seven criteria. Changing even one of these criteria may lead to differences from results reported on here; however, sample counts according to slightly different criteria (e.g. ignoring criterion number 5 and allowing more than three words to intervene) resulted in similarly proportioned counts. In order to compare president to president and, if more than one address was delivered by any one president, address to address, instances of alliteration per 1000 words were calculated, as is standard practice in corpus

Helena Halmari

51

linguistics studies (see e.g. Biber 1995). These numbers are shown in the last column in the Appendix. In this last column, the numbers under the heading ‘Per speech’ indicate the number of alliterations per 1000 words in all the delivered addresses by each president; in the 16 cases where there were more than one inaugural address, the number under the heading ‘Total’ was calculated for the combination of the addresses. The first sub-column (in the last column) indicates the numbers per each address separately, when there were more than one.

Comparison of the averages We should look at the average numbers of alliteration per president first. These are the numbers in the last column in the Appendix, and they are summarised in Figure 3.1. If one looks at Figure 3.1, it is apparent that there is a slight overall increase in the use of alliteration from the founding fathers to the present (the black trend line), but this increase is not obvious: it runs from about 22 up to 25 instances of alliteration per 1000 words over the 220 years. At the most, this can be called a mild trend. And there are huge fluctuations in the use of alliteration from president to president (from Lyndon B. Johnson’s 11.6 to George W. Bush’s 33.5); therefore, it is not a direct line. Table 3.2 lists the ten least alliterating presidents. William H. Harrison and James A. Garfield share tenth place with 20.8 instances of alliteration per 1000 words. Calvin Coolidge, with 21.2 instances of alliteration per 1000 words, is not far behind. And John Adams, with his alliteration score of 22.0, is not far off either. It is to be noted that the placement in this table for those presidents who gave two addresses is based on the averages. For example, there Table 3.2 The ten presidents with the least alliteration per 1000 words 1. Lyndon B. Johnson (1965) 2. Richard Nixon (1969, 1973) 3. Zachary Taylor (1849) 4. James Buchanan (1857) 5. George Washington (1789, 1793) 6. Theodore Roosevelt (1905) 7. Abraham Lincoln (1861, 1865) 8. Herbert Hoover (1929) 9. Harry S. Truman (1949) 10. William H. Harrison (1841) James A. Garfield (1881)

11.6 16.9 18.4 18.8 19.2 19.3 20.1 20.2 20.3 20.8 20.8

52 Washington Adams Jefferson Madison Monroe Q. Adams Jackson Van Buren W. Harrison Polk Taylor Pierce Buchanan Lincoln Grant Hayes Garfield Cleveland B. Harrison McKinley T. Roosevelt Taft Wilson Harding Coolidge Hoover F. Roosevelt Truman Eisenhower Kennedy Johnson Nixon Carter Reagan G. Bush Clinton G.W. Bush Obama

19.2 22 23.9 25.6 23.2 30.6 28.7 24.2 20.8 24.4 18.4 23.7 18.8 20.1 22.8 27 20.8 27.1 25.5 22.2 19.3 21.9 28.2 26.7 21.2 20.2 25.6 20.8 28.9 32 11.6 16.9 26.3 24.7 22.5 31.7 33.5 22.5

0

5

10

15

Figure 3.1 Alliteration per 1000 words

20

25

30

35

40

Helena Halmari

53

was a large difference between Lincoln’s first and second inaugural addresses. In his first address, the alliteration score was a low 17.9, whereas his second speech showed a much higher frequency of alliteration: 31.5 per 1000 words. (See Figure 3.2 on p. 55.) The sovereign leader in the ‘non-use’ of alliteration is Lyndon B. Johnson. And with this finding, the initial hypothesis that alliteration might be directly connected with ‘populism’ disintegrates because Johnson certainly was a populist. But even Johnson, with his alliteration score of 11.6 per 1000 words, sometimes resorts to this device. The following are examples of his use of alliteration: (1) This is the majesty and the meaning of this moment. (2) Terrific dangers and troubles ... with toil and tears ... (Johnson, 1965) And almost 200 years earlier, John Adams, a Federalist and an unashamed elitist, alliterates similarly, albeit his total alliteration score is higher than Johnson’s (22 instances per 1000 words): (3) ... grandeur or glory ... (4) ... love of liberty ... (5) ... the spirit of sophistry ... (Adams, 1797) Table 3.3 lists the opposite end of the continuum, showing the ten presidents who resorted to alliteration most often in their inaugurals. On the other hand, if we look at the individual inaugural addresses (Table 3.4), the top ten list will look slightly different. This is because in some cases there was a large difference between the first and the

Table 3.3 The ten presidents with the most alliteration per 1000 words 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

George W. Bush (2001, 2005) John F. Kennedy (1961) Bill Clinton (1993, 1997) John Quincy Adams (1825) Dwight Eisenhower (1953, 1957) Andrew Jackson (1829, 1833) Woodrow Wilson (1913, 1917) Grover Cleveland (1885, 1893) Rutherford B. Hayes (1877) Warren G. Harding (1921)

33.5 32.0 31.7 30.6 28.9 28.7 28.2 27.1 27.0 26.7

54

Alliteration in Culture

second inaugural (see Figure 3.2). The leader is still the same, George W. Bush, with Bill Clinton’s two inaugurals taking the second and shared ninth/tenth places. In fact, seven presidents appear in both tables: G. W. Bush, Clinton, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Jackson, J. Q. Adams and Wilson. The two new names that appear in Table 3.4 are Abraham Lincoln and James Madison. Lincoln’s second inaugural shows a considerably higher alliteration score (31.5) than his first one (17.9). Madison’s second inaugural with its score of 28.9 gets him to the shared ninth place with Clinton. And it is here where the first ‘populist’ president, Andrew Jackson, also shows a relatively high alliteration count (30.7). Even his first inaugural, while not included in the top ten list, shows strong tendencies for alliteration with its count of 26.6. Interestingly, the ‘great communicator’, Ronald Reagan, does not make this list, but he is not far away: he appears to be an ‘average alliterator’ with similar scores for both of his inaugurals (25.1 and 24.3 for his first and second inaugural, respectively). It is to be noted that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s third inaugural address had the high alliteration score of 28.0; this is of course the one of his four addresses that was given in 1941 when Roosevelt was preparing the nation for entry into the Second World War. Figure 3.2 shows that those presidents who were consistent in their use of alliteration were Reagan, who was consistently fairly high, but not excessively high, Nixon, who was consistently low (second lowest on an average; see Table 3.2), and the founding fathers Washington (whose score of 19.2 made him fifth on the least alliterating list), and Jefferson, whose average is 23.9, and who made neither the top nor the bottom list – a man who certainly was a competent orator. If there is a trend to be seen, it seems to be established by Clinton and George W. Bush, who in their first inaugurals used many more Table 3.4 The ten addresses with the most alliteration per 1000 words 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

George W. Bush ( first inaugural) Bill Clinton (first inaugural) John F. Kennedy Abraham Lincoln (second inaugural) Dwight Eisenhower (second inaugural) Andrew Jackson (second inaugural) John Quincy Adams Woodrow Wilson (second inaugural) James Madison (first inaugural) Bill Clinton (second inaugural)

45.5 35.6 32.0 31.5 31.2 30.7 30.6 29.5 28.9 28.9

50 45

Alliterations per 1000 words

40 35 1st Inaugural

30

2nd Inaugural

25

3rd Inaugural 20

4th Inaugural

15 10 5 0

Washington

Jefferson

Madison

Monroe

Jackson

Lincoln

Grant

Cleveland

McKinley

Wilson

Roosevelt

Eisenhower

Nixon

Reagan

Clinton

1st Inaugural

19.6

23.8

22.2

26.4

26.6

17.9

24.1

25

22

27

27.2

27.4

15.7

25.1

35.6

45.5

2nd Inaugural

14.8

24

28.9

20.8

30.7

31.5

21.7

28.8

22.5

29.5

23.3

31.2

18.4

24.3

28.9

24.3

3rd Inaugural

28

4th Inaugural

21.9

G.W. Bush

Presidents who gave more than one address 55

Figure 3.2 Comparison of first vs subsequent inaugural addresses

56

Alliteration in Culture

alliterations than in their second ones. One could hypothesise that after having been re-elected, there is less need to persuade the audience. On the other hand, Lincoln used much more alliteration in his second address – the one that was delivered near the end of the gruesome Civil War.

‘Average alliterators’ What do the alliteration scores tell us – if anything? There certainly is no correlation between those presidents who are considered successful and their inaugural alliteration patterns. The Houston Chronicle recently published a list of the ‘ten best and worst presidencies’, a list based on subjective opinions of ‘historians and professional observers’ (‘Ten best and worst presidencies’, The Houston Chronicle, 16 February 2009, A1). The list of the top ten presidents included below-the-average alliterators George Washington (19.2/1000 words) and Theodore Roosevelt (19.3/1000 words), above-the-average alliterators John F. Kennedy (32/1000 words) and Dwight D. Eisenhower (28.9/1000 words), as well as moderate alliterators such as Thomas Jefferson (23.9/1000 words) and Ronald Reagan (24.7/1000 words). The bottom list included the heaviest alliterator, George W. Bush (33.5/1000 words), but also belowthe-average alliterators Herbert Hoover (20.2/1000 words) and James Buchanan (18.8/1000 words). The alliterative patterns of the inaugurals have, hence, no relation to the success of the presidency, and thinking so would clearly be naive. However, the range of alliteration scores in the ‘bottom ten’ list was ever so slightly larger (18.8–33.5) than in the ‘top ten’ list (19.2–32.0). This led me to look into the ‘average alliterators’. And this list indicates that excessive alliteration is not needed in order to be an excellent speaker: Thomas Jefferson and Ronald Reagan, the ‘great communicator’, are both found on this list of moderate alliterators. In the Appendix, the last row gives the average number of alliterations for all the 38 presidents: 23.9 instances of alliteration per 1000 words. Table 3.5 shows the names of the presidents who came closest to this average. Altogether 14 presidents fall near the average alliteration score of 23.9 per 1000 words; their scores range between 22.0 and 25.6. Three of the four founding fathers – John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison – belong to this group. An interesting detail is that Thomas Jefferson’s alliteration score is exactly the same as the average for all the United States inaugural addresses: 23.9 per 1000 words.

Helena Halmari

57

Table 3.5 The ten presidents with near-average alliteration scores in chronological order, per 1000 words (average for all inaugurals: 23.9 per 1000 words) John Adams Thomas Jefferson James Madison James Monroe Martin Van Buren James K. Polk Franklin Pierce Ulysses S. Grant Benjamin Harrison William McKinley Franklin Roosevelt Ronald Reagan George Bush (Sr.) Barack Obama

22.0 23.9 25.6 23.2 24.2 24.4 23.7 22.8 25.5 22.2 25.6 24.7 22.5 22.5

With Washington’s below-the-average 19.2 score, none of the founding fathers was a heavy alliterator. With their eloquent speeches, decorated with moderate yet never excessive alliteration, would they have been setting up an implicit standard for the genre? Deviations from this average towards heavier alliteration would later take place, for instance by John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, the latter being the first ‘populist’ president. More recently, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush exceeded the average alliteration scores notably. Of these three, Clinton and Bush were clearly ‘populist’ presidents. But in addition to the founding fathers, who then are the moderate alliterators? Even though there are some clear exceptions such as John Quincy Adams with his high alliteration score, the data allow the following generalisation: alliteration is related to populism so that ‘non-populist’ presidents are moderate alliterators. The founding fathers were more towards the ‘elitist’ rather than ‘populist’ end of the continuum; so were Pierce, Buchanan, Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt. All these men gave inaugurals with moderate, not excessive, alliterative patterns. While George W. Bush alliterated heavily (as did Bill Clinton), George Bush Sr.’s alliteration count was slightly below the average (22.5), and few would claim Bush Sr. to have been a ‘populist’ president. After the two heavy alliterators, Clinton and Bush Jr., Barack Obama’s alliteration count is exactly the same as Bush Senior’s: 22.5.

58

Alliteration in Culture

Even though Obama was a popular choice for the presidency in 2009, he is not a ‘populist’ president. His slightly-below-the-average alliteration count initially surprised me, but in this light it makes sense. Obama’s alliterative patterns resemble more those of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan than those of Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy. In his analysis of the use of proverbs by American presidents in their inaugural addresses, Mieder writes: ‘As with everything in life the proverbs “Everything in moderation” and “Nothing in excess” also hold true for the use of proverbs in inaugural addresses’ (2005: 186). Evidently, the same applies to the use of alliteration. Half a century ago, Coard wrote: ‘Caution, of course, must be exercised in its use and it must be employed sparingly, for the danger that alliteration may become a distracting mannerism is always present’ (1959: 34). No one rhetorical device should be overused. Yet, there is an elegance in alliteration. The fact that alliteration in political speeches is a doubleedged sword – it can be an effective rhetorical device if used sparingly, but, if overdone, will border on ridiculous – makes its study interesting yet complicated. This look at the inaugural addresses forces the conclusion that there may very well be an optimal amount in order for an orator to sound eloquent yet not like Spiro Agnew, who clearly enjoyed exaggerating the device for purposes of humour. To boldly borrow two phrases from the third US president, Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the use of this rhetorical technique should be ‘rightful [and] reasonable’ and orators should resort to it in ‘harmony and happiness’. Related issues, which should be investigated next, are the syntactic patterns of alliteration from president to president, and parallelism and alliteration. However, these preliminary observations allow us to draw this indisputable conclusion: alliteration has been and continues to be a persuasive, audience-engaging rhetorical device in political communication. In addition, its heavy usage may show a ‘populist’ tendency, and its moderate use may be an indication of a ‘non-populist’ approach. Alliteration in the inaugurals is likely to follow the path of some kind of Hegelian pendulum – or, perhaps we will need another 220 years to see the patterns and their significance more clearly.

Notes 1. I wish to thank Robert Adams for discussion and comments during the preparation of this chapter.

Helena Halmari

59

2. Mieder points out an instance of ‘striking alliteration’ (2005: 180) also in George H. W. Bush’s 1989 inaugural address: ‘We have more will than wallet; but will is what we need’ (Hunt 1997: 492). 3. For an excellent and thorough discussion on the role of presidential speechwriters, see Schlesinger (2008).

References Bartleby.com. Inaugural addresses. http://www.bartleby.com/cgi-bin/texis/ webinator/sitesearch?FILTER=&query=inaugural+address&x=11&y=12. Accessed 23 March 2009. Bean, A. S. 1974. ‘A Descriptive Study of Creative Writing at the Junior High School Level’, EdD dissertation, Brigham Young University. Dissertation abstracts international 35: 3288-A. ED 101 347. Biber, D. 1995. Dimensions of Register Variation: a Cross-Linguistic Comparison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Campbell, K. K. and Jamieson, K. H. 1990. Deeds Done in Words: Presidential Rhetoric and the Genres of Governance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Coard, R. L. 1959. ‘Wide-Ranging Alliteration’. Peabody Journal of Education, 37(1): 29–35. Halmari, H. 2005. ‘In Search of “Successful” Political Persuasion: a Comparison of the Styles of Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan’. In Halmari, H. and Virtanen, T. (eds), Persuasion across Genres: a Linguistic Approach. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 105–34. Hill, J. D. 1973. ‘An Analysis of the Writing of Elementary Children, Grades Two through Six, to Determine the Presence, Frequency of Use and Development by Grade Level of Specified Literary Devices’, EdD dissertation, Indiana University. Dissertation abstracts international 33: 5970-A. Hunt, J. G. (ed.). 1997. The Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents, rev. edn. New York: Gramercy Books. Jensen, D. O., Schmitz, R. M. and Thoma, H. F. 1935. Modern Composition and Rhetoric. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Kredenser, G. 1968. Express Yourself in Writing. New York: Sterling. Mieder, W. 2005. Proverbs are the Best Policy: Folk Wisdom and American Politics. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press. Moore, K. 2007. The American President: a Complete History. New York: Fall River Press. Obama, B. 2009. The Inaugural Address 2009: Together with Abraham Lincoln’s First and Second Inaugural Addresses and the Gettysburg Address and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ‘Self-Reliance’. New York: Penguin Books. President Barack Obama’s inaugural address: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/ inaugural-address/. Accessed 23 March 2009. Schlesinger, R. 2008. White House Ghosts: Presidents and their Speechwriters. New York: Simon and Schuster. ‘Ten Best and Worst Presidencies’. The Houston Chronicle, 16 February 2009, A1. White, Jr., R. C. 2005. The Eloquent President: a Portrait of Lincoln through his Words. New York: Random House. Wilson, D. L. 2006. ‘Lincoln the Persuader’, American Scholar, 75(4): 31–43.

Appendix Alliterations for the entire corpus 60

President

Date

Alliterations Per speech

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 11 12 14 15 16 18 19 20 22 24

G. Washington G. Washington John Adams Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson James Madison James Madison James Monroe James Monroe J. Quincy Adams Andrew Jackson Andrew Jackson Martin Van Buren William H. Harrison James K. Polk Zachary Taylor Franklin Pierce James Buchanan Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln Ulysses S. Grant Ulysses S. Grant Rutherford B Hayes James A. Garfield Grover Cleveland Grover Cleveland

30 April 1789 4 March 1793 4 March 1797 4 March 1801 4 March 1805 4 March 1809 4 March 1813 4 March 1817 5 March 1821 4 March 1825 4 March 1829 4 March 1833 4 March 1837 4 March 1841 4 March 1845 5 March 1849 4 March 1853 4 March 1857 4 March 1861 4 March 1865 4 March 1869 4 March 1873 5 March 1877 4 March 1881 4 March 1885 4 March 1893

28 2 41 52 26 35 89 93 30 36

65 22 27 29

42 58

Word count Total 30 51 93 61 182 89 66 93 176 117 20 79 53 87 56 67 62 100

Per speech 1,431 135 1,725 2,165 1,173 1,210 3,369 4,472 1,126 1,174

3,633 699 1,121 1,336

1,680 2,014

Alliterations per 1000 words Total 1,566 2,320 3,890 2,383 7,841 2,909 2,300 3,838 8,443 4,801 1,088 3,331 2,826 4,332 2,457 2,477 2,979 3,694

Per speech 19.6 14.8 23.8 24.0 22.2 28.9 26.4 20.8 26.6 30.7

17.9 31.5 24.1 21.7

25.0 28.8

Total 19.2 22.0 23.9 25.6 23.2 30.6 28.7 24.2 20.8 24.4 18.4 23.7 18.8 20.1 22.8 27.0 20.8 27.1

23 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

33 34 35 36 37 39 40 41 42 43

Total

4 March 1889 4 March 1897 4 March 1901 4 March 1905 4 March 1909 4 March 1913 5 March 1917 4 March 1921 4 March 1925 4 March 1929 4 March 1933 20 January 1937 20 January 1941 20 January 1945 20 January 1949 20 January 1953 21 January 1957 20 January 1961 20 January 1965 20 January 1969 20 January 1973 20 January 1977 20 January 1981 21 January 1985 20 January 1989 20 January 1993 20 January 1997 20 January 2001 20 January 2005 20 January 2009

112 87 50

46 45

51 42 37 12 67 51

33 33 61 62 56 62 72 50

137 19 119 91 89 86 75

142 46 118 43 17 66 32 123 52 118 122 54 3,143

4,389 3,963 2,219

1,701 1,526

1,875 1,803 1,323 549 2,445 1,637

2,108 1,790 2,426 2,552 1,573 2,145 1,583 2,060

6,182 986 5,431 3,227 3,328 4,055 3,704

5,550 2,266 4,082 1,344 1,466 3,898 1,216 4,978 2,310 3,718 3,643 2,395 131,643

25.5 22.0 22.5

27.0 29.5

27.2 23.3 28.0 21.9 27.4 31.2

15.7 18.4 25.1 24.3 35.6 28.9 45.5 24.3

22.2 19.3 21.9 28.2 26.7 21.2 20.2

25.6 20.3 28.9 32.0 11.6 16.9 26.3 24.7 22.5 31.7 33.5 22.5 23.9

61

44

Benjamin Harrison William McKinley William McKinley T. Roosevelt William H. Taft Woodrow Wilson Woodrow Wilson Warren G. Harding Calvin Coolidge Herbert Hoover Franklin Roosevelt Franklin Roosevelt Franklin Roosevelt Franklin Roosevelt Harry S. Truman Dwight Eisenhower Dwight Eisenhower John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson Richard Nixon Richard Nixon Jimmy Carter Ronald Reagan Ronald Reagan George Bush Bill Clinton Bill Clinton George W. Bush George W. Bush Barack Obama

4 Purposely to Please the Palates of Pretty Prattling Playfellows Paul Cowdell

Abstract While the word ‘alliteration’ may first bring to mind lost medieval forms, alliteration is very much present (along with other sound patterning and alternation) in a popular contemporary genre: tonguetwisters. The tongue-twister tests the speaker’s (be they a child, an actor or a partygoer) verbal skill in the correct alternation and repetition of confusable sound groups. This chapter discusses the history of the genre and presents comments on the form from some of its contemporary practitioners. Many of the best-known tongue-twisters in current oral circulation were popularised by Victorian guides for diction and pronunciation (Peter Piper himself, for example), and to this day the tongue-twister continues to be advocated in language learning and elocution training. They have also proved irresistible for their potential for drawing speakers into inappropriate vulgarity. Drawing upon recent fieldwork, the meeting points of these two trends in performance and theatrical occupational customs are considered. For performers, the tongue-twister offers an irresistible opportunity to demonstrate performance skill whilst at the same time providing a tool to train those very skills.

Tongue-twisters are a sub-genre of performed sentences or phrases based on the enunciation problems caused by the accumulation (or alternation) of groups of similar sounds. Though we should be aware that the classic English tongue-twister often involves other sound repetitions than pure alliteration, it is relatively rare to find a tongue-twister 62

Paul Cowdell 63

that lacks any alliteration, as the alliterative name of the genre itself indicates. Indeed, many of them as we shall see are hyper-alliterative. Thus it is that any discussion of the contemporary uses of alliteration should touch upon the tongue-twister. I will begin by reviewing some of the previous literature on tonguetwisters. While many examples have been published, they have rarely been accompanied by analysis – they seem often to have been used simply as filler items of collectanea. Western Folklore, for example, published 18 examples from the UCLA folklore archive in 1960 without analysis (Anon. 1960). These at least came with the informants’ names, unlike the 18 they published three years later (one of which did not even seem properly to be a tongue-twister), or the 7 included in a 1918 collection from Ontario (Waugh 1918). Of the three Dutch examples from Drente published in 1962, only one featured any information about its performance (Anon. 1962). Tongue-twisters have turned up in a similar scattered way in articles on cultural, linguistic, educational and performance theory. Analytical pieces, however, have been somewhat thinner on the ground: Charles Francis Potter wrote a useful overview of the genre in 1950; Duncan Emrich wrote a helpful popular short article in 1955; the Journal of American Folklore ran several interesting and thoughtful comments (e.g. Moss 1960, Porter 1960) following a piece by Maurice Mook in 1959; and Alan Dundes contributed some ideas during studies of native American (1964a) and African (1964b) linguistic cultures. More recently, Marilyn Jorgensen (1981) has written a detailed analysis of problems in performing tongue-twisters. I will look here at some of their thinking about tongue-twisters, and illustrate some of their points with my own fieldwork, conducted particularly (but not exclusively) among actors. In particular I will look at the merging of their educational and performance qualities in theatrical occupational custom. Tongue-twisters should not be considered as being limited exclusively to the fields I have mentioned above. Jorgensen noted that ‘during the Biafran … war … tongue twisters were used by warring factions as a test to discern the region of origin of travellers’. This claim was based on a single anecdote and clearly requires more research, but the attachment to the idea of shibboleth is interesting. It deserves further investigation not just because of the frequency of specific problems with the sounds /s/ and /ʃ/ but also because of the frequency with which this problem is applied to distinguishing regional origin. According to the account in Judges, 12.5–6, ‘shibboleth’ was the word used by the inhabitants of Gilead to identify their defeated Ephraimite opponents, whose dialect did not include the /ʃ/ sound at the beginning of the word.

64

Alliteration in Culture

The publication of tongue-twisters is not a recent development: Halliwell included some in The Nursery Rhymes of England in 1846, and in 1852 Samuel Crowther published eight examples in his A Vocabulary of the Yoruba Language. It is worth noting here the suggestion that African tongue-twisters may not have been adequately explored because of what they lose in translation, and to recognise that this may also apply with other languages. Because of their marginal genre status, they may also not have been afforded priority by researchers: D.C. Simmons (1955), for example, wrote that although tongue-twisters are known in Nigerian Efik culture, they are rare (they are included under the native category of nke, which includes proverbs, puns, riddles and tone riddles, as opposed to folktales, which are ata nke – real nke). Notwithstanding his pessimistic assessment, Simmons still managed to record three examples. I focus here largely on English-language tongue-twisters, but I will also cite some non-English material, as tongue-twisters are a widespread form. Indeed, a similar form of linguistic poser is even recognised in American Sign Language (ASL) – the Finger Fumbler. However, although recognised elsewhere, there are not always equivalently descriptive names for them, and the descriptive phrases are not always themselves alliterative, as for example the American usage ‘cramp words’. The genre is known in French, say, but dictionaries give only the periphrasis ‘une phrase très difficile à prononcer’ (a very difficult phrase to pronounce). Similarly, Dutch dictionaries refer to them as ‘moeilijk uit te spreken zinnen’ (difficult sentences to say). I had assumed, on first seeing the word ‘tongbreker’ (tongue-breaker) online, that it was a fairly recent neologism, perhaps directly adapted from the English. This assumption was reinforced when a Flemish informant told me she was unfamiliar with the word, although it is a sound Dutch compound. However, the word does appear to have had (possibly locally specific) use in the Netherlands even without more widespread dictionary coverage. (Neerlands Volksleven used it in 1962 to describe three examples from Drente (Anon. 1962).) Through online usage it seems likely to gain further ground: originally a website hosting Dutch examples of tongue-twisters, www.tongbrekers.nl now markets a parlour card game involving their performance. Difficulty distinguishes the tongue-twister. It is not simply an amusing sentence in which the words begin with the same letter, or share similar clusters of consonant and vowel sounds, but a sentence where such repetitions make reading aloud difficult. Notwithstanding the printed origin and transmission of many items, it is essentially an oral or performed genre. Duncan Emrich (1955) insisted on this as a

Paul Cowdell 65

necessary criterion (‘to read them aloud … is relatively simple, and does not count’). Maurice Mook (1959) qualified this: acknowledging the extensive circulation of tongue-twisters in books, he noted that most of his Pennsylvania informants had learned theirs orally. This may be related to their performative qualities. This is substantiated by the considerable variation recorded even in widely printed examples, or in examples originating in written versions, as we will see. More importantly, Mook also recorded some items that his informants deemed too long for memorisation but which they still preserved in written form for performance at parties. Alan Dundes (1964a) has suggested that ‘a common structural feature’ is that many tongue-twisters have ‘but two segments, with the second being a repetition or inverted repetition of the first’. Certainly many of the earliest recorded tongue-twisters conform to this pattern. Halliwell (1846), for example, noted the following version of one of the most durable of English tongue-twisters, which follows Dundes’ structure of two segments: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper; A peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked; If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper, Where’s the peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked? The range of recorded tongue-twisters also includes shorter items, phrases rather than sentences, lacking such inverted repetition (e.g. ‘Peggy Babcock’, ‘Rubber baby buggy bumpers’). These depend for their difficulty on high frequency of repetitions, but because of the delight in performance, there may be a tendency to develop and extend them by adding the repetition identified by Dundes. Many of Emrich’s informants mentioned a game involving creating long alliterative sentences (e.g. ‘Six sick soldiers sighted seven slowly sinking ships’) which, he believes, ‘must have contributed … to the … repertoire’. Similarly long Dutch examples have been popularised by performers like the Flemish comedian Urbanus. Certainly there is a tendency to lengthen phrases to increase performance difficulties, but even some shorter examples conform to Dundes’ pattern, like the Efik ‘ibio ibio ibuo ye ibuo ibio’ (short short nose with nose short), or the Dutch ‘Als een potvis in een pispot pist, heb je een pispot vol met potvispis’ (If a sperm whale pisses in a pisspot, you have a pisspot full of sperm whale piss). Dundes wondered whether tongue-twisters might relate especially to those sounds or sound clusters that are popularly deemed difficult

66

Alliteration in Culture

to articulate or differentiate. Looking at English and French examples (he cites ‘La grosse cloche sonne’, to which we might add ‘She sells seashells on the seashore’), he suggested that wherever the two ‘shibboleth’ sounds /s/ and /ʃ/ appear in a language, we might expect that tongue-twisters would involve them. In terms of frequency of occurrence, we might also wish to acknowledge Jorgensen’s note on the popularity of the vowel pairs /ɪ/ and /ɩ/, as in ‘I slit a sheet, a sheet I slit; Upon a slitted sheet I sit’. Dundes (1964a) suggested there might be a correlation with the ‘last sounds to be mastered by ... children in a given linguistic community’. In this respect it would be worth exploring further the connection with shibboleths, which play on inability to grasp foreign pronunciations, as in the legend attached to the Flemish uprising of 18 May 1302 in Brugge (Bruges), when repetition of the phrase ‘schild en vriend’ (shield and friend) was used to identify Frenchspeaking soldiers occupying the city. Dundes also raised the possibility that the phonemes employed in tongue-twisters might be those subject to ‘historical sound shifts’. More significant, here, is his astute argument that tongue-twisters ‘represent the folk’s own judgement as to what phonemes or phoneme clusters/sequences are … difficult to articulate’. This may be important when considering elocution guides, as it offers us a clue as to why some printed items (Peter Piper, Theophilus the Thistle Sifter) entered oral circulation while others did not (‘Oliver Oglethorpe ogled an owl and an oyster’). Those which did not survive orally contain clusters not considered so difficult to articulate. Marilyn Jorgensen (1981) has conducted probably the most systematic analysis of the factors of difficulty in performing tongue-twisters so far. Setting 14 examples before participants, she examined their ability to perform them and the mistakes they made. She particularly draws attention to the items’ reliance on juxtaposition of minimal pairs of sounds, and the fine discriminations necessary to distinguish between them. This is true for both consonantal tongue-twisters, juxtaposing consonantal phonemes with common factors of articulation, as in the alternated consonantal stops of /b/ and /g/, and /b/ and /p/ in ‘rubber baby buggy bumpers’, and vocalic sounds, such as the /ɪ/ and /ɩ/ phonemes noted earlier. Jorgensen was working in English, but similar paired opposites have been found elsewhere: Bruce Rigsby (1970) recorded a Nass-Gitksan tongue-twister in British Columbia showing similar combinations of manifest stop/spirant, voiced lax/voiceless tense, and plain/ejective oppositions. Similar confusables can also be found in tone languages, leading Dundes (1964b) to call them ‘tone twisters’ – he gives the Yoruba

Paul Cowdell 67

example ‘Oke gb’oke g’ope’ (Oke carries a sack up a palm-tree). Further difficulties are added by polysemy or homophony, particularly in longer examples. In the shorter items mistakes tend to occur at a phonemic level. With vocalic tongue-twisters, alternating lax and tense vowel pairs pose the problems, because of the difficulty of the speech apparatus in executing two such similar but different movements in a brief period of time. This causes what Jorgensen (1981) calls a ‘locking in place’ of the musculature. This effect is described in folk metaphors for the ‘breakdown of the speech apparatus from the perspective of the genre as a whole: tongue tanglers, trippers, or twisters, as well as cramp words’. To Jorgensen’s catalogue we can also add the Opies’ (1977) note that they were known as ‘jaw busters’, and the already noted ASL equivalent ‘finger fumblers’. Jorgensen (1981) identified performance strategies for dealing with these problems. One participant broke the sentences into text blocks, as he had with tongue-twisters he had used during speech therapy as a child. Several participants imposed new rhythms on phrases. One man told her he got through the longer examples by concentrating on their intended meaning. I found similar responses: discussing my difficulties with the phrase ‘rubber baby buggy bumpers’, one respondent told me that it would become easier if I concentrated on the meaning. At some level within a tongue-twister there is an alternative available meaning. Available meanings, including those when the piece is performed incorrectly, are part of the challenge. Mook (1959) noted the range of types of tongue-twister, suggestive of different audience registers. His more conservative informants produced items like ‘The wind ceaseth and sufficeth not’, while an urban co-ed came up with examples such as ‘she slit a sheet; a sheet she slit …’. In this respect, he noted the significance of encouraging informants to write their responses, as they will be less concerned about saying something amiss. This was borne out by my research: I found a concern not only about saying something obscene, but also about not being able to perform the item correctly. However, such reticent determination to transmit an item ‘correctly’ should be set against the performance aspects of the genre. Jorgensen noted that the presence of an audience increased the likelihood of laughter by her participants. The possibility of uttering an obscenity by mistake is, under certain conditions, part of the fun, part of the performance. Jan Harold Brunvand (1959) pointed to performances of the song ‘Sarah’ at parties where there had been drinking. One respondent told him that if they could sing it without mistakes, they had not yet drunk enough. Dundes

68

Alliteration in Culture

(1964a), discussing a Choctaw example, saw the genre itself as allowing ‘a socially acceptable opportunity to utter the unutterable’. To quote a Somali example, the phrase ‘Tan iyo abtgay dixdii Hoos-weyne, kol is wad, kol i wad’ means ‘In the valley of Hoosweyne my (maternal) uncle drove himself and once he drove me’. If you mispronounce the conclusion as ‘kol i was’ it becomes ‘he fucked me’. So there is also a form of control in highlighting the available obscenity whilst training the speaker not to say it. Obscenities spoken in tongue-twisters are generally condoned, as in ‘I’m not a pheasant plucker, I’m a pheasant plucker’s mate, and I’m only pheasant plucking ’cos the pheasant plucker’s late’ or its American variant, ‘I’m not a fig plucker nor a fig plucker’s son …’. Such is the expectation of accidentally uttering an obscenity that some commentators, once they think about them, start seeing traps in the most innocent of examples. Kenneth Porter (1960) wrote that it was not until he repeated ‘Peter Piper’ in the light of Mook’s article that he ‘recognised the impropriety which might result from a too rapid repetition’. I either have a very clean mind or a very dirty one, but I do not see that impropriety. I do, though, see a raised expectation of saying something untoward. We will return to this, but it ties in with the educational side of tongue-twisters. Potter (1950) believed that their use in rhetorical and elocution training postdates their active life as oral forms. This would be consistent with Dundes’ (1964b) suggestion about native taxonomies of pronunciation difficulty. As one nineteenth-century elocution guide put it: ‘a higher motive than “Amusement” has prompted insertion [of these exercises]. Practice is here afforded in nearly every form of difficult articulation.’ Such guides often contain whole alphabets of tricky phrases and tongue-twisters, the best known of which pass from one to another. Probably the best-known English example, Peter Piper, turns up repeatedly in such lists throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, often in the company of Theophilus the Thistle Sifter. Peter Piper was used as the figurehead of an 1813 manual Peter Piper’s Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation. Emrich argued that Peter Piper survived while the rest of that alphabet did not, partly because of the emphasis laid on him in the title and introduction to the pamphlet, which hyper-alliteratively announced that ‘Peter Piper … Puts Pen to Paper to Produce these Puzzling Pages, Purposely to Please the Palates of Pretty Prattling Playfellows’. Note that ‘palates’ – this is definitely regarded as an oral form. In fact, Peter Piper was already well known: the Opies (1997) quote Hewson Clarke (b.1787) remarking in 1802 that Peter Piper was a ‘particular favourite’ in his ‘younger days’.

Paul Cowdell 69

Halliwell also cites a seventeenth-century reference. The other sentences may have exercised ‘every form of difficult articulation’, as claimed, but Peter Piper also conformed to the difficult performance criterion necessary to ensure his oral survival. Tongue-twisters remain part of the occupational practice of performers. A Metropolitan Opera singer told Potter (1950) they were ‘a monotonous requisite of her daily practice grind’. Performers still use such manuals: current examples are Ken Parkin’s Ideal Voice and Speech Training: a Book of Exercises, and his accompanying anthology of tonguetwisters. Such books reprint variants of many oral favourites: Parkin (1969b), for example, prints ‘Theo the Thistle Sifter’ amongst others. When I mentioned my research many actors referred me directly to these books, before admitting that they also used some from memory. One said ‘doing a trillion acting classes you get exposed to a lot more [tongue-twisters] as warm-up exercises’. Another told me that during rehearsals a fellow-performer had taught him the following music-hall song as a vocal warm-up exercise: All I want is a proper cup of coffee, Made in a proper copper coffee pot. I may be off my dot But I want a proper coffee in a proper coffee pot. Tin coffee pots, and iron coffee pots They’re no use to me If I can’t have a proper cup of coffee in a proper copper coffee pot I’ll have a cup of tea. He had previously been unfamiliar with it as a song. This instance highlighted some of the realities of oral transmission. Owing to personal antipathy towards this fellow-performer (whom he described as ‘a pain in the arse’) my informant had not bothered to inquire about her source for the song. The Opies (1997) noted Peter Piper’s use as ‘an exercise in articulation’ at drama schools. The informants just cited were professional actors, but my researches provided evidence of drama teachers at all levels using tongue-twisters: ‘Swan swam over the sea, Swim swan swim! Swan swam back again; Well swum swan!’, for example – which had been published by Halliwell – had been learned from east London elocution teachers and school drama teachers, while I heard other examples from the cream of British drama schools. Potter (1950) also refers to their use as audition pieces, with broadcasters setting tongue-twisters

70

Alliteration in Culture

as examination microphone tests. My fieldwork did not reveal any evidence of the survival of these usages, in the latter case perhaps because of the development of microphone familiarity among performers (and possibly also the development of microphone technology). There is, in the manuals, a formalised treatment of enunciation, so it is unsurprising to find tongue-twisters used in that aspect of language training. Japanese examples for improving enunciation are reported, such as ‘Namamugi, namagome, namatamago’ (raw wheat, raw rice, raw eggs). One of my informants had learned the following in Ibo classes in Lagos: ‘pappa Peter patara papaya pa nye papa Paul’ (Peter’s Papa peeled a papaya and passed it to Paul’s papa). Another Nigerian informant confirmed that this was also in the classroom repertoire of her mother, an Ibo language teacher. Because of their memorable quality, they also turn up in other educational uses not directly related to phonetic exercises. Dietary practices are encoded in the Somali ‘Hilib baan cunoo caano ka ma daba kaban karo’ (I eat meat, I can’t even sip milk after that), for example. Margery Miller (1923), a South Dakota high school teacher, had her English class write tongue-twisters and other verbal play forms to inculcate grammatical rules. Of the range of forms used, she regarded tongue-twisters as the most successful. In testing language skills, Diana Natalicio (1979) cautioned against using tongue-twisters for basic repetition of phonetic distinctions. Their successful performance, she argued, ‘may be a reinforcing game or exercise for advanced language students, but it hardly seems a fair measure of normal speech production’. The presumption of potential ability lies behind the example cited by Potter (1950) of a professor using tongue-twisters as a standard test for speech difficulties. It also informs the broad circulation of anecdotal accounts that the police have used tongue-twisters to test sobriety. One of my informants was told in 1962 by girls from Perth Academy that the local constabulary made them repeat ‘The Leith Police dismisseth us’ to prove that they had not been drinking. (I also encountered this particular item as a vocal warm-up among actors.) Such a usage seems to be widely believed and recounted: in P. G. Wodehouse’s 1960 novel Jeeves in the Offing, Aunt Dahlia makes Bertie Wooster repeat ‘British constitution’ and ‘She sells seashells …’ when she believes he has been drinking. In a distorted way such usage reflects Halliwell’s (1846) classification of tongue-twisters as vestigial charms. He gives seventeenth-century examples (including the rather lengthy ‘When a twister a twisting will twist him a twist; For the twisting of his twist, he three times doth intwist; But if one of the twines of the twist do untwist, The twine that untwisteth, untwisteth the twist’) as cures for hiccups if repeated in one breath. Some

Paul Cowdell 71

folklorists follow him without question. Potter (1950), more cautiously, suggested that although ‘these “cures” of big mouths, stuttering, … lisping habits … may be good medical practice, or perhaps psychotherapeutic … they should at least be studied by folklorists’ as they are not just folkloric rhymes but border on the mantric. In oral circulation, of course, they also exist outside the formally correct world of elocution. Many of the most popular parody linguistic formality with their grammatical novelties (‘A skunk sat on a stump,/The stump thunk the skunk stunk,/The skunk thunk the stump stunk’) or comical pronunciations (‘’Ere ’er ear ’ad ’eard ’er ’eart ’ad ’eard’, or ‘Forty fousand fevvers round a frushes’ froat and it frills you fru and fru for free and fruppence free farvings’). This element of conscious showmanship has ensured the oral circulation of many tongue-twisters. We have already noted their professional and semi-professional use, whether risqué (the nightclub song ‘Sarah’, for example), or innocent (‘Proper Cup of Coffee’). The British music hall underwent quite a craze for them. George Graves recorded ‘Does This Shop Stock Shot Socks with Spots?’, while Wilkie Bard made his career with such numbers, performing both ‘The Leith Police’ and ‘She Sells Sea Shells’. Bert Weston and Hermann Darewski wrote the popular First World War song ‘Sister Susie’s Sewing Shirts (for Soldiers)’. The choruses of these, or at least their central tongue-twister phrases, have, as we have already seen, filtered into wider oral circulation, developing and extending as they go. Wilkie Bard’s 1908 recording of ‘She Sells Seashells’, which was basically a repeated opportunity to sing (and learn) the chorus, suggests that the tongue-twister was the most important part of the song. The verses of ‘Proper Cup of Coffee’, for instance, have no tongue-twisting element, and are not so well known as the chorus. The popularity of such songs survived into the variety circuit. The Andrews Sisters recorded ‘Proper Cup of Coffee’, and it should be noted that the whole song still circulates orally on the folk club scene. A Billy Cotton song gave us ‘Forty fousand fevvers round a frushes’ froat’, although that has been extended and developed in oral usage: it was known to several of my informants in variants of the longer version given above. Perhaps the most interesting demonstration of this tendency is Rolf Harris’ reconstruction of the music hall song ‘The Court of King Caractacus’. In making new verses for it, Harris added tonguetwisters where there previously had not been any: the verse about ‘the fascinating witches who put the scintillating stitches in the breeches of the boys …’ is from Harris. In the recording by music hall act Rich and Rich, it is simply a cumulative song dependent on the performer’s memory, not phonetic dexterity.

72

Alliteration in Culture

For actors, who use them as a professional tool, this performance aspect of tongue-twisters is also attractive, as it offers the opportunity to barnstorm. We have already noted the likelihood of an audience for tongue-twisters. Jorgensen also noted increased laughter amongst her performers when other people were present. I first heard ‘Theophilus the Thistle Sifter’ from an actor who included it in his vocal warm-up routine, but his showstopper was ‘Mrs Hunt had a funny-cut punt, not a punt cut funny but a funny-cut punt’. This item supports Dundes’ (1964a) suggestion as to the typical structure of the tongue-twister. Whilst the obscenity would be tolerated here, it would still be an extreme breach of propriety. The tongue-twister is worth performing because the stakes are higher, and because the obscenity can be avoided by the actor’s verbal adeptness. It amuses younger actors with its content, and impresses them with its purpose and execution. It thus merges the broadly educational, because training the voice, with the openly and intentionally entertaining.

Bibliography Anon. 1960. ‘Tongue-Twisters’. Western Folklore, 19(1): 64. Anon. 1962. ‘“Drentse” Tongbrekers’. Neerlands Volksleven, 12(4): 315. Bell, David Charles, and Alexander Melville Bell. 1902. Bell’s Standard Elocutionist: Principles and Exercises (Chiefly from ‘Elocutionary Manual’) Followed by a Copious Selection of Extracts in Prose and Poetry Classified and Adapted for Reading and Recitation. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Brunvand, Jan Harold. 1959. ‘“Sarah”, a Tongue-Twister Song’. Journal of American Folklore, 72(286): 296–7. Brunvand, Jan Harold. 1986. The Study of American Folklore: an Introduction, 3rd edn. New York: Norton. Crowther, Samuel. 1852. A Vocabulary of the Yoruba Language. London: Seeleys. Dundes, Alan. 1964a. ‘A Choctaw Tongue-Twister and Two Examples of Creek Word Play’. International Journal of American Linguistics, 30(2): 194–6. Dundes, Alan. 1964b. ‘Some Yoruba Wellerisms, Dialogue Proverbs, and TongueTwisters’. Folklore, 75(2): 113–20. Emrich, Duncan, 1955. ‘The Ancient Game of Tongue-Twisters’. American Heritage, 6(2): 119–20. [accessed 27 September 2006]. Geshekter, Charles L. and Said Ahmed Warsama. 1996. ‘An Introduction to Humour and Jokes in Somali Culture’. African Languages and Cultures: Supplement 3, Voice and Power: the Culture of Language in North-East Africa: Essays in Honour of B. W. Andrzejewski, 1996: 141–53. Halliwell, James Orchard. 1846. The Nursery Rhymes of England, 4th edn. London: John Russell Smith. [accessed 15 January 2007]. Jorgensen, Marilyn. 1981.‘The Tickled, Tangled, Tripped and Twisted Tongue: a Linguistic Study of Factors Relating to Difficulty in the Performance of TongueTwisters’. New York Folklore, 7(3/4) (Winter): 67–81.

Paul Cowdell 73 Kleiser, Grenville. 1912. How To Speak in Public. New York: Funk and Wagnalls. Kostelanetz, Richard. 1977. ‘Text-Sound Art: a Survey’. Performing Arts Journal, 2(2): 61–70. Loomis, C. Grant, 1949. ‘A Handful of Tongue-Twisters’. Western Folklore, 8(4): 373–5. Miller, Margery R. 1923. ‘The Old Nuisance’. The English Journal, 12 (7): 491. Mook, Maurice A. 1959. ‘Tongue Tanglers from Central Pennsylvania’. Journal of American Folklore, 72(286): 291–6. Moss, Leonard W. 1960. ‘Further Reflections on Pennsylvania Tongue-Twisters’. Journal of American Folklore, 73(289): 253. Natalicio, Diana S. 1979. ‘Repetition and Dictation as Language Testing Techniques’. The Modern Language Journal, 63(4): 165–76. O’Brien, Alice Crissman. 1963. ‘Tongue-Twisters from California’. Western Folklore, 22(3): 164. Opie, Iona and Peter. 1977. The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren. St Albans: Paladin. Opie, Iona and Peter (eds). 1997. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Parkin, Ken. 1969a. Ideal Voice and Speech Training. London: Samuel French. Parkin, Ken. 1969b. Anthology of British Tongue-Twisters. London: Samuel French. Porter, Kenneth. 1960. ‘Further Reflections on Pennsylvania Tongue-Twisters’. Journal of American Folklore, 73(289): 252–3. Potter, Charles Francis. 1950. ‘Tongue-Twisters’. In Leach, Maria (ed.), Funk and Wagnall’s Standard Dictionary of Folklore Mythology and Legend. Vol. 2: J–Z, New York: Funk and Wagnalls, pp. 1117–19. Rigsby, Bruce. 1970. ‘A Note on Gitksan Speech-Play’. International Journal of American Linguistics, 36(3): 212–15. Simmons, D. C. 1955. ‘Specimens of Efik Folklore’. Folklore, 66(4): 417–24. Simon, Gwladys Hughes. 1953. ‘Tongue-Twister Sentences’. Western Folklore, 12(3): 213. Waugh, F. W. 1918. ‘Canadian Folk-Lore from Ontario’. Journal of American Folklore, 31(119): 4–82. Wodehouse, P.G. 1963. Jeeves in the Offing. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

5 Dealing Dooms: Alliteration in the Old Frisian Laws Rolf H. Bremmer Jr

Abstract The medieval corpus of Frisian laws has attracted scholarly attention for many centuries, first for their intrinsic value, but since the Romantic period also for their style. Jacob Grimm was the first of a long line of scholars who was intrigued by the frequent use of alliteration in these law texts, and suggested that before literacy came to the Frisians these laws had been handed down orally. Later scholars, such as Moritz Heyne and Rudolf Kögel, even claimed that Old Frisian laws had once been recited as Germanic alliterative verse. With some mitigation, this claim has persisted to well into the twentieth century. This chapter seeks to demonstrate by an analysis of some selected text passages that alliteration in the Frisian laws was as much inspired by Latin literacy, whether ecclesiastical or administrative, as by native orality. The conclusion is drawn that alliteration in the Frisian laws is a sign of a nascent stylistic phenomenon rather than the dying end of a formerly fully developed indigenous tradition. The availability, however, of time-honoured alliterative collocations, many of which are also found in the related Germanic dialects, such as Old English, Old Saxon, Old High German and Old Norse, contributed to the shaping of this remarkable aspect of the Old Frisian legal diction.

In the Middle Ages, tucked away in a narrow strip of what is today the northern coast of the Netherlands and Germany, between the River Vlie in the west (later the Zuyder Zee, now the IJsselmeer) and the mouth of

74

Rolf H. Bremmer Jr 75

the River Weser in the east, lived the Frisians in a conglomeration of adjacent self-governing regions or ‘lands’.1 Conquered and subjugated by the Franks under Charlemagne and his father, they had lived a marginal existence in the Carolingian Empire and its successors, first the Lotharingian Empire and later the Holy Roman Empire. Historical sources are sparse in information relating events and developments that fall between the years 850 and 1200, partly because the wilde witzing (‘savage Viking’) had been terrorizing their settlements for well over a century. These raids, aided by a natural habitat that made it difficult for outsiders to reach the Frisians overland, contributed to their gradually breaking away from the political constellation to which they had belonged. By 1200, most of the Frisian lands had managed to gain a position in which they nominally acknowledged their dependence on the (Frankish, later German) king, but allowed no feudal lord (whether duke or count) to stand between them and the king. In daily reality this position implied that the Frisians took care of their own administrative and governmental business. A class of landowning peasants, free in the sense that they owed feudal allegiance to no one but the king, divided the administrative functions and offices amongst themselves, usually by annual rotation. The absence of a centre of authority proved conducive to the perpetuation within Frisia of the Germanic principle of feuding as a fully accepted legal means to redress the balance of justice and power and to the continuation of the concomitant material compensation (wergeld) for inflicted loss of life or limb. When pragmatic literacy came to the Frisian lands around 1200, the Frisians started to entrust their legal and administrative customs to parchment, perhaps in Latin first but certainly soon enough in Frisian.2

The scholarly legacy The medieval Frisian legal texts have attracted scholarly attention for various reasons, and that for a long time. Frisian historians, from the early seventeenth century onwards, first of all studied these laws because they made up part of their native institutional history. Other scholars studied the laws for their pristine language. However, in the years around 1800, inspired by Romantic ideas, admiration for these laws started to spread because they were held to have been composed by ‘the people’ and not by learned jurists. It was especially a growing awareness of stylistic features such as alliteration and rhythm in addition to the ubiquitous vivid vignettes of daily life that brought the legal prose

76

Alliteration in Culture

to the centre of scholarly attention. The following entry, taken from a register of compensations, may serve as an illustration: Thi hagosta irthfal of widzia ieftha of weine, of stokke ieftha of stene, thet him haued and halsdok allera erost anda irthe kome; and hi’t [= hi hit] wera wille anda withon, sa is thiu bote fif merk and twene enza.3 ‘The gravest push to the ground from horse or from wain, from stock or from stone, so that a man’s head and neck-scarf hit the ground first of all; if he wants to testify to this under oath on the (holy) relics [viz. that the pushing had been intentional] – the compensation then is five marks and two ounces.’ This short entry features three alliterative word pairs and additionally, whether intentionally or not, two strings with heavy alliteration. Together these stylistic properties clearly bring about a certain cadence when spoken aloud. The entry also allows us a snapshot of daily life: a row in the field, conceivably on the box or high up on the hay-wain, a quarrel on some construction site, perhaps of a church, some heated pushing and shoving, and down goes a man with a bang on the ground, head first and his scarf helplessly fluttering after; followed in due course by a solemn session of the court and concluded by establishing the compensation to be paid to the victim. The Frisian laws abound in such provisions which usually present a short but graphic account of the (imagined) circumstances rather than an abstract but precise and allinclusive formulation of an act of violence in juristic prose.4 Jacob Grimm, who claimed that both poetry and law had ‘risen from the same bed’, was the first in a long row of nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholars who focused their attention on the way in which the ancient Germans, including the Frisians, had formulated their customs and rights.5 The frequent use of alliterative and nonalliterative binomial phrases, the intermittent rhythmical passages and the occasional presence of metaphors, metonyms and kennings in the Old Frisian legal prose, once assiduously collected, led Moritz Heyne in the 1860s and Rudolf Kögel by the end of the nineteenth century to proclaim the theory that many a medieval Frisian law represented a diluted version of a text that had originally been composed in the well-known patterns of Germanic alliterative verse.6 Kögel’s theory of an all-verse law tradition in early medieval Frisia was soon refuted by Theodor Siebs,7 whose counterarguments were shortly afterwards endorsed and expanded by Conrad Borchling,8 in a small but rich study

Rolf H. Bremmer Jr 77

whose title was clearly inspired by Jacob Grimm’s programmatic essay, written almost a century earlier. Both Siebs and Borchling objected to Kögel’s far-reaching conclusions which in their opinion were built on eclectic examples. Even though alliteration is frequently found in the law texts, they argued, it was never used structurally over longer passages. However, the attraction of attributing the practice of composing alliterative verse to the early Frisian draftsmen of the laws remained irresistible. It was reiterated by the American scholar Francis Wood,9 and subscribed to, even if with some reserve, by Dorothy Bethurum in her study of phraseological aspects of Old English legal prose.10 During the Second World War, Georg Baesecke, a prominent Germanist and a pupil of the aforementioned Moritz Heyne, went to great lengths in an effort to demonstrate the poetic nature of a number of Frisian law texts, or of certain isolated passages.11 In the early 1970s, Willy Krogmann still gave voice to the idea that the passages in the Frisian laws with alliteration were an offshoot (‘Ableger’) of the Germanic alliterative poetry.12 It is in the tradition of Siebs and Borchling that we can locate the Frisian philologist Wybren Jan Buma who in his diplomatic editions of various Old Frisian manuscripts diligently presented all alliterative (e.g. betha fel and flask ‘both skin and flesh’) and non-alliterative (e.g. hete and kalde ‘heat and cold’) collocations that he had collected from their texts, phrases with end-rhyme (e.g. auder thene berena ieftha thene kerena ‘either the born ones or the chosen ones’), and legal maxims or proverbs (e.g. morth mot ma mith morthe kela) ‘one is allowed to requite [‘cool’] murder with murder’.13 Buma attributed the origin of these stylistic elements to the days when the law was handed down orally by the asega (lit. ‘law-sayer’), an important Frisian legal official whose function Buma compared to that of the Icelandic lo˛gso˛gumaðr, one of whose duties it was to recite a portion of the law at the annual gathering of the Allthing.14 In Frisia, it was the asega’s duty to declare the legal procedures – dom to delane ‘to deal a doom’ – in the solemnly convened gathering of the people, and the people had to attach their approval to these procedures. In this interaction between the asega and the people, from one generation to another, the laws would have acquired acoustic elements that facilitated easy memorisation.15 Alliteration, according to Buma, ‘provided an expressive means to emphasize the most important notions that propelled the line of thought’ and, at a time when religion dominated everything, he held that the alliterative mode was exclusively used during ceremonial rituals. ‘The abundance of varying and tautological word pairs, connected by homophonous initial sounds, is a remnant of a period when [pre-Christian, RHB] priest, judge and

78

Alliteration in Culture

poet deeply impressed their audience by the power of the word.’ Buma opined that alliteration has retained something of its pithiness and magical power even down to our own days.16 Shortly before Buma’s extensive stylistic analysis of the language appeared as part of his edition of the First Rüstring Manuscript, the Swiss Manfred Szadrowsky had published an almost comprehensive aesthetical evaluation and categorisation of the stylistic characteristics of Old Frisian legal prose. However, Szadrowsky’s essay appeared too late, it seems, for Buma to have taken good notice of, which is regrettable for our insight into this phenomenon, because its outcome was diametrically opposed to the established opinion. Although Szadrowsky, too, acknowledged certain pieces as poetically pleasing, he did not consider them as typical of the Old Frisian legal language, and certainly not exemplary of the essence of Germanic law. On the contrary, in Szadrowsky’s view those ‘poetic’ pieces in Frisian law were rather un-Germanic and had something consciously composed about them, something clerical, too. In these ‘poetic’ pieces, the old, simple and straightforward popular law had been imbued with emotion by ecclesiastical flourishes. According to Szadrowsky, it was precisely because the Frisians did not practise, or no longer practised, alliterative poetry, that this stylistic element was not poetically charged and could thus serve as a functional, pertinent means of expression (‘sachliches, sachgemäßes Ausdrucksmittel’).17 Since the studies of Buma and Szadrowsky, little or no research has been carried out into this aspect of the Old Frisian legal language.18 Therefore, Bo Sjölin was quite right when he remarked about a decade ago: ‘People have endeavoured to appraise alliteration, rhythmicization, legal maxims and formulaicness as indications of a great age and as remnants of the original, oral recitation of the law. However, the function of these stylistic means has hardly been investigated systematically until today.’19 This observation may be true with respect to Frisian, but in Germanic studies in general by contrast, the subject has continued to attract much attention and many systematic investigations have left little room for the romantic ideas of scholars of previous generations. It is now commonplace knowledge that the frequent use of alliterative and non-alliterative word pairs is as much obliged to native Germanic modes of expression as to the influence of the Church from the early Middle Ages onwards. The literate members of society – churchmen for by far the greater part until about the thirteenth century – received a thorough schooling in Latin rhetoric in the monasteries and cathedral schools. Both secular authors such as Cicero and church fathers such as Augustine – but also the Vulgate Bible – provided authoritative

Rolf H. Bremmer Jr 79

examples of alliteration to be followed. The presence of alliterative and non-alliterative word pairs in vernacular legal prose is therefore a sign of a nascent stylistic phenomenon rather than the dying end of a formerly fully developed indigenous tradition, according to a statistically supported comparative investigation of both Latin and vernacular textgenres carried out by Bärbel Baum.20 Two decades earlier, Klaus von See had discarded the idea of the sacrality of formulaic legal language. He highlighted that alliteration became more frequent only in later medieval vernacular law, a discovery that was further elaborated upon in a penetrating investigation by Harald Ehrhardt. The latter also pointed out that alliterative phrases occurred too rarely on the whole to serve as a useful means for memorising the law.21 Besides being ornamental and hence aesthetically pleasing,22 both alliterative and non-alliterative collocations are now seen to function in legal texts mainly as means of expression to ensure a reasonable measure of certainty and inclusion.23

Three cases of later alliteration By way of example, I want to show in the remainder of this chapter how new insights into the origin and function of alliterative phrases in legal prose can also be applied to the Frisian law texts. At the same time, I have seized the opportunity to present a variety of angles from which the study of alliteration in Old Frisian can be approached, without claiming any pretence to completeness. Let me begin with an analysis of the opening lines of the Prologue to the Seventeen Statutes and Twenty-Four Landlaws, a prologue that was intended to present a historical justification for the two most important pan-Frisian law texts, found in as many as seven manuscripts that originate from both the east and the west of Frisia: Hir is eskriuin thet wi Frisa alsek londriuht hebbe and halde sa God selua sette and ebad, thet wi hilde alle afte thing and alle riuhte thing. Efter thes bedon hit ande bennon alle irthkiningar efter Romulo and Remo – thet weron tha tvene brother ther Rume erost stifton.24 ‘Here is written that we Frisians should have and hold such landlaws as God himself established and ordered, (namely) that we should hold all lawful things and all right things. Afterwards this was ordered and proclaimed by all earthly kings after Romulus and Remus – they were the two brothers who first founded Rome.’ Written in the first half of the thirteenth century after the Seventeen Statutes and Twenty-Four Landlaws had found their more or less definitive

80

Alliteration in Culture

shape, this prologue is evidently the work of a literatus, a literate man who was well versed in theology – he cites the Ten Commandments both in Latin and in Frisian, and provides a typological interpretation of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt and their entrance into the Holy Land. Moreover, he also had access to some kind of Kaiserchronik that provided him with factual information of all the kings and emperors that had ruled the Frankish realm and its successors, up to Emperor Frederick II von Hohenstaufen (1194–1250).25 The use of alliterative pairs in this passage cannot therefore be the result of a centuries-old tradition but is to be seen rather as the result of a conscious effort by the author to impose on his text an air of solemn antiquity, a strategy which he tried to enhance by the repetitious phrase ‘alle afte thing and alle riuhte thing’. There is a further indication for the literate nature of these opening lines, viz. in the non-alliterative word pair ‘sette and ebad’. This legislative formula derives from royal and imperial documents in Germany where they appear in the present tense as, for example, ‘Wir sezzen und gebiten’ (We establish and order), the vernacular rendition of ‘Statuimus et ordinamus’ (We establish and order), a phrase that is frequently found in Latin decrees and statutes.26 In the Frisian prologue, however, the earthly ruler’s authority when pronouncing his decrees is conveyed to the King of heaven, and by this sleight of hand the author claims a divine legislator for the laws of his land. Frisians, he professes, had not been given their laws by kings or emperors but they have and hold their laws through a special act of God’s grace. These laws were afterwards confirmed – neither granted nor imposed – by a long line of earthly rulers, beginning with Romulus and Remus whose alliterative names provide an unexpected stylistic bonus here. Let us consider another example from which it may appear that the frequent use of alliteration in the Frisian laws is not necessarily something inherited from a time when they were handed down orally; on the contrary, the presence of alliteration in law texts is more likely the result of a conscious effort by their anonymous authors to cast an archaising ‘oral’ patina over the legal texts with an aim to impress friend (the Frisians) and foe (neighbouring counts and dukes who contested the semi-independent position of the Frisians within the Holy Roman Empire). In this respect it is relevant to quote Brian Stock who argues that the twelfth century brought a ‘realignment of oral discourse within a cultural reference system based on the logical priorities of texts’. Rather than dying out with the emergence of vernacular literacy around 1200, the functions of orality were redefined by the uses of literacy.27 It would seem that such an approach is also detectable in Old Frisian legal

Rolf H. Bremmer Jr 81

prose, as the following case may show. The second of the Twenty-Four Landlaws succinctly states that: Thet istet other londriucht thetter nen moder ne ach te sellane hire bernes erwe, er thet kind ierech se, het ne se thetter hire binime thera thrira thinga en: here ieftha hunger ieftha friunda strid.28 ‘This is the second landlaw that no mother may sell her child’s inheritance before the child is of age, unless one of three things forces her to do so: (hostile) army or hunger or violent conflict amongst relatives.’ For this short regulation, a much longer elaboration was devised, explaining in ornate language which three – no more, no fewer – exceptional necessities or emergent situations allow a mother to pawn or sell her child’s inheritance (i.e. his deceased father’s farmstead and land) and thus alienate it from the line of generations, a horrible measure indeed: Thio furme ned: sa hwersa thet kind iung is fiterat and fensen nord vr hef iefta suther vr berch, sa mot thio moder hire kindis erue setta an sella an hire kind lesa and thes liwes hilpa. Thio other ned is: Jefter erga ier wert and thi heta hunger vr thet lond fareth and thet kind hunger stera wel, sa mot thio moder hire kindis erue setta an sella an kapia hire kind kv and corn, therma him thet lif mithe behelpe. Thio thredde ned is: sa thet kind is stocnakend iefta huslas and thenna thi thiuster niwel and nedcalda winter and thio longe thiustre nacht on tha tunan hliet, sa faret allera monna hwelic on sin hof an on sin hus an on sine warme winclen, and thet wilde diar secht thera birga hli and then hola bam, alther hit sin lif one bihalde. Sa waynat an skriet thet vnierich kind and wepet thenne sine nakene lithe and sin huslase an sinne feder, ther him reda scholde with then hunger and then niwelkalda winter, thet hi sa diape and alsa dimme29 mith fior neilum is vnder eke and vnder ther molda30 bisleten and bithacht. Sa mot thio moder hire kindis erue setta and sella, thervmbe thet hiu ach ple and plicht alsa longe sa hit vngerich is, thet hit noder frost ne hunger ne in fangenschip vrfare.31 ‘The first necessity: whenever the child, young, is fettered and caught north across the sea or south across the mountain, then the mother is allowed to pawn and sell her child’s inheritance and ransom her child and help it stay alive. The second necessity is: if an evil year comes about and a burning hunger fares over the land and the child is bound to starve to death, then the

82

Alliteration in Culture

mother is allowed to pawn and sell her child’s inheritance and buy for her child cow and corn with which it can be kept alive. The third necessity is: if the child is stark naked or houseless, and when the dark mist and the disastrously cold winter and the long dark night spread over the fences, then each man goes to his yard and his house and his heated room, and the wild beast seeks the cover of the mountains and the hollow tree where it can save its life. Then the underage child cries and moans and beweeps its naked limbs and its homelessness and its father who should save it from the hunger and the misty cold winter, that he is so deep and so dark with four nails closed in and covered under oak and under earth. Then the mother is allowed to pawn and sell her child’s inheritance, because she has the care and duty as long as it is a minor so that it perishes neither by frost nor hunger nor captivity.’ The elaboration of the three necessities – captivity, hunger, frost; but the greatest of these is hunger32 – which describes so ornately under what circumstances a widowed mother is allowed to deposit her child’s property or even dispose of it, rather than being old as suggested by the heavy use of alliteration, is a relatively young text, younger in any case than the landlaw to which it was given as an elucidating appendix. The deplorable situation where the hungry underage semi-orphan has ended up, weeping and crying in self-pity for its destitution and for its father who, quite macabrely, is dead and buried and securely fixed inside his oak coffin with precisely as many nails as Christ was fixed to the cross, the un-Frisian landscape with wild beasts, hollow trees and protective mountains – all this smells of an author whose imagination was inspired by elegiac reading, a clergyman in all likelihood, familiar too with the current vogue of dramatic situations as expressed, for example, in the contemporary (thirteenth-century) song ‘Stabat mater dolorosa’. The passage seems to me to bear witness therefore to the kind of sensitivity bordering on sentimentality that was quickly gaining in popularity both in the visual and the literary arts after 1200 and which is foreign to the otherwise quite sober and down-to-earth provisions of the Frisian laws, however imaginative they may sometimes be. A last example of later alliteration may also serve to show that the use of alliterative (and non-alliterative) phrases can be a matter of personal preference. In 1312, the judges of the land of Emsingo convened to issue a series of ‘dooms’ in order to regulate certain aspects of public behaviour, which they then set down on parchment in Latin.33 As it happened, probably not long afterwards, these dooms were translated into Frisian independently from each other at least twice, a fact that allows us a unique opportunity

Rolf H. Bremmer Jr 83

to observe what translation strategies their translators have followed. These translations survive in the Second and Third Emsingo Manuscripts, respectively.34 Among the differences, we note that the one translator occasionally favoured rendering a single Latin word with an alliterative word pair where the other one preferred a one-to-one translation. For example, the third doom fixes the procedure of dealing with a poor man who has slain another man during a public court meeting and has thereupon taken his refuge in the house of a rich man who refuses to open his door to the church dignitary and neighbours of good fame for investigation. In such a case, the doom stipulates, the rich man who offers protection to the poor man has to pay the wergild. However, if the rich man allows the investigators entrance but they fail to find the killer and nonetheless ‘reputent eum ibidem absconsum’ (report that he keeps him hidden), the rich man has to pledge his innocence with 12 oaths. In the vernacular version of the Third Emsingo Manuscript (E3), the words ‘eum ibidem absconsum’ are translated with ‘anda hine ther ynne bihelth’ (and [the rich man] him therein [i.e. in the house] conceals); in the Second Emsingo Manuscript (E2) version this has become ‘thet thi bona therinna bihut and biheleth se’ (that the killer is protected and concealed therein). Apparently, the E2 translator felt an urge to render the simple Latin ‘absconsum’ with an alliterative word pair to make it sound in line with the customary legal parlance. He repeated this strategy in the seventh doom where he rendered the Latin word ‘proscriptus’ (outlawed man) with the familiar alliterative phrase ‘en fach and fretheles mon’ (a banished and peaceless [i.e. outlawed] man), whereas in the version of E3 the translator sufficed with a plain ‘en frethelos man’. A not dissimilar attempt to bring the vernacular version in line with the conventional legal prose style can be witnessed when this E2 translator conveyed the straightforward Latin ‘et ad querendum profugum introitus denegetur’ (and entry is denied for seeking the fugitive) in the third doom with the lively and graphic: ‘Hwasa him thes warnt and him tha dura in agen slaijt’ (Whoever refuses this [i.e. entry] to them [i.e. the inspectors] and slams the door in their face [lit. eyes]). The translator in E3, on the other hand, gave preference to a more subdued approach: ‘Huasa him thes weygerath anda him tha dura thafara sluth’ (Whoever refuses this to them and closes the door before them). In other words, even in the early fourteenth century there were literate men who thought it appropriate to adapt their translations of plain Latin legal prose to a more ornate, ‘oral’ vernacular style. The presence of so many time-honoured alliterative phrases must have made it easy for people to create new ones. We can see this, for example, in the quite common collocation ‘tins and tegotha’ (tribute

84

Alliteration in Culture

and tithes). While the latter element is the original Old Frisian ordinal for ‘tenth’,35 the former has a rather complicated history: it is a loan by way of Old Saxon from Old High German zins which itself in turn was borrowed from Latin census. The Saxon and Frisian forms are false etymological interpretations of the initial sound of the High German word. Somehow, Saxons (and Frisians) knew that High German initial /ts/ corresponded to their /t/, e.g. OS tehan (and OFris tian) ‘ten’ vs OHG zehan, and accordingly changed the initial sound when they borrowed zins.36 Dating to sometime after the Frisians had accepted the Christian faith is the phrase ‘cristenede and crisma’ (Christianity and chrism) with which the sacrament of baptism is indicated. Even the manmade Frisian landscape was encapsulated in alliterative formulas: the reclaimed land was protected by ‘dikan and domman’ (dikes and dams), while superfluous water was managed through ‘siler and slater’ ([artificial] outlets [in a dike] and ditches) that had at all times to be ‘tiande ende temende’ (discharging and emptying).37 Ethnic consciousness, too, was expressed in an alliterative phrase. Whereas in Middle English, Middle German and Middle Dutch the phrase ‘frank and free’ (‘frank und frei’, ‘frank ende vrij’) started to circulate (to survive until today) in which ‘frank’ originally signified a member of the Franks but later acquired the meaning ‘free’, because only Franks possessed full freedom in Gaul, the Frisians, somewhere in the fourteenth century, made their own variant and coined ‘fry end Freesk’ (free and Frisian), in that order. The coinage was in a way tautologous, because Frisians after all considered themselves to be free (from feudal lordship, that is).38 As a last example of a newly created phrase that gained some popularity I have chosen ‘breve and baer’ (charter and arbitration award), which words together indicate a document recording the outcome of a legal dispute settlement. The first member is (ultimately) a Latin loan, while the second is a specifically Frisian legal word which despite its Germanic roots is not found outside Frisian.39 The collocation is not recorded until the fifteenth century.

Forms of alliteration As will have been noticed, alliteration in the Old Frisian laws is encountered most frequently in coordinated word pairs, whose constituents moreover are frequently fixed companions. Often the two alliterating words are near synonyms, so that the result is tautological, e.g. ‘fach and frethelas’ (banished and outlawed). They can also be complementary, as in ‘hus and hof’ (house and yard), together to mean ‘property’;40 ‘fel and flask’ (skin and flesh), to indicate the body; ‘mete and mele’ (meat

Rolf H. Bremmer Jr 85

and flour) for ‘food’, ‘finzen and fiterad’ (caught and fettered) for ‘captive’. Sometimes, the two elements are each other’s opposites, as in ‘fe ieftha fula’ (few or many), ‘min ieftha mar’ (less or more), ‘waxa ni wonia’ (neither wax nor wane). A formula, finally, can also be used for clarification: ‘mit ene ielrena stipa ief stile’ (with an alder-wood stake or stave). Examples like these can easily be multiplied, because the laws abound with them. A slightly different form of alliteration is found when a noun (adjective, adverb) is combined with a verb which is etymologically related (cf. ‘to sing a song’) so as to make up the figura etymologica.41 This popular device is well represented three times in the closing lines of the following enumeration found in the Fivelgo Register of Compensations: Senter lithe ofefallin van tha bronde iefta fonta wetere, send hit fingran iefta tana, sen hit fet iefta honda, senta erman, isti mund iefta ara, istet haud ieftet lif, senta machta iefta ben iefta eng lith inna tha liwe, sen se onstondande sa of, hu grat sa thio lemethe is, hu litic, sa se is fonta barnande bronde and fonta wallanda wetere,42 sa scelma alle tha deda beta bi alsadenre bote and bi alsadene scrifta sa ma inna othera dolgum plegat to scriuane.43 ‘If any limbs have fallen off because of fire or water, whether they are fingers or toes, whether they are feet or hands, whether they are arms, whether it is mouth or ears, whether it is head or trunk, whether they are genitals or legs or any part inside the trunk, whether they are on the body or off, (no matter) how big the wound is, (or) how small, whether it is from the burning fire or from the boiling water, all (violent) deeds must be compensated by such a compensation and by such a tariff (‘writing’) as people are wont to reckon (‘write’) for other wounds.’ The verb ‘beta’ (to compensate) is derived from the noun ‘bote’, while conversely the noun ‘brond’ (fire) is derived from the verb ‘barna’ (to burn), just as ‘scrifta’ is derived from the verb ‘scriva’ (to write). Some scribes seized the opportunity to embellish when they saw one. In most versions of the second of the Seventeen Statutes, dealing with currency, a complaint is made about the pennies struck in Cologne that were also current up north in Frisia: ‘Tha was thiu mente te fir and thi penning to swer’ (Then the mint house was too far and the penny too heavy). In the Rüstring version this grievance was rephrased as: ‘Tha firade us Frison thiu fire menote and us swerade tha thiu swera panning’ (Then far was for us Frisians the far mint and for us heavy then was the heavy penny). In order to contrive this stylistic flower – two long lines of alliterative poetry and a chiasmus – the Rüstring scribe/redactor had to coin

86

Alliteration in Culture

two nonce verbs: ‘firia’ (to be (too) far) and ‘sweria’ (to be (too) heavy). In all likelihood, this man had received a good schooling in grammatica and hence was familiar with the application of the figura etymologica in such biblical verses as: ‘senes vestri somnia somniabunt et iuvenes vestri visiones videbunt’ (your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions, Joel 2.28; cf. Acts 2.17) or ‘Osculetur me osculo oris sui’ (Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth, Song of Songs 1.2 – a book of the Bible popular in monastic houses). Alliterative phrases were not confined to legal prose, it should be noted. The Gesta Fresonum, a late-medieval narrative extolling in the vernacular the glorious deeds of the Frisians,44 displays several such collocations. For example, God is unfathomable in his ‘werken ende wessen’ (deeds and nature); an occupying army leaves the country ‘sunder strid ende storm’ (without battle and storm), i.e. ‘peacefully’; a ship is provided with ‘tou ende takel’ (rope and rigging), but a ship without ‘rema ende roer (oar and rudder) is of course bound to flounder. However, the number of alliterative phrases in this text is outnumbered by far by non-alliterative tautological doublets of the kind ‘sceppen ende macket’ (created and made), or ‘machtich ende sterck’ (powerful and strong), so typical of medieval expository prose. Yet another form of alliteration, twice exemplified in the quotation above from the Fivelgo Register of Compensations, is the combination of an adjective and a noun, e.g. ‘barnande brond’ (burning fire), ‘wallande weter’ (boiling water). Further such common combinations are ‘wilde witzing’ (wild viking), ‘salta se’ (salty sea), ‘fria Frisa’ (free Frisian), ‘skinande sunne’ (shining sun), ‘glande glede’ (glowing ember), ‘hete hunger’ (hot [i.e. burning] hunger), ‘bi nara nacht’ (in the dead [lit. ‘narrow’] of night), ‘swarte sweng’ (heinous deed). Such standard combinations need not be alliterative, however, witness the common occurrence of such stereotypical combinations as, for example, ‘rad gold’ (red gold), ‘hwit selver’ (white silver) and ‘gren lond’ (green land); it is my impression, nevertheless, that the set alliterative combination prevails. Finally, another favourite use of alliteration, very rarely found in Germanic alliterative verse but amply attested in legal prose,45 is the compound: ‘werewird’ (word of defence), ‘faxfeng’ (seizing by the hair), ‘dathdolg’ (deadly wound), ‘stefslek’ (stroke with a stick), ‘crawelcrumb’ (crooked as a hook), ‘sunnaskin’ (sunshine), ‘sunnasedel’ (sunset), ‘weterwei’ (waterway).

Aged alliterations Even though the abundance with which alliterative phrases are used in Old Frisian legal prose may not be as time-honoured as has been previously

Rolf H. Bremmer Jr 87

asserted, this is not to say that these phrases themselves cannot boast of longevity. The antiquity of many an alliterative phrase appears from their occurrence in kindred languages such as Old (or Middle) English, Old Saxon, Old (or Middle) High German and Old Norse.46 It was the presence of such cognate phrases, after all, that had occasioned Moritz Heyne to formulate the theory that the laws must have originally been composed mostly in the alliterative mode. Examples of shared phrases are numerous, for instance: OFris ‘fel and flask’ (skin and flesh) is paralleled with OE ‘flæsc and fell’ and OHG ‘mit fleisge ioh mit felle’ (Otfrid), OFris ‘ku and corn’ (cow and corn) with OE ‘metecu and metecorn’ (cow for food and corn for food) and ON ‘kýr ok korn’, OFris ‘habba and halda’ (to have and hold) with OE ‘habban and healdan’47 and MHG ‘halten und haben’, OFris ‘dema and dela’ (to judge and pronounce) with OE ‘todælan and todeman’ and ON ‘dóma ællr dela’, OFris ‘mith egge and mith orde’ (with [sword’s] edge and [spear’s] point) with OE ‘ord and ecg’ and OS ‘ordos endi eggia’,48 OFris ‘fia and fer(e)ch’ (money and life) with OE ‘feoh and feorh’ and ON ‘fé ok fjo˛r’.49 Not only do numerous alliterative word pairs reach back to a common Germanic period, also certain combinations of adjective and noun can boast of a long history, witness such phrases as OFris ‘salte se’ (salty sea) paralleled with OE ‘sealte sæ’,50 OFris ‘wallande weter’ (boiling water) with OE ‘weallende wæter’ (Ælfric, Leechdoms; ME ‘wallande water’ [Pearl]), or OFris ‘hete hunger’ (hot hunger) with OE ‘hate hunger’ (Ælfric; ME ‘hote hunger’). Another indication that alliterative formulas can be relatively old is the fact that quite a few of them appear to be repositories for words that have otherwise disappeared from the language, or almost so. This applies to modern languages no less than to, in our case, Old Frisian. For modern languages, for example, we may think of the English phrase ‘neither kith nor kin’, in which the otherwise obsolete word ‘kith’ (native land, home) has managed to survive, or of the German phrase ‘Kind und Kegel’ (children, pets, and all) in which the original meaning of ‘Kegel’ is illegitimate child. Thus Old Frisian ‘widze’ (horse), whose cognates in Old English ‘wicg’ (steed), Old Saxon ‘wigge’ and Old Norse ‘vigg’ occur only in poetry and consequently are already marked and restricted in usage, owes its heroic survival to its being combined with the homely ‘wein’ (wain). Something similar applies to ‘mar’ (horse) (cf. OE ‘mearh’, OHG ‘marach’, ON ‘marr’) which is found in a passage that deals with the unredeemable deed of burning down a church, raiding the parsonage and seizing there ‘mon and mar’ (man and horse), in the sense of ‘all living creatures, both humans and livestock’.51 The noun ‘fer(e)ch’ (life) (cf. OE ‘feorh’, ON ‘fjo˛r’) managed to stretch its existence through establishing a symbiosis with ‘fia’ (money),52 while the adjective ‘fe’ (few) is

88

Alliteration in Culture

found only in conjunction with its alliterating opposite ‘fula’ (many).53 Again, such a sampling could easily be extended.

Conclusion In conclusion, then, this exploratory contribution has shown (once more) that alliteration was a popular stylistic device in medieval Frisian legal prose which found its application particularly in coordinated word pairs. Although the technique dates back to the common Germanic period, as is demonstrated by the many binomial phrases which Old Frisian shares with other Germanic languages and by obsolete words petrified in alliterative word pairs, this revered age need not imply that the Frisian laws themselves, too, date back to long before the coming of literacy to Frisia, at a time when law was allegedly recited as verse during ceremonial court sessions of the people. Nor is the presence of alliteration to be seen as a mnemonic device that facilitated the mental storage of laws before the introduction of literacy. Rather, the use of alliterative phrases was stimulated by the example set by ecclesiastical and administrative Latin prose and was a shared phenomenon in Western Europe, well into the Renaissance. Formulas and legal language were felt to be inextricably interwoven as also appears from the production of many alliterative collocations that are limited to Frisian only. Surely, a much closer investigation of this aspect of the verbal texture of Old Frisian legal prose, preferably computer-supported,54 than I have been able to offer here will promise to be as rewarding as the ‘gold and godeweb’ (gold and fine cloth),55 which the Frisians were reputedly offered after they had reconquered Rome for Charlemagne.56

Notes 1. I am grateful to Stephen Laker and Anne Popkema for their comments on a draft of this contribution. 2. See my Hir is eskriven. Lezen en schrijven in de Friese landen rond 1300, Hilversum and Leeuwarden, 2004; cf. my An Introduction to Old Frisian. History, Grammar, Reader, Glossary, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 2009, Ch. 1; M. Mostert, ‘The Early History of Written Culture in the Northern Netherlands’. In Rankoviæ, S. (ed.) with Melve, L. and Mundal, E. Along the Oral – Written Continuum: Types of Text, Relations and Their Implications, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 20, Turnhout, 2009, pp. 435–74 (459–74). On the primacy of Frisian for the laws, see A. Popkema, ‘Het Oudfries: rechtstaal in beginsel’, Us Wurk 56, 2007: 38–62. 3. W. J. Buma and W. Ebel, Das Rüstringer Recht, Altfriesische Rechtsquellen 1, Göttingen, 1961, item XIV.4a (‘The General Register of Compensations’). Unless otherwise mentioned, all translations are mine. M. Janda, Über ‘Stock

Rolf H. Bremmer Jr 89

4.

5.

6.

7.

8. 9.

10. 11.

12.

13.

14.

und Stein’: die indogermanischen Variationen eines universalen Phraseologismus, Münchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft, Beiheft 18, Dettelbach, 1997, pp. 128–9, takes the phrase of stokke ieftha of stene here as a merism, to mean ‘from any (elevated) place’. Cf. D. O’Donnell, ‘The Spirit and the Letter: Literary Embellishment in Old Frisian Legal Texts’. In Bremmer, R. H. Jr, Johnston, T. S. B. and Vries, O. (eds), Approaches to Old Frisian Philology, Amsterdam and Atlanta, 1998, pp. 245–56. J. Grimm, ‘Von der Poesie im Recht’, Zeitschrift für geschichtliche Rechtswissenschaft, 2, 1815: 25–99, repr. in his Kleinere Schriften, Vol. VI: Recensionen und vermischte Aufsätze, Berlin, 1882, pp. 152–91; cf. W. Frühwald, ‘“Von der Poesie im Recht”. Über die Brüder Grimm und die Rechtsauffassung der deutschen Romantik’, Jahres- und Tagesbericht der Görres-Gesellschaft 1986, Cologne, 1987, pp. 40–60. M. Heyne, Formulae alliterantes ex antiquis legibus lingua frisica conscriptis extractae et cum aliis dialectis comparatae, Halle, 1864. Slightly elaborated, this slim doctoral thesis also appeared in the same year in translation, with some modifications, as ‘Alliterierende Verse und Reime in den friesischen Rechtsquellen’, Germania, 9, 1864: 437–49. R. Kögel, ‘Stabreimende Rechtspoesie’, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur bis zum Ausgange des Mittelalters, Strasbourg, 1894–7, II, 1, pp. 242–59. T. Siebs, review of Kögel (see note 6), in Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 29, 1897: 394–414; cf. Siebs, ‘Altfriesische Literatur’, in Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, II, 1. Literaturgeschichte, ed. H. Paul, Strasbourg, 1902, pp. 521–54 (526–8). C. Borchling, Poesie und Humor im friesischen Recht, Aurich, 1908. F. A. Wood, ‘An Old Frisian Poem’, Modern Philology, 12, 1914–15: 477–80; endorsed by E. Sievers, Metrische Studien IV. Die altschwedischen Upplandslagh nebst Proben formverwandter germanischer Sagdichtung, Abh. phil.-hist. Klasse der Königl. Sächs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, Vol. 35, 1–2, Leipzig, 1918, pp. 220–2 and 615–18. Sievers seems to have remained ignorant of Siebs’s and Borchling’s part in the discussion. D. Bethurum, ‘Stylistic Features of the Old English Laws’, Modern Language Review, 27, 1932: 263–79. G. Baesecke, ‘Die altfriesischen Gesetze und die Entwicklung der friesischdeutschen Stabverskunst’, Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift f ür Literaturwissenschaft und Geistegeschichte, 21, 1943: 1–22; repr. in his Kleine metrische Schriften, ed. W. Schröder, Munich, 1968, pp. 188–206. W. Krogmann, ‘Altfriesische Literatur’. In Schmidt, L. E. (ed.), Kurzer Grundriss der germanischen Philologie bis 1500, 2 vols, Berlin, 1969–70, II, pp. 164–85 (165). W. J. Buma, Die Brokmer Rechtshandschriften, Oudfriese Taal- en Rechtsbronnen 5, The Hague, pp. 66*–89*; idem, Het Tweede Rüstringer Handschrift, OTR 8, The Hague, 1954, pp. 36–49; idem, De Eerste Riustringer Codex, OTR 11, The Hague, 1961, pp. 47–86; idem, Aldfryske Houlikstaspraken, Assen, 1957, pp. 41–8. Cf. H. Ehrhardt, ‘Rechtssprecher’. In Erler, A. and Kaufmann, E. (eds), Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, Berlin, 1990, IV, cols 360–3. Romantic notions of the Icelandic lawspeaker, however, are questioned today, see e.g. M. P. McGlynn, ‘Orality in the Old Icelandic Grágás: Legal

90

15. 16. 17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

Alliteration in Culture Formulae in the Assembly Procedures Section’, Neophilologus, 93, 2009: 521–36 (524–5). Buma, De Eerste Riustringer Codex, pp. 52–3. Ibid., p. 55. M. Szadrowsky, ‘Stil und Syntax der altfriesischen Rechtssprache’, Beiträge zur deutschen Sprache und Literatur, 81, 1959: 131–60 (159–60). Buma includes Szadrowsky’s article in the bibliography of his 1961 edition of the First Rüstring Manuscript (see n. 11), but does not seem to have responded to its contents. For alliteration in Latin versions of the Frisian laws, see F. W. Schulze, ‘Stabungen und verwandte Bindungen in den Lateinversionen der altfriesischen Gesetze’, Zeitschrift f ür deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur, 91, 1961/1962: 85–107. Significantly, perhaps, no attention is paid to the style of Old Frisian legal prose in the compendious Handbuch des Friesischen/ Handbook of Frisian Studies, eds H. H. Munske et al., Tübingen, 2001. B. Sjölin, ‘Friesen’. In Beck, H. et al. (eds), Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, 10, Berlin, 1996, pp. 6–14 (12). ‘Man hat sich bemüht, Alliteration, Rhythmisierung, Rechtsparömien und Formelhaftigheit als Anzeichen hohen Alters und als Reste der ursprünglichen mündlichen Rechtsvortrag zu werten. Die Funktion dieser Stilmittel wurde jedoch bisher kaum systematisch untersucht.’ B. Baum, Der Stabreim in Recht. Vorkommen und Bedeutung des Stabreims in Antike und Mittelalter, Frankfurt a.M., 1986. Also see, for example, R. Matzinger-Pfister, Paarformel, Synonymik und zweisprachisges Wortpaar. Zur mehrgliedrigen Ausdrucksweise der mittelalterlichen Urkundensprache, Zurich, 1972; G. Köbler, ‘Von dem Stabreim im deutschen Recht’. In Kroeschell, K. (ed.), Festschrift für Hans Thieme zu seinem 80. Geburtstag, Sigmaringendorf, 1986, pp. 21–36. For a concise survey of the phenomenon, see R. SchmidtWiegand, ‘Paarformeln’, Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, III, cols 1387–93. K. von See, Altnordische Rechtswörter: Philologische Studien zur Rechtsauffassung und Rechtsgesinnung der Germanen, Tübingen, 1964, esp. pp. 84–92; H. Ehrhardt, Der Stabreim in altnordischen Rechtstexten, Heidelberg, 1977. ‘Magic’, however, is still often (and regrettably) associated with the use of rhythm and alliterative phrases, e.g. In former times, much of the power of legal language was based on its hypnotic rhythm and magical elements. (…) This strengthens the authority of the law and inspires fear in those with a disposition to delinquency. This psychological truth was already known to the ancient Germans: their law often took a highly rhythmical form (…). Archaic German law was expressed through magical formulas, whose melodious character affirmed in listeners a depth of feeling that ensured respect for legal rules. Thus, listeners were linked to the rhythmic movement of speech that led them to the magical space of archaic law (…). To that effect, binary formulas were especially frequent in old legal German. These expressed an obligation while simultaneously rejecting its opposite (…): das Recht stärken und das Unrecht kränken; die Wahrheit sagen und die Lüge lassen. The rhythmical effect of utterance was often heightened by alliteration (e.g. nutzen und nießen ‘employ and exploit’). In the M[iddle] A[ges], legal

Rolf H. Bremmer Jr 91 language might contain repetitions formulated up to seven times, by using a chain of synonyms or quasi-synonyms. As we know, the number seven possesses a special magical property. (H. E. S. Mattila, Comparative Legal Linguistics, Aldershot, 2006, p. 47) 22. Cf. E. G. Stanley, ‘Alliterative Ornament and Alliterative Rhythmical Discourse in Old High German and Old Frisian Compared with Similar Manifestations in Old English’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, 106, 1984: 184–217 (216–17). 23. On the nature of medieval legal language, much has been written. For brief surveys, see e.g. H.-P. Naumann and R. Wiegand-Schmidt, ‘Rechtssprache’. In Beck et al. (eds), Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, 10, 2003, pp. 268–76, and R. Wiegand-Schmidt, ‘Rechtssprache’, Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, IV, cols 444–60, both with extensive bibliographies. On formal aspects of word pairs, see e.g. S. Häusler, ‘Zwillingsformeln im altsächsischen Heliand’. In Fritz, M. and Wischer, I. (eds), Historisch-vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft und germanische Sprachen, Innsbruck, 2004, pp. 35–48. 24. W. J. Buma and W. Ebel, Das Rüstringer Recht, AF 1, Göttingen, 1961, no. I.1. 25. B. Murdoch, ‘Authority and Authenticity: Comments on the Prologues to the Old Frisian Laws’. In Bremmer et al. (eds), Approaches to Old Frisian Philology, pp. 215–43. 26. R. Schmidt-Wiegand, ‘Recht und Gesetz im Spannungsfeld zwischen Schriftlichkeit und Mündlichkeit’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 27, 1993: 147–66 (157–8). 27. B. Stock, The Implications of Literacy. Written Language and Modes of Interpretations in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, Princeton, 1983, p. 522. 28. W. J. Buma and W. Ebel, Das Hunsingoer Recht, AF 4, Göttingen, 1967, no. III. 2. 29. This alliterative pair is uniquely paralleled in OE ‘dimm and deop’ (Wulfstan). 30. Other redactions have the alliterative phrase ‘under eke and under erthe’. 31. W. J. Buma and W. Ebel, Das Fivelgoer Recht, AF 5, Göttingen, 1972, no. IV.2. 32. Cf. E. Schubert, Essen und Trinken im Mittelalter, Darmstadt, 2006, pp. 37–9, on the disruptive effects of famine on social order in all respects. 33. The text is edited in K. Fokkema, De Tweede Emsinger Codex, OTR 7, The Hague, 1953, no. XII. I assume that the Latin text came first because the two vernacular versions differ so much in choice of word and construction that the one cannot derive from the other nor both from a common ancestor. 34. Fokkema, De Tweede Emsinger Codex, no. VI, and K. Fokkema, De Derde Emsinger Codex, OTR 10, The Hague, 1959, no. IV. 35. Bremmer, An Introduction to Old Frisian, §124, Rem. 2. 36. R. H. Bremmer Jr, ‘Saxon Loans in Rüstring Old Frisian’. In Dekker, K., MacDonald, A. A. and Niebaum, H. (eds), Northern Voices: Essays on Old Germanic and Related Topics, Offered to Professor Tette Hofstra, Paris, Louvain and Dudley, 2008, pp. 191–201 (199); cf. F. Kluge, Etymologische Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, ed. E. Seebold, 23rd edn, Berlin and New York, s.v. Zins. 37. On the last phrase, see A. Sassen, ‘De Oudfriese formule tiaende ende temende’, Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal en Letterkunde, 72, 1954: 99–116. 38. O. Vries, ‘De Aldfryske pearformule “fry ende freesk”’, Us Wurk, 34, 1986: 75–84.

92

Alliteration in Culture

39. On baer, see O. Vries, ‘Die Terminologie des schiedsgerichtlichen Verfahrens in der altfriesischen Urkundensprache’. In Faltings, V. F., Walker, A. G. H. and Wilts, O. (eds), Friesische Studien I, Odense, 1992, pp. 29–52 (36–7). 40. Cf. R. Schmidt-Wiegand, ‘“Haus und Hof”. Zu Alter und Kontinuität einer Paarformel’. In von Nahl, A., Elmevik, L. and Brink, S. (eds), Namenwelten. Orts- und Personennamen in historischer Sicht, Berlin and New York, 2004, pp. 706–13. 41. Cf. Szadrowsky, ‘Stil und Syntax’, pp. 150–3. 42. Note how fire and water as sources of injury are repeated here in a more ornamental way than in the opening line of this decree. 43. Buma and Ebel, Das Fivelgoer Recht, no. X.377. 44. W. J. Buma, P. Gerbenzon and M. Tragter-Schubert (eds), Codex Aysma. Die altfriesischen Texte herausgegeben und übersetzt, Assen and Maastricht, 1993, no. V. 45. S. Sonderegger, ‘Die Sprache des Rechts im Germanischen’, Schweizer Monatshefte, 42 (3), 1962: 259–71; E. Buhofer, Stabende Komposita in Rechtstexten und poetischen Denkmälern der altgermanischen Sprachen, Zurich, 1992 (with ample attention paid to Old Frisian). 46. The last time a fairly comprehensive comparative survey of alliterative coordinated phrases was made is in a doctoral dissertation by O. Hoffmann, ‘Reimformeln im Westgermanischen’, Darmstadt, 1885. Concentrating on Old English, Hoffmann adduced cognate (near-)parallels from Old Frisian, Old Saxon and Old High German. 47. For a close study of OE ‘habban and healdan’, see P. Acker, Revising Oral Theory: Formulaic Composition in Old English and Old Icelandic Verse, New York, 1998, pp. 6–14. 48. Cf. R. Lühr, Studien zur Hildebrandslied, 2 vols, Frankfurt a.M. and Bern, 1982, II, pp. 594–5. 49. Cf. R. H. Bremmer Jr, ‘Old English feoh and feorh, Old Norse fé ok fjǫ r, ergo: Old Frisian fiā and ferech “money and life”’, Us Wurk, 32, 1983: 55–62. 50. P. Lendinara, ‘Tradurre dall’anglosassone: il mare “salato”’. In Cammarota, M. G. and Molinari, M. V. (eds), Testo medievale e traduzione, Bergamo 27–28 Ottobre, Testo medievale e Traduzione 1, Bergamo, 2001, pp. 237–70 (263). 51. Buma and Ebel, Das Fivelgoer Recht, no. XVI.74. 52. See note 49. 53. Cf. R. H. Bremmer Jr, ‘Old Frisian fule and felo “much, many”: an Idiosyncrasy in Germanic and Frisian Perspective’. In Nielsen, H.F. et al. (eds), Papers on Scandinavian and Germanic Language and Culture, Published in Honour of Michael Barnes (= NOWELE 46/47), Odense, 2005, pp. 31–40 (34). 54. For the profit reaped by a program such as WordSmith, see M. Markus, ‘Bed & Board: the Role of Alliteration in Twin Formulas of Middle English Prose’, Folia Linguistica Historica, 26, 2005: 71–93. 55. Cf. OE ‘gold and godweb’ and OS ‘mid goldu endi mid goduuuebbiu’. 56. In order not to overburden this chapter with notes, I have refrained from giving precise references to most of the words and phrases. For a useful entrance into the world of the Old Frisian lexis, see D. Hofmann and A. T. Popkema, Altfriesisches Handwörterbuch, Heidelberg, 2008.

6 Restrictions on Alliteration and Rhyme in Contemporary Swedish Personal Names with an Old Germanic Retrospect Lennart Hagåsen Abstract Scholars have for a long time observed that when forming Old Germanic dithematic personal names, alliteration and rhyme between the first and last elements (Baldoberht, Hildhelm, Raderich; Ratflat, Waldbald, Wolfolf ) was avoided. Similar observations can be made about contemporary Swedish surnames and double first names. Consequently, alliterative surnames are avoided (Backberg, *Kvarnkvist, *Rönnrot, Stenstedt). Such a tendency to avoid alliteration is at its strongest when assonance is also present (*Grangren, Markman). Imperfect alliteration, on the other hand, is perceived as disturbing only when it co-occurs with assonance (*Smedsten, Sundstrand). Rhyme between the first and last elements of names (Aldal, Rengren) has been found in just five surnames. As for Swedish male and female double first names, in this study we shall consider alliteration to be present also in those cases where the initial syllable of one element or of both elements is unstressed. The male names are, almost without exception, formed of an unstressed monosyllabic first element and a stressed di- or polysyllabic last element. Alliteration is avoided (*Alf-Allan, *Bengt-Bertil, Lars-Lennart, PerPatrik). Rhyme is not to be found for stress-structural reasons in these names. The main stress of the female double first names is generally on the first element. The number of syllables varies more than among the male names. Alliteration and rhyme are avoided (*Britt-Bell, *BrittaBodil, *Eva-Elisabet, *Märta-Monika; *Ann-Mariann, *Ella-Bella, *HannaAnna, *Maria-Sofia). Only the alliterative Lena-Lill, Lise-Lott, Lise-Lotti and rhyming Mari-Sofi, Maria-Pia, Pia-Maria are to be found, and the majority of these names are borrowed from other languages as complete names. 93

94

Alliteration in Culture

Scholars concur that Old Germanic dithematic personal names originate from designations for men and epithets for heroes in poetry and that the avoidance of alliteration is connected with poetical demands. However, the similar restrictions of the Swedish name system must rather be put down to anxiety about forming conspicuous and ridiculous names. Maybe, alongside the demands of poetic metre, such emotional restrictions also influenced Old Germanic name formation.

6.1 Old Germanic dithematic personal names It is generally accepted by name scholars, that, taken as a category, dithematic personal names originate from designations for men and epithets for heroes in Indo-European and Germanic heroic poetry.1 It has long been observed that different kinds of restriction applied to the formation of ancient dithematic men’s and women’s names. From investigations mainly of old West Germanic personal names, it has been concluded that name formations with alliteration and rhyme (in the sense of perfect rhyme), such as Baldoberht, Berhtbald, Bodoberht, Gergund, Hildhelm, Hildheri, Raderich; Ratflat, Waldbald and Wolfolf, were generally avoided. There are, however, some names that defy such name formation principles, including Baldwald, Berdbertus, Liuplind and Waldwald. The names Godgod and Wulfulf have been found among the Anglo-Saxons.2 The meanings of the name elements that form part of the above examples will be mentioned here by way of information: bald(o) ‘bold’, berd ‘bright, famous’, berht id., bertus id., bodo ‘ruler, master’, no doubt also ‘messenger’, flat ‘beautiful’, ger ‘pointed staff, spear (with an iron point)’, god ‘god’, gund ‘fight, battle’, helm ‘helmet, shelter; protector’, heri ‘host, army’, hild ‘fight, battle; warrior’, lind ‘mild, pliable’, liup ‘dear, lovable’, olf ‘wolf; warrior’, rade ‘advice, help’, rat id., rich ‘powerful, rich’, ulf ‘wolf; warrior’, wald ‘ruler’, wolf ‘wolf; warrior’ and wulf id.3 In a study originally published in 1940, the German scholar Edward Schröder devotes a few pages to the effect of alliteration on the formation of West Germanic dithematic personal names.4 He mentions that, of the 30,000 individuals with names included in his collection, at most 300, i.e. 1 per cent, bear names with alliterating first and last elements, and that he has not found any names with rhyming elements.5

6.2 Swedish dithematic surnames6 At the 22nd International Congress of Onomastic Sciences in Pisa, Italy, in 2005 I read a paper on restrictions on rhyme, alliteration, etc.

Lennart Hagåsen 95

in Swedish dithematic surnames, such as Dalberg, Holmberg, Källkvist, Lundblad, Nyman, Nyström, Ryman, Sjöblom, Sundström and Valberg.7 I have since extended my corpus to all dithematic names among the 3000 commonest Swedish surnames and all combinations of their first and last elements. The original and the extended corpus comprise both surnames that have been recorded and unrecorded names, constructed from the first and last elements of existing names. The new scope is 17,600 orthographic variants of a total of 9300 surnames, which are in turn distributed among 7564 names with a monosyllabic first element, Alberg, Haglund, Västman, etc., and 1736 with a disyllabic, Åkerstedt, Cederström, Liljedal, etc. Just one of the 31 last elements concerned is a disyllable, -hammar, found in Gyllenhammar, Stålhammar, Vrethammar, etc. Numerical data on name bearers have been taken from Statistics Sweden (Statistiska centralbyrån) and, where these statistics fail to appear, from the Internet version of the Swedish telephone directory. This extended material forms the basis of two additional papers, in which double first names were also included (see further below).8 Names of this type, which are very characteristic of the Swedish surname system, can be traced back to the seventeenth century, when they started to spread among townspeople, bourgeoisie as well as craftsmen, and in the countryside, mainly among soldiers. The pattern for such surnames was provided by the names of the nobility, for whom the assumption of permanent family names had been a normal practice since at least the establishment of the nobility as a corporation in 1626. The first elements of Swedish surnames of this type have to a large extent been taken from place names, whereas their last elements have traditionally been drawn from a comparatively limited set of noun morphemes. The 31 last elements relevant here are the following (a simple translation is given in those cases where the etymology is considered clear to speakers of modern Swedish): -bäck ‘brook’, -berg ‘mountain’, -blad ‘leaf’, -blom ‘bloom’, -bom, -borg ‘stronghold’, -brink ‘short, steep slope’, -by ‘hamlet’, -dal ‘valley’, -f ält ‘field’, -fors ‘rapid, waterfall’, -gård ‘farm’, -gren ‘branch’, -hammar, -holm ‘islet’, -kvist ‘twig’, -lind ‘lime, linden’, -löv ‘leaf’, -lund ‘grove’, -man ‘man’, -mark ‘ground, land’, -ros ‘rose’, -rot ‘root’, -sjö ‘lake’, -skog ‘forest’, -stam ‘tree trunk’, -stedt, -sten ‘stone’, -strand ‘shore, bank’, -ström ‘stream’ and -vall ‘bank, rampart’, ‘grazing-ground’. Also the first elements of the Swedish dithematic surnames are to a large degree taken from the natural kingdom, which is not surprising in the light of the fact that, as appeared above, these elements have often been taken from toponyms. Some elements occur both as first and last elements, which leads to constellations such as Bäckström ~ Strömbäck

96

Alliteration in Culture

and Berglund ~ Lundberg. In some of the surnames mentioned previously, a Swede will recognise the following words, not always, however, in agreement with their etymological background: åker ‘field’ (Åkerstedt), al ‘alder’ (Alberg), ceder ‘cedar’ (Cederström), gyllene ‘golden’ (Gyllenhammar), hage ‘enclosed pasture’ (Haglund), källa ‘spring, source’ (Källkvist), lilja ‘lily’ (Liljedal), ny ‘new’ (Nyström), sund ‘sound, strait’ (Sundström) and väst ‘west’ (Västman). Conceivable toponyms underlying such surnames could be Åkernäs, Åkre for Åkerstedt, Alunda for Alberg, Bäck, Bäcketorp for Bäckström, Berga, Bergby for Berglund, Lund, Lundby for Lundberg and Strömma for Strömbäck. In some cases, however, it may be the last element of the surname that has been taken from a toponym, e.g. hypothetically the surnames Alberg, Lundberg from the toponyms Berg, Bergby and the surnames Bäckström, Nyström, Sundström from a toponym Strömma. The term alliteration has been defined as ‘the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words or stressed syllables’, with the addition: ‘Sometimes the repetition of initial vowel sounds (head rhyme) is also referred to as alliteration.’9 All the dithematic surnames discussed here have their primary stress on the first element. Of the two Swedish tone accents, Accent 1 and Accent 2, the name categories that have -by and -man as their last elements, Bäckby, Myrman, etc., are pronounced with Accent 1, which means that the last elements usually bear no secondary stress. In the remaining types of names, such as -berg, -lund, -stedt, Granberg, Granlund, Granstedt, etc., in most cases Accent 2 is applied in the speech of the majority of Swedes, which results in the occurrence of secondary stress on the last elements. Therefore, properly speaking, at least the surnames that contain the last elements -by and -man could by definition have been removed from this discussion, if secondary stress should be a prerequisite of alliteration. However, I have preferred to include these cases as well, as focus is here on phoneme repetition as such. Accent 2 with primary stress on the first element and secondary on the last is also the standard pronunciation of female double first names, Anna-Lisa, Eva-Lena, Inga-Britta, etc. What was said above about absence of secondary stress in connection with Accent 1, to a varying degree also applies in natural speech to the two categories of double first names dealt with below, namely female names that have monosyllabic elements and whose last elements are normally unstressed, e.g. *Gull-Gret with stress on u, and the great number of male names that have unstressed first elements, e.g. Lars-Lennart with stress on e. Nor does alliteration in a proper sense characterise those female names that are pronounced with

Lennart Hagåsen 97

Accent 2 but bear stress on the initial syllable of only one of the two elements, e.g. *Lena-Louise, with primary stress on e and secondary on i, or bear stress on neither of the initial syllables, e.g. *Mari-Marlene, with primary stress on i and secondary on e (the final e is mute in these two cases). Such cases of phoneme repetition have also been included in this investigation. Alliteration between vowels has been found to occur solely in double first names in my collection, this being a consequence of the fact that none of the last elements of the surnames in question begin with a vowel. (With some solitary exceptions, the tone accents will be left out of account in the following discussion.) In contrast to Germanic verse,10 only identical vowels will be regarded here as alliterative sounds. According to my judgement, there is no reason to believe that the occurrence of initial non-identical vowels in double first names, such as *Alf-Örjan and *Inga-Eva, could cause restriction. For alliteration in poetical contexts the following should also be observed: ‘A more complex pattern of alliteration is created when consonants both at the beginning of words and at the beginning of stressed syllables within words are repeated.’11 I have so far, and in this study as well, excluded similar cases from my investigation but would find it quite reasonable to deal with this type of phoneme repetition in my subsequent work. This phenomenon is brought up by some female names in my corpus, such as *Lena-Charlotta (primary stress on e, secondary on o) with l-repetition before the stressed vowels, *Maria-Rosa (primary stress on i, secondary on o), *Maria-Katarina (primary stress on the i of the first element, secondary on the i of the last element) and RosMari (primary stress on o, secondary on i), all the three last-mentioned instances with repetition of r in a position before stressed vowels. Henceforth, in my account of the dithematic surnames, I will confine myself to those names that have a monosyllabic first element. As it is the relation between the first and last elements of these surnames that is of interest to my investigation, on the basis of the number of name bearers involved, I have worked out the permillages, i.e. the numbers of occurrences per thousand, for the 31 last elements in relation to their totals for each first element and, further, the average frequency for each last element. This can be illustrated with reference to the last element -gren in e.g. Stengren and Holmgren. Among all the dithematic surnames with the first element Sten-, borne by 21,133 persons in all, there are 22 instances of Stengren, which thus accounts for 1.0 per mille of the Sten- names in my corpus, i.e. Stenborg, Stenhammar, Stenkvist, Stenrot, etc. In the Holm- group, i.e. Holmberg, Holmblad, Holmlund, Holmstedt, etc., represented by 46,403 bearers, the number of bearers of Holmgren is 10,433, i.e. 225 per mille.

98

Alliteration in Culture

The average permillage for -gren with monosyllabic first elements being nearly 51 per mille, in accordance with the principles presented in the following, this element is thus decidedly under-represented in the case of Stengren and decidedly over-represented in the case of Holmgren. I have divided the total of 7564 surnames having monosyllabic first elements into non-existent names and three other groups according to their frequency: I regard those with a frequency up to 50 per cent of the average frequency of the last element as under-represented cases, those from 50 per cent below the average frequency up to 50 per cent above this level as average, and those having a frequency more than 50 per cent above the average as over-represented cases. Totally, the non-existent names make up 38 per cent of the entire corpus, underrepresented ones 27 per cent, those of average frequency 17 per cent, and over-represented names 18 per cent. The surnames investigated have been selected on the basis of the following features: rhyme, perfect alliteration (exclusively, without any assonance), perfect alliteration with assonance, imperfect alliteration (exclusively, without any assonance), and imperfect alliteration with assonance. We will find that my corpus contains 213 documentations of perfect alliteration exclusively, 144 of which, i.e. 68 per cent of the total, are non-existent names, such as *Bokberg, *Kvarnkvist and *Rönnrot. This is to be compared with the average of 38 per cent for the whole category of non-existent names in my corpus. On the other hand, the 54 underrepresented names here, i.e. 25 per cent of the total, correspond fairly well to the overall figure of 27 per cent for this category. Here belong Backberg, Boberg, Stenstedt, Västvall and Vivall; more than two-thirds of these examples of perfect alliteration have, however, been added to the Swedish onomasticon since 1920, possibly paving the way for the high frequency of cases of alliteration under the pressure to coin new surnames in twentieth-century Sweden. In the two remaining frequency groups, there are ten cases, 4.7 per cent of all cases of perfect alliteration exclusively, among the names having an average frequency and five, 2.3 per cent, in the group of over-represented names, so the frequency for these two groups is lower than the overall average of 17 and 18 per cent. It emerges that, among the total of 15 names with perfect alliteration in these two groups, five existed prior to 1920, Billberg, Bobäck, Finnfors, Linglöv and Myrman, whereas the remaining ten, Billbäck, Hovhammar, Millmark, etc., came into existence later – the date 1920 refers to the surname register Sverges familjenamn 1920.12 Perfect alliteration has obviously been a hindrance to the creation of many surnames, and, therefore, it would be desirable in another context to investigate this

Lennart Hagåsen 99

phenomenon more deeply with a view to discovering whether the relevant names are old ones or are ones which have been adopted in more recent years. Among the 51 dithematic surnames that involve both perfect alliteration and some kind of assonance, such as consonant repetition in a final position, e.g. *Grangren, or vowel repetition, e.g. Markman (two occurrences of short a), there are 45 non-existent names, i.e. 88 per cent compared with 38 per cent for the entire corpus, and six under-represented ones, i.e. 12 versus 27 per cent. No cases of average occurrence or over-representation have been found here. The six under-represented names comprise Bäckberg and Markman, existing since before 1920, and Bergbäck, Malmmark and Vassvall, approved during the period from the 1930s down to the present, all of which with vowel repetition (ä and e having an identical or a similar pronunciation here), and the newly approved Lindlund with consonant repetition. The above-mentioned facts no doubt demonstrate that those dithematic surnames that have both perfect alliteration and assonance are subject to restriction. The next category to be accounted for contains names distinguished by imperfect alliteration, a term used here for cases where a single initial consonant alliterates with an identical initial consonant forming part of a cluster, or where two clusters have an initial consonant in common without agreement otherwise. I have also included sk, sp and st, i.e. those s-combinations that were not considered alliteration cases in Old Germanic poetry and, therefore, did not alliterate either mutually or with s.13 Consequently, I place *Skogstrand, Spångstedt, Sundström, etc. on a level with *Blidbäck, *Brännblom, Karlkvist, etc. Imperfect alliteration characterises 252 of the surnames in my corpus; 108 of them have not been used, 76 are under-represented, 36 are in the average zone and 32 are over-represented, in percentages 43, 30, 14 and 13 per cent, whereas for the total corpus the distribution is 38, 27, 17 and 18 per cent. In other words, imperfect alliteration between the first and last elements of dithematic surnames cannot be regarded as a disturbing factor. On the other hand, quite another distribution characterises those 46 cases of imperfect alliteration where assonance also occurs, e.g. Sundstrand with first and last elements ending in nd, and *Smedsten and Svenstedt, both with two identical vowels. The 37 non-existent surnames make up 80 per cent here compared with 38 per cent for the entire corpus, the seven cases of under-representation 15 versus 27 per cent, and, with one name each, the average and over-represented cases 2.2 versus 17 and 18 per cent, respectively. Morphophonotactic restriction in the case of imperfect alliteration thus implies the presence of assonance.

100

Alliteration in Culture

Rhyme occurs in 32 names, e.g. *Faldal, Stengren and *Sundlund, of which 27, 84 per cent, have not been used and five, 16 per cent, are under-represented names. There are no average or over-represented names in this category. Thus, in the formation of Swedish dithematic surnames, rhyme between the first and last elements has been avoided to a greater extent than would have been expected. The five rhyming names found are Engren, Rengren, Stengren, and Aldal, Valdal. Two names in my corpus are marked by imperfect alliteration as well as rhyme, viz. *Blombom and *Sandstrand. To my knowledge, neither of them is used, but Sandstrand is listed in the above-mentioned Sverges familjenamn 1920. Maybe this name was backed up by the common noun sandstrand ‘(sandy) beach’, which does not necessarily mean, however, that the surname was derived from the common noun.

6.3 Swedish male double first names Alliteration also seems to be avoided in Swedish male and female double first names. Among the male names of this category there is an extremely limited number where both elements are monosyllabic. The first element bears primary and the last one secondary stress in this type of names; here belong with both stresses underlined Karl-Jan and Lars-Björn. With a few exceptions, such names are not borne by many people, and therefore I have excluded them from my investigation. Nor are male names with a non-monosyllabic first element, Erik-Olov, etc., treated here since they do not fulfil the demands made for double names to be included in this investigation, i.e. one and the same first element must occur in at least four of the double names found in the register of Swedish first names that I have employed for this investigation.14 Most male double first names contain a monosyllabic first element and a disyllabic or polysyllabic last element. They are normally pronounced with the primary stress on the last element (further on stress, see section 6.2 ‘Swedish dithematic surnames’). As there are no cases of final stress in the last elements, on the whole, rhyme is not a relevant consideration in the case of male double first names. I have for this study instituted a closer investigation of those male double first names whose last elements have an average frequency of 3 per mille at least proportionately to the first element. The permillages are based on the number of name bearers. In doing so, I have not found any occurrences of the following combinations (the initial G- in Gert, Göran and Gösta being pronounced as if written J-): *AlfAllan, *Alf-Anders, *Bengt-Bertil, *Bengt-Börje, *Gert-Gösta, *Gert-Johan,

Lennart Hagåsen 101

*Gert-Jörgen, *John-Göran, *John-Johan, *John-Jörgen, *Kent-Krister, *KentKristian, *Knut-Krister and *Knut-Kristian. Some other cases of alliteration that actually exist have a low frequency in relation to the average for their last elements: e.g. Gert-Göran and Jan-Göran with frequencies of 3.6 and 0.4 per mille, compared with an average of 91 per mille for the last element -Göran; further, Lars-Lennart and Leif-Lennart with 0.4 and 1.4 per mille, despite 13 per mille on average for -Lennart as a last element. Similar observations can also be made regarding Hans-Henrik, Hans-Håkan, Jan-Johan, Jan-Jörgen, Per-Patrik, etc. Among names containing Mats- as a first element, e.g. Mats-Håkan, Mats-Ola and Mats-Åke, my corpus of male double first names includes the alliterative Mats-Mikael, which is borne by two individuals, giving a frequency of 1.7 per mille, compared with an average for the last element -Mikael of 6.8 per mille. The absence of the names *Mats-Magnus and *Mats-Martin, on the other hand, can probably be put down to both alliteration and assonance, the latter caused by the occurrence of short a in the two elements. The fact that such a restriction on alliteration is nevertheless not always completely impermeable is revealed by cases such as Bo-Bertil, which with its ten occurrences is very close to normal, and Jens-Johan, whose six cases even result in an over-representation. Statistical coincidence or some other factor might have operated here. In addition, it is worth noting that the relatively infrequent last element -Sture, with an average frequency of 2.2 per mille, can serve as an example of how alliteration is nevertheless readily tolerated when other reasons for doing so exist. The name Sten-Sture, with its 69 bearers, accounts for 35 per mille of all the names with Sten- as their first element. Among the names with -Sture as their last element, the alliterative Sten-Sture is the one that is borne by most people. This is evidently not a coincidence, but rather a reflection of the fact that Sten Sture – with Sture as an additional name – was borne by two Swedish magnates, known from the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century union wars between Sweden and Denmark, who, further back in Swedish tradition at least, were regarded as national heroes. Greater weight has been attached to the noble associations evoked by the double name Sten-Sture than to the possible disturbance caused by an already existing alliteration. Although, in my corpus of male and female double first names, the number of first and last elements is practically the same in the two categories, 29 first and 100 last elements among the male names and 31 first and 99 last elements among the female names, there are remarkably many more confirmed name combinations among the male names. The male first elements combine with, on average, 68 per cent of the

102

Alliteration in Culture

male last elements, whereas the corresponding distribution among the female names is only 14 per cent. The reason for this imbalance is obviously that, among the male double names, there are fewer elements of identical origin than among the female ones. It is quite natural that cognate elements frequently alliterate with each other and, in addition, also contain the same set of phonemes causing assonance. Even if there are names having elements with identical single phonemes or identical phoneme sequences, mostly due to etymological relationship, e.g. the male Jens-Johan with six bearers and Jan-Johan with one bearer, there are many other male names of this kind that have not come into use:15 *Bengt-Benny, *Gert-Gerhard, *Jan-Jonny, *JensJonny, *John-Johan, *John-Jonny, *Kent-Kennet, *Per-Peder, *Per-Peter and *Per-Petter. Of course, people have often avoided some combinations in the first place as a consequence of their knowledge or semantic instinct that two elements are or could be variants of the same name. But it is difficult to assess in the concrete case whether identical etymology between a first and a last element has prevented a certain double name being formed, as linguistic associations differ between generations as well as between individuals of the same generation. These observations also apply to similar cases of the female double first names mentioned below, e.g. *Britt-Birgitta; *Britta-Berit, *Britta-Birgitta and Stina-Kristina.

6.4 Swedish female double first names The structure of female double first names in Swedish is much more diversified than that of their male counterparts, in terms of both the number of syllables of the first and last elements and the position of their primary and secondary stress. Therefore, one will find two monosyllabic elements in cases such as Ing-Britt, a monosyllabic and a di- or polysyllabic element in Maj-Lisa, Britt-Mari, Ann-Karolin, two disyllabic elements in Anna-Lisa, a disyllabic and a monosyllabic element in Inga-Lill, a disyllabic and a polysyllabic element in Lena-Maria, two polysyllabic elements in Maria-Helena, and a polysyllabic and a disyllabic element in Maria-Pia; no instances have been found of combinations of a polysyllabic and a monosyllabic element, e.g. *Maria-Britt or *Maria-Gun, Maria- being the only polysyllabic first element in my corpus of female names. In contrast to the corresponding male names, the primary stress of female double first names falls on the first element (see the beginning of section 6.3 ‘Swedish male double first names’). But in some cases of -Inger as a last element, it is optional to lay the primary stress on the first element followed by secondary stress on the last element, Britt-Inger,

Lennart Hagåsen 103

Gun-Inger, etc., or to lay the primary stress on the last element, Britt-Inger, Gun-Inger, etc., without any secondary stress occurring. Below follow lists of female double first names having alliterating and rhyming elements. The former category is divided into four groups according to different stress patterns: (1) the primary and secondary stress fall on the initial or sole syllable of the first and last elements, respectively, e.g. *Gull-Gunnel, Lise-Lotta and *Maja-Märit,16 (2) the primary stress falls on the initial or sole syllable of the first element, the secondary on another syllable than the initial one in the last element, e.g. *Eva-Elisabet and *Ing-Irene, (3) the primary stress falls on another syllable than the initial one in the first element, the secondary on the initial or sole syllable of the last element, e.g. *Maria-Mona and *MariaMaj, and (4) the primary and secondary stress fall on another syllable than the initial one in both the first and last elements, e.g. *Mari-Magret and *Maria-Marlene. (1) The primary and secondary stress fall on the initial or sole syllable of the first and last elements, respectively. The combinations of two monosyllables are – at least in my own variant of standard Swedish – pronounced with Accent 1, which normally, more or less, results in no secondary stress falling on the last element. None of the following names having alliterating elements have proved to be used: *Ann-Ann, *Ann-Anna, *Ann-Anni; *Anna-Ann, *Anna-Anna, *Anna-Anni; *Anne-Ann, *Anne-Anna, *Anne-Anni; *Britt-Bell, *Britt-Bella, *Britt-Berit, *Britt-Berta, *Britt-Bett, *Britt-Bodil, *Britt-Brita, *Britt-Britt, *Britt-Britta; *BrittaBell, *Britta-Bella, *Britta-Berit, *Britta-Berta, *Britta-Bett, *Britta-Bodil, *Britta-Brita, *Britta-Britt, *Britta-Britta; *Eva-Eva; *Gull-Gret, *Gull-Greta, *Gull-Gull, *Gull-Gun, *Gull-Gund, *Gull-Gunnel; *Gun-Gret, *Gun-Greta, *Gun-Gull, *Gun-Gun, *Gun-Gund, *Gun-Gunnel; *Ing-Inger (or, possibly, with primary stress on the last element and no secondary stress; see above), *Ing-Ingrid; *Inga-Inger, *Inga-Ingrid; *Inger-Inger, *Inger-Ingrid; *Kajsa-Kajsa, *Kajsa-Kari, *Kajsa-Karin, *Kajsa-Karola (also occurring in group 2 with a different position of the secondary stress), *Kajsa-Kersti,17 *Kajsa-Klara; *Lena-Len, *Lena-Lena, *Lena-Lis, *Lena-Lisa, *Lena-Lisbet, *Lena-Liss, *Lena-Lott, *Lena-Lotta, *Lena-Lotti; *Lill-Len, *Lill-Lena, *LillLill, *Lill-Lis, *Lill-Lisa, *Lill-Lisbet, *Lill-Liss, *Lill-Lott, *Lill-Lotta, *LillLotti; *Lise-Len, *Lise-Lena, *Lise-Lill, *Lise-Lis, *Lise-Lisa, *Lise-Lisbet, *Lise-Liss, *Lise-Lotta; *Maj-Maj, *Maj-Maja, *Maj-Malin, *Maj-Margit, *Maj-Märit, *Maj-Märta, *Maj-Mary, *Maj-Mia, *Maj-Mona, *Maj-Monika; *Maja-Maj, *Maja-Maja, *Maja-Malin, *Maja-Margit, *Maja-Märit, *MajaMärta, *Maja-Mary, *Maja-Mia, *Maja-Mona, *Maja-Monika; *Märta-Maj, *Märta-Maja, *Märta-Malin, *Märta-Margit, *Märta-Märit, *Märta-Märta,

104

Alliteration in Culture

*Märta-Mary, *Märta-Mia, *Märta-Mona, *Märta-Monika; *Mona-Maj, *Mona-Maja, *Mona-Malin, *Mona-Margit, *Mona-Märit, *Mona-Märta, *Mona-Mary, *Mona-Mia, *Mona-Mona, *Mona-Monika; *Pia-Pia; *RosRosa; *Stina-Sara, *Stina-Stina and *Stina-Svea. Among the above-mentioned 124 names not used, there are 17 with identical elements, *Britta-Britta, etc. However, three names belonging here have proved to exist (given here with the permillage of the last element in relation to the first element and, in brackets, the average permillage of the last element): Lena-Lill 26 per mille (29 per mille), Lise-Lott 995 per mille (34 per mille) and Lise-Lotti 0.9 per mille (0.0 per mille). Two of these three names are over-represented, in the case of Lise-Lott, as a matter of fact, very much so – it is completely dominant among the names ending in -Lott. The slight under-representation of Lena-Lill is negligible. Lise-Lott with its highest frequency in the period 1950–6918 might be considered an adoption of German Lieselott(e), as has been suggested for its Danish equivalent Liselotte (Lise-Lotte).19 If Lise-Lott has been borrowed ready-made from German, the repetition of the initial L- has not been subject to the morphophonotactic restrictions of Swedish name formation. (2) The primary stress falls on the initial or sole syllable of the first element, the secondary on another syllable than the initial one in the last element. For natural reasons there are no occurrences of names with identical elements here. None of the 79 names in this category have proved to exist:20 *Britt-Beate, *Britt-Birgitta; *Britta-Beate, *Britta-Birgitta; *Ella-Elena, *Ella-Elisabet, *Ella-Elise; *Els-Elena, *Els-Elisabet, *Els-Elise; *Elsa-Elena, *Elsa-Elisabet, *Elsa-Elise; *Else-Elena, *Else-Elisabet, *Else-Elise; *Eva-Elena, *Eva-Elisabet, *Eva-Elise; *Gull-Gunilla; *Gun-Gunilla; *HannaHelen, *Hanna-Helena; *Ing-Irene; *Inga-Irene; *Inger-Irene; *Kajsa-Karina, *Kajsa-Karine, *Kajsa-Karola (also included in group 1), *Kajsa-Karolin, *Kajsa-Katarin, *Kajsa-Katarina, *Kajsa-Katrin, *Kajsa-Katrina, *KajsaKristin, *Kajsa-Kristina; *Lena-Louise, *Lena-Lovis; *Lill-Louise, *Lill-Lovis; *Lise-Louise, *Lise-Lovis; *Maj-Magret, *Maj-Margaret, *Maj-Margareta, *MajMargret, *Maj-Mari, *Maj-Maria, *Maj-Mariann, *Maj-Marlene; *Maja-Magret, *Maja-Margaret, *Maja-Margareta, *Maja-Margret, *Maja-Mari, *Maja-Maria, *Maja-Mariann, *Maja-Marlene; *Märta-Magret, *Märta-Margaret, *MärtaMargareta, *Märta-Margret, *Märta-Mari, *Märta-Maria, *Märta-Mariann, *Märta-Marlene; *Mona-Magret, *Mona-Margaret, *Mona-Margareta, *MonaMargret, *Mona-Mari, *Mona-Maria, *Mona-Mariann, *Mona-Marlene; *StinaCecil, *Stina-Cecilia, *Stina-Sofi, *Stina-Sofia and *Stina-Susanne. (3) The primary stress falls on another syllable than the initial one in the first element, the secondary stress on the initial or sole syllable of

Lennart Hagåsen 105

the last element. For natural reasons there are no occurrences of names with identical elements here. None of the 20 names in this category, all of them having Mari- and Maria- as their first element, have proved to exist: *Mari-Maj, *Mari-Maja, *Mari-Malin, *Mari-Margit, *Mari-Märit, *Mari-Märta, *Mari-Mary, *Mari-Mia, *Mari-Mona, *Mari-Monika; *MariaMaj, *Maria-Maja, *Maria-Malin, *Maria-Margit, *Maria-Märit, *MariaMärta, *Maria-Mary, *Maria-Mia, *Maria-Mona and *Maria-Monika. (4) The primary and secondary stress fall on another syllable than the initial one in both the first and last elements. Two of the 16 names in this category, *Mari-Mari and *Maria-Maria, have identical elements. None of the names here, exclusively with Mari- and Maria- as their first element, have proved to exist: *Mari-Magret, *Mari-Margaret, *Mari-Margareta, *Mari-Margret, *Mari-Mari, *Mari-Maria, *Mari-Mariann, *Mari-Marlene; *Maria-Magret, *Maria-Margaret, *Maria-Margareta, *MariaMargret, *Maria-Mari, *Maria-Maria, *Maria-Mariann and *Maria-Marlene. When, in the following, cases of rhyme are accounted for, names with identical elements, *Ann-Ann, *Britta-Britta, *Inger-Inger, *Mari-Mari, etc., will be left aside. None of them have proved to exist, nor have the following names been found: *Ann-Mariann, *Ann-Susanne (the e is mute here); *Anne-Johanne; *Britta-Birgitta; *Ella-Bella; *Hanna-Anna; *Lena-Elena, *Lena-Helena; *Mari-Julie (e is mute); *Maria-Mia, *Maria-Sofia; *MärtaBerta (ä and e having the same pronunciation here); *Pia-Mia, *Pia-Sofia; *Stina-Karina, *Stina-Katarina, *Stina-Katrina and *Stina-Kristina. As already mentioned, none of the above 18 names have been found. However, there are three other names in this category that have gained some currency: Mari-Sofi, Maria-Pia and Pia-Maria. From a general quantitative point of view, it should be said that these three names have few bearers in Sweden. In relation to the average frequency of their last elements, Mari-Sofi is somewhat under-represented, at 3.0 per mille, compared with an average frequency of 4.3 per mille for -Sofi as a last element, whereas the other two are strikingly over-represented: MariaPia 309 per mille versus an average of 10 per mille for -Pia, and Pia-Maria 141 per mille compared with 13 per mille for -Maria. Mari-Sofi (MarieSophie) also occurs in Germany and France, for example, and at the beginning of 2006 it was borne by 2186 Frenchwomen.21 Judging from the Italian and German telephone directories on the Internet, Mariapia is probably a fairly frequent name in Italy, but not Piamaria,22 whereas both of them, written Maria Pia, Maria-Pia and Pia Maria, Pia-Maria, are found in Germany. Several occurrences in the German telephone directory of Maria(-)Pia are, it should be noted, combined with Italian-looking surnames. Therefore, the existence in Sweden of Mari-Sofi, Maria-Pia

106

Alliteration in Culture

and Pia-Maria with rhyming elements might be put down to influence from the name systems of other languages. If anything, these names have been introduced into Swedish as complete name formations.

6.5 Closing words The German scholar Gottfried Schramm has argued that the avoidance of alliteration in Old Germanic dithematic names is due to their stress pattern, characterised by primary stress on the first element and secondary stress on the last element. Consequently, names of this type are not congruent with the poetic principles of alliteration, which imply primary stress on all alliterating elements.23 This view is based on the above-mentioned idea that the category of dithematic names originates from Indo-European and Germanic heroic poetry. For obvious reasons, the reluctance to use alliteration, including phoneme repetition in general, in modern Swedish dithematic surnames and male and female double first names is to be interpreted in a different way – as is the avoidance of rhyme. I do not know whether any references have been made to the demands of poetry to explain restrictions on rhyme in the Old Germanic system of personal names. As is well known, it was only in a later period that alliteration gave way to rhyme in Old Germanic poetry. If the purpose of alliteration and rhyme is to provide a feast for the ear in poetry recitation and give the impression of playfulness and verve in speech, such effects have apparently not been very desirable in the Swedish name categories discussed here. In the formation of dithematic names in Old Germanic, on the one hand, and in Swedish from later centuries down to the present, on the other, the rejection of rhyming elements should certainly be ascribed to people’s anxiety about forming names that might make a conspicuous and even ridiculous impression. As regards the reluctance to use alliteration in the dithematic personal names of Old Germanic, it would therefore be legitimate to ask whether the avoidance of consonant repetition of this type could, for ordinary people at least, have sprung from euphonic rather than aristocratic poetic considerations and, moreover, from an aspiration to dignity in name formation. However, given our present knowledge, it cannot be denied that, in accordance with Gottfried Schramm’s above-mentioned hypothesis, the poetic principles of alliteration could also have influenced the formation of dithematic names in especially the upper ranks of the Germanic societies. Which motive was the stronger and more decisive one may of course have varied chronologically and socio-onomastically over the long period in which these phenomena have been active.

Lennart Hagåsen 107

Notes 1. Th. Andersson, ‘Personennamen’. In H. Beck et al. (eds), Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, by J. Hoops, 2nd edn, 22, Berlin–New York, 2003, pp. 589–614 (592). 2. A. Bach, Deutsche Namenkunde.1. Die deutschen Personennamen. 1. Einleitung. Zur Laut- und Formenlehre, Wortfügung, -bildung und -bedeutung der deutschen Personennamen, 2nd extended edn, Heidelberg, 1952, p. 91. 3. See W. Seibicke, Historisches deutsches Vornamenbuch. (In Verbindung mit der Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache.), 4 vols, Berlin–New York, 1996–2003, s.v. BALD, BERCHT, Berd, BOD, GER, GOTT (cf. GODE), GUND, HELM, HER, HILD, LIEB, LIND, RAT, RICH, ULF, WALD, WOLF. For flat, see A. Greule, ‘Morphologie und Wortbildung der Vornamen: Germanisch’. In E. Eichler et al. (eds), Namenforschung. Ein internationales Handbuch zur Onomastik/ Name Studies. An International Handbook of Onomastics/Les noms propres. Manuel international d’onomastique, 2, Berlin–New York, 1996, pp. 1182–7 (1186). 4. E. Schröder, ‘Grundgesetze für die Komposition der altdeutschen Personennamen’. In Deutsche Namenkunde. Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kunde deutscher Personen- und Ortsnamen von Edward Schröder, 2nd extended edn, under L. Wolff, Göttingen, 1944, pp. 12—27 (15ff.). Cf. G. Schramm, Namenschatz und Dichtersprache. Studien zu den zweigliedrigen Personennamen der Germanen, Ergänzungshefte zur Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiet der indogermanischen Sprachen, 15, Göttingen, 1957, pp. 20ff. (p. 22 with criticism of Schröder). 5. Schröder, ‘Grundgesetze’, pp. 17, 22. 6. This section on dithematic surnames and the two following sections on male and female double first names have been arranged differently owing to some extent to the fact that my investigations of these three types of names are at different stages of completeness. 7. L. Hagåsen, ‘Euphony and Dignity in the Formation of Swedish Two-Element Surnames of the Type of Berggren, Grönstedt, Stenkvist, Västlund etc.’. In M. Bani et al. (eds), Atti del XXII Congresso Internazionale di Scienze Onomastiche. Pisa, 28 agosto–4 settembre 2005, 1, Pisa, 2007, pp. 253–61. For a very short research history, see pp. 253f. 8. L. Hagåsen, ‘Varför rata Ratflat, Hildhelm och Jan-Göran Sundlund? Om fonotaktiska spärrar för allitteration och slutrim i germanskt personnamnsskick’. In G. Kvaran et al. (eds), Norræn nöfn – Nöfn á Norðurlöndum. Hefðir og endurnýjun/Nordiska namn – Namn i Norden. Tradition och förnyelse. Handlingar från Den fjortonde nordiska namnforskarkongressen i Borgarnes 11–14 augusti 2007. With summaries in English or German or Icelandic, NORNA-rapporter 84, Uppsala, 2008, pp. 199–204; id., ‘Restrictions on Alliteration and Rhyme in the Swedish System of Personal Names in the Light of Old Germanic Parallels’. In W. Ahrens et al. (eds), Names in Multi-Lingual, Multi-Cultural and Multi-Ethnic Contact. Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress of Onomastic Sciences, August 17–22, 2008, York University, Toronto, Canada, CD-ROM. Toronto, 2009: pp. 460–4. 9. The New Encyclopædia Britannica, 1, Micropædia, Ready Reference, 15th edn, Chicago–London–New Delhi–Paris–Seoul–Sydney–Taipei–Tokyo, 2003, s.v. alliteration.

108

Alliteration in Culture

10. E. Marold, ‘Stabreim’. In H. Beck et al. (eds), Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, by J. Hoops, 2nd edn, 29, Berlin–New York, 2005, pp. 435–40 (435f.). 11. The New Encyclopædia Britannica, 1, s.v. alliteration. 12. Sverges familjenamn 1920. Förteckning enligt nådigt uppdrag utarbetad av därtill förordnade sakkunnige, Stockholm, 1921. 13. H. Kurath, ‘A Note on Alliterative Practices in Germanic Verse’. In E. Scherabon Firchow et al. (eds), Studies for Einar Haugen. Presented by Friends and Colleagues, Janua Linguarum, Series Maior, 59, The Hague–Paris, 1972, pp. 321f.; Marold, ‘Stabreim’, p. 435. 14. S. Allén, and S. Wåhlin, Förnamnsboken, 2nd edn, Stockholm, 1979. The choice of this edition instead of the latest one is justified by my presupposition that the former should indicate a greater number of bearers, the productivity of double names having decreased considerably during the postwar period. For names with less than ten bearers, information has been taken from the above-mentioned Statistics Sweden. 15. The latest survey on Swedish first names together with brief etymologies is E. Brylla, Förnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon, Skrifter utgivna av Svenska språknämnden, 88, 1st edn, Stockholm, 2004. 16. The following names are not cases of alliteration, as the stressed i of the first element is a short vowel and that of the last element is a long one: *Ing-Ida, *Ing-Iris, *Inga-Ida, *Inga-Iris, *Inger-Ida and *Inger-Iris. 17. If optionally Kersti is pronounced with an initial palatal fricative, *KajsaKersti is not to be considered a case of alliteration. 18. Brylla, Förnamn i Sverige, p. 144, s.v. Liselott. 19. E.V. Meldgaard, Den store navnebog. Hvilket navn skal vi vælge? Hvad betyder navnet?, 5th edn, Copenhagen, 2002, p. 218, s.v. Lise; given to be of Swedish origin, see G. Søndergaard, Danske for- og efternavne. Betydning, oprindelse, udbredelse, 1st edn [Copenhagen, 2000], p. 91, s.v. Liselotte. 20. The initial unstressed E- of some of the last elements, -Elisabet, etc., normally being a short vowel, can optionally be pronounced more or less as a halflong vowel. Such cases are treated here as if they could alliterate with first elements that either have a short E-, Ella- etc., or are made up of Eva-, being the only first element with a long E-. 21. Seibicke, Historisches deutsches Vornamenbuch, 3, p. 218, s.v. Marie-Sophie; http://meilleursprenoms.com/stats/prenom.php3/marie-sophie (accessed 1 October 2008). That Mari-Sofi is documented in Sweden from at least the 1870s, see R.G. Berg, ‘En förnamnsstudie’, Språk och stil. Tidskrift f ör nysvensk språkforskning, 13, 1913, pp. 223–74 (232). 22. An Italian friend of mine, Michela Zernitz, Venice, has confirmed this observation in a letter of 3 February 2008 by informing me that from Italy she is very familiar with Mariapia but has never known or heard of anybody called Piamaria. 23. Schramm, Namenschatz und Dichtersprache, pp. 17, 37.

7 Alliteration in the Þrymskviða and in Chamisso’s German Translation Larissa Naiditch

Abstract This chapter deals with alliteration in one of lays of the ‘Elder Edda’, the Þrymskviða. The alliterations in this lay are considered in connection with its poetics: composition, the interplay between grammar and semantics, etc. The grammatical and semantic relations between alliterating words are analysed. In remarks about the vocabulary of the lay, special attention is paid to the semantic field of noise. The chapter then turns to discuss the translation of the Þrymskviða by A. Chamisso. It is demonstrated how alliterations in the Old Icelandic poem were rendered in German.

Introduction Þrymskviða is one of the most famous lays of the ‘Elder Edda’, the collection of Old Icelandic songs that is considered to be the greatest literary monument of Germanic epics, the storehouse of Germanic mythology, and the heritage of Old Norse and probably also, generally, of Germanic poetic style. Compiled and written down by several unknown persons in the thirteenth century, it is based on the rich traditions of Old Norse oral poetry. The myth behind the Þrymskviða is considered to have IndoEuropean roots. On the basis of comparative analysis of the plot and the style of the lay, the scholars suppose that ‘the version of Þrymskviða that has come down to us appears to be a very late reworking of very early materials’.1 The Þrymskviða tells about the theft and return of the hammer of Thor. The hammer, the chief attribute of Thor, was stolen by the giant Thrym (Þrymr), who demands Freya in marriage for its return. Thor and 109

110

Alliteration in Culture

Loki fly to the Home of Giants as Freya and her servant, the false Freya promises to marry Thrym, but after receiving the hammer for blessing the young pair, Thor kills the giant and his sister and gets the hammer back. The lay is a mixture of dramatic and ridiculous scenes. An example of the latter: the false bride managed to devour an entire ox, eight salmon, and three barrels of mead. Loki explained to the astonished Thrym that Freya had had a great desire to come to him, which is why she had not eaten in a week. Then Thrym tried to kiss her, but he jumped back because sparks darted from her eyes. Loki explained to him once again that Freya had not slept because of her desire to see him. Thus, this lay can be considered as a kind of an ancient comedy, with burlesque dialogues, disguise, etc. The dramatic intention and serious content of the lay and the comic episodes do not contradict each other: as Gurevich has noted, ‘carnival, buffoonery and parody of the holy do not deny a serious view of the world or cast doubt on it’.2

Poetic means, linguistic and stylistic peculiarities As with the most lays in the Elder Edda, the Þrymskviða is composed in fornyrðislag, where each long line is subdivided by a cæsural pause into two short lines (or half-lines) bound with alliteration of metrically stressed words.3 The first half-line has one, or sometimes two, alliterating syllables, whereas in the second the first stressed syllable usually alliterates. The alliteration is here a typical poetic device, but it interrelates with other, less compulsory poetic means. These include: grammatical and lexical parallelism (possible but not obligatory in the Elder Edda), formulaic expressions, the use of words belonging to specific semantic fields, and onomatopoeia. All these poetic devices will be considered later in connection with the semantics of the text as a whole. To speak generally, whereas each sentence involves interplay between grammar and semantics of lexemes, a rhymed text has an additional dimension: the interrelations between both of the above plus rhyme. The grammatical and semantic relations in the text, in their similarity and differences, are especially striking in the rhymed words. Thus it is that the usual system of relations in a bound text is overlaid by another. It does not mean that alliterated words always demonstrate a grammatical and semantic closeness or that they are always more significant (in special cases the alliteration can be on auxiliaries as well).4 But the alliterated words, as well as interrelations between them, do become salient. Alliteration in the Germanic languages, with their stressed word stems (usually the first syllable), emphasises the root bearing the chief lexical

Larissa Naiditch 111

meaning. The alliterated words themselves can form a grammatically bound phrase. There are several examples of this in our text, e.g. the syntagmatic, semantic and grammatical agreement of words, as subject and predicate: ‘Vingþórr – vaknaði’ (Vingthor – awoke), ‘hló – huggr’ (laughed – spirit); predicate and object: ‘hamar – hitta’ (hammer (acc.) – find), ‘hamar – heimtir’ (hammer (acc.) returns), ‘fœri – Freyio’ (would bring – Freya (acc.)’, ‘brúðfiár’ – ‘biðia’ (bridal fee – ask); subject and attribute: ‘it mikla – men’ (the great – necklace), ‘in alsnotra – ambótt’ (the clever – servant), ‘Heimdallr – hvítastr’ (Heimdallr – whitest); apposition: ‘Þorr – þrúðugr áss’ (Thor – the mighty god); predicate and adverbial modifier: ‘á briósti – breiða’ (on the breast – broaden). Syntagmatic connections between alliterating words are not, however, always direct, and where they do exist, semantic relations can prevail over the grammatical. For example, in the words: ‘fló – fiaðrhamr’ (flew – featherdress), Þrymr – þursa (Thrym (nom.) – of giants (gen. pl.)), ‘Loki – Laufeyiar’ (Loki (nom.) – of Laufey (gen. sing.)), ‘Niarðar – ór Nóatúnom’ (of Niorth – [out of] Nóatúns), ‘hǫndum – hringa’ (hands, (dat. pl.) – rings (acc. pl.)), there is no grammatical agreement, because the alliterating words belong to separate grammatical constructions, but we can find semantic concord here, i.e. common sememes in the corresponding pairs. Another poetic means of boundness much used in Þrymskviða is semantic and grammatical parallelism, a phenomenon well known in Germanic epics which has attracted the attention of scholars since the research of Richard M. Meyer published as early as 1889.5 In several cases parallelism occurs in two half-lines of a long line:6 skegg nam at hrista/skǫr nam at dýia, his beard began (he) to shake/his hair began to toss, Hvat er með ásom?/Hvat er með álfom? How fare the gods,/how fare the elves? Illt er með ásom./Illt er með álfom! III fare the gods,/ill fare the elves! Fiǫlð á ek meiðma,/fiǫlð á ek menia I have many gems,/I have many necklaces Here we observe repetition of several grammatical forms, lexemes and expressions. The words that differ between the two half-lines are

112

Alliteration in Culture

stressed and alliterated: ‘ásom – álfom’ (gods – elves), ‘meiðma – menia’ (gems – necklaces), ‘skegg – skǫr’ (beard – hair). Although they are not synonyms, they belong to one and the same semantic field and have similar grammatical meaning as well. We can compare here the hypothesis of Richard M. Meyer, according to which this kind of parallelism goes back to twin formulas, like ‘sky’ and ‘earth’. Another case is the parallelism of long lines: þó mynda ek gefa þér/þótt ór gulli væri, ok þó selia,/at væri ór silfri.

Greyom sínum/gullbǫnd snøri Ok mǫrum sínum/mǫn iafnaði

Opt sitianda/sǫgor um fallaz, Ok liggiandi/lygi um bellir.

I should give it you/though ‘twere of gold, And I would give it/though ‘twere of silver. For his dogs/braided golden leashes, And for his steeds/manes smoothed Oft by the sitter/his story is forgotten, And who lays himself down/lies he speaks.

In the examples above, alliterations apply to one long line; the second line is connected with the first by the principle of parallelism. Constructions, crucial in parallel expressions, are often stressed and alliterated: ‘gefa/ór gulli’ (give – from gold), ‘selia/ór silfri’ (give (sell) – from silver). Another subgroup of parallelism spread over two long lines includes cases with the same alliteration in both lines: unz fyr útan kom/ása garða ok fyr innan kom/iǫtna heima.

unz fyr útan kom/iǫtna heima ok fyr innan kom/ása garða.

Senn vóru ǽsir/allir á þingi,

Till he came out of the home of/the gods, and came inside/the realm of the giants. Till he came out of/the home of the giants, and came inside/the realm of the gods. Then were the gods/together met,

Larissa Naiditch 113

Ok ásynior/allar á máli.

And the goddesses came/and council held.

The same is found within question and answer complexes: Hefir þú ørindi/sem erfiði? Hefi ek erfiði/ok ørindi

Hefir þú Hlórriða/hamar um fólgin? Ek hefi Hlórriða/hamar um fólgin.

Hvar sáttu brúðir/bíta hvassara? Sá-k-a ek brúðir/bíta breiðara

Hast thou tidings/as well as (worth) trouble? I have tidings/as well as (worth) trouble? Hast thou hidden/Hlorrithi’s hammer? I have hidden/Hlorrithi’s hammer Who ever saw bride/more keenly bite? I ne’er saw bride/broader bite.

The latter examples are close to being repetitions. Repetitions are also typical of the Þrymskviða, e.g.: ‘Sat in alsnotra/ambótt fyrir’ (twice) (Hard by there sat/the serving-maid wise), ‘Þá kvað þat Loki/Laufeyar sonr’ (twice) (Then Loki spake,/the son of Laufey), etc. Among the formulaic expressions consisting of two half-lines, the second one being a noun under alliteration preceded by a preposition, are: ‘Niarðar dóttur/ór Nóatúnum’ (The daughter of Niorth/out of Noatuns); ‘Svá var hon óðfús/í iǫtunheima!’ (So was her longing/for Iotunheims!). All these devices form the poetic structure of this lay. They organise and bind the text, and determine its aesthetics. But they also serve for the development of narration.

Theme and alliteration The central motif of the lay is the theft and return of an instrument. This kind of myth is connected with crucial ideas of the origin of the world, with the phenomena of nature and the most important objects, such as rain, plants, fire, water, etc. The culture hero, known in several folklore traditions, invents, discovers or gets these objects; sometimes he steals them, like Prometheus stealing fire. In several cases the invention is replaced by the return of an object, stolen by enemies. Thus, the stories about the theft and getting back of important artefacts reflect the

114

Alliteration in Culture

archaic explanation of their origin. It can be considered as a kind of an aetiological myth typical of archaic texts. In this case, the mythological motif has a double task: to explain the origin of the thunderstorm and rain itself and also their periodical character. In the absence of Thor’s hammer, which is hidden under the earth, there can be no rain. And its return re-establishes the order in nature and in human life. We shall now further consider the chief motif of the lay in its interrelation with its poetic and linguistic realisation. As established by Wolfgang Lange,7 the Þrymskviða is characterised by a very skilful symmetrical text organisation: there exists an interrelation between the text composition and the scene changes.8 Scene A in Asgard contains 14 long lines, as does scene B in Iotunheim, scene C in Asgard contains 50 long lines, as does scene D in Iotunheim, and one long line forms the epilogue. Moreover, the changes of location occur inside the aforementioned parts of the story: Thor and Loki go to the ‘yards of Freya’, the gods gather together at the thing. It can also be observed that the alternations between narrative parts describing actions, and dialogues or direct speech, as well as the borders between different parts of the plot, are delineated by typical syntactic and semantic constructions, often repeated in changes of the scenes. Thus, parts of the story describing action usually begin with a verb in the first place of the long line, stressed, and in most cases alliterating. For example, ‘Ganga þeir fagra/Freyio at hitta’ (Go they to meet the beautiful/Freya to meet); ‘Fló þá Loki,/fiaðrhamr dunði’ (Flew then Loki,/and the feather-dress whirred), ‘Bundo þeir Þór þá/brúðar líni’ (Bound they then on Thor/the bridal veil), ‘Laut und líno,/lysti at kyssa’ (Bent beneath the veil, longed to kiss); ‘Hló Hlórriða/hugr í briósti’ (Laughed to Hlorrithi/the heart in the breast). This inversion, as well as the alliterations in these examples, contribute to the text organisation and emphasise the rapid action of the plot. Sievers pointed out that in such cases the usual stress gradation and alliteration rules are broken, because the verb rather than the noun becomes more stressed and alliterated.9 The direct speech is in this lay usually introduced by a sentence with the verb ‘kveða’ (to speak, to say) in the preterite, ‘kvað’, in concord with a pronoun or a proper name: ‘ok hann þat orða/allz fyrst um kvað’ (And he these words,/first of all said) or, ‘Þá kvað þat Loki,/Laufeyiar sonr’ (Then said that Loki,/the son of Laufey). In the former case there is vocalic alliteration, in the latter the more typical consonantal alliteration: a proper name alliterates with the word defining the corresponding character.

Larissa Naiditch 115

Remarks on the vocabulary of the lay In the vocabulary of Þrymskviða, the semantic field: ‘sounds, noise’ plays an important role. First of all, the very title of the lay and the name of its character, the giant Thrym (Þrymr), mean ‘noise’. Different kinds of noise are mentioned in the lay, thus the lay itself seems to sound. Cf. ‘fiaðrhamr dunði’ (twice) (the feather-dress whirred), ‘Reið varð þá Freyia/ok fnásaði// allr ása salr/undir bifðiz,//stǫkk þat it mikla/men Brísinga’ (Wrathful was Freyja,/and she snorted,// and the dwelling of the gods/was shaken,//And burst was the mighty/Brisings’ necklace); ‘Látom [Létu] und hánom/hrynia lukla’ (Let us [let them] rattle/keys around him); ‘hon skell um hlaut fyr skillinga’ (she got a loud stroke instead of money). The verbs ‘fnásaði’ (snorted), ‘dunði’ (twice) (whirred), ‘hrynia’ (rattle) all refer to sound production, as does the noun ‘skell’ (loud stroke). Moreover, in such an environment several words receive an additional sememe of ‘sounding’. Thus, the phonetic closeness of the words ‘skell’ and ‘skillinga’ is so striking that the word ‘skillingr’ also obtains a ‘sounding’ nuance: coin, jingling pieces of metal;10 and the neighbourhood between the words ‘hrynja’ (rattle) and ‘lukla’ (keys) provide association of both these words with ringing. In the words mentioned above ‘fnásaði’ (snorted) (cf. OE ‘fnéosan’, ME ‘fneesen’, Engl. ‘sneeze’)11 belongs surely to onomatopoeia, the others are not strictly reflecting phonetic symbolism according to their etymology. But they receive the periphery sememes related to sound in the given context. Another semantic field crucial for Þrymskviða is ‘quick movement’ and ‘travel’. We can find many verbs of intensive motion in the text; it can be provided by semantics of the verb itself, or by actants or circumstants: ‘hrista’ (to shake), ‘dýia’ (to shake, to bristle), ‘fló’ (flew) (twice), ‘aka’ (to go, to travel) (twice), ‘falla’ (to fall), ‘vóru um reknir’ (were driven), ‘skyldu vel renna’ (swift were they to run, should well run), ‘bíta hvassara’ (bite more keenly), ‘bíta breiðara’ (bite broader), ‘útan stǫkk/endlangan sal’ (leapt out the length of the hall). Less expressive verbs of motion such as ganga ‘to go’ and koma ‘to come’ are also represented in this text. The third semantic field important for Þrymskviða is connected with the perception of space. Space is mentioned in the scenes of Loki’s flight: ‘fyr útan … ása garða’ (out of the home of the god), ‘fyr innan … iǫtna heima’ (inside the home of the giants); in the indication of the place where the hammer is hidden: ‘átta rǫstom/fyr iǫrð neðan’ (eight miles down/deep in the earth), ‘iarðar hvergi/né upphimins’ (nowhere on earth/ nor in the upper heaven). The idea of several worlds (homes), situated around a vertical axis, is clearly expressed here. The movement from one home to another is associated with danger and struggle.

116

Alliteration in Culture

These semantic fields reflect the chief plot of the lay, connected with movement, journey and prompt changes of scene. To re-establish the harmony, a journey in another world is needed. The motif of the travelling gods, especially of those going incognito, is quite usual in different genres of folklore. Here movement reflects the chief features of the plot itself with a lot of action, and the alternation of tragic and burlesque moments. As for the onomatopoeia, it seems to have an additional task. Whereas the goal of the gods in the lay is to return the hammer, i.e. the possibility of rain and storm, the primary pragmatic goal of the singer of the tale in its original archaic form was to evoke them. The semantics of sounds including onomatopoeia could serve as a kind of a magic means to influence nature, as a part of a performative speech act behind the lay in its most archaic form.

Translation of the Þrymskviða into German by Adalbert Chamisso Translation of a poetic text based on alliteration is problematic not only because of problems of versification; the aesthetic function of alliteration can be lost in the translated poem. Nevertheless there are several successful attempts of rendering alliteration more or less exactly. Seamus Heaney wrote in the Introduction to his translation of ‘Beowulf’ into modern English: ‘[…] I don’t always employ alliteration, and sometimes I alliterate only in one half of the line […]. In general, the alliteration varies from the shadowy to the substantial, from the properly to the improperly distributed.’12 In the 1960s and 1970s, there was much discussion about the translations of Old Icelandic poetry in Russia. Such famous philologists as O. Smirnickaja, E. Meletinsky and I. Djakonov, attempted to oppose the common view that the metrics and alliterations of Old Icelandic poetry cannot be rendered in translations.13 Indeed, Olga A. Smirnickaja’s translation of the Þrymskviða into Russian was an undoubted success (ibid.). In 1821 the German Romantic writer and poet Adalbert Chamisso (1781–1838) published a translation of the Þrymskviða; this text is one of the serious attempts to render not only the general plot and the style, but also the alliterations of the original. Chamisso himself stated in a short foreword to the poem that his goal was to make the lay understandable for German readers, and therefore excluded unclear words and expressions that had to be explained by philologists. That is why we do not find in his translation, for example, such nicknames or kennings of Thor as: ‘Hlórriði, Vingþorr, Iarðar burr’ (the son of Iorth [Earth]), ‘Sifiar verr’ (the husband of Sif); ‘æsir’ and ‘asynior’ (representatives of

Larissa Naiditch 117

a race of gods) are replaced simply by general designations Götter and Göttinnen, another race of gods – ‘vanir’ mentioned elsewhere are, however, omitted. Several obscure words are replaced by clearer words: ‘Flügel’ (wings) instead of ‘fiaðrhamr’ (featherdress [shirt]) and the simple ‘funkelnder Halsschmuck’ (sparkling necklace) instead of the mysterious ‘men Brísinga’ (Brisings’ necklace). On the other hand, lexical forms belonging to a higher language register not typical of the archaic Edda are added in the German translation, whereas what seemed to be coarse is eliminated. Compare such words as: ‘hehr’ (majestic, mighty), ‘hub an’ (began), ‘erkühnen’ (to win) belonging to this higher register. A rather rough ‘Þegi þú, Þorr, þeirra orða’ (be silent, Thor!) is rendered by the ceremonious ‘Thor, solcher Worte/Woll’ dich enthalten’, where, additionally, the genitive construction could be preserved; ‘fnásaði’ (snorted) is rendered as ‘zitterte’ (trembled), the etymologically transparent ‘vergiarnsta’ (lustful, [literally loving men very much]) as ‘männlich’; ‘argr’ (perverse) (‘argan kalla’, to call perverse) as ‘weibisch’ (womanish), ‘hafrar’ (goats) as ‘Hirsche’ (deer), ‘bíta hvassara’ (bite more keenly) as ‘hungrig’ (hungry). This trend demonstrates the general typology of ‘retelling’ of Germanic epics worked out in the nineteenth century. All these peculiarities of Chamisso’s text reflect the principles of translation usual for his time. The rendering of the fornyrðislag in German was a challenge for the translator. Alliteration is considered to be a common feature of the early Germanic epic poetry, but only a few fragments of alliterative poetry have been preserved in Old High German, such as Muspilli or Hildebrandslied. In spite of this, the principle of alliteration itself seems not to be strange for German: there are proverbs, pair formulas, etc. based on alliteration. The translation by Chamisso exactly obeys the rules of the fornyrðislag. There are always alliterations in the stressed syllables of the first (odd) half-line and on the first stressed syllable of the second (even) one. Moreover, because in fornyrðislag two alliterations in the odd half-line are also possible, Chamisso often uses this means to show the maximal potency of the Old Icelandic verse. Here are examples of such ‘over-alliteration’, where in German translation there are two alliterations in the first short line, whereas in the original only one: fœri/Freyio – führe denn Fraya/zur Frau (would bring/Freya); liggiandi/lygi

118

Alliteration in Culture

– Leicht im Liegen/Lüge (who lays himself down/lies); Þá qváð þat Heimdallr,/hvítastr ása – hub Heimdall an,/der helleuchtende Gott (Then Heimdall spake,/whitest of the gods); Senn vóro hafrar/heim um reknir – Hastig die Hirsche,/heimgetrieben (Swiftly the goats [in German translation ‘deer’]/were driven home); svá var hon óðfús/í iǫtunheima – rasend vor Reiselust/nach Riesenheim (So was her longing/for Iotunheim [the Home of Giants]) The genetic closeness of German and Old Icelandic, both of them Germanic languages, sometimes permits a ‘literal’ rendering of alliterations by the same roots (in a word-for-word translation). Examples of this include: ‘fœri/Freyio’ – ‘Er führe denn/Fraya’ (would bring – Freya (acc.)); ‘mynda ek gefa/ór gulli’ – ‘von Gold/ich gäbe’ (I would give it/ though ‘twere of gold). In several examples, the translation demonstrates the same alliterated phonemes as the original with another meaning and grammatical features of the corresponding lexemes: Hlórriða/hammar Senn vóro hafrar/heim um reknir

– den Hammer/holen; – Hastig die Hirsche,/heimgetrieben.

A kind of ‘loan translation’ of formulas, i.e. the preservation of the syntactic structure of an original alliterated expression with the change of lexemes, is observed only in a few cases: ‘aka/í iǫtunheima’ – ‘reisen/nach Riesenheim’ (travel to the home of giants). Chamisso did not try to render the syntactic relations between the alliterated words of the original, probably it was also impossible. The grammatical structures of alliterating word pairs in his translation are based on the same principles as in Old Icelandic, but not slavishly: reisen/ nach Riesenheim, lachte/im Leib, fertigend/Fesseln, zum herrlichen/ Hause, etc. Different kinds of repetition, the semantic and grammatical parallelism – all this can be found in the translation as well, although the alliterations binding the text in German differ of course from those

Larissa Naiditch 119

of the Icelandic original. Examples of parallelism between two short lines: Skegg nam at hrista/skǫr nam at dýia – Schüttelnd den Bart,/schlagend sein Haupt, (his beard began [he] to shake/his hair began to toss) Fiǫlð á ek meiðma, /fiǫlð á ek menia – Habe der Schätze viel,/habe der Spangen viel (I have many gems,/I have many necklaces) Examples of parallelism between two long lines: þó mynda ek gefa þér/þótt ór gulli væri,//ok þó selja,/at væri ór silfri – Und wären von Gold sie,/Ich gäbe sie dir;//Und wären sie Silber,/Du solltest sie haben (I would give it/though ‘twere of gold,//and would give (sell) it/though ‘twere of silver) Greyiom sínum/ gullbǫnd snøri//Ok mǫrum sínum/mǫn iafnaði – Fertigend den Hunden/Fesseln von Gold,//Glättend den Rossen/ Die Mähnen zurecht (For his dogs/braided golden leashes//And for his steeds/manes smoothed) To make the sound repetition on the first part of words more salient, Chamisso uses paronomasia (which I indicate here in bold), whereas in the original text there are few such usages and they are less striking: Unz fyr útan kom/iǫtna heima//ok fyr innan kom/ása garða – Bis hinten er ließ/Das Land der Riesen,//Und er erreichte/das Reich der Götter (Till he left behind him/the home of the giants,//And reached at last/the realm of the gods) Mœtti hann Þór/miðra garða – Er traf den Thor an/Vor der Tür seiner Halle (He met Thor/in the middle of the courtyard) Hefir þú ørindi/sem erfiði? – Hast das Geschäft du/geschafft mit der Arbeit?14 (Hast thou found tidings/worth trouble?)

120

Alliteration in Culture

ok fyr iǫtna/ǫl fram borit – Und reichlich gereicht ward/Den Riesen der Trank 15 (And forth was borne/the beer for the giants) Þrym drap hann fyrstan,/þyrsa drótinn,//ok ætt iǫtuns/alla lamði – Da traf er zum ersten/Thrym, den Herrscher,//Und schlachtete dann/Sein ganzes Geschlecht (Thrym killed he first/the king of the giants,//Then all the folk/of the giants he felled) Finally, let us cite the line of the last stanza that is one of the most skilful in the Old Icelandic text of the lay: hon skell um hlaut/fyr skillinga – für tönende Ringe/der tötende Hammer (she got a loud stroke/instead of money; in German, literally: for clanging rings/the killing hammer) These examples lead us to a consideration of the role of onomatopoeia in the lay. Vocabulary belonging to the semantic field ‘noise’, sometimes as onomatopoeia, is truly rendered by Chamisso, sometimes additional means of this kind are used: Látom und hánom/hrynia lukla – Klug lass’ er erklingen/Geklirr der Schlüssel (in German, literally: Let him clever rattle/the sound of keys) Here, ‘klug’, clever, is inserted for additional alliteration or paronomasia. Or, again: Fló þá Loki/fiaðrhamr dunði – Da flog auf Loki flugs,/Der Flügelschlag rauschte (Flew then Loki swiftly/the wing-beating whirred) Here, ‘flugs’, swiftly, is added to the German translation. In both examples phonosemantic features can be observed in the German text: /kl/ and /fl/ are related to flight and the swift movement. The same can be seen in the h-alliteration in: ‘Hastig die Hirsche,/heimgetrieben’ (Swiftly the deer/were driven home). In the original we have ‘goats’ rather than ‘deer’. Lexemes with the meaning of ‘quick motion’, ‘rapidly’, as well as those meaning ‘sound’ and ‘noise’, all contribute to the expression of movement,

Larissa Naiditch 121

including the adverbs and adjectives ‘eilig, hastig, rasch, flugs’ (all meaning quick with slight nuances of difference), ‘heftig’ (strong), the participles ‘schüttelnd’ (shaking), ‘schlagend’ (beating), ‘tönende’ (sounding), the verbs ‘erlauschen’ (to hear, to find by hearing), ‘rauschte’ (whirred), ‘erklingen’ (to sound), ‘klangen’ (sounded), ‘sprang’ (jumped). Thus Chamisso can be said, without doubt, to have captured the chief features of the Edda’s aesthetics and of specific peculiarities of the Þrymskviða; he provided a skilful rendering of all of them. In several cases he even amplified these poetic means by adding an alliteration in the first short line or paronomasia. He tried to make the poetics of the lay more salient, and one of the causes of this amplification is the difference in reception of alliterations by the Icelandic and the German reader. Whereas for Icelanders alliteration is an expected form of sound patterning which they detect and perceive instantly, Germans have to pay special attention to detect it, and sometimes additional means that Chamisso provides such as paronomasia, the repetition of the same syllable or the same phoneme cluster, can aid them in their perception of alliteration.

Conclusion In describing the various poetic and stylistic means used in Þrymskviða, we particularly noticed in this chapter the interrelations between alliterations and syntactic structure, which structured the text and developed the narration. We also noted that in the vocabulary of Þrymskviða the semantic fields of ‘sounds, noise’ and ‘quick movement, changing of place’ play an important role, connected with the sound pattern of the lay. Onomatopoeia is especially salient here. When we came to consider Chamisso’s translation, we saw how the chief poetic means have been rendered successfully. While repetitions and parallelisms were rendered faithfully, we saw that alliteration was sometimes even amplified by the use of additional alliteration. Such usages are possible according to the rules of Old Icelandic epics, but are in fact absent in the source text. By additional means, including paronomasia, Chamisso tried to make some of the distinctive features of the poem more salient in order to make a stronger impact on the reader.

Notes 1. J. Lindow, ‘Þrymskviða, Myth and Mythology’, in NOWELE, v.31/32, September 1997. Germanic Studies In Honor of Anatoly Liberman. Odense University Press, pp. 203–12 (here p. 204). See also K. von See, B. La Farge,

122

2. 3.

4.

5. 6. 7.

8.

9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14. 15.

Alliteration in Culture I. Priebe and K. Schulz, Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda. Vol. 2, Götterlieder. Heidelberg: Winter 1997, pp. 508–75; and E. M. Meletinskij, ‘Edda’ i rannie formy eposa. Moscow: Nauka, 1968. A. Gurevich, Historical Anthropology of the Middle Ages. The University of Chicago Press, 1992, p. 169. E. Sievers, Altgermanische Metrik. Halle: Niemeyer, 1893, pp. 63f. See also: Altnordische Philologie. Norwegen und Island, von Haugen, O.E. (ed.), Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2007, pp. 286–95. According to Sievers, there existed a gradation of stress in Germanic verse, depending on parts of speech. The noun was, for example, privileged over the verb in stress and alliteration. Auxiliaries, prepositions, etc., could draw alliteration only in exclusive cases. E. Sievers, Altgermanische Metrik. Halle: Niemeyer, 1893, pp. 41–6. R.M. Meyer, Die altgermanische Poesie nach ihren formelhaften Elementen beschrieben. Berlin, 1889, e.g. Ch. 10. In translating the lay into English the translation by Henry Adams Bellows was used. Wolfgang Lange, ‘Zahlen und Zahlenkompositionen in der Edda’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur (Halle), 77, 1955: 306–48; here 342–8. Compare also: J. Harris, ‘Eddic Poetry’. In Clover, C.J. and Lindow J. (eds), Old Norse – Icelandic Literature. A Critical Guide. University of Toronto Press, 2005, p. 80. Sievers, Altgermanische Metrik, p. 70. On the etymology of the word skillingr see: J. de Vries, Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd rev. edn. Leiden, 1962, pp. 492, 489. A. Lutz, ‘Lautwandel bei Wörtern mit imitatorischem oder lautsymbolischem Charakter in den germanischen Sprachen’, in NOWELE, v.31/32, September 1997. Germanic Studies in Honor of Anatoly Liberman. Odense University Press, pp. 213–28. Beowulf. A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000. Introduction, pp. ix–xxx; here pp. xxviii–xxix. O.A. Smirnickaja, ‘Pesn’ o Trjume’. [‘Þrymskviða’] Atlantika, 4, 1999, Moscow, MGU, pp. 222–33. This German sentence can rather be translated as: ‘Have you done the deed by your efforts?’ In the German translation, we have ‘drink’ instead of the original ‘beer’.

8 Alliteration in Iceland: From the Edda to Modern Verse and Pop Lyrics Kristján Árnason, University of Iceland

Abstract The chapter shows that alliteration has played an important role in Icelandic culture from the very beginning down to modern times. Already in the Middle Ages the use of alliteration was to some extent symbolic, as reflected in the reverence with which the staves are treated by the medieval scholars, but it still had a formal function of signalling constituent structure in poetic texts and it had a connection to rhythm in eddic poetry, and to some extent in skaldic verse as well. When new poetic genres developed, borrowing foreign metrical forms, alliteration was applied as a matter of course, but the connection to rhythm, as expressed in an alternation between strong and weak positions, became looser as time passed on. In the twentieth century, regular rhythm and rhyme were abandoned in serious poetry with the advent of free verse, and a new genre developed in lyrics to popular music. In both cases, the resilience of alliteration has proven to be remarkable: many poets use alliteration in their free verse, and the same goes for writers of popular lyrics. The function of alliteration in these genres seems to be mainly symbolic. The Icelandic culture identified itself from the very beginning with literature and language, and in that context alliteration came to serve a broad, symbolic function. For many modern poets, alliteration is part and parcel of writing poetry irrespective of other formal features.

Introduction As shown for example by the First Grammarian’s comment that ‘poets are the authors of all runic wisdom’,1 poetry was at the heart of the Nordic 123

124

Alliteration in Culture

culture, which flourished in Iceland in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries with the writing of the famous sagas and the development of various new poetic genres. And alliteration, which Old Icelandic poetry has in common with its Old German and Old English cognates, was from the beginning used in all Icelandic metrical forms, at least those which enjoyed enough esteem to be written down. According to medieval Icelandic scholars and grammarians, such as Snorri Sturluson, who wrote his Edda as a handbook of the art of poetry, and his nephew Ólafr Þórðarson hvítaskáld, who wrote the so-called Third Grammatical Treatise,2 alliteration was essential to poetic form, in fact formed the core or templatic supports of all poetry. In the commentaries in his Háttatal, Snorri gives the following description of alliteration in the skaldic metre dróttkvætt (my translation): Here is the application of letters which determines the metre and makes the rhythm (or recitation); those are twelve letters in each stanza, and three in each quarter … In the second line, the stave, which we call the head stave, is placed first in the line. This letter determines the rhythm. But in the first line this letter will be found twice at the beginning of a syllable. Those letters we call supports.3 Similarly, according to Ólafr hvítaskáld alliteration is ‘... upphaf til kveðandi þeirar er saman helldr norrænum skáldskap, svá sem naglar halda skipi saman’ (‘the origin of the rhythm that keeps together Nordic poetry, as nails keep a ship together’).4 Both of these thirteenth-century scholars are mainly talking about skaldic poetry. But, as is well known, there is a distinction in Nordic literature between eddic poetry and skaldic poetry, and the forms are in fact quite different. The eddic forms, fornyrðislag and ljóðaháttr, had a rhythm similar to that of the Beowulf metre with quite a bit of freedom in the number of syllables per line, whereas the skaldic metres were more stringent and can be analysed as syllable counting.5 The eddic metres counted word stresses, and it is natural for alliteration, as systematic assonance at the onset of words, to develop in such surroundings. Alliteration was less prominent in skaldic forms like the dróttkvætt, and the rhythm was less dependent on the placement of the staves than that of the eddic metres. And the function of communicating the line couplet as a form was shared by the inrhyme.6 But in spite of this, the thirteenth-century scholars looked on alliteration as the essence of all poetry, and the importance assigned to the staves by Snorri and Ólafr suggests that already at that time, the function of alliteration was to some extent symbolic as a marker of proper poetic discourse.

Kristján Árnason 125

The high esteem, not to say glorification, of alliteration as the essence of the Nordic literary tradition has prevailed down to modern times. The art of using and appreciating alliteration correctly is generally referred to as the ‘poetic ear’ (brageyra), a term coined by the poet Einar Benediktsson at the beginning of the twentieth century. Practically all poetry down to the early twentieth century has alliteration, and even after the so-called ‘form revolution’ in the middle of the twentieth century, when free verse was introduced, many poets make systematic use of alliteration in their verse.7 In the same vein, latter-day poetic scholarship openly praises alliteration as an integral part of poetry; the scholar and poet Jón Helgason emphasised the importance of alliteration as an essential part of Icelandic verse in an address to his fellow countrymen in Copenhagen in 1944.8 He echoes the importance assigned to alliteration by the medieval scholars, citing Ólafr Þórðarson’s comparison of the staves as keeping poetry together in the manner of nails in a ship, and in Jón Helgason’s words, ‘for anyone who has had his poetic ear moulded by Icelandic verse, the sense of alliteration is so deeply rooted that it is inconceivable for him to write poetry without it’.9 Jón goes on to say that his own attempts at writing poetry without the support of alliteration have been futile ‘because I am unable to judge whether the sound of an Icelandic stanza is correct if it does not have alliteration’.10 He stresses the same point in his poetic work, as e.g. in the poems Í Árnasafni and Ég kom þar.11 This view of the ‘poetic ear’ as an integral part of the culture and inherent to the normal Icelander’s sense of poetry was widely subscribed to in the twentieth century. Compared to other Germanic cultures, this role played by alliteration is special. Although the historical roots go back to common Germanic times, and alliteration was used in older Germanic poetry, it has not survived in these cultures. On English ground, alliteration was abolished after the Norman invasion in the eleventh century, and in spite of the ‘alliterative revival’ in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, it did not survive into modern English.12 In Germany the traditional Germanic forms were superseded by rhyming forms of foreign descent already by the ninth century.13 Analysing and understanding the varying fate of alliteration in different cultures such as the North and West Germanic ones calls for an understanding of more than one aspect of the conditions under which alliteration does or does not exist. In this chapter I will briefly consider two aspects of the history of alliteration in Icelandic literature. On the one hand, I want to look at the varying linguistic and metrical conditions under which alliteration has been used as a poetic device in

126

Alliteration in Culture

Icelandic verse. And on the other hand, I want to suggest that the function which alliteration had and still has in Icelandic culture is perhaps primarily a symbolic one as a marker of the Nordic inheritance with which Icelanders have so proudly identified themselves.

The formal and linguistic aspects Metrical structure involves repetition of similar or equivalent forms (lifts and dips, lines and cola) according to principles or metrical conventions defined with reference to linguistic units. These principles call for some sort of means of identifying the relevant forms both linguistically (as regards e.g. stress) and metrically (as regards strong or weak positions). In the case of alliteration and rhyme, the metrical analysis involves identifying the rhyming units (what rhymes and alliterates?), and the rules for where these forms should occur in the text, the positions (where do the rhyming and alliterating forms occur?). Because of the double existence of metrical texts, following both linguistic principles and constraints and metrical principles and constraints, these units and positions are defined on two levels, on one hand as metrical units and positions and on the other as linguistic units and positions. For Germanic poetic alliteration in general we can say roughly that the linguistic position of alliteration is in the onset of the stressed syllable of a word, and the linguistic units referred to are the sounds or phonemes which occur in that position. And for the most part, the same principles regarding this aspect of alliteration still prevail in Icelandic poetry.14 In the early Germanic forms, the alliterating schemes had a close connection with both rhythm and constituency. Thus the alliterating staves occurred in linguistically stressed syllables which formed strong positions in the metre. The Old Germanic form, as represented for example by Beowulf and Hildebrandslied and in Iceland by the eddic fornyrðislag, which counted word stresses, was the ‘natural’ habitat of alliteration. But when new forms like the ljóðaháttr and the skaldic dróttkvætt developed in Iceland and Norway, new metrical surroundings were created. In particular in the syllable counting of the dróttkvætt metre, the role of the staves as carriers of rhythm was less important.15 In traditional Icelandic terminology (as represented by Snorri’s commentary) the most important position is that of the höfuðstafr, ‘the head stave’, which occurs at the beginning of the first lift of the second colon in the eddic line (the penultimate strong position in the line as a unit). This head stave had to be matched by an equivalent onset in at least one

Kristján Árnason 127

of the lifts of the first colon (the a-verse), called the stuðlar ‘supports’, as in the following example from the first stanza of Völuspá:16 Hljóðs bið ek allar/helgar kindir; I ask for attention all holy creatures Meiri ok minni/mögu Hemdallar greater and lesser descendants of Heimdall. Here the /h/ of helgar ‘holy’ and the /m/ of mögu ‘sons’ function as head staves in the b-verse of each line, matched respectively by one and two supports in the a-verse. The metrical units active in alliteration are the equivalence classes, which define what alliterates with what. A simplistic statement is that each sound alliterates with itself, but there are well-known complications, for example so that all vowels alliterate, and clusters of s+stop (sp, st, sk) only alliterate with themselves. Alliteration was also used in the skaldic dróttkvætt, but in this very complex metre, other features were also used. In particular the inhryme or hendings supplied a new parameter in the poetic structure. An example showing the workings of alliteration in the dróttkvætt is given below with a half a stanza by the eleventh-century poet Sigvatr Þórðarson: Bergr, höfum minzk, hvé, margan morgin Rúðuborgar, börð létk í för fyrða fest við arm enn vestra.17 (Vestrfararvísur 1) The inrhyme or hendings (italicised), which occur in the dróttkvætt, are also defined in terms of units and positions, which have a metrical side and a linguistic side. The units on the metrical side of the inrhyme are the equivalence classes, which define the classes of sounds that serve as equivalent (or non-distinct) for the purposes of rhyme, and although the general principle is that the metrical classes correspond to natural linguistic units, i.e. phonemes and sequences of phonemes, there are interesting complications in those relations also in the case of the hendings. The skaldic metres thus inherited the alliteration and used it as just one of the many features of the very elaborate forms. It is unnecessary to assume, as is sometimes done, that the positions where alliteration or rhyme occurs in the dróttkvætt are always stronger or had to be emphasised more heavily in performance than corresponding positions, which

128

Alliteration in Culture

do not take part in these relations. We see for example that the first support in the second couplet (f ör ‘company’) occurs in the antepenultimate position in the line, which in most lines is clearly weak. The rhyming phenomena are as such not essential to the alternation between strong and weak positions, since this is defined independently in terms of other parameters. The relation of alliteration to metrical prominence and stress is thus less clear in dróttkvætt than in the eddic metres; we cannot say for certain that an alliterating syllable was always stronger than its neighbouring syllables.18 The function of alliteration is more that of marking or communicating constituency, i.e. the line and line couplet structure of the skaldic text. The constituency function is fulfilled by interdependent and matching units, but as suggested above, it may already at that stage have been partly symbolic of the Nordic provenance of the forms.

Alliteration in younger metres Although the ‘higher’ or more esteemed genres in Old Icelandic poetry adhered to the strict rules as described by Snorri, in some younger genres alliteration is less regular or even non-existent. Many of the ballads that are thought to have been composed in Iceland since the fourteenth century (although perhaps not written down until later) do not follow these rules, and various types of popular poetry, including nursery rhymes and þulur (a sort of rhapsodic form of popular poetry), do not have regular alliteration.19 But alongside these forms, another form, which developed in the fourteenth century and flourished in Iceland down to the twentieth century, was that of rímur ‘the rhymes’ (a term derived from the medieval Greco-Latin rhythmus). The rímur made regular use of alliteration, and became by far the most popular poetic form in Iceland. The form is still used in the popular quatrains or occasional stanzas (lausavísur, stökur) which still thrive in Iceland, serving a somewhat similar function as the limerick in modern English. The oldest work belonging to the rímur-genre is Ólafs ríma Haraldssonar ‘the Rhyme of Ólafr Haraldsson’, dated about 1350–70. The following is the first stanza in that poem, illustrating the most common and basic form used in this type of poetry, the ferskeytt ‘the four-cornered form’: Ólafr kóngr örr ok fríðr átti Noregi at ráða gramr var ei við bragna blíðr borinn til sigrs ok náða.

King Ólaf, eager and fair was to govern Norway the king was not lenient with people born to victory and blessing.

Kristján Árnason 129

The rhythm is a typical quatrain rhythm (4×4) with four strong beats in the online, but deletion of the last beat in the offline. The general pattern for the alliteration mirrors that of the skaldic dróttkvætt with the ‘main stave’ at the beginning of the second line of a couplet (allowing for one syllable as an upbeat or anacrusis) and two supports in the first line. The two supports must not both occur in even-numbered positions, and no more than one lift is allowed between staves. In later metrical terms, the even-numbered feet have been called lágkveða (the low foot), and the odd-numbered feet are called hákveða (the high foot), which implies a division of the line into two colae, each with a strong foot and a weak foot. The rules for the equivalence classes mirror the old rules, for example so that all initial vowels alliterate, and clusters of s+stop each form a separate class.20 It is likely that the rímur form (like that of the ballads) borrowed its quadruple rhythm from foreign poetry, but many of the formal characteristics are reminiscent of the skaldic forms, among them the rules for alliteration. The rules for alliteration have thus been elaborated and are strictly followed in the rímur quatrain. It is indeed a marked characteristic of the Icelandic tradition that, when foreign metres are borrowed, a necessary part of their adaptation to the Icelandic literary norm is the organised assignment of alliteration. This is the case in pre-Reformation religious poetry, for example Boðunarvísur Maríu (from before 1500),21 composed in a borrowed trimeter: alliteration was applied, so that the head stave was at the beginning of the second line of the couplet with two staves in the preceding line. The same is true of the earliest translations into Icelandic of German religious poetry in the psalm book published by Bishop Marteinn Einarsson (1555). The rhythmic patterns and the end rhyme are copied from the original, but the alliteration was supplied as an additional feature.22 This was later carried on in religious poetry by poets like Hallgrímur Pétursson (in the eighteenth century), which shall be discussed below, and it is still the rule in the present psalm book.

Interpreting the function of alliteration Although it is clear that the alliterating schemes thus form an integral part of the definition of most Icelandic metrical forms, the actual role they play relative to other poetic features, such as rhythm and rhyme, may be a matter of opinion. And indeed different views have been expressed, as may be illustrated with quotes from two prominent figures in the world of twentieth-century Icelandic literature.

130

Alliteration in Culture

In his above-mentioned essay on how to write poetry in Icelandic, Jón Helgason emphasises the prominence of the staves in the literary text. He condemns the practice of writing or applying music to verse in such a way that the staves occur in non-prominent positions. In his view this undermines their significance in the poetic text. This view of the function and significance of alliteration in the rhythm, so that they should be placed in strong positions, is often repeated in open (semi-professional) discussion of alliteration in poetic form, but a totally different view is expressed by Helgi Hálfdanarson, who translated Shakespeare’s plays into Icelandic using the iambic pentameter. In an article discussing the performance of Shakespeare’s text, both in the original and in his translation he describes the rhythmic characteristics of the metre.23 Regarding alliteration, Helgi explicitly states (op. cit., p. 15) that according to Icelandic metrical rules, the supports (stuðlar), two for each line, can be placed in five alternative ways in a pentametric line. They can, according to him, occur on lifts 1 and 3, 2 and 3, 3 and 4, 3 and 5, or 4 and 5 of the line, and this is how he uses alliteration in his translation of Shakespeare. The impermissible alternatives are excluded on one hand by the constraint that both supports cannot occur in the weak lift (i.e. the even-numbered one), and the staves cannot be separated by more than one lift. If a head stave is used, he says, it should be in the first strong position in the second line of a couplet. This shows that Helgi Hálfdanarson sees it as a matter of course to use structured alliteration and to distribute the staves according to the traditional rules. But these traditional rules are formulated in the context of quadruple time, and we must reconsider which conditions will be applicable for the pentameter. In particular, the constraint that no more than one strong position occurs between staves can only be upheld when a head stave occurs at the beginning of a second line, by placing the supports in the third, fourth and/or fifth position in a pentametric line. But in fact the distance requirement had already been broken by the poet Jónas Hallgrímsson in a famous sonnet from 1844:24 Nú andar suðrið sæla vindum þýðum á sjónum allar bárur smáar rísa

Now the sweet south blows with mellow winds on the sea all little waves rise

The staves (/s/) bind the couplet together with a head stave (preceded by anacrusis) in the second line and two supports in the first line. But the distance requirement is ignored in that two lifts stand between the second support and the head stave.

Kristján Árnason 131

In his translations of Shakespeare, Helgi Hálfdanarson opts for another solution. He does not make regular couplets with two supports in the first line and a head stave in the second. Most of the time, each line forms a separate construction with two staves per line, according to the rules we saw above. But when couplets are formed, the distance constraint is observed, so that the supports occur in two of the three last lifts of the first line, and the head stave in the first lift of the second line. This shows that Helgi and Jónas differ in the way they adapt the patterns to the foreign forms. In the translations of Shakespeare’s plays Helgi breaks the pattern of three staves (head stave and two supports), whereas Jónas ignores the constraint regarding the distance from one stave to another. It is also interesting to note that Helgi is not against over-alliteration (e.g. having more than three staves in a couplet), explicitly stating that it can be used for special expressive purposes. Another interesting comment made by Helgi is to the effect that the so-called poetic ear not only involves mastering the rules for placement, but also to ‘sense the magic involved in the Icelandic rules for alliteration and the double rhythm which they supply’.25 And he goes on to say that in a long text it is wise to use alliteration in a moderate manner, although the rules should be followed. The alliteration is moderate, according to him, ‘when the staves are made to fall on words, which have little meaning and are obviously uttered accordingly’.26 Thus Helgi sees the alliteration as a special pattern forming a sort of counterpoint against stress as expressed in the performance of the line. A similar point is made by the composer Atli Ingólfsson in an article entitled ‘Singing in Icelandic’ (Að syngja á íslensku),27 echoing the title of Jón Helgason’s article referred to earlier (‘Writing poetry in Icelandic’ Að yrkja á íslensku). In this article Atli discusses the problem of avoiding monotony in poetry and art in general. According to him, the patterns supplied by alliteration form a separate contrapuntal score in the structure of poetry, making the text more interesting from the musical (rhythmic) point of view. Prototypical in this sort of multi-layered structure is the dróttkvætt metre. This latter understanding of the function of alliteration as not dominating the metrical form also fits with the practice of the seventeenth-century religious poet Hallgrímur Pétursson. In his Passion psalms28 he uses several metres, mostly trochaic and dactylic, many (if not all) of which are of foreign origin, but in every case alliteration is supplied. As far as they are applicable, Hallgrímur follows the above-mentioned rules concerning the placement of the staves on the lifts in the line. There seem to be no cases where the staves are placed in the first and fourth foot in a tetrametric line (i.e. with two lifts between staves), nor do we have examples of both

132

Alliteration in Culture

staves occurring on even-numbered lifts, i.e. in the second and fourth foot. Hallgrímur thus mechanically follows the traditional formula. We have seen that the traditional rules for alliteration are stated in terms of metrical feet (kveður), but there is no explicit statement about where in the foot they should occur. It seems to be taken for granted that they fall in the strong part of the foot (the lift or arsis), i.e. in the first position of dactyls and trochees. In that way it should be secure that they are always strong. But it is clear that for Hallgrímur, this is not essential. There are plenty of examples of staves (supports or head staves) being placed in positions which from other points of view must be seen as weak, as in the following examples:29 (a) Án drottins ráða er aðstoð manns í öngu minnsta gildi (9:2) (b) Ávinning lát þig öngvan hér í þeirra flokki binda (9:6) (c) Lærisvein sál mín sjá þú þann sem Jesú eftir fylgdi (9:6)

Without the advice of god the help of man has no value whatsoever Let no profit here tie yourself to their pack Look, my soul, at that disciple who followed Jesus

In (a) we have the first support on the preposition á ‘on’, and in (b) the head stave is on the preposition í ‘in’. And in (c) s of the relative conjunction sem ‘which’ forms the head stave. It would be against the inherent rhythm of both text and form to perform these words as strong. In fact, this use of alliteration is in the spirit of Helgi Hálfdanarson; the distribution of the staves is mechanically governed by the traditional rules as regards positions in the line, but they keep a low profile, so to speak, because more often than not they are placed in linguistically, and/or even metrically, weak positions. The form of the structure is contrapuntal, as pointed out by Atli Ingólfsson. And like Helgi Hálfdanarson, Hallgrímur allows himself to use overalliteration, as in the following examples:30 (a) Minnstu að myrkra maktin þverr

Remember that the power of darkness disappears þá myrkur dauðans skalt kanna (8:20) when you start looking at the darkness of death (b) Guðs barna gafst mér gleðifund You gave me the happy reunion of god’s children góð voru þau umskipti (8:24) that was a good new order of things

Kristján Árnason 133

The discussion above has shown that although alliteration has been seen as essential in Icelandic poetry, its function as a part of the metrical form is ambiguous. Some poets and scholars (e.g. Jón Helgason) have considered alliteration to be closely connected with metrical prominence, so that they should be in strong positions in the text, whereas others (like Helgi Hálfdanarson and Hallgrímur Pétursson) play down their prominence so as to make them inconspicuous. And when it comes to applying the rules for placing the staves in lines in forms other than the most typical quatrain form, two approaches are used. Some (e.g. Jónas Hallgrímsson) make use of their function as forming line pairs as constituents (at the cost of violating the constraints regarding the distance between staves), whereas others (e.g. Helgi Hálfdanarson) discard the triple relation between two supports and a head stave but adhere to the constraints regarding the distribution and distance between the staves within the line. But all of these poets agree that alliteration has to be applied. And the question arises, what combines them in that view? It seems that the only common denominator is the value assigned to the staves as a symbol of Icelandic poetry.

Alliteration in free verse Free verse was introduced into Icelandic literature with the advent of modernism in the twentieth century by poets like Steinn Steinarr, Jón úr Vör, Jóhannes úr Kötlum and Þorsteinn frá Hamri.31 The so-called ‘form revolution’ (formbylting) was directed mainly against regular rhythm and stanzaic structure and the systematic application of the rules of rhyme and alliteration as part of the form. The ideology was that the formal measures should be used more freely and creatively. Thus it may seem that Icelandic literature had finally reached the stage that the West Germanic cultures had reached 1000 years earlier, that alliteration should be abandoned as a strict requirement in poetry, so that it could be used more freely as an extra means of expression according to need. But in spite of this, for some poets at least, alliteration was still an essential part of poetic form, more so than rhyme and regular rhythm. Thus Jóhannnes úr Kötlum only talks about rhyme in his poem Vér öreigar ‘We who have nothing’ but does not mention alliteration. And in fact each of the three lines in the following quote from that poem alliterates:32 Eins og ljóð vort er einfalt og auðskilið Like our poem is simple and easy to understand

134

Alliteration in Culture

og hirðir ekki um rósfjötra rímsins né fjólublá faguryrði …

and does not care about the rosy fetters of rhyme nor the violet sweet talk …

The use of alliteration seems to be somewhat more subtle in the following poem by Snorri Hjartarson:33 Við sjó

By the sea

I Flýgur tjaldur yfir mynd sinni út blælygnan vog fljúga tveir tjaldar breiddum faðmi móti hafi himni hvor öðrum inn í sólhvíta þögn og hillingar langt út á firði.

An oystercatcher flies over its picture out over a still bay two oystercatchers fly with open wings toward heaven each other into a sunny white silence and fata morgana far out on the firth

II Gulstirnd og græn breiðist muran um grjótið og hungangsflugur sveima milli stjarna.

Yellow-starred and green the potentilla spreads over the rocks and honey bees roam among stars

III Undarleg tákn skráir tildran í sandinn eilíf tákn sem enginn hefur ráðið nema mjúk aldan sem máir þau út.

Strange symbols the sandpiper records in the sand eternal symbols which no one has deciphered except the soft wave which wipes them out

Although the placement is not regular, the alliteration is clearly deliberate. In his book Heimkynni við sjó ‘A home by the sea’ (1980), Hannes Pétursson uses alliteration in what seems to be a fairly systematic way, and in one of the poems he openly acknowledges the importance of alliteration. The book is a series of 60 numbered but untitled poems, mostly meditations about the world and politics, set in the

Kristján Árnason 135

surroundings of his home near Reykjavík. But after the tenth poem, the eleventh one goes like this (with my word-for-word translation):34 Stafir eddulegir einn í línu, eða tveir sjálfvaktir koma inn í kvæði þessi, rímlaus ljóðstafur í móti ljóðstaf, innan boga setningar, hugsunar –

Eddic staves one in a line, or two spontaneous come into these poems, rhymeless poetic letter against poetic letter, within the brace of a sentence, thought –

eins og væri stuðlaður hver andardráttur minn!

as if were alliterated each of my breaths!

The word ljóðstafur ‘poetic letter’, as used in this poem, echoes the medieval terminology used by Snorri Sturluson and Ólafr hvítaskáld. All of the poems in this book make use of alliteration, although the forms are otherwise quite free.

Alliteration in popular lyrics Another cultural revolution, which took place in Iceland in the twentieth century, was the introduction of jazz and Anglo-American pop music. The weight of this new wave became especially heavy in the Second World War, during the occupation, first by British, and later by American troops. In the first decades of this new era, a common way of accommodating this imported culture was for Icelandic singers and popular bands to publish Icelandic ‘remakes’ of foreign melodies. Thus, the Presley song ‘Won’t you wear my ring’ became popular in the 1950s with a lyric about a young girl from the Icelandic countryside who got married and moved to Reykjavík. The lyric alliterates, as shown below: Lóa litla á Brún, var laglegt fljóð svo ung og glöð og æskurjóð Hún vildi fá sér vænan mann og vera alltaf svo blíð og góð við hann

Little Lóa of Brún was a pretty girl so young and happy and flushing with youth she wanted to get herself a good man and be ever so kind to him

136

Alliteration in Culture

Og eitt sumarköld ók einn Sveinn í hlað á litlum bíl og Lóu bað aka með sér upp í sveit …

And one summer evening, Sveinn came driving in a little car and asked Lóa to drive with him around the glen ...

The alliteration appears in the girl’s name Lóa, a popular nickname, which alliterates with litla ‘little’ and laglegt ‘pretty’. And similarly, in the second line vowel alliteration is used in ung ‘young’ and æksurjóð ‘flushing with youth’, and in the following couplet, the v’s of vildi ‘wanted’, vænan ‘good’ and vera ‘to be’ form what looks like a regular triplet involving a head stave preceded by two supports. Although the form obviously does not meet the standards set by serious poetry for example in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the use of alliteration is seen as appropriate. Today, 50 years later, a great part of Icelandic popular music is sung in English, including the Icelandic submission to the European song contest in 2007. But in the preliminary competition in Iceland it had an Icelandic lyric (by Kristján Hreinsson). As can be seen, alliteration is systematically used: Ég les í lófa þínum leyndarmálið góða. Ég veit það nú, ég veit og skil, það er svo ótalmargt sem ætla ég að bjóða já, betra líf með ást og yl.

I read in your palm the good secret I know it now, I know and understand there are innumerable things which I am going to offer yes, better life with love and warmth

We note that in these popular lyrics, like in the free verse, the triplet structure of head stave and two supports is not constant. In some cases, only two staves form the relation, and in other cases, there are more than three. We can thus say that in modern free verse and the popular lyrics, both the rhythmic and the constituent function has disappeared, leaving only the symbolic function, namely that poetic texts should have alliteration regardless of constituency or rhythm.

Conclusion The preceding survey of the history of alliteration in Iceland shows that it has played an important role from the very beginning and still does in

Kristján Árnason 137

modern times, both in elitist and popular poetry. In the first centuries, new genres like skaldic court poetry, which had syllabic rhythm, copied and elaborated the rules which had developed in the eddic word rhythm. Already at that stage, the connection to the essentials of the rhythmic structure became weaker; the staves were more decorative, and alongside the inrhyme signalled constituent structure, i.e. binding together the line couplet in forms like the dróttkvætt. And already at that time the use of alliteration in the dróttkvætt and other skaldic metres was to some extent symbolic, as reflected in the reverence with which the staves are treated by the medieval scholars. When new genres like the rímur developed, alliteration was applied as a matter of course, again mainly to signal constituent structure. The connection to rhythm, as expressed in an alternation between strong and weak positions, became even looser in poetry like the seventeenthcentury religious psalms of Hallgrímur Pétursson, for whom alliteration at times played a counterpoint against other features of the text. The ambivalent relation between alliteration and rhythm is reflected in an interesting difference in the opinion of two twentieth-century scholars and poets: both Jón Helgason and Helgi Hálfdanarson agree that alliteration is integral to poetic form, but they disagree about its relation to metrical strength. They thus agree about its symbolic function, but have radically different views on its relation to other poetic devices. Also in later poetry, like pentametric lines, the constituency function, as defined by the rules for the placement of staves, became harder to maintain. In the twentieth century, two revolutions took place, where the fate of alliteration was at stake. With the advent of free verse, the old metrical rules were thrown away in serious poetry, and a new genre developed in lyrics to popular music. In both cases, the resilience of alliteration has proven to be remarkable: many serious poets use alliteration in their free verse, and the same goes for writers of popular lyrics. But the function of alliteration in these genres seems to be mainly symbolic. There are no clearly defined rules about where they should occur, either with respect to rhythmic structure or with respect to constituent structure. The Icelandic culture identified itself from the beginning with literature and language, and in that context alliteration has come to serve a broader, more symbolic function in poetry. For many poets, alliteration is part and parcel of writing poetry irrespective of other formal features.

138

Alliteration in Culture

Notes 1. ‘Skáld eru höfundar allrar rýni eða máls greinar sem smiðir smíðar eða lögmenn laga.’ ‘Poets are the authors of all runic wisdom or distinctions of language, as carpenters in carpentry and lawyers in law.’ (See Hreinn Benediktsson (ed.), The First Grammatical Treatise, Reykjavík, 1972, pp. 224–6.) 2. For editions of Snorri’s Edda, see Anthony Faulkes (ed.), Edda Gylfaginning, Edda Skáldskaparmál and Edda Háttatal, London, 1988–99. For an edition of the Third Grammatical Treatis, see Björn Mangússon Ólsen (ed.), Den tredje og den fjærde grammatiske afhandling i Snorres Edda, Copenhagen, 1884. 3. ‘Hér er stafasetning sú er hætti ræðr ok kveðandi gerir, þat eru tólf stafir í eyrindi, ok eru þrír settir í hvern fjórðung. Í öðru vísuorði er settr sá stafr fyrst í vísuorðinu er vér köllum höfuðstaf. Sá stafr ræðr kveðandi. En í fyrsta vísuorði mun sá stafr finnast tysvar standa fyrir samstöfun. Þá stafi köllum vér stuðla.’ Anthony Faulkes (ed.), Snorri Sturluson, Edda Háttatal, London, 1999, p. 4. 4. Ólsen (ed.), Den tredje og den fjærde grammatiske afhandling i Snorres Edda, II: 96. 5. For a description of the forms see e.g. Andreas Heusler, Deutsche Versgeschichte mit Einschluss des Altenglischen und Altnordischen Stabreimverses, Berlin and Leipzig, 1925, I; Eduard Sievers, Altgermanische metrik, Halle, 1893; Kristján Árnason, ‘The Rise of the Quatrain in Germanic: Musicality and Word Based Rhythm in Eddic Metres’. In Elan B. Dresher and Nila Friedberg (eds), Formal Approaches to Poetry: Recent Developments in Metrics, Berlin, 2006, pp. 151–69. 6. See Kristján Árnason, ‘On the Principles of Nordic Rhyme and Alliteration’, Arkiv för nordisk filologi, 122, 2007: 79–116. 7. For an overview of the history of Icelandic literature, see Íslensk bókmenntasaga I-V, Reykjavík, 1992–2006. 8. Published as an article: Jón Helgason, ‘Að yrkja á íslensku’, in Ritgerðakorn og ræðustúfar, Reykjavík, 1959, pp. 1–38. 9. ‘[Þ]ví hjá hverjum þeim sem fengið hefur brageyra sitt mótað af íslenskum kveðskap er stuðlatilfinningin svo rótgróin að hann getur ekki hugsað sér að yrkja án þeirra’ (ibid., pp. 29–30). 10. ‘[M]ér er ekki til neins að reyna, því að ég treysti mér blátt áfram ekki til að heyra hvort hljómfall íslenskrar vísu er rétt, sé hún óstuðluð’ (ibid., p. 30). 11. ‘Hróðugur kveð ég þá stef mín í stuðlanna skorðum – /stofninn er gamall þó laufið sé annað en forðum.’ ‘I proudly recite my poetry in the molds of alliteration – the stem is old, though the leaves are new’ (Í Árnasafni, Jón Helgason, Kvæðabók, Reykjavík, 1986, p. 12); ‘Í salkynnum þessum var engin sál nema ein/sem agaði mál sitt við stuðlanna þrískiptu grein’ ‘In these halls there was but one soul who disciplined his/her language according to the triple form of alliteration’ (Ég kom þar, in ibid., p. 16). 12. Donka Minkova, Alliteration and Sound Change in Early English, Cambridge, 2003; Albert C. Baugh, A Literary History of England, 2nd edn. London, 1967. 13. Andreas Heusler, Deutsche Versgeschichte mit Einschluss des Altenglischen und Altnordischen Stabreimverses, Berlin and Leipzig, 1925, I, pp. 1–4; II, pp. 1–31.

Kristján Árnason 139 14. See Ragnar Ingi Aðalssteinsson, ‘Frá Braga til Steins. Nokkrar athuganir á stuðlasetningu í íslenskum kveðskap’, MA thesis, the University of Iceland, 2004; Ragnar Ingi Aðalsteinsson, ‘Ljóðstafurinn s í íslenskum kveðskap, Són, Timarit um óðfræði, 3, 2005: 59–85. 15. See Krisitján Árnason, ‘Um Háttatal Snorra Sturlusonar, Gripla, 17, 2007: 75–123. 16. Sophus Bugge (ed.), Sæmundar edda hins fróða, [reprint] Oslo, 1965, p. 1. 17. See Finnur Jónsson (ed.), Den norsk islandske skjaldedigtning, Copenhagen, 1912, IA, p. 241, IB, p. 226. In paraphrase: The person Bergr is addressed: ‘We have remembered how many a western morning at the city of Rouen I attached the shield to my arm, in the company of soldiers.’ 18. Kristján Árnason, The Rhythms of Dróttkvætt and Other Old Icelandic Metres, Reykjavík, 1991/2000, pp. 133–43. See also Kristján Árnason, 2007, ‘On the Principles of Nordic Rhyme and Alliteration’, Arkiv för nordisk filologi, 122. 19. Íslensk bókmenntasaga, II: 351ff.; Jón Marinó Samsonarson, Ljóðmál. Fornir þjóðlífshættir. Safn ritgerða gefið út í tilefni sjötugsafmælis höfundar 24. janúar 2002, Reykjavík, 2002. 20. Perhaps the first to explicitly formulate the rules for the placement of alliteration was the German scholar Philipp Eduard Wilhelm Schweitzer, ‘Um stuðla setning og höfuðstafs í íslenzku’, Tímarit Hins íslenzka bókmenntafélags, 8, 1887: 316–18. In this short article Schweitzer, who had translated Icelandic poetry into German, describes criticism of his translation on the grounds that he did not use alliteration in his translations. His complaint is that in spite of the criticism, no one was able to express the rules, and the general answer was that it was intuition (tilfinning) which decided what was right and what was wrong. For an early description of Nordic metrics, see Jón Ólafsson, Om Nordens gamgle digterkonst, dens grundregler, Versarter, Sprog og foredragsmaade, Copenhagen, 1786. 21. Jón Helgason (ed.), Íslenzk miðaldakvæði, Islandske digte fra senmiddelalderen, Copenhagen, 1938, II, pp. 29–33. 22. Íslensk bókmenntasaga II, p. 396. 23. Helgi Hálfdanarson, ‘Lítið eitt um flutning bundins máls á leikritum Shakespeares’, Málfregnir, 6, 1989: 3–15. 24. Ég bið að heilsa!, Jónas Hallgrímsson, Ljóð og laust mál, Ritverk I (ed. by Haukur Hannesson, Páll Valsson and Sveinn Yngvi Egilsson), Reykjavík, 1989, pp. 196–7. 25. ‘... skynja hvílíkt snilldarbragð leynist í hinum íslensku stuðlareglum og þeirri tvöfuldu hrynjandi sem þær leggja til málanna’, Helgi Hálfdanarson, ‘Lítið eitt um flutning bundins máls á leikritum Shakespeares’, p. 15. 26. ‘... þegar stuðlar eru látnir falla á orð sem teljast veigalítillar merkingar og eru að sjálfsögðu flutt samkvæmt því’ (loc. cit.). 27. Atli Ingólfsson, ‘Að syngja á íslensku’, Skírnir, tímarit hins íslenska bókmenntafélags, 1994, pp. 7–36, 419–59. 28. The psalms are extremely popular and are recited on national radio every year during Lent. An endless number of editions can be found; the one referred to here is: Hallgrímur Pétursson, Passíusálmar, ed. Helgi Skúli Kjartansson, Reykjavík, 1995. 29. Ibid., pp. 64–6. 30. Hallgrímur, Passíusálmar, pp. 62–3.

140

Alliteration in Culture

31. See e.g. Peter Carleton, ‘Tradition and Innovation in Twentieth Century Icelandic Poetry’, PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1967; Eysteinn Þorvaldsson, ‘Hvers mega sín orð ljóðsins? Um hefð og nýbreytni í íslenskri ljóðagerð’, Són. Timarit um óðfræði, 2, 2004: 133–51; Kendra Jean Willson, ‘Jónas og hlébarðinn. Ljóðstafir og viðtökur ljóðaþýðinga’, BA thesis, The University of Iceland, 2007. 32. Jóhannes úr Kötlum, Ljóðasafn, Fyrra bindi, Reykjavík, 1949, p. 278. 33. Snorri Hjartarson, Kvæðasafn, Reykjavík, 1992, pp. 182–3. 34. Hannes Pétursson, Heimkynni við sjó, Reykjavík, 1980, p. 19.

9 Alliteration Involving /s/ in the History of Icelandic Poetry Ragnar Ingi Aðalsteinsson

Abstract Alliteration has been practised in Icelandic poetry from the country’s settlement to the present. The practice is based on rules from old Nordic poetry, but only in Iceland have these rules been retained largely unchanged. All the changes that did take place are related to changes in pronunciation: when initial sounds change, equivalence classes change as well. The most marked changes are related to the sound [s]. During the first centuries of Icelandic settlement the initial sounds sl and sn (and perhaps sm) alliterated with s+vowel, sj and sv. This is called s-alliteration. From around 1400, sl has only alliterated with sl, sm only with sm, and sn only with sn. Around the same time sl and sn occasionally began to alliterate with st, as an epenthetic sound, [t], sneaked in between s and l and between s and n, causing these sounds to be pronounced as [stl]/[stn] (‘epenthetic alliteration’). The emergence of this epenthetic sound is supposedly the reason why s-alliteration was abolished around 1400. During the eighteenth, nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, a few poets revived the s-alliteration, probably looking to the old alliteration as a model. This later s-alliteration never became popular and has completely disappeared. Epenthetical alliteration was popular during the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, but has declined since. Other changes in alliteration are the following: j alliterated with vowels until 1600 but not after that; in the eighteenth century hv as an initial sound began to alliterate with k as it then was, and still is, pronounced as kv, which is why this alliteration is still used. During the fourteenth century until the seventeenth, ‘over-alliteration’ became much more common than before, and ‘extra-alliteration’

141

142

Alliteration in Culture

also became more common during this period, but in the eighteenth century these practices declined.

Metrical alliteration has been used in Icelandic poetry from the settlement of Iceland, and has been an important part of Icelandic cultural heritage. Naturally, alliteration is closely connected to the language and its nuances, and when pronunciation changes, as often happens with time, alliteration rules have to adapt to these changes. These changes in alliteration during the 1100 years that Icelanders have lived in their country and made poetry will be investigated here. The concepts of metrical poetry involved in this study are defined below. My method of study will then be described, and the most important findings in alliteration of the sound /s/ and over-alliteration and secondary alliteration will be shown and discussed.

Definition of concepts Alliteration When the same or similar sound is repeated at the beginning of initial stressed syllables it is called alliteration; in Icelandic poetry this is usually done three times. These are called alliteration sounds and are divided into stuðlar and höfudstafir (henceforth, studul and hovedstav). The most common form is for the alliteration to connect two lines, which will be called here ‘former line’ and ‘latter line’, into a line pair. The studuls are then either one or two in the former line and one hovedstav in the latter line. Grösug hlíð, með gagn og prýði, gleði bjó mér nóga;

A grassy slope, useful and beautiful, gave me happiness enough (Beinteinsson 1953: 11)

(NB The English translations here do not always correspond line for line with the original Icelandic.) or, Njóti aldrs ok auðsala konungr ok jarl. Þat er kvæðislok

May old age and comfortable finances be enjoyed by the king and the earl. Thus ends the poem. (Sturluson 1999: 39)

Ragnar Ingi Aðalsteinsson 143

Equivalence class The term ‘equivalence class’ (or ‘alliteration set’) refers to when one (or more than one) sound is perceived as having an equivalent value in alliteration, and thus can be used interchangeably with other members of this class (see Árnason 2000: 13). All vowels belong to the same equivalence class, while, generally, each consonant belongs to a single equivalence class. An exception to this is the sound /s/, which is subject to more restrictive rules as described below. Sounds can belong to the same equivalence class without being the exact same sound. One example of this is the initial in gómur, which is a velar stop, and the initial in gæfa, which is a palatal stop. These sounds alliterate together anyway (see, for example, Þráinsson 1981: 117–18 and Sigurðsson 1986: 9–10). Gnystuduls The rule that each consonant forms a single equivalence class is not valid in all cases: the so-called gnystuduls (i.e. s+consonant sounds) are the exception. Initially there were three gnystuduls, sk, sp and st (on the alliteration of sk, sp and st, see Heusler 1925: 95 and Sievers 1893: 37). Later the clusters sl, sm and sn were added to this group, and thus there are now six gnystuduls (Aðalsteinsson 2005). Gnystuduls cannot be alliterated interchangeably, but can only be used as separate classes. However, the later gnystuduls, i.e. sl, sm and sn, were used by some skalds with other s-pairs up until the twentieth century (see s-alliteration below) (Beinteinsson 1953: xviii; Pétursson 1996: 358). S-alliteration S-alliteration occurs when s+vowel, sj and sv alliterate with the pairs sl, sm and sn. If we consider there to be six gnystuduls, i.e. sk, sl, sm, sn, sp and st as discussed above, then s-alliteration is not allowed according to the metrical rules. This alliteration was used during the first centuries of Icelandic settlement but had fallen out of use by 1400. Later, a few poets resumed the use of s-alliteration (Aðalsteinsson 2005). Epenthetic alliteration When st alliterates with sn or sl, and sp alliterates with sm, we have what is called ‘epenthetic alliteration’. This alliteration is an effect of the insertion of a /t/ sound between initial s and l (or n) on the one hand, and the insertion of /p/ between initial s and m on the other. After this change in pronunciation, epenthetic alliteration has occasionally been found in metric poetry (although alliterating sp with sm is very rare) (Indriðason 1990: 8).

144

Alliteration in Culture

Over-alliteration When too many alliteration sounds appear within the pair of lines used for the alliteration, this is termed ‘over-alliteration’. There should be two studuls in the first line and one hovedstav in the second line. If there are more studuls, or if the sound of the hovedstav is repeated, then we have over-alliteration. When Snorri Sturluson explained alliteration in Edda, he distinctly asserted that there should not be more than three alliterating sounds in each line pair (Sturluson 1999). Vélaskrölt og hark og hljóð hátt um hæðir klingja. Dásemd dagsins dýran óð dráttarvélar syngja.

Machinery sounds, rumbling and noisy get carried far and wide. A fair song about the wonders of a beautiful day is sung by the tractors. (Aðalsteinsson 1990: 20)

In the second and the third line there is over-alliteration (marked in bold here, whereas conventional alliteration is underlined). Over-alliteration only appears when the extra sounds appear in initial stressed syllables. Secondary alliteration When studuls are added to lines in addition to the intended alliteration sounds, then we have ‘secondary alliteration’. If we look at the stanza below, we see secondary alliteration in the first line (here in bold, whereas the expected alliteration is underlined): Bjarki, Kári, Kjartan, Björn, Kolla, Guðrún, Unnur. In the second part of this stanza the secondary alliteration is in the latter line: Bergur, Davíð, Brandur, Örn, Bína, Guðrún, Gunnur. There is a difference between the standing of secondary alliteration words with some space between, as in the first case above, or side by side, as in the latter case. When secondarily alliterating words are next to one another they will be more noticeable, and are therefore more likely to disturb the intended alliteration (Aðalsteinsson 1996: 39–40).

Ragnar Ingi Aðalsteinsson 145

Alliterative tradition in Iceland Alliteration has been present in Icelandic poetry from its beginning and is still present today, even if attitudes toward traditional poetry have changed in recent times. Little has been written on alliteration in the form of research or theoretical articles during the past centuries. Jón Ólafsson Svefneyingur (Ólafsson 1786) wrote a book on metric poetry, and somewhat earlier Jón Ólafsson from Grunnavík mentions this in a draft for an article (Eggertsdóttir 1994: 73). Schweitzer (1887) wrote an article in Tímarit Hins íslenska bókmenntafélags, in which he sets forth rules for metrical rhythm and alliteration position in Icelandic poetry. Schweitzer states that for an Icelandic poem to fully qualify as such it has to have studuls and hovedstav in place, and he emphasises the power and beauty that alliteration adds to Icelandic poetry (1887: 316). While various scholars have written about the alliteration of older Germanic poetry (see Heusler 1925; Sievers 1893), their focus has been on the eddic or the skaldic poetry written before 1400. The development of the Icelandic alliteration heritage has not been investigated until recently (see Aðalsteinsson 2005). According to Aðalsteinsson, equivalence classes have changed for clusters involving initial /s/. The original rule which placed the combinations sk, sp and st each in their own separate equivalence class, but allowed alliteration with other combinations interchangeably, has changed. It seems that academics have not agreed on how to explain or define those classes. It is clear as well that major poets have quite recently used both s-alliteration just as it used to be done in earlier times and have also made it their habit to alliterate st with sl/sn. All these changes originate in changes in the pronounced sounds which resulted in them moving between equivalence classes. The investigation described below aspires to shed some light on these changes.

Method My research aim was to investigate how the usage of the sound /s/ in alliteration has changed from the settlement of Iceland to the present day. Secondary alliteration was investigated as well, i.e. when other sounds than the prescribed alliteration attract abnormal attention to themselves, and over-alliteration, i.e. when there are too many alliteration sounds in each pair of lines. To investigate this, I took a sample of the poetry of poets who were known for adhering to traditional metric, in order to discover how they use the above-mentioned alliteration

146

Alliteration in Culture

sounds in their poetry. The statistical software package SPSS 11.0 was chosen in order to gain a good grasp of the poets’ usage of the abovementioned alliterative sounds. The poets chosen for this database date from the eighth to the twentieth century. The sample taken from their poems was chosen from both the earlier years as well as the later years of their lives. Different types of poems were also selected, where relevant, e.g. both rímur and psalms. Around 400 line pairs were chosen from each poet, though in the event, somewhat fewer pairs were available from Bragi Boddason and Arnór jarlaskáld.

Results and discussion The research investigates the development of usage of certain sounds in alliteration in Icelandic poetry. Since the settlement of Iceland, the equivalence for the sounds /s/, /h/, /v/ and /j/ has changed. The question addressed here was when those changes happened and how long that process took. Table 9.1 provides an overview of the use of s in alliteration in the investigated poems. Table 9.1 Alliteration with ‘s’ (ep = epenthetic alliteration; s-al = s-alliteration; alliteration with the consonant clusters sk, sp, st, sl, sm and sn) Poets

Date

ep

s-al

sk

sp

st

sl

Boddason, Bragi Skalla-Grímsson, Egill Þórðarson, Sighvatur Þórðarson Arnór jarlask. Skúlason, Einar Þórðarson, Sturla Ásgrímsson, Eysteinn Ögmundsson, Hallur Arason, Jón Sigurðsson, Einar í Heyd. Pétursson, Hallgrímur Ólafsson, Stefán Ólafsson, Eggert Þorláksson, Jón Breiðfjörð, Sigurður Hallgrímsson, Jónas Thorsteinsson, Steingr. Jochumsson, Matthías Jónsson, Kristján Stefánsson, Davíð Steinarr, Steinn

8th c. 9th c. 10th c. 10th c. 10–11th c. 1214–84 ? –1361 CC13–14th 1484–1550 1538–1626 1614–74 1619–88 1726–68 1744–1819 1798–1846 1807–45 1831–1913 1835–1920 1842–69 1895–1964 1908–58

– – – – – – – 1 – – – – – 1 – 3 – – – 4 –

2 7 14 6 12 8 4 1 – – – – 2 – – – 6 3 – – 3

– 3 3 8 3 5 5 7 5 7 5 17 10 8 3 3 8 3 2 5 4

– – – – – – – 1 1 – 1 1 1 – – – – – – 1 2

1 4 1 3 6 6 4 8 1 3 2 9 4 7 3 7 5 5 6 5 1

– – – – – – – – – – – – – 3 – 1 – – 1 – 2

sm sn – – – – – – – 1 – – – – – – – – – – – – –

– – – – – – – – 1 – 2 1 – – – 2 1 2 – – –

Ragnar Ingi Aðalsteinsson 147

Epenthetic alliteration The first example of epenthetic alliteration is found in the work of Ögmundsson (fourteenth–fifteenth centuries). This alliteration is not found again until more than 200 years later. In poems by Þorláksson, one example of epenthetic alliteration is also found, similar to Ögmundsson’s poems. The next example is in Hallgrímsson, where three examples were found. One of them is from the poem Alþing hið nýja: ... snarorðir snillingar Articulate and wise men af stefnu sitja; sit at a meeting (Hallgrímsson 1989. Alþinghið nýja 75-6) Four examples by Stefánsson were found, but those were all the examples found on this type of alliteration. None of the poets used sp with sm. What is interesting here is how seldom epenthetic alliteration is used in the sample. One example is found from the thirteenth or the fourteenth century and another late in the sixteenth century. It is not until the eighteenth century, in the poems by Hallgrímsson, that such alliteration begins to take root to any extent, and even then there were only three examples. In Stefánsson’s poems there were four. In none of the poems by other poets were there any examples of epenthetic alliteration. Only 4 poets out of the 21 sampled used this type of alliteration. It seems therefore that epenthetic alliteration was never widespread. It was found in nine line pairs in all. During the same time, sk was found 87 times in alliteration, st 66 times and sp, which is quite rare at the beginning of words, was used eight times. If poets had seen nothing wrong with alliterating sl and sn with st, it is quite likely that many more examples would have been found, because of the number of words beginning with those sounds. It would be quite advantageous for poets if they were able to use the various sounds together and enlarge the equivalence classes. In this case three clusters of consonants are lumped together. For some reason the poets have not taken advantage of this as one might imagine they would had this been a feasible alternative metrically.

S-alliteration. The cluster sm S-alliteration is, as mentioned above, when s+vowel, sv, sj, sl, sm and sn alliterate together, i.e. form a single equivalence class. As is shown

148

Alliteration in Culture

in Table 9.1, s-alliteration is common until the thirteenth century as portrayed in these lines: Aðr asund firi sundi Before he sprang overboard off the shore, Snarfeingr með lið dreingia quick and agile with his group of men (Skalla-Grímsson 1967. Lausavísur 85-6) The last poet to use s-alliteration in early times is really Ásgrímsson, even if one example was found in a poem by Ögmundsson. After this, alliteration of this kind is not found until in Eggert Ólafsson (1832) about 250 years later. About 100 years after the death of Ólafsson, Thorsteinsson picks up on this form of alliteration again and after that it is only found in two poets, three examples by Jochumsson and another three examples by Steinarr. From Table 9.1 it becomes clear that s-alliteration disappears for the most part or completely from Icelandic poetry during the years around 1400 to around 1500 or 1550, reappears in poems by a few poets but does not gain a permanent foothold. As stated above, Þorsteinn G. Indriðason (Indriðason 1990) set forth the theory that epenthetic sounds between s and l on the one hand and s and n on the other appeared in the twelfth or thirteenth century and this led to the habit of alliterating these sounds with st. This explanation is quite acceptable and this research supports it. As mentioned above, epenthetic alliteration never became widespread, but the epenthetic sound nevertheless affected the alliteration so that s-alliteration disappeared and the clusters sl, sm and sn became gnystuduls. Various scholars have supported this hypothesis regarding the appearance of epenthetic sounds (Jóhannesson 1923: 37; Þórólfsson 1987: xxxii). One could therefore easily imagine that this played a part in the change in alliteration practice. However, this change is so profound that this explanation hardly suffices to explain it. The gnystuduls were there before, and they also had s as their first sound. This may have influenced the reshuffling of the equivalence classes. The poets, who are used to alliterating sk only with sk, sp only with sp, and st only with st, may have found the same rule naturally applicable to sl, sm and sn as well, when the pronunciation had changed and the epenthetic sound had begun to disturb the ear. The clusters beginning with s are to some extent in a class apart. Examples of s-alliteration by Arason, Sigurðsson, Pétursson or Stefán Ólafsson (1885) could not be found. However, it has to be considered that only 400 line pairs were used by each poet. Though it seems obvious that if s-alliteration had been used to any considerable extent, it probably would have appeared here just as in the poetry before 1400.

Ragnar Ingi Aðalsteinsson 149

The more recent poets, who use s-alliteration, are obviously not using it very consistently. Let us take Jochumsson as an example. S-alliteration appears four times in his poems. One of the examples goes like this: Sigri samhuga Let the genius win, snilli, þjóðhylli adored by the whole nation (Jochumsson 1936. Kvæði um Jón Sigurðsson 175-6) Among examples by Jochumsson there were three other line pairs where the alliteration sounds are s+vowel or sj, but the clusters sl and sn are at the beginning of stressed syllables in one of the lines, so that if they alliterate with s+vowel there is over-alliteration. One example runs as follows: Sjá hvar silfurfagur See where the silvery fair situr Snæfellsás Snæfellsás sits (Jochumsson 1936. Til Jóns Sigurðssonar 11-2) The alliteration in this example is on sj, si and si. Sn in Snæfellsás is therefore bound to cause over-alliteration if sn alliterates with s+vowel. A poet for whom the clusters s+vowel, sj, sv, sl, sm and sn constitute a single equivalence class must perceive over-alliteration in this line pair. From the four poets who use s-alliteration after 1500, only Thorsteinsson is self-consistent and uses it ‘correctly’. As can be deduced from the above, it seems obvious that after c.1400 to 1500–50, s-alliteration is no longer in use, for whatever reason. This change has already taken place during the times of Ögmundsson. In his poems only one example of s-alliteration could be found, which must mean that, compared to earlier poems, the equivalence classes have changed. Four examples were found in poems by Ásgrímsson, eight by Þórðarson (1967) (see Table 9.1). Since then, poets have occasionally taken up this alliteration. They have all (except Thorsteinsson) been inconsistent and used the s-alliteration only when it was convenient, but ignored the rule when they needed to. The poets in this sample who were alive after the time of Ögmundsson are 13 in total. The poems by nine of those had no examples of this kind of alliteration, which indicates that it never gained a permanent foothold after it disappeared from Icelandic poetry some time shortly after 1400. The research indicates that the cluster sm seems to some extent unique in alliterative practice. When the tables revealed that this cluster never appeared in the s-alliteration of the earliest poets and is thus similar to

150

Alliteration in Culture

the cluster sp (see Table 9.1), the suspicion arose that the cluster sm had a different history from the other two, i.e. sl and sn. This suspicion was further strengthened when a verse by Sighvatur Þórðarson was found, in which he uses sm in all the alliteration positions in one line pair. In order to take a closer look at this phenomenon, all the Eddukvæði were scrutinised with this in mind (Eddukvæði I and II 1985). When all the examples of s-alliteration had been accounted for, 108 in all, it was revealed that only two of them contained the cluster sm. This difference cannot be explained by scarcity of words. The explanation must lie elsewhere, for example in that during the era of dróttkvæði, sm was a gnystudul such as sk, sp and st (see Aðalsteinsson 2004: 61–4).

Gnystuduls sk, sp, st, sl, sm and sn The clusters sl, sm and sn have been discussed above, without being called gnystuduls. In s-alliteration these clusters constitute an equivalence class with sj, sv and s+vowel (except, possibly, sm), but they do not constitute gnystuduls unless they appear separately in all positions as alliterating sounds. Results for the gnystuduls sk, sp and st were not surprising. The cluster sk appeared 114 times, sp 8 times and st 91 times. A rough estimation of the frequency of words in Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog (Fritzner 1954) and Íslenzk orðabók (1980) indicates that these figures are consistent with the frequency of those words in the language. The cluster sk does not appear in poems by Bragi Boddason which probably can be explained by the fact that very few poems by him have been preserved and there were therefore few line pairs. Nevertheless sk was found to be have been used in alliteration by all of the other sampled poets. Stefán Ólafsson (1885) had the greatest number of such uses, 17, Jónsson (1986) had the fewest, a mere two examples. A similar result was found for the cluster st, except there were not so many examples and there was less variation. The cluster sp appeared very infrequently, which could be explained by the infrequency of words beginning with sp. There are far fewer words than those beginning with sk or st. As those words are not part of any other equivalence class, they end up similarly to the words beginning with sm. They do not get taken up into alliteration. Interestingly, the cluster st appears nine times in poems by Ólafsson (Stefán), as he seems to use it more often than the other poets. No easy explanation can be found as to why this clergyman on the eastern part of Iceland used gnystuduls more often than other poets. This may be purely coincidental. No visible difference could be found in the usage of

Ragnar Ingi Aðalsteinsson 151

these three clusters over time: the gnystuduls sk, sp and st seem to have held their place in the alliteration without much variation. The picture is different for the gnystuduls sl, sm and sn. They do not appear until the work of Ögmundsson, as shown in the example above, where the cluster sm is in all three positions. This means that these gnystuduls do not appear until s-alliteration disappears. After this, they appear in poems by 9 additional poets, 16 times all in all. Interestingly, the cluster sm only appears this once. As mentioned above, there are very few words beginning with sm. A rough estimation was done to look at this. Word stems in Íslenzk orðabók (1980) beginning with sl, sm and sn were counted: word stems beginning with sl numbered about 130, those beginning with sn about 120, while those beginning with sm were only about 40 in number. These numbers may explain why the cluster sm was not found as a gnystudul in the sampled poetry (see discussion of s-alliteration and the cluster sm above).

Over-alliteration and secondary alliteration Only two of the sample used neither over-alliteration nor secondary alliteration: Boddason and Skalla-Grímsson. As mentioned above, there were fewer line pairs from Boddason than from the other poets. These metrical flaws appeared less often in poems by earlier poets, i.e. those from the fourteenth century and earlier. It appears that over-alliteration goes out of bounds in poems by Ásgrímsson. In his poem, Lilja, line pairs are one foot longer than in dróttkvæði. Longer lines are more prone to over-alliteration than shorter lines. The beginning of the poem is: Almattegr gud allra stetta Almighty god of all classes, yfir biodandi eingla ok þioda ruler of angels and nations (Ásgrímsson 1967. Lilja 11-2) The alliterating sounds are vowels, and the latter line is over-alliterated, ei in eingla. Ögmundsson used over-alliteration in a similar manner to Ásgrímsson. In addition, secondary alliteration was used by him more frequently than by his predecessors. Poems by Arason had similar characteristics; however, these metrical flaws became less frequent after this, with the exception of over-alliteration by Pétursson. After his time, over-alliteration became an infrequent practice. As can easily be seen in Table 9.2, over-alliteration and secondary alliteration were by far most frequently used between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. Perhaps this development can be related to the

152

Alliteration in Culture

Table 9.2 Over-alliteration in first and second line, secondary alliteration side by side (i.e. in contiguous feet) and separately (i.e. when one or more feet stand between them) Poets in date order

Boddason, Bragi Skalla-Grímsson, Egill Þórðarson, Sighvatur Þórðarson Arnór jarlask. Skúlason, Einar Þórðarson, Sturla Ásgrímsson, Eysteinn Ögmundsson, Hallur Arason, Jón Sigurðsson, Einar í Heyd. Pétursson, Hallgrímur Ólafsson, Stefán Ólafsson, Eggert Þorláksson, Jón Breiðfjörð, Sigurður Hallgrímsson, Jónas Thorsteinsson, Steingr. Jochumsson, Matthías Jónsson, Kristján Stefánsson, Davíð Steinarr, Steinn

Overalliteration in first line – – 1 3 2 1 9 6 13 7 13 3 3 1 – 1 1 – – – –

OverSecondary Secondary alliteration alliteration alliteration in second contiguous separated line – – – 1 5 3 14 18 12 5 3 2 – – – 2 1 1 – 1 2

– – 1 2 1 1 3 13 28 5 – 7 2 – – 1 1 1 4 – –

– – 1 2 – – 1 10 13 3 4 1 1 1 1 3 2 – 11 3 –

writings of two bishops in the fifteenth century, Guðbrandur Þorláksson (Þorláksson 1589) and Oddur Einarsson (see Samsonarson 1989), in which they urged poets to write their poetry with greater care. They do not show any examples of the metrical flaws that are such eyesores to them, which included over-alliteration and secondary alliteration. Over-alliteration and secondary alliteration have obviously been present in Icelandic poetry from early times, but they have not appeared frequently outside of the period from around 1300 to sometime in the sixteenth century, when poets seemed to weaken their stance on these flaws. Over-alliteration has always been considered a metrical flaw. Snorri Sturluson asserted this in the Edda. Whether or not secondary alliteration really is such a flaw has been debated to a greater extent (see Aðalsteinsson 1996: 39–40). When Table 9.2 is considered, it appears that the poets have consciously kept this phenomenon in check.

Ragnar Ingi Aðalsteinsson 153

This can be seen by what happens when the reins are slackened. Poems by Arason had 25 over-alliterations and 41 secondary alliterations. If the poets do not keep this in mind, results become similar to what was seen here. Table 9.2 shows that secondary alliteration has been seen as a flaw most of the time and poets have tried to steer past this as best they could, apart from the exception which shows best of all that the rules existed.

Final comments What has been discussed above is one strand in Nordic and Icelandic metrics, namely alliteration, and my focus has mostly been on what alliterates with what, i.e. which sounds alliterate together, together with a discussion on over-alliteration and secondary alliteration. Two aspects of the results are especially noteworthy. Firstly, that in Icelandic the alliteration tradition has been kept alive and well for 1100 years. Though there have been some minor changes following the changes in pronunciation, the basis is still intact. Other nations have long since ceased keeping up these traditions. This stubbornness of Icelanders will not be discussed further here, but the fact is that the rules that poets adhered to at the date of the Icelandic settlement are still valid in the twenty-first century. Secondly, it is noteworthy that the gnystuduls sk, sp and st, which were separate alliterative sounds in ancient poetry, are still used in the same way, and what is more, Icelanders have added three more initial clusters which have had the same position as gnystuduls since around 1400. Those new gnystuduls are the clusters sl, m and sn. For 600 years Icelandic poets have alliterated sl only with sl, sm only with sm and sn only with sn. There are exceptions to this rule, but they are very few and it is clear that the basic rule was for those initial clusters to alliterate only within each cluster but not with each other or with other s-pairs. This shows that while our neighbours lost their poetic rules one after another, Icelanders took to them to such an extent that they preserved them in their poetry and added to them so that these rules are even more stringent now than they were when the settlers arrived here during the eighth century.

Bibliography Aðalsteinsson, R.I. 1990. Bögubókin. Reykjavik: Iðnú. Aðalsteinsson, R.I. 1996. Suttungur. Reykjavik: Iðnú.

154

Alliteration in Culture

Aðalsteinsson, R.I. 2004. ‘Frá Braga til Steins’. MA thesis, University of Iceland, Reykjavik. Aðalsteinsson, R.I. 2005. ‘Ljóðstafurinn s í íslenskum kveðskap’. Són. Tímarit um óðfræði. 3: 59–85. Arason, Jón. 1918. Jón Arasons religiøse Digte. Kaupmannahöfn: Útgefið af [Published by] Finni Jónssyni. Bianco Lunos Bogtrykkeri. Árnason, K. 2000. The Rhythms of Dróttkvætt and Other Old Icelandic Metres. Institute of Linguistics. University of Iceland, Reykjavik. Ásgrímsson, Eysteinn. 1967. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning ved Finnur Jónsson A II. Kaupmannahöfn: Rosenkilde og Bagger. Beinteinsson, S. 1953. Bragfræði og háttatal. Reykjavik: H.f. Leiftur. Boddason, Bragi. 1967. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning ved Finnur Jónsson A I. Kaupmannahöfn: Rosenkilde og Bagger. Breiðfjörð, Sigurður. 1951/53. Ljóðasafn I og II. Reykjavik: Ísafoldarprentsmiðja h.f. Eddukvæði I og II. 1985. ed. Ólafur Briem. Reykjavik: Veröld. Eggertsdóttir, M. 1994. ‘Um skáldskaparfræði Jóns Ólafssonar Grunnvíkings’. Erindi flutt á málþingi um Jón Ólafsson úr Grunnavík laugardaginn, 16 April 1994. Orðmennt og Góðvinir Grunnavíkur-Jóns, Reykjavik. Fritzner, J. 1954. Ordbog over Det gamle norske Sprog. Oslo: Tryggve Juul Møller Forlag. Hallgrímsson, Jónas. 1989. Ljóð og lausamál. Reykjavik: Svart á hvítu. Heusler, A. 1925. Deutsche Versgeschichte. I (Zweite unverendärte Auflage). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Indriðason, Þ. G. 1990. ‘Að stuðla við sníkjuhljóð’. Mímir, 29: 8–20. Íslenzk orðabók handa skólum og almenningi. 1980. ed. Á. Böðvarsson. Reykjavik: Bókaútgáfa Menningarsjóðs. Jochumsson, Matthías. 1936. Ljóðmæli. Reykjavik: Magnús Matthíasson. Jóhannesson, J. S. 1923. Íslenzk málfræði. Reykjavik: Bókaverslun Ársæls Árnasonar. Jónsson, Kristján. 1986. Ljóðmæli, ed. M.V. Sæmundsson. Reykjavik: Almenna bókafélagið, ljóðaklúbbur. Ögmundsson, Hallur. 1922–27. Kvæðasafn eftir nafngreinda íslenska menn frá miðöldum. Reykjavik: Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag. Ólafsson, Eggert. 1832. Kvæði. Kaupmannahöfn: S.L. Möller. Ólafsson, J. (Svefneyingur) (John Olafsen). 1786. Om Nordens gamle Digtekunst, dens Grundreglar, Versarter, Sprog og Foredragsmaade. Copenhagen: Trykt hos August Fridrich Stein. Ólafsson, Stefán. Kvæði. 1885. Gefin út af hinu íslenzka bókmentafélagi. Kaupmannahöfn: Bianco Luno. Pétursson, Hallgrímur. 1956. Króka-Refs rímur. Finnur Sigmundsson bjó til prentunar. Rit Rímnafélagsins, VII. Reykjavik: Rímnafélagið. Pétursson, Hallgrímur. 1996. Passíusálmar. Reykjavik: Landsbókasafn Íslands – Háskólabókasafn. Pétursson, S. K. 1996. Hrynjandi íslenskrar tungu. Reykjavik: Dögun. First published 1923. Samsonarson, J. 1989. ‘Hakabragur’. Véfréttir sagðar Vésteini Ólasyni fimmtugum, ed. Sigmundsson, S., Reykjavik [s.n.]. Schweitzer, Ph. 1887. ‘Um stuðla setning og höfuðstafs í íslensku’. Tímarit hins íslenzka bókmenntafjelags, 8: 316–18.

Ragnar Ingi Aðalsteinsson 155 Sievers, E. 1893. Altgermanische Metrik. Halle: Niemeyer. Sigurðsson, Einar, í Heydölum. 2000. Vísnabók Guðbrands, eds J. Torfason and K. Eiríksson. Reykjavik: Bókmenntafræðistofnun Háskóla Íslands. Sigurðsson, E. 1986. ‘Athugasemdir um h- og hv- í stuðlun’. Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði, 8. Reykjavik: Íslenska málfræðingafélagið, pp. 7–29. Skalla-Grímsson, Egill. 1967. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning ved Finnur Jónsson A I. Kaupmannahöfn: Rosenkilde og Bagger. Skúlason, Einar. 1967. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning ved Finnur Jónsson A I. Kaupmannahöfn: Rosenkilde og Bagger. Stefánsson, Davíð. 1952. Að norðan. Reykjavik: Helgafell. Stefánsson, Davíð. 1960. Í dögun. Reykjavik: Helgafell. Steinarr, Steinn. 1964. Kvæðasafn og greinar. Reykjavik: Helgafell. Sturluson, S. 1999. Edda: Háttatal, ed. A. Faulkes. Viking Society for Northern Research, University College of London. First published by Clarendon Press in 1991. Thorsteinsson, Steingrímur. 1973. Ljóðmæli. Reykjavik: Prentsmiðjan Leiftur. Þorláksson, G. 1589. Ein ny Psalma Bok, Med morgum Andligum Psalmum, Kristelegum Lofsaunguum og Vijsum skickanlega til samans sett og Auken og endurbætt. Hólum. Þorláksson, Jón. 1976. Kvæði, frumort og þýdd, ed. H. Pálsson. Reykjavik: Rannóknastofnun í bókmenntafræði og Menningarsjóður. Þórðarson, Arnór, jarlaskáld. 1967. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning ved Finnur Jónsson A I. Kaupmannahöfn: Rosenkilde og Bagger. Þórðarson, Sighvatur. 1967. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning ved Finnur Jónsson A I. Kaupmannahöfn: Rosenkilde og Bagger. Þórðarson, Sturla. 1967. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning ved Finnur Jónsson A II. Kaupmannahöfn: Rosenkilde og Bagger. Þórólfsson, B. K. 1987. Um íslenskar orðmyndir á 14. og 15. öld. Reykjavik: Málvísindastofnun Háskóla Íslands, endurprentun. Bókin var áður gefin út af Fjelagsprentsmiðjunni, 1925 [Published earlier by Fjelagsprentsmiðjan, 1925]. Þráinsson, H. 1981. ‘Stuðlar, höfuðstafir, hljóðkerfi’. Afmæliskveðja til Halldórs Halldórssonar 13. júlí 1981. Reykjavik: Íslenska málfræðingafélagið.

10 Alliteration in Mongol Poetry György Kara

Abstract Alliteration is present in the oldest known Mongol literary monuments (for instance, in the thirteenth-century Secret History of the Mongols), in modern writing and folklore, in practically all genres of poetry: epic, lyric, riddles, proverbs, and, as a non-structural embellishment, also in prose. Although Mongol literature and folklore have verses without it, alliteration is the commonest sound feature in Mongol versification. It is also the usual substitute of rhyme when translating foreign verses into Mongol. The Mongol kind of alliteration embraces the initial consonant if any and the first vowel of the words. Except clitics or particles, all word categories and parts of speech may alliterate. Word-initial alliteration binds parallel rhythmic units in couplets and strophes as well as within the lines. It often accompanies syntactic and semantic parallelism. It may be combined with other formal features, such as assonance, endrhyme, head-rhyme, medial rhyme, reduplication, fixed number of syllables, beats or words. The nearest cognates of Mongol alliteration are found in Old Turkic and Manchu poetry. Old Turkic alliteration may have inspired that of the Mongols. Mongol alliteration may have been instrumental in preservation of alliteration in South Siberian Turkic folklore. Manchu alliteration may be of Mongol origin as is that of Southern Evenki Solon verse.

The commonest formal structural element, sound figure and device of versification in the verbal art of almost all Mongol peoples (including the Buryats in the north, the Kalmyks and Oirats in the west, and the 156

György Kara 157

Daurs1) is a kind of alliteration that embraces the initial consonant if any and the first vowel of the words (not necessarily the coda if any). This consonance means the sameness or similarity of the beginnings of parallel units (for instance, parallel verses or the beginning of a verse and the beginning of its second half). Similarity means that alliteration of correlated voiced and voiceless or weak and strong consonants (for instance, d and t; , and cˇ and their other, later equivalents, such as j, c, z, ž, etc.; g and k, as well as, in several modern Mongol languages, g and x), or that of correlated mid- and high-position rounded vowels (for instance, o and u; ö and ü), also that of the unrounded front vowels (e and i), or of alveolar and alveopalatal fricatives (s and š) are allowed. Short vowels may alliterate with long vowels and diphthongs and vice versa. In this essay,2 the term ‘assonance’ will be used for these, nonfull, alliterations. The Mongol alliteration may be line-initial or lineinternal; some verses have both. It often functions as an enhancement of another major structural feature of prosody, which is parallelism, semantic or syntactic or both.3 Full initial and, in the last three verses, internal alliteration (küseltei/ köke/kümun/könggen and körbekü/ködelgen/kösin) binds the lines in Inannaši’s one-sentence ars poetica (late nineteenth century): küseltei sonin udqa uyangya kemegcˇi

If poetry, though lovely and curious, köke egüle salkin-a körbekü metü cannot move the human heart kümün-ü sedkil-i ködelgen ese cˇidabasu like the winds roll the blue sky‘s clouds, könggen bir-i kösin yaγu kimüi why should one lift the light brush to write?4 It had been held, certainly with some exaggeration, that alliteration was the sine qua non of Mongol verse, oral or written.5 The vowel of the alliterating syllable is usually stressed. Stress is not contrastive and its nature, position and role in versification have been and remain a controversial issue.6 It seems that in Mongol the dynamic stress originally fell on the first syllable. As the words, at least in modern Khalkha and Buryat Mongol, tend to have a rising melody, the pitch of the alliterating initial syllables is lower than that of the rest of the word. In living Mongol languages the stress may move to a long vowel, but this shift does not alter the pattern of alliteration.

158

Alliteration in Culture

Mongol terminology An old, traditional Mongol term for versification, attested in the fragments of a fourteenth-century print of a Mongol hymn honouring the Buddhist goddess Maha¯kalī, is the verb qolba- ‘to join, to connect, to unite’ (a cognate of Turkic qoš-). Here is one of the two strophes with the term in question from the alliterative hymn: aγui erdem-i cˇinu quriyau : ayalγun qolban maγtaγcˇi : ˇosgi odsir : ayaγ-a tegimlig C ali be [.........] qaratuγai ❖

Summing up thy great virtue, he who joins the sounds and praises thee, may the venerable Choskyi ‘Od-zer see whatever [...........].7

The name of a modern eastern Mongol folklore genre xolboo ‘a song in a string of couplets or quatrains, often a catalogue-like eulogy or satyrical ode’ is derived from the same verb qolba-. Modern Khalkha Mongol has tolgoi xolbox ‘to join the heads’ and tolgoi xolboc ‘head joint’ for alliteration. Classifying rhymes and other forms, Sayisiyaltu, a modern southern Mongol poet, discusses initial alliteration (tolugai qolbolta ‘joining the heads’), being similar (iil), full (bürin) or partial (qagas), line-final end-rhyme (segül qolbolta ‘joining the tails’), internal alliteration (büse qolbolta ‘joining the belts’), head-rhyme (ereü qolbolta ‘joining the chins’), internal end-rhyme (ölmei qolbolta ‘joining the insteps’), and double alliteration (dabquˇcaga qolbolta). From the twentieth-century Jarut minstrel Paˇjai’s Teˇjigebüri qoyar isige-yin yariy-a ‘Discourse of two well-fed kids’, Sayisiyaltu quotes four lines with the combination of head-rhyme, i.e. line-initial endrhyme (longqon and qongqon), and four line-final (grammatical) endrhymes (-ˇj , suffix of narrative past). The first three of them follow a medial consonance of -nd-, -mb-), the last two lines are bound by initial alliteration. I quote the text given in classical Mongol orthography on the left, to which I add its modern Jarut pronunciation8 on the right: ee

ee ee

e

longqon gedesü-ni cˇonduyiai read qongqon miq-a-ni bandayiai

loŋhon g ds-in šondii hoŋhon mah-in bendii

György Kara 159

ee ee

uγuˇca niruγu-ni bömbüyiei uˇ cir-tai sayiqan tarγulaai

u˚u˚ša nu˚ru˚u˚-ni bumbii u˚širtee seehan targal

Their bottle-like belly was round, protruding. Their bell-like9 flesh felt thick and firm. Their rump and back were ball-shaped. They grew beautifully fat indeed.

Ages and genres Alliteration is present in the oldest known Mongol literary monuments (thirteenth century), in modern poetry and folklore, in practically all genres of poetry: epic, lyric, riddles, proverbs, and, as a non-structural embellishment, also in prose. It is the usual form given to foreign verses translated into Mongol. Such are, for instance, the early seventeenth-century Mongol version of the Tibetan Sa-skya Pandita’s Legsbshad by the Chahar Blo-bzang tshul-khrims (Lubsangcültim), or the late twentieth-century Mongol translation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet by Xödöögiin (Damdinî) Perlee.

Alliteration in The Secret History of the Mongols The Secret History of the Mongols (Mongqolun niucˇa tobcˇa’an, henceforth MNT; thirteenth century), which abounds in versified passages, offers examples of several types of alliteration. Word-initial alliteration binds two hemistichs, divided by a caesura, for instance, in MNT §79; it emphasises the grammatical and semantic parallelism of the two lines: qoluqat qo’oiu’u šilüget šiberiü’ü The chicks have shed their down, The lambs have grown up! (de Rachewiltz’s translation) MNT §56 has an assonant initial/internal alliteration te/da in the first line, but repeats da with the figura etymologica (daba‘an ‘mountain pass’ and daba- ‘to pass, to go through’). The parallel line has full u/u lineinitial/internal alliteration: teberigü-cˇinu daba’at olon dababa uyilaqdaqu-cˇinu usut olon ketülbe

160

Alliteration in Culture

The one whom you like to embrace has passed many mountain passes. The one whom you bewail has crossed many waters.10 More ornate, triple alliteration, line-initial and internal (bo/bo/bu) is seen in MNT §78: botoqaniyan borbi qaaqu bu’ura metü Like a camel in rut that bites the hock of his own foal. The same source also contains some examples of nearly strophic structures with line-initial and internal alliteration. Such is the Lament of the Merkit warrior to whom the abducted wife of the future Chinggis Khan was given and who had to flee after his people’s defeat (MNT §111, 11 lines with qa and 13 lines with qo/qu/qa initials): qara kere’e qalisu körisü idegü ˇjaya’atu bö’etele

A black crow though destined to eat but husk and rind, qalawun toqura’uni idesü ke’en ešin au’u foolishly fancied eating a goose, a crane. ˇ qatar mawui Cilger bi I, the cruel, vicious ˇ ilger, C qatun üindür qalqu bolun lifted my hand to the Lady the Dame and so qamuq Merkitte huntawu became disastrous for all Merkits; ˇilger bi qaracˇu mawu C qara teri’ündüriyen gürtegü bolba qaqcˇaqan aminiyan qoroqun qarangqu qabcˇal širqusu qalqa kene boldaquyu bi

quladu mawu šibawun

I, the common, vicious ˇ ilger, C have got to pay for it with my black head. To save my only life, I would sneak into a lightless gorge. At whom can I find protection? The buzzard, the bad bird,

György Kara 161

quluqana kücˇügüne idegü aya’atu bö’etele though destined to eat rats and mice, qun toqura’uni idesü ke’en ešin a’ u’u fancied eating a swan, a crane. ˇ qunar mawu Cilger bi I, the stalking, vicious ˇ ilger, C qutuqtai sutai üini found my way to take quriyau iregü olun the holy, blessed Dame and so qotola Merkitte huntawu bolba I became disastrous for all Merkits. ˇ ilger qokir mawu C I, the nasty, vicious ˇ ilger, C qokimai teri’ündüriyen gürtegü bolba bi have got to pay for it with my withered head. qorqosunu tedüi aminiyan qoroqun To save my life which is but a sheep-dung, qaratu qabcˇala širqusu I would sneak into a dark gorge. qorqosunu tedüi amina minu For my life which is but a sheep-dung, qoriyan kene boldaquyu bi At whom can I find a shelter?11 Chinggis Khan’s eulogy of his elite guards in MNT §230 is an even longer verse with quasi-strophic structure.

Strophic alliteration Later poetry shows fully developed strophic versification usually with initial, sometimes also with internal alliteration, as in the following quatrain (the fourth of seven) by Chos-kyi ‘Od-zer in the colophon of a 1312 print: namur-un saran metü || naγar-tu buyan-iyar : nacˇiγai eke || nayiran oqiu : naγarbai gür ulus || naγadun cˇenggen-iyer :

By the merit as bright as the autumn moon, let Mother Earth be in order and harmony; let the wide empire enjoy forever

162

Alliteration in Culture

nasu aburida || nasulan irγatuγai ❖

living in playful joy and pleasure.12

A quatrain with full initial alliteration from the song Labtai gagca ‘The Only Sure’ by Rabai: ölböröxgüi ideenii xišigiig soyirxoo öncˇiröxgüi nöxöriin xišigiig soyirxoo ötölöxgüi biyiin xišigiig soyirxoo öbödöxgüi cogtoi xišigiig soyirxoo Deign Deign Deign Deign

to give the grace of food that will not let us hunger. to give the grace of friends who will not abandon us. to give the grace of a body that will not wither away. to give the glorious grace of having no ailment.

Alternating line-initial alliteration (xa(r)/na(m)/xa(r)/na(m) = abab) joins the lines of a quatrain in the Khalkha Mongol poet Yawuuxulan’s poem Xar-Us nuurîn šagšuurga (1959) cited here according to the standard Cyrillic orthography and one of its possible readings:13 Xar-Us nuurîn šagšuurga

xar-us nuuriin šagšuuraγ

The reed of the Blackwater Lake

Namrîn salxind isgerne.

namriin salxind isgeren

whistles in the autumn wind.

Xaraxad neg l uitgartai

xarxad neg-l uitgartai

It seems so full of spleen as it

Nams nams böxöljönö

namas namas böxöljön

sways up and down and to and fro.

Alliteration as embellishment in prose and in titles In a rhythmic prose passage, MNT §58, we see initial (ha/a) and internal (qatqu-/qahan-) alliteration, also internal alliteration due to figura etymologica (ösöl/ösön; kisal/kisan), assonant alliteration (qurban/qatqu-) and assonant end-rhyme (ösöl/kisal and ösön/kisan): harban qurbanta qatqulduu Ambaqai qahannu ösöl ösön kisal kisan yadaba Thirteen times they fought with them, but could not get revenge, could not take vengeance for Ambakai Khan.

György Kara 163

Another example reads in the story of Lady Börte’s abduction, in MNT §100: Qo’aqcˇin emegen Börte üini ni’usu ke’en böken qara’utu tergentür unu’ulu bö’ere alaq hüker kölü Granny Qo’aqcˇin said: ‘Let me hide Lady Börte,’ and she made the lady ride in a covered cart, and harnessed an ox with dappled loins ... Alliteration may stress the rhythmic organization of titles of works, as, for instance, in the title of one of Rabai’s didactic poems (nineteenth century): Cagiin amiig todruulagcˇ Caasan šubuu Paper Bird (= Kite) That Clarifies the Mood of the Time. Also in the title of a book by Düinxerab (1991): Tamîn togoond tawan il Five Years in Hell’s Cauldron, or in a headline of the Ulaanbaatar daily Önöödör/Today (18 July 2010): Xoyor dollarîn tölöö xordo üxexee šaxee To get two dollars, nearly died of poison.

Word categories in alliteration Except clitics or particles, all word categories and parts of speech may alliterate, even interjections, as in the following couplet from Shes-rab Seng-ge’s Twelve Deeds (early fourteenth century; f. 56b) with initial alliteration (aqa ‘elder brother’ and ai ‘ah’) and internal rhyme (aqa and aqa, usually ‘collar, frontier’, but here an echo word): aq-a aq-a minu alaγdaba : Saying: ‘My old fellow, you are killed. ai cˇi boscˇu buruγud kemen : Hey, get up and flee!’14 See also another interjection (ou-a) alliterating with an attributive noun (oor) in a Mongol Maha¯s´¯tavana-colophon ı (probably late sixteenth century): ou-a teyin ber bögesü burqan-u nom-i : oor Mongγol-iyar duγulγau ese boluγsan-iyar : Alas! Even so it was not possible to let sound the Buddha’s Law in the genuine Mongol language ...

164

Alliteration in Culture

Line-initial alliteration formed by inverse word order Although normally the predicate (verbal or nominal) is the last member of a Mongol sentence, sometimes, for the sake of alliteration, it is placed at the beginning of a line, as in orcˇiγuluγsan buyu Mongyol-un kelen-dür with inverse word order (predicate – complement) instead of Mongyol-un kelen-dür orcˇiγuluγsan buyu in the late sixteenth-century postscript to the Tümen šilügtü (‘Sutra with Ten Thousand Verses’ in the Manchu Imperial print of the Mongol Kanur, vol. XLV, f. 453a): buyan-tu Onbo qung tayii kiged ber ❖ orcˇiγul kemen ulam duradduγad :

olan-i sonosuγsan Siregetü guiši cˇoriu-a:

As they and the meritorious prince Onbo have more and more requested it saying ‘translate it!’ – the much-learned ˇ oru-a Siregetü Guiši C

udqas-i nayiraγul-un tokiyalduγulju ele :

according and defining the meanings, orcˇiγuluγsan buyu : Mongγol-un kelen-dür ❖ translated it into the Mongol language.

The imperative orcˇiγul ‘translate!’ is subordinated as a direct complement to the verb of saying (keme-), just as in Shes-rab Seng-ge’s Twelve Deeds (f. 56a; see Poppe 1967: 66, 154), where a string of imperative verbs (bari ‘seize!’ and two others) begins the line: bari küli cˇabcˇi kemen barkiraqui maγui daγun-iyar ayuγulqui

Seize, bind, chop him! – they say and Frighten him shouting with horrible voice.

Alliteration combined with other features Structural alliteration, line-initial or internal, may be combined with other formal features, such as assonance, end-rhyme, head-rhyme, reduplication, etc., as in the following examples. An instance of double inverse word order in the service of versification (imperative soyurqa ‘deign’ and getülün toniltuyai ‘may they cross and be redeemed’) is seen, in this case partially in order to form grammatical

György Kara 165

line-end rhyme (bögesü, üebesü, kerkibesü) in the postscript of a Peking xylograph (see Heissig 1954: no. 128): kerbe gem endel bui ele bögesü : kedün merged asan soyurq-a üebesü : genete ucˇirau öb boluγsan bögesü : getül-ün toniltuγai eke boluγsan kerkibesü : If there are faults and flaws in this work, and if some sages see some, may they deign to mend them. If this work happened to become correct, may somehow the mother-born beings cross the stream of suffering and be redeemed. Two lines from Shes-rab Seng-ge’s description of certain devils in the Twelve Deeds (f. 55b, see Poppe 1967: 59, 105, 152) are composed with line-initial alliteration (cˇongyor/cˇodor) and head-rhyme, with internal rhyme (cˇodor/bodor), internal (mangqar/manglai) and line-final (manglai-/mariya-) alliteration as well as grammatical rhyme (generated by syntactic parallelism, manglaitan/mariyatan): cˇongγor mangqar manglaitan : cˇodor bodor mariyatan :

Those with lumpy and bald foreheads, Those with large bellies and fat bodies.

Line-initial alliteration binds four lines of a modern strophe whose first three lines also have genuine end-rhyme (Lhagwa 2004: 15): Xacar uruuland baltai Xangax setgel galtai Xar amind xaltai Xar nüden baixgüi bol ...

Honey on cheeks and lips Flaming fulfilling heart Harmful to man‘s only life What if not those bright dark eyes ...

Line-initial head-rhyme (namar/xabar), end-rhyme (natuu/xatuu) and internal alliteration (na/na; xa/xa) bind the short lines of a Buryat proverb (Madason 1956: 13): namar natuu / xabar xatuu The fall is mild./ the spring is wild (lit, harsh, severe).

166

Alliteration in Culture

Initial alliteration and isosyllabic rhythm are combined in the quatrains of the early twentieth-century Golden Teaching by Ye-shes bstan-’dzin dbang-rgyal (Išidanjinwangil). One of them is quoted here in a near modern, scribal-type Ordos reading: galuun önggö ulagaan-cˇu utaan anuu xarabtur garxu surgaal dusatai-cˇu üges-inuu dagaaril gaŋ tömör gataguu-cˇu galuun dotor uyaxan garši teneg golobocˇu oyuutandur udumi Red is the fire, but its smoke is blackish. Helpful is the teaching, but its words are harsh. Hard is the steel, but it softens in fire. What the stupid despises is guidance for the smart. Double alliteration (dalan/dalai and bugîn/buxîn) adorns lines 994 and 996 of the West Buryat epic Alamži Mergen; lines 994–5 have line-end assonant alliteration (šandaagaar/sidehen), vowel alliteration at the end of lines 996–7 (ebereer/eligelhen), an assonant alliteration (züi/zai) with internal rhyme (züiži/zaiži), gradation between lines 994 and 996 (dalan ‘seventy’ and dalai ‘countless’) and line-final grammatical rhyme (-hen in šidehen/eligelhen) is repeated in lines 995 and 997: 994 dalan bugîn šandaahaar 995 züiži zaiži šidehen 996 dalai buxîn ebereer 997 züiži zaiži eligelhen 998 buxîn šara nomoyoo 999 gargaldaži asarbai

They took and brought 999 their bullish yellow bows 998 of which the belly side was matched and patched 997 with the horns of countless many bulls 996 and which was matched and patched and covered 995 with the sinews of seventy stags. 994

Here follow some Kalmyk examples of line-initial (arwn/awcˇ) and internal (arwn/ay; castin cagan) alliteration, alliteration with figura etymologica (caaran/caad; naaran/naad) with head-rhyme (caaran/naaran; caad/naad) and assonant alliterations (cus/cas; urn/oln, where cus/cas is also an assonant head-rhyme) from the description of Princess Šawdl in the Jangar Epic (p. 12): arwn zurγata aγ Šawdlig

Princess Šawdl the sixteenyear-old

György Kara 167

awcˇ irksn yamar dürär bäänä gixlää: whom he brought is like this: caaran xäläxn´ If she looks thither, caad dalan irmägs tooldgm. the yonder ocean starts to sparkle. naaran xäläxn´ If she looks hither, naad dalan irmägs tooldgm. the ocean on this side starts to sparkle.15 cusnas ulan xalxta, Her cheeks redder than blood, casnas caγan sangnata, her nostrils whiter than snow, urn eein iškgsn, she sits putting on the left of her forehead oln xatd zöwcˇil uygsn the snow-white hat castin caγan xalwngig tailored by her skillful mother and zün cox deerän tal´wn suudg bolna. rightly sewn by many dames. Alliteration (bu) and assonant head-rhyme (buy/noy) compete in the Beginning (Eklc) of the same epic, lines 250–3: burxn sääxn eeiγän buy uga xaygsn bum örk alwtan noy uga oksn

His god-like beautiful mother he left behind without due care.16 His hundred thousand subjects he forsook with no ruling prince.

In the first and the last of the seven quatrains of his poem Šüleg min’ xüleg min’ (‘My Verse, My Steed’) written in 1977, Yawuuxulan applies lineinitial alliteration (lines 1–2, šüleg/šüüder), head-rhyme (or paronomasia, in line 1, šüleg/xüleg) and internal alliteration with end-rhyme (lines 2 and 4, melteren/melmeren), repeats line 1 in line 3, repeats the predicate of line 2 in line 4, and has no initial alliteration (sar) in line 4: Šüleg min´ – xüleg min´, cˇi bid xoyor Šüüder melteren ceceg uiltal duulax yostoi! Šüleg min´ – xüleg min´, cˇi bid xoyor Sar melmeren xeer xonotol duulax yostoi! My verse, my steed, you and I, We should sing till the dew shimmers and the flowers weep. My verse, my steed, you and I, We should sing till the moon glimmers while spending the night over the grassland.

168

Alliteration in Culture

Alliteration building groups of lines Line-initial alliteration may bind a couplet, as in a string of couplets of a Western Mongol (Bayit) song with varying parallelism (aa||bb||cc, etc., the first 6 lines of 16, recorded by Vladimircov in the first decade of the twentieth century, see his Obrazcy (1926: 28)): kök-l bäidak || daalimbuu bäidak köörkön bäidak || cˇi bäidak ulaan bäidak || daalimbuu bäidak ucˇirtää bäidak || cˇi bäidak noγoon bäidak || cˇescüü bäidak nomγon bäidak || cˇi bäidak

That what is blue is the cotton cloth. The one who is pretty is you. That what is red is the cotton cloth. The one who is my destiny is you. That what is green is the tussore silk. The one who is gentle is you.

It may cement the lines of a triplet, as in the triads quoted later, or, more frequently, a quatrain, as in several examples mentioned above, or a pentastich, as in Rabai’s five-strophe Tantric love song ‘Full of the Best Qualities’ (Ülemiin cˇanar tögöldör), strophe two: Xöšüün setgeliig uyaruulagcˇ Xöxöö šuwuunî egšig-šig Xöörxön eyeldeg üg-cˇini Xüürnen suuxad uramtai Xöörxön aalit minuu jee

Like the cuckoo’s sounds that softens the stiffened heart, your lovely, gentle words delight me when we chat, oh, my lovely-tempered friend!17

Even more lines may have the same alliteration, see, for instance, in MNT §111 quoted above, where 13 alliterative lines form the second unit, while in Rabai’s poem ‘When All Virtues Found’ (Erdem bügdiig olood) 28 lines (7 quatrains) begin with e or i. His ‘Song with Letter A’ (A üsgiin duun) has 20 initial a’s.

Alliteration and line length The length of alliterating lines varies from 2 to 12 words; strong syntactic and semantic parallelism may define a more or less fixed number of words and thus the number of beats.18 In epic songs, the usual number of words in a line is three as in the West Buryat epic Alamži Mergen.

György Kara 169

Its lines 11–14 show internal alliteration in the first line, initial in the first two lines, and assonant head-rhyme in lines 13–14 (türen/garan): sagai yüünei sar´uunda saarhan yüünei n´imgendü türen gehen yüüme-le garan gehen yüüme-le

When the time was still glorious, When the paper used to be thin, It was then that he was born, It was then that he appeared.

In the same epic, lines 162–5 with full syntactic parallelism (162– 3||164–5), have seven syllables in three words or rhythmic units, initial alliteration in lines 162 and 163 (eržin/erxin), in lines 164 and 165 (boržin/bohogo) and in the last words (bodxo-/bütee-) of lines 162 and 164 and assonant head-rhyme (eržin/boržin) in lines 162 and 164: eržin-xanai šuluugaar erxin xeži bodxobo boržin-xanai šuluugaar bohogo xeži büteebe

Of he Of he

stone of mother of pearl built the lintel. stone of granite made the sill.

The epic fragment in MNT §56 also has three rhythmic units in each line (the first two words form an adverbial complement). Threefold alliteration (ke-) marks the rhythmic units in the first line; the same alliteration occurs twice in the second line; and double grammatical end-rhyme (the subject possessive marker -yen/-ben and the suffix of a negative verbal noun -mser) responds to parallelism. The finite form of the verb of existence bü- that closes the sentence is beyond the rhythmic organisation. kei ö’ede ke’er qaara

kegüliyen ke’eliben

keyisümser ölösümser büliyi

(My good lord Cˇiledü is one) Whose tuft has never blown against the wind, Whose belly has never been hungry in the steppe. (de Rachewiltz’s translation) Long alliterative lines (with some internal alliteration in the first) mark a strophe in the postscript to the Oirat Zaya Pandita’s Mongol Man. i bka’‘bum (mid-seventeenth century): möngke busu ülü sanaγcˇi mel bükün-i mederegülün duradqu-yin tula kiged : mör ese oluγsad-i tonilqui mör-ün yeke qarγui-da oroγulqu-yin tula :

170

Alliteration in Culture

mön een-ü vcˇir [= ocˇir] metü degedü bey-e-yi quriyaqui yosu üegülün : muqur-a kürügsen boγda tere geriyes arliγ bolun γurbaγula burqan-u bey-e-dür singgeügüi To make aware and to remind of transitoriness all those who do not think about it and to turn onto the great path of redemption those who did not find the right path, also showing the way of how to reduce the diamond-like supreme body of the sovereign, the saint who reached the end, uttered his will, and the three19 are absorbed in the Buddha’s body. Short lines build an Ordos hunters’ rhyme (Mostaert 1937: 483), where initial alliteration (a a i a a) is combined with end-rhyme (baxatää/maxatää/amtatää/xawatää/baxatää): abbul baxatää alawuli maxatää idewüli amtatää alawuli xawatää aldawuli baxatää

If If If If If

you you you you you

take it, you’ll have satisfaction. kill it, you’ll have meat. eat it, it is tasty. kill it, you’ll have pleasure. miss it, you’ll still have satisfaction.

The line-initial alliteration in a nearly isosyllabic, four-line Ordos riddle about the hare-catching net (ööšö; Mostaert 1937: 432, no. 167) follows the pattern mi/mi/xo/xo. Here the first pair is based on repetition. The first line repeats the same stem (minga) thrice, and the last, predicative words of the four lines have not only grammatical quasi-end-rhyme (ldak/ldok, with the repetition of angildak), but also medial alliteration (nga/ngi): minga mingan mingaldak

Thousand and thousand are thousandfold.

minga tümen angildak

Thousand and ten thousand are knotting.

xoo mudu xongildok

Pale trees [= wooden poles] are loosely standing.

xoyor tümen angildak

Twenty thousand are knotting.20

A triad (a genre of popular wisdom in three parallel sentences which have the same predicate) shows initial alliteration and internal assonant

György Kara 171

rhyme (dör ‘nose ring’, ger ‘home’, tör ‘social order; law’) as well as the non-structural repetition of r (Galsan 2002: 54): muxar üxer dör barax muu ber ger barax mulguu xaan tör barax

A hornless ox loses the nose ring. A bad daughter-in-law ruins the household. A half-witted ruler ruins the order.

Another triad (Galsan 2002: 56) is richly ornamented with initial alliteration (šir/šiwer), full (onomatopoeic) and partial reduplication (šir šir; šiwer awir), initial assonant alliteration (ši/se), internal alliteration (eyi ew), internal assonant alliteration (sewtei/cawtai and sewtei/saw) and internal assonant head-rhyme (sewtei cawtai): šir šir boroo xuwcas barax šiwir awir üg eyi ew barax sewtei cawtai saw dotorxoo barax

Rustling rains ruin the robe. Whispered words may ruin the concord. Vessels with flaws and chinks may ruin their contents.

An Ordos riddle (Mostaert 1937: 414, no. 90, üüg ‘pen, calamus’) blends initial (toodog/togos) and internal (toodog/torgon) alliteration and internal assonant rhyme (torgon/mergen): toodogiin torgon süül | togosiin mergen süül Silky bustard tail. | Witty peacock tail. The versifying tools of another Ordos riddle (Mostaert, Textes, p. 418, no. 110, gasag ‘cart’) include repetition (am-), internal alliteration (amd/ääsah) and rhyme (ääsah/xääsah): amd orowol ääsaŋ | amaas garwul xääsaŋ He is a boss if on the road. | He is a barrier if out of the road.21 An Ordos benediction (örööl; Mostaert, Textes, p. 456, no. 2) has initial alliteration (sä/sa; ehke/erdenin) and assonant head-rhyme in the second line (eŋke/möŋkö): sään yawu | sanaagaaran irga eŋke yawu | möŋkö irga erdenin šaŋdu | dogton irga

Fare well. | Live happy as you like. Go safe. | Live happy forever. Staying in a jewel palace, | Live happy there.22

172

Alliteration in Culture

Dashdorjiin Nacagdori’s ‘Poem on History’ (Tüüxen šüleg, 1936) begins with a strophe that has the following formula of line-initial alliteration: aa’bb’ (manai, mongol, gegeen, xeden), The second halves of the first two lines are embellished with internal alliteration (maš, magad) at the beginning of the second halves, three instances of assonant internal alliteration appear in the third line (xangai, gowi, giigüül-): Manai Mongol ulus | maš ertenii uls-aa. Mongolîn yaruu tüüx | magad ix gereltei. Gegeen nar mandasaar | xangai gowiig giigüülsen. Xeden myangan ilees | bid endee oršisoor .... Our Mongol nation has a long, long past. Her glorious history is certainly full of light. With the rising sun over wooded ridges and dry plains, We’ve been living here thousand and thousand years.

Graphical alliteration in Uygur script Sometimes alliteration (like eye rhyme) literally means the graphical similarity or sameness of the initial letters (for instance, a-, e- and na/ne, or o-/u- and no-/nu, if written in Uygur script without diacritics, have the same appearance) as noyitan ‘wet’ and onoyda- ‘to be hit’ in Shes-rab Seng-ge’s Buddha-vita (f. 57b; see Poppe 1967: 62, 155): noyitan tüligen-lüge ucˇirabasu γal ber söneyü : onoγdaγsan qadan-tur ucˇirabasu sumun ber qariyu : Even fire goes out if encountering wet wood. Even an arrow returns if encountering a rock hit by it. or ecˇige ‘father’ and neng ‘very’ in Samdan Sengge’s postscript to the Abhinis.krama in the Manchu Imperial print of the Mongol Kanur (Eldeb XXIX): ecˇige eke terigülen amitan yerüber : neng degedü qutuγ-i oltuγai ergeber :

May father and mother and all living beings gradually obtain the very supreme bliss!

György Kara 173

See also aqa ‘elder brother’ and nayidal ‘reliance’ in Erdeni tunumal neretü sudur, the anonymous biography of Altan Khan in verses, f. 8b, lines 15–17, verses ab of a quatrain: aq-a-yügen [= -yuγan] Mergen inong tngri boluγsan-u qoyina. nayidal ügei Altan qaγan qataγuin yabuu ... After his elder brother Mergen Jinong deceased, The desperate Altan Khan acted with perseverance ...23

Alliteration versus head-rhyme The Mongol kind of structural alliteration is sometimes called headrhyme, but as has been mentioned above, Mongol poetry also knows another sound effect where the ends of the initial words in parallel verses or units are consonant, which is a case of genuine head-rhyme, as for instance in the Buryat epic Alamži Mergen, lines 835–8: n´üdü haita xüünde / xaragdaa ügei yabaii-ta šüdü haita yüümendü / uulzaa ügei yabaii-ta Go without being seen by people with sharp eyes. Go without encountering things (= beasts) with sharp teeth. Thus the term head-rhyme seems less appropriate for Mongol alliteration.

Alliterative prefixes and echo words An alliterative grammatical (morphological) phenomenon well attested in Mongol, Turkic and some Tungusic languages is the prefixation that intensifies the meaning of an attributive word where the prefix is derived from the first syllable of the stem, for instance, in Classical Mongol köb köke ‘intensive blue’ from köke ‘blue’, ab ali ‘whichever’ from ali ‘which’, nib nimgen ‘very thin’ from nimgen ‘thin’, qob qoyosun ‘totally empty’ from qoyosun ‘empty, void’, or tüg tümen ‘countless many’ from tümen ‘ten thousand’. Another morphological phenomenon, the formation of echo words, is cognate to rhyme, as in Classical Mongol aqa aqa ‘elder(s)’, bömbügü cˇömbügü ‘uneven’, or Modern Mongol onxol tonxol id., yaw caw ‘exactly’, max sax ‘some kind(s) of meat’ and širee miree ‘some sort of table’; the second member of these binary units is an

174

Alliteration in Culture

echo word derived from the first and adds a sense of plurality or an air of negligence to the meaning of the first member.24

Altaic affinities of Mongol alliteration Word-initial alliteration is also known in Turkic and Manchu poetry. In Ancient Turkic this was a main principle of versification.25 In most living Turkic languages, however, the last syllable is stressed, and this raises the question if this feature in Turkic was independent of stress, or if Ancient Turkic stress was different from that of the later languages. Alliteration in South Siberian Turkic folk poetry may be Mongol in origin, or preserved under Mongol influence. Alliteration in Manchu verse26 and in the songs of the Southern Evenki Solon people is certainly a Mongol feature. In Mongol oral and written literature, it may be due to strong Ancient Turkic influence, especially in the case of strophic structure.

Notes 1. Or Dagurs, around Hailar and Qiqihar in north-eastern and in Qabcal in north-western China. 2. In this chapter I also quote some examples I discussed in a 1997 lecture about non-alliterative Mongol verses; see Kara (2001), a publication printed with many errors. 3. See Steinitz (1934), Poppe (1958), Jakobson (1981: 98–135; grammatical parallelism and its Russian facet), and (1988: 517–25; parallelism, etc.) and Lang (1987). Of these works only Poppe’s study concentrates on Mongol parallelism. 4. Lit. ‘like the blue cloud rolls in the winds’. In the translations of the examples I use italics to mark those words with no direct equivalent in the source. 5. See Gabelentz (1837), Krueger (1961: 12), Atwood (2004: 441f; prosody), Bawden (2003: xxxvf.), and more exactly Taube (1983: 188f). Non-alliterative are, for instance, the eighteenth-century Mergen Gegen Dambiijalcan’s Tibetanstyle isosyllabic strophes translated from the Tibetan Sa-skya Legs-bshad: erdemüd-ün yeke sang-tu merged-tür :

erdem kiged nomlal inu quramui : yeke dalai usun-u sang tulada : qamuγ müred mön kü tende cˇidqumui❖

It is to the sages who have the great treasuries of virtues, where the virtues and the teaching gather together. As the great ocean is the treasury of water, all rivers flow certainly there.

(The double dot and the fourfold dot are punctuation marks in Mongol texts written in Uygur script. They indicate the end of a phrase or sentence, in

György Kara 175 verses the double dot marks the end of a line, the fourfold dot – the end of a strophe.) The words of a Mongol folk song recorded by Gmelin in the early eighteenth century provide another example of isosyllabic stanzas with a strong beat but with no alliteration: dalan nayan aduunduni joroo jeerde belee-le aaba töönee bariicˇ-ee kööge-cˇine mordonai

6.

7. 8. 9. 10.

11.

Among those seventy or eighty horses there is a dark red ambler. Catch that, father, for me, your son will soon depart.

See Kara (1966) and Doerfer (1991). where he reinterpreted the same text. It is strange that Pallas, who in his Sammlungen, I (1779: 152ff.), quoted Kalmyk songs in alliterative verses, had not noticed their alliteration. He claimed that the Kalmyk verses had no syllabic measure (ohne Sylbenmaß) or orderly rhymes (ordentliche Reime), they harmonized only in some cadenzas and similarsounding endings (in gewissen Cadenzen und a"hnlich klingenden Endungen). See Pozdneev (1880: esp . 322–4), Poucha (1956b: esp. 240), also his Geheime Geschichte (1956a: 186f.), Gerasimovicˇ (1975: esp. 28–33), Janhunen et al. (2003: 9, etc.) and Svantesson et al. (2005: 85–97, esp. 94 –7). Gerasimovicˇ denied the role of stress in Modern Mongol verse. See another reading and interpretation in Cerensodnom and Taube (1993: 120). Jarut is spoken in eastern Inner Mongolia (north-east China). Mongol qongqa/qongqo(n) ‘bell; the space below the arch of the saddle; good proportion’, here it may be another metaphor for roundedness. See also Krueger (1961: 45–6). I rendered the phrase teberigü ˇc inu, nomen futuri followed by second person possessive pronoun, literally ‘your one to embrace’, as ‘the one whom you like to embrace’. See also Poucha (1956b: 239). De Rachewiltz (2004: vol. I, p. 12): ‘The one who held you in his arms.’ Postulating stress on the initial of semantically subordinated verbs (atuqai, öktügei) in MNT §137, Poucha (1956b: 240) found five-line strophes, but the whole context and the set of stressed initials do not support such a reading. Actually there are two parallel units, each consisting of two sentences: altan bosoqa-cˇinu | sakiu atuqai ke’en | ökbe bi altan bosoqadacˇa | anggida odu’asu ami-inu tasulu | ge¯tkün örgen e’üten | ergüü öktügei ke’en | ökbe bi

örgen e’ütennecˇe-cˇinu | ö’ere odu’asu öre-inu mideriü | ge¯tkün

I gave them to guard your golden threshold. If any of them abandon your golden threshold, Put him to death and throw him out. I gave them to lift the wide felt cover of the door. If any of them leave your wide door, Kick the pit of his stomach and throw him out.

176

Alliteration in Culture Before this, the same section has another, shorter variant of a father’s offering his sons to Chinggis Khan: bosoqayin-cˇinu | bo’ol boltuqai bosoqadacˇa-cˇinu | buli’asu borbi inu | hoqtol

e’ütennü-cˇinu | emcˇü bo’ol boltuqai e’ütennecˇe-cˇinu | heyilü’esü eliget-anu | etkeü | ge¯tkün

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19.

20. 21.

22.

23.

Let them be the slaves of your threshold. If any of them gets away from your threshold, Cut through the tendon of his heel. Let them be the household slaves of your door. If they part from your door, Cut off their liver and throw them out.

A cognate passage of a folklore text is analysed in Poppe (1967); see also in Kara (1970) pp. 117–19. See a different and more elaborate English translation in Cleaves (1954: 85). Here g stands for a uvular spirant and n marks a coronal nasal. See Poppe (1967: 61, 106, 154). The phrase ‘the ocean starts to sparkle’ is a free rendering for the original which says: ‘one may count all the small fish of the ocean’. Lit. ‘without merit’ or ‘without virtue’, cf. Mong. buyan, here the virtue of filial piety. See also in Bawden (2003: 695–6). Eleventh- and twelfth-century Kitan inscriptions written in Kitan composite script have strophic verses with a fixed number of words: for instance, in Empress Renyi’s epitaph, each line consists of four words. See Starikov (1982) and Kane (2009) Mong. gurbagula ‘three together’. In the given context, it is not clear to me what this word refers to (the sovereign, the saint and his will?). The sovereign (Mong. ejen ‘lord’) is the Tibetan Emperor Srong-brtsan sgam-po; to reduce the body means death (cf. amisqai quriya – ‘to reduce breathing’). Cf. Mostaert (1947: 480). Different in Mostaert (1947: 478): ‘Quand on s’en sert sur le chemin, il prend beaucoup de place (?). Quand on ne s’en sert pas sur le chemin, il a l’apparence d’un rempart.’ See Mong. jayisang ‘title of a high official’, qayisang ‘barrier, rampart’. When in a campsite the round tents form a circle, the carts are placed to fill the gap between the tents, and with these they form a fenced enclosure. Mostaert (1947: 497) renders the last line differently: ‘Vivez heureux, fixés dans un trésor riche en choses précieuses!’ In the glossary to the Textes oraux, he interprets šaη as ‘palais de prince, residence de ministre’. Mostaert’s later translation suggests an original erdenin saη ‘treasury’ instead of erdeniin šaη. See Zhurongga (1991), Elverskog (2003) and Kollmar-Paulenz (2001) for different interpretations. Elverskog accepted Kesigtoγtaqu’s reading ayidal ügei ‘fearless’ instead of nayidal ügei. Actually, the verbal stem ‘to fear’ occurs

György Kara 177 six times as ayu-, never as ayi-, in the Mongol text of Altan Khan’s versified history. 24. For these phenomena, see L. Bese’s (1957, 1960) studies and Svantesson (2005: 59–61). 25. See Zieme (1991), etc., and Doerfer (1996). 26. See Stary (1989).

Bibliography Alamži Mergen, see Soktoev. Atwood, C. P . 2004. Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire. New York: Facts On File. Bawden, C. R. 2003. Mongolian Traditional Literature, an Anthology. London, New York, Bahrain: Kegan Paul. Bese, L. 1957. ‘Zwillingswörter im Mongolischen’. Acta Orient. Hung., VII: 199–211. Bese, L. 1960. ‘Bemerkungen zur partikulären Reduplikation im Mongolischen’. Acta Orient. Hung., XI: 43–9. Bitkeev, N. C. and E. B. Ovalov. 1990. Džangar. Kalmyckij geroicˇeskij êpos. Moscow: Glavnaja redakcija vostocˇnoj literatury. Cerensodnom, D. and M. Taube. 1993. Die Mongolica der Berliner Turfansammlung. Berliner Turfantexte XVI. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Cewel, Ya. 1967. Mongol xelnii towcˇ tailbar toli [Concise Dictionary of the Mongol Language]. Ulaanbaatar. Cleaves, F.W. 1954. ‘The Bodistw-a èari-a awatar-un tayilbur of 1312’. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 17: 1–129, pl. I–XXIV. Damdinsürüng, Ce. 1959. Monggol uran okiyal-un degei ayun bilig orosibai. Ulaγanbaγatur. de Rachewiltz, I. 2004. The Secret History of the Mongols. A Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the Thirteenth Century, I–II. Leiden, Boston: Brill. Doerfer, G. 1991. ‘Burjatisches bei den Brüdern Grimm’. Ural-altaische Jahrbücher, NF 10: 138–42. Doerfer, G. 1996. Formen der älteren türkischen Lyrik. Szeged. Düinxerab, G. 1991. Tamîn togoond tawan il. Ulaanbaatar. Elverskog, J. 2003. The Jewel Translucent Su ¯ tra. Altan Khan and the Mongols in the Sixteenth Century. Leiden, Boston: Brill. Gabelentz, Hans Conon von der. 1837. ‘Einiges über mongolische Poesie’. Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, I (Göttingen): 20–37. Galsan, T., see Oölödöwgön. Gerasimovicˇ, L. K. 1975. Mongol’skoe stichosloženie: Opyt êksperimental’nofoneticˇeskogo issledovanija. Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Leningradskogo universiteta. Heissig, W . 1954. Die Pekinger lamaistischen Blockdrucke in mongolischer Sprache. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Jakobson, R. 1981, 1988. Selected Writings, vols III, VIII. The Hague: Mouton. Jangar Epic quoted from ˘Jaηyr. 1990. Elst: Xal’mg degtr γarγac ˇ. See also Bitkeev and Ovalov (1990). Janhunen, J. et al. 2003. The Mongolic Languages. London and New York: Routledge.

178

Alliteration in Culture

" su " ten-u " Jürungγ-a, (ed.). 1984. Erdeni tunumal neretü sudur. [Begejing]: Ündu " n qoriy-a. See also Zhurongga (1991). keblel-u Kane, D. 2009. The Kitan Language and Script. Leiden: Brill. Kara, G. 1966. ‘Une chanson “bouriate” du XVIIIe siècle’. Acta Orient. Hung., XIX: 201–10. Kara, G. 1970. Chants d’un barde mongol. Budapest: Akadémiai. Kara, G. 1972. ‘Old Mongolian Verses without Alliteration’. Annales Universitatis Scientiarum Budapestinensis, Sectio Linguistica, pp. 161–8. Kara, G. 2001. ‘Stave-Rhyme, Head-Rhyme, and End-Rhyme in Mongolian Poetry’. In Honey, D.B and Wright, D.C. (eds), Altaic Affinities. Proceedings of the 40th Meeting of the Permanent International Altaistic Conference (PIAC), Provo, Utah (1997). Bloomington, Ind., pp. 267–80. Kollmar-Paulenz, K. 2001. Erdeni tunumal neretü sudur. Die Biographie des Altan qagan der Tümed-Mongolen. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Krueger, J. R. 1961. Poetical Passages in the Erdeni-yin Tobc˘i. The Hague: Mouton. Lang, Ewald. 1987. ‘Parallelismus als universelles Prinzip sekundärer Strukturbildung’. In Parallelismus und Etymologie, vol. 1. Berlin: Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR, Zentralinstitut für Sprachwissenschaft, pp. 1–54. Laufer, B. 1907. ‘Skizze der mongolischen Literatur’. In Keleti Szemle VIII. Budapest, pp. 165–261. Lhagwa, Ayuurbuniyaagiin. 2004. Sarnî dars [Moon’s Wine]. Ulaanbaatar. Madason, D. 1956. Onihon ügenüüd, taabarimuud. Ulaan Ude. Mostaert, A. 1937. Textes oraux ordos. Pei-p’ing. Mostaert, A. 1947. Folklore ordos. Pei-p’ing. Nacagdor, Dašdoriin. 1961. Joxioluud [Works]. Ed. by B. Sodnom. Ulaanbaatar. Oölöd öwgön [= TangadIn Galsan] 2002. Mongol yörtönciin guraw [Mongol Triads]. Ulaanbaatar. Pallas, P. S. 1776. Sammlungen historischer Nachrichten über die mongolischen Völkerschaften, I. Leipzig. Poppe, N . 1958. ‘Der Parallelismus in der epischen Dichtung der Mongolen’. Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher, 30: 195–228. Poppe, N. 1967. The Twelve Deeds of Buddha. A Mongolian Version of the Lalitavistara. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Poucha, P. 1956a. Die Geheime Geschichte der Mongolen als Geschichtsquelle und ˇ eskoslovenká Akademie Véd. Literaturdenkmal. Prague: C Poucha, P. 1956b. ‘Zur Entwicklung des mongolischen Verses (Vom Altaischen zum Khalkha-Mongolischen)’. In Charisteria orientalia praecipue ad Persiam perˇ eskoslovenská Akademie Véd., pp. 233–52. tinentia. Prague: C Pozdneev, A. M. 1880. Obrazcy narodnoj literatury mongol’skich plemen. St Petersburg. Rabai = Rawai (Rawaa), D., Noyon Xutagt (= Dulduit’s son Luwsandanjinrabai). 1962. Joxiolín emxtgel [Collected Works]. Ed. by D. Cagaan. Ulaanbaatar. Sayisiyaltu, Na. 1981. Mongyol šilüg-ün ayiam-un sudulul [Essay on the Rhythm of Mongol Verse]. Kökeqota. Schirmunski, V. M. 1965. ‘Syntaktischer Parallelismus und rhythmische Bindung im alttürkischen epischen Vers’. In Beitra"ge zur Sprachwissenschaft, Volkskunde und Literaturforschung (Steinitz Festschrift). Berlin: Akademie, pp. 387ff. Soktoev, A. B. (ed.). 1991. Burjatskij geroic˘eskij épos Alamži Mérgén. Novosibirsk: Nauka.

György Kara 179 Starikov, V. 1982. ‘Prozaicˇeskie i stichotvornye teksty malogo kidan’skogo pis’ma XI-XII vv’. In Knorozov, Ju. (ed.), Zabytye sistemy pis’ma. Moscow: Nauka, pp. 99–110. Stary, G. 1989. Ars poetica manjurica. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Steinitz, Wolfgang. 1934. Der Parallelismus in der finnisch-karelischen Volksdichtung, untersucht an den Liedern des karelischen Sängers Arhippa Parttunen. Helsinki. Svantesson, J.-O. et al. 2005. The Phonology of Mongolian. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Taube, Erika und Manfred. 1983. Schamanen und Rhapsoden. Die geistige Kultur der alten Mongolei. Leipzig: Koehler & Amelang. Tudenov, G .O. 1958. Burjatskoe stichosloženie. Ulan-Udé. Vladimircov, B. Ja. 1926. Obrazcy mongol’skoj narodnoj slovesnosti (S.-Z. Mongolija). Leningrad. Yawuuxulan, B. 1985. Tüüwer joxiol [Collected Works]. Ulaanbaatar. Zhurongga [= Jürungy-a]. 1991. Aletan hanzhuan. Huhehaote: Nei Menggu Renmin chubanshe. Zieme, P . 1991. Die Stabreimtexte der Uiguren von Turfan und Dunhuang. Studien zur alttürkischen Dichtung. Budapest: Akadémiai. Zieme, P . 2005. ’La poésie en turc ancien d’après le témoignage des manuscrits de Turfan et Dunhuang’. Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres. Comptes rendus des séances de l’année 2005, novembre–décembre, pp. 1145–68.

11 Around Analysis and Hypothesis of Hungarian Alliteration Vilmos Voigt

To the memory of Jovianus Pontanus, who first used the term ‘alliteratio’ 500 years ago

Abstract Alliteration is a phonotactic device widely used in poetry. Hungarian phonetics permit alliteration, and thanks to the rich set of vowels and consonants there are a variety of forms of it. In everyday language and especially in proverbs and common sayings there are simple alliterations, as well as more developed forms. Poetic alliterations are also of various kinds, in more or less developed forms (e.g. abecedarius poems, alphabetic acrostic, etc.). There are also some phonotactic devices, which look similar, but are not classes of alliterations: lists of names, figura etymologica, epitheton ornans, folk etymology, etc. The history of thorough study of alliteration in Hungary is brief, not very theoretical, and often features haphazard conclusions (e.g. concerning folk poetry). We have to draw a distinction between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ comparisons. The historical development of alliteration starts with the oldest known Hungarian poem (‘Old Hungarian Lament of Virgin Mary’) from about 1300. This is a literary composition, as is the alliteration in it. As for the ‘outer’ comparison, FinnoUgric and Altaic perspectives should be examined. Mongolian, Old Turkic and Uighur texts show a variety of alliterative forms – but they cannot be considered to be connected to the early forms of Hungarian versification. Hungarian alliteration is a literary form, learned and developed within the framework of development of learned poetry in Hungary. 180

Vilmos Voigt 181

1.0 Alliteration is a phonotactic device widely used also in poetry. Its history dates back to some of the earliest poetic texts, and it is well known in very many languages, from all over the world. According to the scholars, however, it is absent in many poetics (e.g. in Persian, Arabic, perhaps also in Hebrew – for a variety of reasons). Generally speaking, in alliteration some subsequent semantic units (usually the words of every major part of speech) repetitively begin with the same initial letter (usually representing the same phonemes). This system is equally valid for VC- and CV-types. In some poetics there exist additional rules as well. For example, in Old Icelandic all vowels may alliterate (thus /a-/ with /e-/, /i-/, /o-/, /u-/, etc.). In some poetics, only stressed syllables can alliterate (which is natural for oral/auditive texts), while in other poetic systems, both stressed and unstressed syllables can alliterate. A limited number of initial consonants (in a very few cases also of initial vowels) may help the domination of alliteration (as e.g. in Finnish, contrasted with other Finno-Ugric languages). Alliteration binds at least two positions, or it combines two (rarely more) sets of positions. It might combine ‘endless’ positions, from the beginning of a text until its very end. See for example Richard Churchill’s sarcastic line against poets who ‘prayed for apt alliteration’s artful aid’. The alliterating words need not occur in entirely consecutive words, but the alliteration may jump over some words in-between, or two alliterative sets can be crossed in order. Consider, for example, the Hungarian proverb: ‘Szegény ember szándékát boldog Isten bírja’ (a translation of the Latin: Homo proponit, Deus disponit). In both cases, different word classes were linked, and there is a conscious parallelism in the sentence; in Latin there are even end-rhymes: Hungarian szegény = adjective ‘poor’ – ember ‘man’ (Latin homo) – szándék noun ‘proposition’ – boldog adjective ‘lucky, happy’ (Latin beatus) – Isten ‘God’ – bírja verb ‘has’ (Latin disponit). The Hungarian text is skilfully organised, and it is not a simple translation of a European proverb. 1.1 In Hungarian, affricates fall into the domain of alliteration, but vowel harmony does not play any role here, a very important fact for historical reconstruction of the development of the Hungarian alliteration

182

Alliteration in Culture

system. An example of alliteration involving affricates is this rhyme (NB Hungarian letters denote the IPA phoneme /ʧ/): Csetneki csikós itat a Tiszán Sárga cserép csengo˝ cseng a csikaja nyakán [The herdsman from Csetnek village gives water to his horse at the river Tisza – the yellow pottery bell jingles at the neck of the horse] For disregarding vowel harmony in alliteration, see for example some proverbs: ‘Ökör iszik egyedül, ember párosával’ [The ox drinks alone, the men drink two by two]. ‘Amit Istento ˝l szánsz, azt elviszi az ördög’ [What you want spare from God – the Devil will take it]. ‘Jól esik az ülés, mint öregnek az ütés’ [It is pleasant to beat, as for the old men to sit]. ‘Ütött az órája’ [His time arrived]. But: ‘Ordít, mint az orosz az ólban’ [Howls like the Russian in the pigsty]. ‘Öröm ösvényén búbánat jár’ [On the path of joy the sadness is walking]. ‘Öröm – üröm’ [Joy – bitterness]. 1.2 J. A. Comenius, in his teaching manual Orbis sensualium pictus (written in Hungary in 1653), lists the following Hungarian letters: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, x, y, z, thus making no distinction between a/á, e/é, i/í, o/ó, and u/ú, and not mentioning the vowels ö/o ˝, ü/u ˝, nor the consonants cs, dz, dzs, gy, ly, ny, sz, ty and zs. As far as Hungarian alliteration is concerned, the length of the vowels makes no difference; consider, for example: ‘Nem mind oláh, aki ólálkodik’. Palatalization (l/ly, n/ny, t/ty and similarly [d]g/gy) and the orthography sz and zs do, however, make a phonetic difference and this is reflected in the rules of alliteration, for example the pairings in: ‘Hármat néznek a naptárban: farsangot, ünnepnapot, névnapot’ [One looks after three items in the calendar: carnival, holiday and the name’s day]; ‘Gyenge, mint a nyul nyaka’ [As weak as the hare’s neck]. This system we term simple alliteration, and it occurs in everyday language as well.

2.0 A second system is poetic alliteration (in the strict sense of the term). This system stems from everyday language, and it adds further laws to sound repetition.

Vilmos Voigt 183

In the famous saying by Caesar (veni, vidi, vici), the repetition is extended to the same form of the verbs, and their disyllabic structure. In abecedarius poems, an alphabetic acrostic is formed, in which each line or stanza begins with a successive letter of the alphabet, e.g. in Psalm 119 the 22 stanzas begin with each subsequent letter of the (22-letter) Hebrew ‘alphabet’. In the Hungarian translation of 1604, Albert Szenczi Molnár was able to imitate the same phonetic system, with a high level of poetic knowledge. In Mongolian, Buryat, etc., whole stanzas may start with the same alliteration, and the alliteration in the next stanza is phonetically connected with that in the previous stanza. In various languages, repeated phrases in a poem became refrains, which can be put before or after (or both before and after) the non-refraining parts of the stanzas. This is typical of, for example, classical Arabic and Persian or of the Turkish redif. The repeated phrases may use anaphoric forms, semantic parallelism, etc. Poetic alliteration may use endless other variations, thus it is not a simple matter to treat their historical borrowings and interrelations.

3.0 Just for the sake of clarification of the questions of Hungarian alliteration, we may list here some phonotactic devices which are not classes of alliteration. Lists of names, etc. may have ‘pseudo-alliterative’ phonetics. Names of Carthaginian leaders Hamilcar and his sons Hannibal, Hasdrubal, names of the Old German (= Cheruskian) leaders: Sigimerus, Sigimundus, Segestes or even of the Merovingian rulers: Childerich, Chlodwig, Chlothilde, Chlodomir, Childebert, Chilperich follow the same rule. In Hungarian the first two rulers known by their names were Almus (today: Álmos) and Arpadus (today Árpád). (Álmos means ‘of dream’, Árpád means ‘little barley’.) Their names in fact do not alliterate, or their phonetic similarity might even be a coincidence. (And their descendants do not regularly use the initial a-phoneme.) Figura etymologica connects etymologically related words, which usually alliterate (e.g. Latin voce vocans, French vivre sa vie). Both in Latin and medieval rhetoric it was a highly sophisticated device. The oldest written text in Hungarian, Halotti beszéd (Sermo super sepulchrum) from about 1195 (here in modernised orthography) already used it: ‘halálnek haláláal holsz’ (you shall die with the death of death). The Latin original of the Hungarian sermon does not use figura etymologica in the corresponding sentence. The Hungarian translator in his

184

Alliteration in Culture

next sentence could continue the same figura etymologica: ‘Hadlavá holtát …’ (hearing about his death …) which is also absent from the Latin text. The Hungarian text is clearly the product of a higher clerical education. Epitheton ornans is a constant device in epic genres. We have learned from the Harvard school of ‘oral-formulaic poetry’ that fixed epithets of persons (and, more rarely, of things) can be often repeated. They serve not only as a mnemonic device; they also give a sense of stability and coherence of the poem, to both the poet and to the audience. However, it is relatively seldom that the adjectives and nouns in the epithets sound in alliteration. As for one of the best known cases, it was not only Lönnrot’s idea that his major heroes in the Kalevala should be characterised by such epithets, but he was standardising an existing practice. ‘Vaka vanha Väinämöinen’ (reliable old Väinämöinen), ‘lieto Lemminkäinen’ (lithe Lemminkäinen), ‘nouri Joukahainen, laiha poika Lappalainen’ (young Joukahainen, lanky boy of Lapland), etc. are good examples of Lönnrot’s standardisations. But there are many other epithets in the Kalevala which do not alliterate; see, for example, ’seppo Ilmarinen’ (smith Ilmarinen). In Hungarian, epitheton ornans appeared first in medieval ecclesiastic translations, then in translations of the Homeric epics. It was widely used in Hungarian heroic epic songs in the first part of the nineteenth century. However, the percentage of alliterative epithets is very low in Hungarian. In Hungarian folk poetry only some phrases occur repeatedly, e.g. ‘szép lány’ (nice maiden), ‘barna legény’ (brown lad), ‘széles Duna/Tisza’ (wide rivers). They are not epithets in the proper sense of the term and they do not alliterate. So-called folk etymology is similar to the previous device. It makes (usually of place-names or personal names) an etymology which ‘sounds’ plausible, but it is mere imagination, based upon sound similarity. It occurs already in the Bible, in Greek and Latin historical works, and it is very popular in medieval chronicles, e.g. the Hungarians have regularly been connected with the Huns, the Britons with Brutus, the Caribs with Cannibals and even with Shakespeare’s Caliban. Hungarian medieval chronicles invariably use folk etymology, supported by the fact that the scholarly etymological treatment of the Hungarian words was finally shaped in the nineteenth century, and the ‘isolated’ Hungarian language offered excellent possibilities for ‘linguistic fantasy’. A mediocre poet, Demeter Csáti, wrote in about 1526 a pseudohistorical poem of more than 40 stanzas, Pannónia megvételér˝ o l, which

Vilmos Voigt 185

tells of ‘how the Hungarians have/occupied Pannonia’. In stanza 23, we read about the occupation of Central Transylvania (Hungarian text in slightly modernised orthography): Istent o ˝k ott imádának, Háromszor Deust kiáltának; Arról nevezték ott az várost, Szamos mentében az nemes Dézsnek.

The Hungarians have adored God, they acclaimed thrice ‘Deus’, and they have named after that city, Dézs, along the river Szamos.

Today the name of the town is Dézs/Dés (Romanian Dej), and, of course it has nothing to do with the Latin Deus. In stanzas 34–35, there are more elaborated folk etymologies, given here with a rough English translation: Kelem földén a Dunán elkelének Az Csekén o˝k csekének. Az Tétémben el-feltetének, Érden sokat o˝k értenek, Százhalomnál megszállának …

About Kelenföld they crossed the river Danube, at Cseke (?) they made camp (?), at Tétény they reached the hills, at Érd they achieved (?) much, at Százhalom they spent the night …

The true place-names are on the west side of the Danube, within a dozen miles of the capital of the country, Budapest. In the poem, the etymologies are absurd, sometimes we cannot be sure what is the mentioned placename, sometimes the connecting verb does not exist. In a word: Csáti’s etymologies represent a learned and forcefully achieved knowledge. Yet, even if it is not alliteration, this nonetheless shows the ability of Hungarian intellectuals to observe and to imitate initial phonotactic patterns in their poetry. In other stanzas we find phonotactical concatenation of words, and at least in one case, stanza 28, we find an elaborate poetic alliteration: Földedet adtad fehér lovon, És füvedet aranyos féken

You gave your land for the white horse and your meadow for the golden halter.

4.0 The scholarly study of Hungarian alliteration is surprisingly limited. There is no written history of the phenomenon. In Hungarian handbooks of

186

Alliteration in Culture

versification we find only short and rather shallow paragraphs on this topic. We do not know who was the first Hungarian poet or scholar to discover the existence of poetic alliteration in Hungarian. According to Tivadar Thienemann, János Horváth, László Gáldi and, summarising, Erika Szepes and István Szerdahelyi (1981) and others, alliteration is an old and typical phenomenon in Hungarian, and dates back to the age of ‘oral poetry’. (As the source for such a statement they refer to Jacob Grimm, who was speaking about ancient Germanic alliteration.) Its frequency in Hungarian proverbial lore is high. However, concerning the Finno-Ugric background of Hungarian alliteration the majority of scholars are rather sceptical. The same could be said about Finnish scholars (see e.g. Leino). It was Lajos Vargyas (1955) who wrote a seminal paper on ‘alliteration in Hungarian folk poetry’. According to him, alliteration is rare in Hungarian folk poetry. It is used in riddles, rhymes, slurs and proverbs. Vargyas does not give a detailed analysis of those genres, but concentrates on the texts of Hungarian folk ballads. According to him, alliterated words in folk ballads occur in several subsequent lines, or ‘throughout’ the text. Among the 60-plus examples he quotes, the most impressive is in the legendary ballad Júlia szép leány (‘The Girl Taken to Heaven’). Vargyas is quoting the text variant, recorded in 1862, with 55 lines (the orthography here is slightly modernised): line line line line line line line line line line

2 3 4 5 7 8 9 46 47 51

Buzavirág szödni a buzamezo ˝be, Buzavirág szödni, koszoruba kötni, Koszoruba kötni, magát ott mulatni. Föl is fö/l/tekinte fodor fejér bárány Napot s a Hódat szarva között hozván, A fényös csillagot a homlokán hozta, Sirass anyám, sirass, éltömbe hadd halljam, Hadd halljam éltömbe, hogy siratsz holtomba! Sárga viaszának földön futó füstje,

(An English translation: /Fair Maiden Júlia/ [lines 2–4] went to pick cornflowers in the cornfield,/To pick cornflowers, to make them into a wreath,/To make them into a wreath, to entertain herself. [line 5] She looked up to the high sky, [lines 7–9] A crispy white lamb was lowering on it,/Bringing the sun and the moon between its horns;/ It was bringing the bright star on its forehead,

Vilmos Voigt 187

[lines 46–47] Lament, mother, lament, let me hear while I am alive,/How you will lament me when I am dead! [line 51] The smoke of the yellow wax was spreading over the earth.) From his commentary it is obvious that Vargyas was using the term ‘alliteration’ in its widest sense. He includes in it simple repetition (‘buzavirág – buzavirág’, ‘hadd halljam – hadd halljam’), figura etymologica and parallelism. (Also in his other examples he uses such mixed material.) Another curious suggestion is that for example initial f- might belong to the same alliteration in lines 5, 6, 9 and even 51 (perhaps together with v- in the last line), or initial h- may belong to the same alliteration in lines 8, 9 and 46, 47. This is not excluded from elaborate works using poetic alliteration, but there needs to be more evidence before we can also claim to find it in any folk poetry. What Vargyas calls ‘throughout alliteration’ is in fact his curious way of interpretation of a ‘phonetic symbolism’ or ‘acoustic painting’ (Klangmalerei). (I do not believe in either – at least not in Hungarian folk poetry.) It is not by chance that Vargas does not discuss that problem either, how so elaborate a poetic device could be incorporated into folk poetry. As for the ultimate origin of ‘alliteration in Hungarian folk poetry’, Vargyas does not exclude the role of ‘Finno-Ugric alliteration’. But he does not discuss that possibility; and in his conclusion he refers rather to all kinds of parallelism. Later Vargyas neither elaborated nor modified his views. As a vague theorem, he used to say that the ‘throughout the text’ running alliteration was kept alive in (mostly) the archaic folk ballads, whereas it had evaporated from the more modern lyrical songs. Of course, this is an eccentric kind of understanding the historical development of poetics in Hungarian folklore. Just the opposite way of historical development makes sense, and is the commonly accepted position. The elaborated alliteration in our folk ballads is the end (and not the origin) of improved poetics.

5.0 If we want to sum up the possible historical development of Hungarian alliteration, we may distinguish between ‘inner’ and ‘comparative’ perspectives. Surprisingly enough in early Hungarian poetry there are good traces of alliteration. The oldest known Hungarian poem, the so-called Ómagyar Máriasiralom (‘Old Hungarian Lament of the Virgin Mary’) from about 1300,

188

Alliteration in Culture

is a free translation of a Latin planctus. In some sequences (not exactly ‘stanzas’), short sentences occur. Its metrical structure is not homogeneous, but rather elaborate end-rhymes are present in the text. The Latin dirge has more or less the same structure. The whole Hungarian poem represents a very high literary culture in Hungary, of course borrowed from the ‘West European’ tradition. It would be a difficult task to describe all the poetical phonetics of the whole text. Here I quote only some alliterative parts of the poem, using the modernised linguistic orthography, and dividing the ‘lines’ (which were not marked in the manuscript). Valék sirolm tudatlon sirolmol sepedek buol oszuk epedec. Választ vilagumtul zsidou fiodumtuul ezes yrymemtyyl. O én ézes urodum edzen igy fiodum (In English translation: I did not know of sorrow, but now I have to lament. Jews are separating my son, my joy from me. Oh my sweet lord, my only son …) The poetically most interesting part runs thus: Világ világa, virágnak virága keseryen kinzatul vos szegekkel veretyl

You light of the light, the flower of the flower, they torture you bitterly, with iron nails they hang you on.

The double alliteration v- will be repeated two lines later. Világ is a homonym in Hungarian, meaning both ‘light’ and ‘world’. In this text the first meaning (perhaps following the Latin expression Lux mundi) is more acceptable. In the line between them there is another alliteration with k-. There are also inner and end-rhymes in this part of the poem. Some lines later on, another interesting sentence follows: Szegenyl szépségyd viryd hioll vizeul

Your beauty is deteriorating, your blood is falling like the water.

Vilmos Voigt 189

The text on the second column of the manuscript does not use such elaborate alliterations, but it has good end-rhyming throughout. Recent studies by Hungarian linguists and literary historians (e.g. Loránd Benko˝, András Vizkelety and, summarising, András Martinkó (1988)) have shown the complexity of the Hungarian text. According to them the Hungarian poem has 12 stanzas, which follow the first 16 stanzas of a Latin sequence, Planctus ante nescia, by Godofredus de Sancto Victore (written by the middle of the twelfth century). In the Latin text we do not find alliterations. But in some other text variants of the same Planctus they do occur, even using the figura etymologica: flos florum. The Ómagyar Mária-siralom is a product of learned and written literature. The pattern of its ‘poetic alliteration’ could be sought from medieval European literature. Its free use in the text, however, can be explained by the fact that ‘simple alliteration’ might be well known in spoken Hungarian. But there are no direct traces of ‘earlier’ alliteration in Hungarian poetry. a. As for the ‘outer’ (comparative) aspects of the early history of Hungarian alliteration, Finno-Ugric comparative metrics could offer some hints. Unfortunately there is no overall summary on Finno-Ugric versification. Wolfgang Steinitz (1934) and Robert Austerlitz (1958) both wrote about parallelism, but they have not spoken on alliteration. In spite of some rather new attempts, even today we cannot speak about alliteration in early Ob-Ugric versification. The fact that Finnish (and other Finno-Ugric) poetry has various forms of alliteration, does not automatically mean that historically they belong together. They should be studied separately. b. Another, and no less interesting, question is the possible ‘Altaic’ comparison of Hungarian alliteration. As far as I know no serious attempt has been made in that direction, but essays have appeared where Mongolian–Hungarian and Altaic–Hungarian horizons for metrical studies have been suggested. Alliterative versification is characteristic of traditional Mongol texts. The oldest cases are in the Secret History of the Mongols (written down about 1240). The oral verse epics (üliger) use it regularly. The initial alliteration covers not only the first phonemes but also the first syllables entirely. In epic texts it is of irregular length, in lyric poems it goes through the stanzas, and it is one of their major formative devices. It is combined with parallelism. End-rhymes are rare. Because some phonemes look very similar in the Old Mongolian script, there are ‘graphic alliterations’ (for t/d or o/u respectively). Of course, this is a later development in versification.

190

Alliteration in Culture

The importance of Mongolian verses was first stressed by Hans Conon von der Gabelentz in his pioneering study Einiges über mongolische Poesie (1837). The German linguist connected Mongolian versification with the Manchurian, and considered it a very specific case in comparative metrics. Since then, leading personalities in comparative (or Mongolian) metrics either speak of the ‘infinite variability and richness’ of Mongolian poems (see e.g. the works by C. Damdinsüren (1957) and B. Rinchen (1964), or they simply deny a common base for old and modern Mongolian metrics (this was stressed earlier by P. S. Pallas, more recently by J. R. Krueger (1961)). Another difficult problem is the historical reconstruction of Mongolian metrics. Usually the ‘folklore’ texts are used there as initial forms, but the ‘historical’ texts are different and more elaborate. ‘Modern’ Mongolian versification is (according to at least some scholars) based upon different principles. Needless to say, Mongolian alliteration could never directly influence Hungarian versification – but its development can offer wide comparative thoughts. As for Old Turkic metrics, the data are even more interesting, and the problems are even greater. The oldest references to the living nomad tribes’ poetry in East Turkestan are found in a handful of Chinese documents, mentioning their Barbarian language as Jie. From that language Chinese translations were made in the fifth and sixth centuries AD. Surely it is impossible to say whether the ‘original’ texts had alliteration, stanzaic form or rhyme. Parallelism can be more easily accepted. The Old Turkic inscriptions (post-AD 552) also show parallelism and some ‘metrical’ formations – but irregularly. F. E. Korš (1909) and others have found traces of versification only in some parts of the inscriptions. Others, such as the Hungarian poet Géza Képes (1982), or the Russian scholar I. V. Stebleva (1976), wanted to declare the whole texts to be poetry. In any event, they could not find in them any strict rules for any form of parallelism. It seems to me that the well-known and sober opinion of V. M. Zhirmunsky (his paper in one of its latest variants: 1974) is still valid: only in some parts of the inscriptions are there any parts of metrical systems. But there is no doubt about the role of parallelism in building the texts, which also include alliterative features. See for example körür közüm körmäz täg/ bilir bilgim bilmäz täg (‘Kül Tegin inscription No. 10’ in one of the many different transcriptions). For the reconstruction of metrics in Central Asia the recently published Turfan and Tunhuang texts offer new possibilities. As we can see from the excellent publication of the Uighur Stabreim-Texte by Zieme (1991), the Uighur poems follow at the same time Chinese, Tibetan, Sanskrit or Manichaean texts, also occasionally using their writing, and

Vilmos Voigt 191

thus knowing about their metrics as well. In the manuscripts and prints (their dating is sometimes discussed, but the best texts with alliterations date from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries), there are attempts to mark the end of the lines or stanzas. In the stanzas, four or eight lines are most popular, and they can follow each other. How complicated the versification might be, we can easily exemplify. In the so-called Uigurische Hymne there are six-line stanzas with a-, sixline stanzas with o/u-, four-line stanzas with bo-, five-line stanzas with ta- and two-line stanzas with ya- alliteration. In Uighur there are five initial consonants (b, q/k, s, t, y) and the eight vowels make only five initial sets (a, ä, ï/i, o/u, ö/ü). This limited phonemic repertoire tends to make simple alliteration more frequent. There are also ‘half-line’ alliterations, but less frequently. (It is not necessary to deal here with further poetic–phonetic analysis of the syllables, length of the lines, isometrism or parallelism, types of rhymes, etc.) Perhaps I should mention separately the Uighur Alphabetisches Gedicht, in which 21 four-line stanzas begin consequently with the 21 Uighur letters. From the entire text we see how difficult this task was for its poet. Or for the translator, since the abecedarius poems are also known among the Manichaean hymns, i.e. in Middle Persian and Parthian as well. This kind of Uighur poetry is by all means a highly developed phenomenon, based upon written literature. We may not see it having any direct connection with Hungarian versification. But, then again, striking similarities and dissimilarities occur. For example, the disregarding in alliteration of some kinds of ‘vowel harmony’ was also present in Hungarian. However, the Uighur texts prefer to use either o- or u-, and ö- or ü- and they do not mix these. The Turfan–Tunghuang Uighur texts are very important for comparative Altaic metrics. It is a well-known fact that when Turks arrived in ‘Russian’ Central Asia (in the ninth to tenth centuries AD), their poetic system was already Arabic–Persian. Stress was usually on the last syllable of words, and alliteration was very rare. That is why the texts with ‘preIslamic’ type of alliteration (from today’s Mongolia and East Turkestan) were of such great interest to scholars. Of course, there exist several opinions about the interrelation of alliterative versification among Old Turks, Mongols, Uighurs, Uzbeks, Ottomans, etc. Gerhard Doerfer has suggested that all alliteration among Turkish people stems from the Mongolian. His theorem, if accepted, would make for a simpler history of alliteration in Central Asia – but his views have generally been criticised. Thus, we are not obliged either to speculate about the origins of Hungarian poetic alliteration among the early Mongols. As for the ‘inner’ discussion among

192

Alliteration in Culture

the Altaists (see e.g. Doerfer 1996) we may say that one should make a distinction between simple alliteration and poetic alliteration – as I have suggested in the introduction of my chapter. Zieme and Doerfer’s distinction between ‘alliteration’ and ‘Stabreim’ expresses the same idea.

6.0 Summary Hungarian poetic alliteration is a phenomenon known from the Middle Ages, which is comparable with European parallels. It is alliteration and not assonance: it uses letters and not sounds. It is a product of written literature and not of oral tradition. It disregards some kinds of vowel harmony, which are present for example in Uighur, but absent from the Indo-European languages. This is another reason why we should not date the system of Hungarian poetic alliteration prior to the Hungarian conquest (the ninth century AD). Simple alliteration occurs in proverbs, riddles and other short forms of Hungarian folklore. In spite of some assumptions to the contrary, in Hungarian folk ballads there is no special form of consecutive alliteration. If we use the term ‘Hungarian folklore’ in a broad sense, we should say that there are many historical sources for proverbs and strophic song texts in Hungarian. János Baranyai Decsi (1978) in his trilingual book of proverbs (Adagiorum Graecolatinoungaricorum … 1598) gives about 5000 Hungarian sayings, proverbs and phrases, according to the Latin proverb collections by Erasmus. If someone were to study the forms and proportion of alliteration in the book this would make a significant step towards the history of alliteration in Hungary. Similarly, the handwritten songbooks (kéziratos énekeskönyv) contain 100,000 stanzas! Béla Stoll (2002) in his bibliography lists 1409 such handwritten sources (between 1542 and 1840). If someone were to look at the systems of alliteration, and their development, in the texts of the songs, this would be another significant step. Historical poetics remains a desideratum in Hungary, but both the textual and the theoretical foundations for it exist. In this chapter I have attempted to show some of the possibilities of historical poetics, just as I did when I wrote about the history of rhymes in Hungarian folk poetry (2004), or about the development of stanzaic folk lyrics in Hungarian and elsewhere (2011). Returning to our present topic, I may say that, according to our current knowledge, we cannot combine Hungarian poetic association with Finno-Ugric or Altaic forms. But there are interesting typological similarities between them, which may serve the better understanding of their historical development. It is not a bon mot,

Vilmos Voigt 193

when I finish my text with a simple statement: Hungarian alliteration is Hungarian alliteration.

Bibliography As I have been referring to well-known works and phenomena I shall give here a very short bibliography. In the mentioned works, there are references to further publications. The Old Hungarian works are quoted from linguistic editions (with some necessary modernisation in orthography). See József Molnár and Györgyi Simon, Magyar Nyelvemlékek, 2nd edn. Budapest: Tankönyvkiadó, 1977. Proverbs have been quoted from the general anthologies, as e.g. Ede Margalits, Magyar közmondások és közmondásszeru ˝ szólások. Budapest: Kókai Lajos, 1896 (reprinted 1993, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó). A recent handbook on Hungarian versification (with chapters on comparative metrics, and with further literature) is Erika Szepes and István Szerdahelyi, Verstan. Budapest: Gondolat, 1981. In this chapter I have referred to the ‘outer’ comparison of Hungarian alliteration: Mongolian, Old Turkic, Uighur, etc. texts. But I have used these only as (im)possible parallels. In Chapter 10 of the book Professor Kara deals with Mongolian alliteration, with abundant comparative argumentation. As regards such questions his description is the valid one! Arat, Res¸id Rahmeti. 1965. Eski türk s¸iiri. Ankara: Yayınları. Austerlitz, Robert. 1958. Ob-Ugric Metrics. The Metrical Structure of Ostyak and Vogul Folk Poetry. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica. (FF Communications 174) (2nd edn 1992). Baranyai Decsi, János. 1978. Adagiorum …, ed. József Molnár. Budapest: Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem (reprint edn). Dandinsüren, Cendin. 1957. Mоʜƨол хэл бuчƨuŭʜ mʏхɑŭ. Ulanbaatar. Doerfer, Gerhard. 1964. ’Die Literatur der Türken Südsibiriens’. In Fundamenta Philologiae Turcica, Vol. II. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrasowitz, pp. 862–85. Doerfer, Gerhard. 1996. Formen der älteren türkischen Lyrik. Szeged: József Attila Tudományegyetem, and Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (Studia UraloAltaica 37.) Gerasimovich, L. K. 1975. Mongol’skoe stikhoslozhenie. Leningrad: Leningradskiy universitet. Képes, Géza. 1982. Ko ˝be vésett eposzok ótörökbo˝l. Az Orkhon és Tola folyók mentén. Budapest: Helikon. Khamraev, M. K. 1963. Osnovy tyurkskogo stikhoslozheniya. Alma-Ata: Akademiya nauk Kazakhskoy SSR. Korš, F. E. 1909. дpеɞʜеŭɯuŭ ʜapо∂ʜƅıŭ сmux mʏpеųĸux плеMеʜ. (Zapiski Vostocˇ nogo otdeleniya Russkogo arheologicˇ eskogo obsˇcˇ estva – tom 19, cˇ ast’ II-III). St Petersburg. Krueger. J. R. 1961. Poetical Passages in the Erdeni-yin Tobcˇ i. The Hague: Mouton. Leino, Pentti. 1970. Strukturaalinen alkusointu Suomessa. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura. Lord, Albert B. 1960. The Singer of Tales. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

194

Alliteration in Culture

Martinkó András. 1988. Az Ómagyar Mária-siralom hazai és európai tükörben. Bevezetés és vázlat. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia. Rinchen, Byambin. 1964. Mоʜƨол бuчƨuŭʜ хэлʜuŭ зʏŭл. Ulanbaatar. Stebleva, I. V. 1976. Poe˙ziya tyurkov VI-VIII vekov. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk. Steinitz Wolfgang. 1934. Der Parallelismus in der finnisch-karelischen Volksdichtung untersucht an den Liedern des karelischen Sa¨ngers Archippa Perttunen. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica (FF Communications 174). Stoll, Béla. 2002. A magyar kéziratos énekeskönyvek és versgyu˝jtemények bibliográfiája (1542–1840). Budapest: Balassi. Vargyas, Lajos. 1984. ’Betűrím a magyar népköltészetben’. In idem, Keleti hagyomány – nyugati kultúra. Tanulmányok. Budapest: Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó, pp. 169–89. (Originally: Filológiai Közlöny 1955, pp. 401–10.) Voigt, Vilmos. 2004. ’Rímek és “rímek” a magyar folklórban’. In Andrásfalvy, Bertalan, Domokos, Mária and Nagy, Ilona (eds), Az ido˝rostájában. Tanulmányok Vargyas Lajos 90, születésnapjára. Budapest: L’Harmattan, Vol. III, pp. 205–17. Voigt, Vilmos. 2011. Negyvenöt év a szerelem kertjében. Szempontok lírai népdalszövegeink kialakulásának és alkotásmódjának vizsgálatához. Budapest: Mundus (in print). Zhirmunsky, V. M. 1974. Tyurkskiy geroicheskiy e˙pos. Leningrad: Nauka’. Especially: ’O tyurkskom narodnom stikhe. Nekotorye problemy teorii’, pp. 644–80. Zieme, Peter. 1991. Die Stabreimtexte der Uiguren von Turfan und Dunhuang. Studien zur alttürkischen Dichtung. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. (Bibliotheca Orientalis Hungarica XXXIII.)

12 Alliteration in (Balto-) Finnic Languages1 Frog and Eila Stepanova

Abstract This chapter offers an overview of alliteration in Finnic cultures. The focus is on oral rather than written traditions and particularly on two poetic systems which are generally considered to have roots in the vernacular culture going back more than 1000 years. The first of these is the trochaic tetrameter associated with oral epic, lyric and incantation, and which is displayed in the national epics generated for Finnic cultures in the nineteenth century. The second is what we refer to as poetry of ‘unfixed’ meters, associated with traditional laments and yoiks. Following a general introduction to Finnic languages and alliteration, each poetic system is surveyed in turn, beginning in the northern regions near the White Sea, where Finnic groups were in close contact with the Sámi, passing by Lake Ladoga and Lake Olonets, around the Gulf of Finland into Ingria, and on through Estonia until reaching the Balts of Latvia. The orientation of this survey is to provide an accessible synthesised overview of alliteration in Finnic cultures with two objectives. The first is to provide an overview of alliteration as a phenomenon in Finnic cultures generally (as opposed to generalising a localised phenomenon as ‘Finnic’) through examples of vernacular poetic systems common across Finnic cultures. The second is to provide a framework which facilitates approaching alliteration among different Finnic groups or in different regions, and understanding them in relation to one another and in relation to Finnic poetics as a widespread phenomenon. The chapter concludes with an overview which briefly addresses the implications of the survey regarding the evolution of uses of alliteration and affiliated poetic systems within a region, language or cultural group, and the relationship of these processes of evolution to patterns of immediate contact with other groups. 195

196

Alliteration in Culture

Introduction The Finnic (or Balto-Finnic) languages are a family of Finno-Ugric languages concentrated on the eastern side of the Baltic Sea. Alliteration permeated the traditional modes of expression in Finnic ethnopoetics, which has led to the postulation that it had already been established in the Proto-Finnic period (c.1000/500 BC–AD 1). As alliteration is not exhibited as a significant parametric strategy across Finno-Ugric languages, this makes the Finnic phenomenon of significant interest in the patterns of alliteration in northern Europe. The suggestion that alliteration may trace back to the hypothetical Finnic-Sámic language (c.1500–1000/500 BC) is far less certain due to intimate cultural contacts between the Sámi and both Finnic and Germanic cultures where alliteration held such significance.2 This discussion of alliteration in Finnic languages will focus on its use in oral traditions rather than modern literary applications. Greater attention will be given to the trochaic tetrameter, which is found across the majority of Finnic cultures, and the alliterative poetry associated with laments and yoiks which is considered to have significantly more archaic roots.3 The majority of the evidence of these traditions was collected in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, observing that several of these languages and diverse cultures are bordering on extinction (especially Livonian, Votic and Izhor-Ingrian).

What are the Finnic languages? The circum-Baltic region is characterised by contact and exchange between diverse linguistic–cultural groups, which, as Maria KoptjevskajaTamm and Bernhard Wälchli have recently stressed, ‘has never been united, but has always been an extremely dynamic area, constantly redivided among spheres of dominance – economical, political, religious and cultural’.4 Finnic cultures are centred around the Gulf of Finland, which can be viewed as a nexus of the encounters between Finnic, Germanic, Baltic and Slavic groups. Any discussion of Finnic language and culture is immediately complicated by the distinction and classification of the languages themselves. The Finnic languages include (northern Finnic) Finnish, Karelian, Ingrian, Izhorian, Vepsian, (southern Finnic) Estonian, Votic and Livonian. The homogeny implied in these classifications is misleading due to the diversity and fluidity of their dialects.5 The languages have a long history of contacts with one another, and also with other cultures in different regions over time. They were all

Frog and Eila Stepanova 197

affected by Christianity: Catholicism was introduced from the west and Orthodox Christianity from the east. Although the Orthodox Church in northern regions was both apathetic to, and tolerant of, a broad range of ethnic modes of expression and even ritual activity, the Reformation of the Catholic Church brought with it active measures to eradicate all forms of traditional poetry and conscious attempts to replace vernacular singing traditions with alternative forms of expression.6

Alliteration Finnic languages are extremely well suited to alliteration. They have word-initial stress and do not permit word-initial consonant clusters, normally reducing these to a single consonant even in loan words. For example, in Finnish there are only 11 consonants which can be word-initial (h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v) and 8 vowels (a, e, i, o, u, y, ä, ö). Alliteration in Finnic languages is conventionally approached in terms of the stressed syllables of words belonging to any class. A distinction is made between strong and weak alliteration. Weak alliteration is defined as a pattern of consonance among stressed syllables without assonance of the accompanying vowel (e.g. va- –vi-); strong alliteration is the conjunction of consonance and assonance across stressed syllables (e.g. va- –va-). Vowel length is not significant in distinguishing strong and weak alliteration. Diphthongs alliterate more strongly with their second vowel (ou–u; ei–i) but alliteration with their initial vowel (ou–o; ei–e) can also be considered strong alliteration.7 There is a general preference for strong alliteration, to which weak alliteration is an alternative, while vocalic or vowel-initial alliteration appears to have been less desirable than weak alliteration.8 The Finnic cultural area is characterised by gradual shifts in regional patterns of folklore phenomena. Alliteration appears most prominently in northern regions of Orthodox Karelia, where early collectors observed that alliteration was even used as a rhetorical device in common speech.9 It remains a common feature of conventional idiomatic expressions such as kielen kera kävellä, ‘to walk with one’s tongue’ meaning ‘to gossip’,10 both in Karelian and in other Finnic languages.11 The application of alliteration in conventional speech may seem remarkable as a phenomenon in comparison with other cultures, but it is less surprising in northern regions of Karelia where a single sentence of an improvised lament might have 24 out of 37 words in an alliterating ‘string’ based on a single consonant.12

198

Alliteration in Culture

Elias Lönnrot emphasised that alliterative composition was a largely intuitive, or even an unconscious, process in expression, rather than something objectively defined: Alliteration only comes to beautify a song when the song rises from within, as it does with the natural poets; in this way, they employ it in their songs without even knowing what alliteration really is, and can give no better explanation for it than that the words draw one another up that way.13 Significant factors in the persistence of alliteration within Finnic ethnopoetics were its association with dominant vernacular poetic systems, and the association of these poetic systems with ritual and magical practices which affirmed their significance and authority.14 In Chapter 8 of this volume, Kristján Árnason shows that the introduction of new meters into Icelandic poetics was accompanied by introducing conventions of alliteration into those metres owing to the value and associations of alliteration in the particular historical period. In Finnic poetries, comparative evidence indicates that end-rhyme had difficulty becoming established due to the dominance of conventional aesthetics based on alliteration, and rhymed metres could not compete with the dominant stichic alliterative trochaic tetrameter. When the medieval European ballad entered into this cultural area, its content and narrative mode as ‘a song which tells its story in a particular way’15 was completely assimilated to the conventional poetic system, losing its characteristic features of melody, metre, rhyme and stanzaic structure.16 In Lutheran Finland, the successful incursion of alternative song traditions and their rise in popularity led to the breakdown of oral traditions of kalevalaic poetry, and the rise in rhyme as an aesthetically desirable parametric feature.17 Conversely, the publication of Kalevala as a national folk epic has revitalised alliteration and the use of other stylistic features of folk poetry in Finnish since the mid-nineteenth century.18

The dominant trochaic tetrameter The stichic trochaic tetrameter characterised by alliteration and mutual equivalence in parallel lines, called ‘Kalevala-metre’ in Finnish and regivärss in Estonian, is found among Finns, Karelians, Ingrians, Votes and Estonians. The metre is remarkable in the dynamic range of genres for which it was a dominant mode of expression, including epics, lyrics, charms, ritual songs performed at weddings, hunting and calendar

Frog and Eila Stepanova 199

rituals, as well as being commonly used in lullabies, riddles, proverbs, and situational verses in prose narratives. As Matti Kuusi has stressed, it is difficult to find any other poetic metre in the world which so permeates the spectrum of cultural expression.19 The conventions of this poetic system are most strict in the northern regions – Karelian and earlier Finnish verse – and it is therefore most practical to introduce the system in that region and gradually move through its changes to the south. In earlier Finnish and Karelian poetry, the metre was syllabic counting: a line was (ideally) comprised of eight syllables in alternating lifts (metrically stressed positions) and falls (metrically unstressed positions), invariably opening with a lift. In other words, a line consisted of four feet, or basic units of rhythm, of which each foot was a troche (LIFTfall), hence a trochaic tetrameter, a line of four troches (LIFT-fall-LIFTfall-LIFT-fall-LIFT-fall). Long stressed syllables were placed on the lift (with lifts in bold: ‘sor-min ‘soit-ti ‘Väi-nä-möi-nen, ‘using his fingers, Väinämöinen played’). The opening lift was the only flexible position. The opening lift could accept a short stressed syllable (‘va-ka ‘van-ha ‘Väi-nä-möi-nen, ‘steady old Väinämöinen’), or it could be occupied by two short syllables, and much more rarely three (e.g. ‘va-ka ‘o-li ‘van-ha ‘Väi-nä-möi-nen, ‘steady was old Väinämöinen’).20 Short stressed syllables were placed on the fall, generating a ‘broken line’21 (‘tie-tä-jä ‘i-än’i-kui-nen, ‘sage eternal’). Unstressed syllables had free placement, as did monosyllabic forms of the verb olla, ‘to be’, and a long stressed syllable could be placed on a fall when preceded by a stressed monosyllable. In Finnish, Karelian and Ingrian poetry, the proportion of unbroken to broken lines was approximately equal in a composition, although later literary adaptations of the metre avoided broken lines (i.e. lines in which a lexically stressed syllable occurred in a metrically unstressed position). However, it is important to recognise that the metrical template of the trochaic tetrameter functioned as a system (or systems) of prescriptive conventions which allowed for flexibility: c.2.7 per cent of the lines recorded from Arhippa Perttunen (one of the most famous singers in Karelia in the first half of the nineteenth century) deviate from this pattern of syllabic placement.22 This is partly related to the inclination for lines to crystallise in transmission, both preserving verbal forms within a dialect community and also affecting their transmission across dialect communities, which in turn presents ranges of acceptable variation and may impact on the generation of new lines.23 The recognition of conventions is of tremendous importance when we are concerned with the diversity of Finnic traditions because these conventions have been

200

Alliteration in Culture

subject to development and change over time: in the 1930s and 1940s, new compositions in Arhippa’s region rose to a 25 per cent deviation from the placement of long stressed syllables on a lift and short stressed syllables on a fall.24 This is indicative of changes in the conventions and priorities of compositional strategies while the performance of established poems retained the more conservative conventions.25 Alliteration was similarly bound by convention: it was a required feature in composition but not required in every line: 40 per cent of Arhippa Perttunen’s lines in which there were only two words lacked alliteration, while about 20 per cent of lines of three or four words lacked alliteration.26 More generally, it appears that slightly more than half of the poetic lines exhibit strong alliteration, while over 20 per cent of the lines exhibit weak alliteration, and very slightly less exhibit no alliteration at all.27 These conventions were similarly subject to change and reinterpretation.28 In genres of extended composition, such as epic, lyric and incantation, alliteration was normally developed in a single line across two (or more) words. The same consonants could readily be used in alliteration in the subsequent lines, and in recent years increasing consideration has been given to the interlacing of alliterative patterns across sequences of lines.29 Although kalevalaic poetry is not stanzaic, Pertti Anttonen has recently drawn attention to the use of alliterative patterns in the development of rhetorical figures which mark units of composition or narration.30 Sillon vanha Väinämöinen sortu sormin lainehille, kämmenin vesille käänty, siellä kulki kuusi vuotta, seiso seisemän keseä, kulki kuusissa hakona, petäjäissä pölkyn päänä.31

Then old Väinämöinen sank with his fingers into the waves, with his palms into the waters turned, there he wandered six years, stood seven summers, wandered in a spruce as a log, in a pine as the end of log.

The first six lines of the unit are united through an interlacing of weak alliteration across three consonants (s, v, k) with the seventh line cuing the close of the unit with triple alliteration in a different consonant (p). This passage also provides an example of the preference for alliteration between adjacent words in a line, and the general restriction of weak alliteration to adjacent words.32 The interlacing of alliteration across lines integrates individual non-alliterating lines and line sequences into the texture of a kalevalaic composition. Matti Sadeniemi has pointed out that in performance, the metre levels the stress patterns of spoken

Frog and Eila Stepanova 201

language and the relative significance of syllables within a line.33 This allows syllables within a word to have an effect corresponding to wordinitial alliteration, particularly when the relevant syllables occur on a lift as -rä- does in the following ‘non-alliterating’ line: ‘vuo-re-hen ‘teräs-’pe-rä-hän, ‘into a steel-bottomed mountain’.34 This phenomenon has received almost no consideration in treatments of the poetic system.35 Interlinear patterns of consonance which are not part of the alliterative pattern also appear to have functioned to integrate non-alliterative lines into the acoustic texture of a poem: Siitä Pohjolan emäntä saatteli omille maille tuon on seppo Ilmarisen.36

Then Pohjola’s mistress escorted to his own lands that of the smith Ilmarinen.

Only the third line contains alliteration, and that is weak vocalic alliteration with the expletive particle (on, Ilmarinen). These lines open with one pattern of normal and internal alliteration (s-t, s-t, t...s) and close with a second (emäntä, oma maa, Ilmarinen), emphasising the unity of the lines through the repetition and near repetition of their metrical positions in a form of consonance-based phonetic parallelism.37 Although the ‘art’ of phonetic patterning is clearly evident, in extended compositions alliteration appears to have fulfilled first and foremost a textural function rather than exhibiting a clear tendency to fall on or unite words where emphasis or association is anticipated in a sentence.38 Alliteration could occur on either the lift or the fall of a troche, with indications of a slight preference for the lift.39 Genres of extended composition are inclined to place words according to length rather than syntactic function. Longer words are placed at the end of the line in a form of ‘right justification’40 approximately ten times more often than at the beginning of the line, and placement of words of four or more syllables in the middle of the line is completely avoided.41 This should not be confused with a mandatory caesura.42 Right justification (also referred to as ‘winnowing’ or ‘scooping’) naturally leads to the lift of the cadence (i.e. the lift of the last troche of the line) as an unlikely position for alliteration, while alliteration never occurs on the fall of the cadence as lines never end in a monosyllable.43 Alliteration is similarly inclined to ‘right justification’ (i.e. to fall at the end of the line), but this convention does not demand that a long word at the end of a line necessarily participate in alliteration.44 The amount of alliteration in kalevalaic compositions reveals a range of variation on a regional basis within a linguistic area and within

202

Alliteration in Culture

a region according to genre.45 Lyric poetry appears to have used significantly more alliteration and more strong alliteration in particular. Conversely, epic poetry appears to have made somewhat less use of strong alliteration than incantations or wedding songs, and also drew significantly more on vocalic alliteration than other genres.46 Mari Sarv has emphasised the use of alliteration in parallel verses and suggested that the use of parallelism in a genre impacts on the amount of alliteration in generic compositions.47 A significant difference between alliteration in extended kalevalaic compositions and proverbs is that proverbs prefer alliteration to fall on the beginning of the line rather than the end, and prefer to alliterate particular combinations of syntactic elements, such as subject and object.48 To the south in Ingria, the trochaic tetrameter became almost exclusively a women’s tradition, while men preferred metres and genres adapted from other cultures, a pattern which is found through Estonia as well.49 The placement of long and short stressed syllables shows approximately the same variation as in Arhippa’s poetry, but in Ingria there is more flexibility in the syllabic structure of the verse, permitting the insertion of short words or syllables, or dropping the last syllable of the line.50 We also find the emergence of a choral repetition, or a choral refrain, which reveals a significant range of flexibility in relation to the metre.51 Although there is an apparent increase in alliteration, it may be related to the preference of different line types, which were inclined to more alliteration,52 observing that words are often slightly shorter and therefore more words can easily appear in a line. There were also general developments in the tradition associated with the changing values of different genres of kalevalaic poetry, as well as channelling them into common conduits of transmission, resulting in the Ingrian ‘lyric–epic’ form53 – i.e. the development of alliteration shows a relationship to the development of genre.54 Matti Kuusi has also observed an inclination toward phonetic (including repeated lexemes) parallelism in uses of semantic parallelism in southern regions.55 This is indicative of different priorities in acoustic patterning as a technique for binding lines in Ingria, which becomes more prominent in Estonian traditions. In the northern Estonian tetrameter, deviation in the placement of long and short stressed syllables increases to 12.5 per cent and appears to reach as high as 35 per cent in the south.56 The percentage of broken lines drops from c.50 per cent in Karelian and Ingrian traditions to c.33 per cent in northern Estonia and c.12.5 per cent in southern Estonia. Alliteration is found in approximately 90 per cent of lines, of which slightly more than 50 per cent exhibit strong alliteration.57 There remains

Frog and Eila Stepanova 203

a clear preference for alliteration between adjacent words, although this is not as strong as in Finland and Karelia, and alliteration appears more often to fulfil rhetorical functions, to generate emphasis and bind specific words (repeated lexemes in the original are in italic font):58 Mul oli nuga terävä, alla helma hingerauda. Suisa lõin Sulevipoega, kuiste lõin Kalevipoega

I had a sharp knife a life-blade beneath my skirt. I struck Sulev’s son, straight-off struck Kalev’s son wantonly59

In addition to shortened lines, the movement toward the south in Estonia leads to the extension of the flexibility found in the first foot of kalevalaic poetry to the second and third feet.60 The Seto poetry of southern Estonia appears to have developed from this poetic system but displays a still greater range of flexibility, normally fluctuating between seven and ten syllables in a four-footed line.61 The use of alliteration wanes slightly:62 Mine’ iks sa Tooni nurmõ pääle, Manalaistõ maie pääle, Tuo iks mere veere pääle, Kalajärve kaalalõ, Sääl om iks sino vello, Sino kallis imekana.

Go to the meadows of Toon, to the land of the Mana people, to the shores of the sea, to the shores of the lake full of fish, there you will find your brother, your dear brother.63

Comparison with the ‘pure’ form of the widespread tetrameter has inclined scholars to treat this as a separate and potentially accentual metre, although it still exhibits common features on the level of word placement and register (or poetic language).64 The special development of the metre in this region appears to be related to its use in, and interaction with, the women’s lament tradition,65 which will be addressed in the following section. The Finnic trochaic tetrameter does not hold the same dominance among peripheral Finnic groups. Only examples of a few riddles and proverbs are found in Vepsian,66 the cultural group concentrated on the eastern periphery. In the south, there is no indication that it was established in Livonian, although the metre appears to have been borrowed into Latvian.67 This poetic system is normally considered to have its roots in the common Proto-Finnic cultural period, but the fact that it also appears as a regional phenomenon centred around the Gulf of Finland opens this to question. Considering the range of variation on

204

Alliteration in Culture

a regional basis, it is not clear to what degree a single unified ‘protoform’ of the trochaic tetrameter is reasonable, whether it traces back to a common Proto-Finnic period or is a later development which rose to remarkable authority as it spread across language communities.68

Alliteration and ‘unfixed’ metres The dominance of the trochaic tetrameter as a poetic mode of expression is, in any case, understood as a development in the ethnopoetic systems of the Finnic language family. However it is approached, it was introduced into or emerged in a tradition ecology with existing poetic systems, and alliteration appears to have already been a significant if not dominant feature within that tradition ecology. A network of traditions associated with ‘unfixed’ metres, based on alliteration and parallelism, is considered to reflect a much older stratum of cultural poetics.69 This poetic system had a different range of applications, and is primarily associated with the Finnic lament tradition, and the yoik tradition found among Karelians of the White Sea region. Finnic lament traditions were found primarily in Orthodox areas and were exclusively performed by women. Laments are conventionally divided into two classes: ritual laments and occasional laments (i.e. laments performed outside of ritual contexts). Both types of laments were found among Karelians70 and Vepsians; in Ingria among the Izhors and Votes and to some extent among the Lutheran population as well;71 and also among the Seto of south-eastern Estonia.72 All Finnic laments are clearly ‘poetic’ compositions, making extensive use of poetic circumlocutions, parallelism and culturally loaded images, uniting the words in each line (or in some regions what we will refer to as a poetic ‘string’) with alliteration. The relationships between these essential features vary in different cultural areas, as does the degree to which lament poetry approaches a regularly repeating metre. The most prominent and defining feature of laments is the use of poetic circumlocutions which replaced direct references to individuals, some phenomena, objects, animals, etc. The language of laments diverges so significantly from colloquial speech that it poses a considerable barrier to understanding the content.73 Alliteration is the most restrictive compositional feature of the genre, and is particularly associated with the formulaic language of poetic circumlocutions. The register of laments has developed this system of circumlocutions, which in some regions exhibits tremendous flexibility for expansion or contraction, and in others appears to be

Frog and Eila Stepanova 205

primarily a lexis of crystallised expressions. The density of alliteration in Finnic laments is, on average, more or less the same across cultural areas – approximately one out of every two words (i.e. a density ratio of 1:2) participating in alliteration (see, however, Vepsian laments below) – although the number of words participating in a single alliterative pattern varies considerably according to the length of a poetic line or ‘string’.74 In White Sea Karelia, the poetic system of laments was not bound to a regularly repeating metre. These laments were performed with melodic formulae, which were of different lengths within a single lament, and the length of a single melodic formula could be extended or contracted to meet the requirements of the verbal composition.75 We will refer to the compositional unit as a ‘string’: it was an extended verbal sequence on a single theme, unified by a consistent pattern of alliteration. One ‘string’ normally made use of several melodic formulae and might be described as a ‘stanza’: it could exceed 40 words in length and yet not be clearly divided into ‘lines’. ‘Strings’ are normally followed by at least one parallel ‘string’ developed according to a different pattern of alliteration. Strong alliteration is preferred, which is mixed with weak alliteration in the ‘string’. In the following example, the first ‘string’ consists of 33 words, 16 of which are united by strong alliteration (‘si/ ši’) expanded to 20 words through weak alliteration leading to a density of alliteration of 1:1.65. The second ‘string’ consists of 35 words, with 18 occurrences of strong alliteration (‘ka’), rising to 20 with weak alliteration leading to a density of 1:1.75. Siirrykšennelkyä, šivun omattomat šilie mielijen šincˇcˇimäiset, ieštä šileijen šyntyjen. Anna šilmivetysien kera šivun olkuova šiikavaltani šilmittäyvykšentelen ieššä šileijen šyntyjen, ennen kun šivun omattomat šilie mielijen šincˇcˇimäiset šanojen šeisattamattomiksi šieklasiksi šivun ašetteletta šiika mielialaseni. Kallissukšennelkua, kajon omattomat kaunis mielijen kannettuiset, ieštä kajon ylähäisien kallehien šyntysien. Anna kajon olkuova kaiho vartuvon kajon kualelen ieššä kallehien šyntyjen kajon olkuovilla kanavaltasilla, ennen kun kaihot mielialaseni kannetut karkual’l’ah kaihuo mielialaistani šanojen kannattamattomiksi karkiesiksi.76 Move, oh strangers born of the bright smart ones [groom’s retinue], from the bright ancestors [icons]. Let [me] the one who is leaving [bride], oh who is free as a whitefish [with my maidenhood], with sweet eye-waters [tears], appear in front of the bright ancestors [icons] before oh the strangers born

206

Alliteration in Culture

of the bright smart ones [groom’s retinue] oh change my whitefish-spirit [maidenhood] into a sieve which cannot hold words [be married]. Move, oh strangers born of the beautiful smart ones [groom’s retinue], from the highest dear ancestors [icons]. Let [me] the miserable body which is leaving [bride], to come with departing chicken-freedoms [maidenhood] in front of the beautiful ancestors [icons] before the strangers born of smart ones [groom’s retinue] depress my spirit with unendurably bitter words [be married]. A distinctive feature of the lament register of White Sea Karelia is a vocabulary of meaningless filler words or expletives which can meet the demands of any pattern of strong alliteration.77 These are used to complete or expand an alliterative sequence in the ‘string’ and to help realise the rhythm of a melodic formula. Normally the same expletive is used repeatedly within a string (cf. šivun used four times and kajon used five times in the example above).78 Although yoiks are normally associated with the Sámi, they were also a traditional part of White Sea Karelian culture. The register and compositional strategies of Karelian yoiks are remarkably close to the region’s lament register, including parallelism and alliteration. Yoiks were improvised songs with humorous or satiric content, performed by both men and women, although in the twentieth century the tradition was preserved exclusively among women. They were often about young men (grooms) and their lives – bachelorhood, war, drinking, smoking – whereas women were represented as a part of a man’s life, as their mothers and brides.79 In the northern Kiestinki region, alliteration appears inside a compositional ‘string’, which usually includes one to two sentences and appears in general to be shorter than ‘strings’ in laments. Anna šoittelen, šotkani šortuovaikä šuojaluoman šuorivartta, kun hänen šuuluni šuorittelou šomasekši solomakertoja šuululla šuojaluoman. Anna, kanani, kajuuttelen kaššeluoman kaislavartta, kun hänen kašvoh kaunistelou kamuakerrat, kairalla kaššaluoman.80 Let me, the duck in extinguish-age [older yoik singer] sing to one with a reed-like body who came from far away [groom], because he is making our houses beautiful. Let me the chicken [yoik singer] yell to the reed-like body [groom], because his beauty is making our houses beautiful in our home-hills.

Frog and Eila Stepanova 207

In the first ‘string’, 11 of 14 (1:1.27) words alliterate with ‘s-/š-’; 5 with ‘so-’; 4 with the diphthong ‘suo-’ (which could be equivalent to ‘so-’); and 2 with ‘su-’. In the second ‘string’, 10 of the 12 (1:1.20) words alliterate with ‘k-’; 9 with ‘ka-’. An extremely interesting example is offered by a singer who began a parallel ‘string’ with ‘Heittelen kakši-kolme … ei, jo ševoin …’,81 ‘I cast two-three [words] … no, I screwed up …’ and then the singer restarted the parallel string with alliteration in ‘vi-’. This implies the importance of alliteration as a compositional strategy, and the ability to select a pattern of alliteration appropriate to the subject of the ‘string’.82 In the southern half of White Sea Karelia, in the Uhtua region, although laments were still composed in ‘strings’, the yoiks became closer to kalevalaic poetic composition while retaining the yoik/lament register, but unlike kalevalaic poetry, alliteration is a compositional requirement of every line with an average density of at least 1:2.83 Kuoli kuvajattoman kultani aika kuninkahien puolilla kukkahie ilmoja. Luatijattoman lankieli laatnoini lauluaika Šolahti šoma šulhaissušaika šuululla šuuren pohjasen.84 The golden age [bachelorhood] of the one [orphan] without his shaper [mother] died [ended] on the sides of the kings’ flourishing worlds [in this world]. The good singing age [bachelorhood] of one [orphan] without his preparer [mother] fell [ended] The beautiful age of the groom [bachelorhood] slipped [ended] on the side of the great north [here]. There is no evidence of yoik traditions among other Finnic cultures and it is unclear whether a widespread yoik tradition survived the longest in the most conservative region of Karelia or has evolved through interactions with Sámi culture. Moving south into Olonets Karelia, individual lines become distinguishable within a single theme, but the line length remains extremely flexible, as do melodic formulae, but alliteration remains required. A single line or pattern of alliteration may be carried across more than one melodic formula. In the Karelian isthmus and further south into Izhorian and Votic cultural areas (Ingria), the lines become increasingly regular. In all of these regions, a single pattern of alliteration could

208

Alliteration in Culture

be carried across more than one line. Alliteration would still extend from the circumlocution to other words, most often verbs, nouns and adjectives.85 For example, in Nyt täytyy lakata [verb] miun laaiteltuni [circumlocution]/tähä murheen [noun] alhoo [noun] miun [pronoun] armaat [adjective] armimaiseni [circumlocution], (‘Now I must leave my prepared ones [my children]/in this vale of grief, my dear beloved ones [my children]’).86 There are six regions of lament traditions in Ingria alone.87 In some of these regions, laments come much closer to the metre of kalevalaic poetry – noting that in this region kalevalaic poetry had become almost exclusively a women’s singing tradition88 – and the use of alliteration also comes closer to its use in kalevalaic poetry: Istuukka imeteltyiseen laavitsalle laatimaiseen, miä harottelen kultakuutrat levittelen liekuteltuiseen leinelieminät. Sit down, my nurseling [child] on the bench, my prepared one [child] I shall loosen your golden curls I shall scatter my rocked one’s [child’s] sorrowful hair.89 To the east, Vepsian laments retain alliteration almost exclusively in crystallised circumlocutions. For example, vauktad vaudažed, ‘white freedoms [maidenhood]’, with its parallel expression derived from Russian synonyms, vol’niad vol’ad, ‘free freedoms [maidenhood]’; sulad susedad, ‘nice neighbours’ (from Russian); kalliš kandaihudem, ‘dear one who bore me [mother]’.90 However, alliteration no longer appears to be a required compositional feature of the genre. In Vepsian, alliteration appears to have significantly waned in its cultural activity and priority, although we still find a remarkable density of alliteration, for example in the following lines taken from the middle of a prose incantation which is neither metrical nor generally alliterative; observing that the alliteration is emphasised through patterns of repetition and relies heavily on reuse of two adjectives (marked in italic font below) in each pattern: Om netii korktaa krežaa korged kilbet’, korktas kilbetis korged kiudug, kiviine i ja¨ine. Korktas kilbetis om ja¨ine tuug, jäizˇoo tuguu isˇtub jäine mamsˇ. I jäizˇoo mamsˇii jäizˇed hambhad, i ka¨ded jäizˇed i jaugad jäizˇed.

Frog and Eila Stepanova 209

On that high hill is a tall sauna, in the tall sauna, is a high pile of stones, of rocks and ice. In the tall sauna is a chair of ice, on the chair of ice sits an old woman of ice. And the old woman of ice has teeth of ice, and hands of ice, and feet of ice.91 The southernmost Finnic culture to preserve a lament tradition is the Seto of south-eastern Estonia. Whereas in Ingria lament poetry was metrically much closer to kalevalaic poetry, the Seto form of the corresponding regivärss metre appears to have been in a much more fluid relationship with the metre which developed in laments. As in Ingria, these were transmitted as a women’s tradition,92 and this poetic system gives the impression of being a fusion of the two primary Finnic poetic systems. There still appears to be an inclination to place alliteration at the end of a line (though not necessarily used to unite a line), and there appears to be an increase in the use of repetition. The Seto lament metre could include a fifth foot, but the most remarkable feature is that nominal circumlocutions, common to the Finnic lament traditions, could expand a line significantly as though these circumlocutions stood, in some sense, outside the metre of ‘standard’ line composition,93 as kukku vanaimäkkene, ‘sweet grandmother’, in the following example (repeated lexemes in italic font): nu saijeks, kukku vanaimäkkene, ma armas au pääle, linnu saijeks, kukku vanaimäkkene, ma leeme kaalallõ, s´inno tul’l’iks, kukku vanaimäkkene, ma kodo kutsumahe, s´inno tul’l’iks, kukku vanaimäkkene, ma tarrõ tahtmahe. now am I, a darling, sweet grandmother, on my seat of honour, I, a bird, got, sweet grandmother, at my bridal position, I came, sweet grandmother, to invite you home, I came, sweet grandmother, to bid you to the house.94

Overview and implications The priority of alliteration across traditional modes of cultural expression in diverse regions implies that this priority has an extremely long history. Alliteration appears to have been established as a priority within the ethnopoetic system when the trochaic tetrameter, which rose to such a dominant poetic mode of expression, emerged or was introduced. The poetic systems evolved in different directions in each region. Very little has been said about how the poetry was used in

210

Alliteration in Culture

different areas at different periods. However, in the material presented here, the shift in conduits of transmission in Ingria and southern Finnic traditions, which led to the trochaic tetrameter becoming a women’s tradition, is an example of changes in patterns of use which impacted on the evolution of genres and their associated poetics. This is most apparent in Seto traditions, where the trochaic tetrameter and the unfixed meter appear to have undergone a comprehensive synthesis. These surveys moved from north to south, and the progression of differences which this reveals also has implications for the evolution of poetic systems and uses of alliteration. Firstly, there appears to be a relationship between the evolution in the use of parametric features such as alliteration and end-rhyme and whether, how and in what contexts these are already established as strategies in the tradition ecology – in terms of availability, viability and recognition as valuable or interesting social resources. This appears relevant to the comprehensive translation of ballads into vernacular poetics in the period before end-rhyme and fixed stanzaic structures had established footholds in the vernacular Finnic singing culture. It appears equally relevant to the persistence of alliteration only in scattered crystallised formulae in Vepsian laments, where alliteration had apparently become devalued. An additional factor in this process is the authority and value with which the parametric strategy becomes associated. Kristján Árnason (this volume) has emphasised that the evolution of alliteration in Icelandic poetries is related to an association of alliteration with Icelandic cultural identity. A similar phenomenon is found in the revival of alliteration in Finnish in response to the publication of the national epic, Kalevala, where a single work assumes central authority as a motivating model in the conference of value and authority. Secondly, the progression of differences evident in this survey implies that the evolution of these poetic systems and uses of alliteration are not constrained to processes of evolving relationships between genres and poetic systems internal to a linguistic-cultural group: it implies that evolution is in relation to other groups in immediate contact as part of a historical process. This is particularly evident in Ingria, where (northern Finnic) Ingrian-Finns, Izhorians and (southern Finnic) Votes exhibit similar poetic conventions as a regional phenomenon in spite of the fact that they could acknowledge (and reproduce!) differences between their singing traditions.95 The absence of the trochaic tetrameter on the peripheries of the Finnic cultural areas is thus highly ambiguous, particularly in light of the adaptation of this metre into Latvian on

Frog and Eila Stepanova 211

the southern periphery, and the appearance of a Finnic yoik tradition on the opposite periphery in an isogloss with the Sámi tradition.96 These examples emphasise that the evolution of traditions and poetics in relation to other groups in immediate contact was not restricted to linguistic affinity or necessarily even immediately corresponding poetic systems. This makes the relationship between Finnic alliteration and the alliterative poetries of other cultures in northern Europe a point of interest for future research – a puzzle which is perhaps more interesting in light of the development of initial stress in Indo-European languages of this region.97

Notes 1. We would like to thank Aili Nenola, Kati Kallio (formerly Heinonen), Pekka Hakamies, Lauri Harvilahti and Lotte Tarkka for their comments and suggestions in the development of this chapter. In the title, ‘Balto-’ has been placed in parentheses because ‘Balto-Finnic’ is gradually becoming obsolete but it currently remains more widely recognisable as a term for individuals less familiar with the field. The simplex ‘Finnic’ was earlier used as a technical term inclusive of Volgaic (Mari and the Mordvinic languages) and Permic (Komi and Udmurt) languages (for which ‘Finno-Permic’ has become preferred in order to avoid ambiguity), and as Johanna Laakso points out, ‘in older practice the term “Finnic” or even “Finnish” was applied to almost all Finno-Ugrian languages’ (J. Laakso, ‘The Finnic Languages’. In Dahl, Ö. and Koptjevskaja-Tamm, M. (eds), Circum-Baltic Languages: Typology and Contact, Vol. 1, Amsterdam, 2001, pp. 179–212 (180)). 2. On Finnic language history, see J. Laakso, ‘Itämerensuomalaiset sukukielemme ja niiden puhujat’. In Uralilaiset kansat: Tietoa suomen sukukielistä ja niiden puhujista, Juva, 1992, pp. 49–123 (49–50); A. Turunen, ‘The BaltoFinnic Languages’. In Sinor, D. (ed.), Handbook of Uralic Studies, Vol. I, The Uralic Languages: Description, History and Foreign Influences, Leiden, 1988, pp. 58–83; P. Kallio, ‘Suomen kantakielen absoluuttista kronologiaa’, Virittäjä, 2006: 2–25. Alliteration has also been found in some Mordvian and Mari traditions but there is no clear indication that these uses of alliteration are reason to believe that alliteration should be projected back to a FinnoVolgaic (c.2000–1500 BC) or Finno-Permic period (c.3000/2500–2000/1500 BC) (P. Leino, Strukturaalinen alkusointu suomessa: Folklorepohjainen tilastoanalyysi, Helsinki, 1970, pp. 13–14). See further note 67 below; see also Vilmos Voigt’s (this volume) discussion of the history of alliteration in Hungarian. 3. This focus was determined by restrictions of length. For discussions and overviews of alliteration in additional genres beyond the scope of the present chapter, see A. R. Niemi, ‘Lisiä alkusoinnun synty- ja kehityshistoriaan’, Kalevalaseuran vuosikirja, 6, 1926: 121–82; Leino, Strukturaalinen alkusointu (n. 2 above); Лаугасте, Э., Начальная и внутренняя аллитерация в эстонских народных песнях. TapTy, 1970.

212

Alliteration in Culture

4. M. Koptjevskaja-Tamm and B. Wälchli, ‘The Circum-Baltic Languages: an Areal-Typological Approach’. In Dahl, Ö. and Koptjevskaja-Tamm, M. (eds), The Circum-Baltic Languages: Typology and Contact, Vol. 2, Amsterdam, 2001, pp. 615–750 (622). 5. Laakso, ‘Itämerensuomalaiset’ (n. 2 above); Turunen, ‘The Balto-Finnic’ (n. 2 above); on the extremely dynamic linguistic–cultural area of Ingria, see A. Nenola, Inkerin itkuvirret – Ingrian Laments, Helsinki, 2002, pp. 11–16, 54–8. The diversity of dialects has led to some of them being classed as separate languages, such as Seto and Võro found in southern Estonia, or Ludic, which has variously been classed as a distinct language, a dialect of Karelian, and a dialect of Vepsian. 6. On the Orthodox Church and culture in northern regions, see e.g. L. Stark, Peasants, Pilgrims, and Sacred Promises: Ritual and the Supernatural in Orthodox Karelian Folk Religion, Helsinki, 2002. On the Lutheran response to ethnic modes of expression, see e.g. A.-L. Siikala, ‘The Singer Ideal and the Enrichment of Poetic Culture: Why Did the Ingredients for the Kalevala Come from Viena Karelia?’ In Honko, L. (ed), The Kalevala and the World’s Traditional Epics, Helsinki, 2002, pp. 26–43; V. Laurila, Suomen rahvaan runoniekat: Sääty-yhteiskunnan aikana, I, Helsinki, 1956, pp. 130–57. 7. M. Sadeniemi, Die Metrik des Kalevala-Verses, Helsinki, 1951, pp. 102–16; Leino, Strukturaalinen alkusointu (n. 2 above), pp. 56–8; E. G. Laugaste (Лаугасте, Начальная (n. 3 above), p. 26) argues that two diphthongs with the same second vowel (ei–ui) do not generate strong alliteration. Limitations of space do not allow a developed discussion here of (a) assonance, (b) its interaction with alliteration or (c) other forms of consonance, nor (d) the alliteration of diphthongs in relation to dialect and historical language change (cf. P. Hakamies, Venäjän-taipaleelta Viinijärvelle: Erään karjalaisryhmän identiteetistä ja assimilaatiosta, Helsinki, 1993, pp. 119–21). 8. Leino, Strukturaalinen alkusointu (n. 2 above); see also Лаугасте, Начальная (n. 3 above), who discusses alliteration in relation to patterns of assonance in Estonian traditions. See the example of weak vocalic alliteration between on and Ilmarinen (which may not have been generally recognised as ‘alliteration’ at all) addressed in note 36 below. 9. L. Tarkka, Rajarahvaan laulu: Tutkimus Vuokkiniemen kalevalamittaisesta runokulttuurista 1821–1921, Helsinki, 2005, p. 53; cf. M. Sarv, ‘Regilaul: Clearing the Alliterative Haze’, Folklore (Tartu), 10, 1999: 126–40 (132). 10. Федотова, В., Фразеологический словарь карельского языка. Петрозаводск, 2000, p. 78. 11. See Leino, Strukturaalinen alkusointu (n. 2 above), pp. 12–13 and works cited. Fionnuala Carson Williams addresses alliteration in English idioms in a broader European context elsewhere in this volume. 12. Степанова, А., Карельские плачи: Специфика жанра, Петрозаводск, 2003, p. 86. For a fruitful treatment of relationships of poetic and rhetorical features across both conventionalized genres and otherwise unmarked discourse, see J. Sherzer, Kuna Ways of Speaking: an Ethnographic Perspective, Austin, 1983. 13. E. Lönnrot, ‘Kokeita suomalaisessa laulannossa’, Suomi, series 1, part 5, 1845: 10–53 (36).

Frog and Eila Stepanova 213 14. On the rhetorical significance and authority of a poetic system in relation to its cultural activity, see J.M. Foley, The Singer of Tales in Performance, Bloomington, 1995. 15. F.G. Andersen, O. Holzapfel and T. Pettitt, The Ballad as Narrative: Studies in Traditions of England, Scotland, Germany and Denmark, Odense, 1920, p. 5. 16. E. Haavio, Inkerin virsi: Vertaileva runotutkimus, Helsinki, 1943, pp. 253–6; M. Kuusi, ‘Keskiajan kalevalainen runous’. In Kuusi, M. et al. (eds), Suomen Kirjallisuus, Vol. 1, Helsinki, 1963, pp. 273–397 (327–40); M. Kuusi, K. Bosley and M. Branch (eds and trans.), Finnish Folk Poetry – Epic: an Anthology in Finnish and English, Helsinki, 1977, pp. 56–7; A. Asplund, Balladeja ja arkkiveisuja: Suomalaisia kertomalauluja – Ballads and Broadsides: Finnish Narrative Popular Songs, Helsinki, 1994, pp. 33–4, 801–2. 17. Siikala, ‘The Singer Ideal’ (n. 6 above), p. 30; Laurila, Suomen (n. 6 above), pp. 59–105. 18. L. Kytömäki, ‘Heijastuuko Kalevala Nykysuomeen?’ In Roininen, N. (ed.), Viimeinen Väinämöinen: Näkökulmia kansalliseepokseen, Turku, 2000, pp. 90–109 (103–7). 19. M. Kuusi, ‘Questions of Kalevala Metre: What Exactly did Kalevala Language Signify to Its Users?’ In Siikala, A.-L. and Vakimo, S. (eds), Songs beyond the Kalevala: Transformations of Oral Poetry, Helsinki, 1994, pp. 41–55 (41). 20. See P. Leino, Language and Metre: Metrics and the Metrical System of Finnish, Helsinki, 1986, p. 131. Cf. note 50 below. 21. The placement of the stressed syllable on the fall is a feature which distinguishes traditional kalevalaic poetry from what Pentti Leino describes as the later ‘dynamic system’ of Finnish poetics: ibid., p. 130. 22. Ibid., p. 136; Sadeniemi, Die Metrik (n. 7 above). 23. Leino, Language (n. 20 above), pp. 137–40; cf. P. Lauerma, ‘Larin Parasken epiikan metriikasta’, Virittäjä, 2001: 44–58 (55). On alliteration and lexical variation at the level of the line in performance, see P. Lauerma, Larin Parasken epiikan kielellisestä variaatiosta, Helsinki, 2004, pp. 76–9. For example, Arhippa sang ‘Mi-tä ‘i-tet ‘Väi-nä-möi-nen, ‘Why do you weep, Väinämöinen?’, which presents a short syllable on the second lift (Suomen Kansan Vanhat Runot (SKVR), I–XV, Helsinki, 1908–97, Vol. I1, poem 54, l. 83). This metrical anomaly is attributable to patterns of verbal crystallisation in transmission which allowed the verb to become established in a metrically acceptable form (‘it-ket, which is still the conventional form in standard Modern Finnish) and maintained even after becoming ‘unmetrical’ in the wake of phonetic changes in the dialect. 24. P. Leino, ‘Äidinkieli ja vieras kieli: Rahvaanrunouden metriikkaa’. In Taino, L. et al. (eds), Mittoja, muotoja, merkityksia, Helsinki, 2002, pp. 207–30 (212). 25. Tarkka, Rajarahvaan (n. 9 above), p. 415. Cf. Ragnar Ingi Aðalsteinsson’s (this volume) discussion of changes in conventions of alliteration in Icelandic poetics through history. 26. Sadeniemi, Die Metrik (n. 7 above), p. 88. 27. Leino, Strukturaalinen alkusointu (n. 2 above), pp. 143–86. 28. P. Huttu-Hiltunen, Länsivienalainen runolaulu 1900-luvulla: Kuuden runolaulajan laulutyylin kulttuurisensitiivinen musiikkianalyysi, Kuhmo, 2008, pp. 315–18, 390–3, 423–6; cf. Leino, ‘Äidinkieli’ (n. 24 above), p. 217, and also Leino, Language (n. 20 above), pp. 137–40.

214

Alliteration in Culture

29. E.g. D.M. Abondolo, A Poetics Handbook: Verbal Art in the European Tradition, Richmond, 2001, pp. 87–9. 30. P. Anttonen, ‘Ethnopoetic Analysis and Finnish Oral Verse’. In Siikala, A.-L. and Vakimo, S. (eds), Songs beyond the Kalevala: Transformations of Oral Poetry, Helsinki, 1994, pp. 113–37 (123–5). On the flexible units of composition in kalevalaic poetry, see A.-L. Siikala, ‘Variation in the Incantation and Mythical Thinking: the Scope of Comparative Research’, Journal of Folklore Research, 23, 1986: 187–204; Frog, ‘Baldr and Lemminkäinen: Approaching the Evolution of Mythological Narrative through the Activating Power of Expression’, PhD dissertation, University College London, London, pp. 68–71; on ‘framing’ as a cuing device in poetic composition see C. Watkins, How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics, Oxford, 1995; cf. also György Kara’s (this volume) discussion of uses of alliteration in Mongol poetry both across lines and in relation to larger compositional units. 31. SKVR (n. 23 above), Vol. I1, poem 54, ll. 37–43; this passage is addressed by Anttonen (n. 30 above). The example comes from a performance of the SampoCycle epic performed by Arhippa Perttunen for Elias Lönnrot in 1834. 32. Leino, Strukturaalinen alkusointu (n. 2 above), p. 180. 33. Sadeniemi, Die Metrik (n. 7 above), p. 95: In this manner of singing there is, objectively speaking, hardly any indication of the accentuation pattern of prose speech: for a listener who does not know the language, it is impossible to observe the difference between the line-types vaka vanha Väinämöinen and tietäjä iänikuinen; both are sung with the same ictus [stress/lift] positions. However, it is precisely the use of alliteration which indicates that the root words play an important role in the formulation of the sung verse. 34. SKVR (n. 23 above), Vol. I4, poem 843, l. 25. 35. Cf. Лаугасте, Начальная (n. 3 above), p. 58. 36. SKVR (n. 23 above), Vol. I1, poem 79, ll. 189–91: ‘Ilmorisen’ appears in the transcription of line 191, transcribed as ‘Ilmarinen’ elsewhere in the poem (cf. ll. 131–2; see also Lauerma, Larin Parasken epiikan kielellisestä (n. 23 above), p. 75). The example comes from a performance of the Sampo-Cycle epic by the skilled singer Ontrei Malinen recorded in 1825. Rather than a ‘mistake’, Ontrei may be conforming the name to a pattern of assonance (tuon on seppo Ilmorisen). The third person singular present form of the verb olla (on), ‘to be’, in the third of these lines is an expletive particle: on expletive particles in kalevalaic poetry see further Lauerma (ibid.), pp. 60–5. 37. R. Jakobson, ‘Linguistics and Poetics’. In Rudy, S. (ed.), Selected Writings, Vol. 3, The Hague, 1981, pp. 18–51. 38. Sadeniemi, Die Metrik (n. 7 above), p. 94. The tendency for nouns, verbs and adjectives to participate in alliteration is at least partly due to the facts that (a) these parts of speech dominate any composition, and (b) longer words are more likely to participate in alliteration: cf. Leino, Strukturaalinen alkusointu (n. 2 above), pp. 180–6. 39. Sadeniemi, Die Metrik (n. 7 above), pp. 95–9; Pentti Leino (Strukturaalinen alkusointu (n. 2 above), pp. 180–6) has stressed that there is a range of factors which may be involved in this preference.

Frog and Eila Stepanova 215 40. J.M. Foley, Traditional Oral Epic: the Odyssey, Beowulf, and the Serbo-Croation Return Song, Los Angeles, 1993, pp. 56, 95–106. 41. Leino, Language (n. 20 above), p. 133. 42. The division of a line into two troches as discrete, usually parallel expressions is a fairly common strategy (e.g. rautakynnet, rautasormet, ‘iron-claws, ironfingers’, syötettihi, juotettihi, ‘gave food, gave drink’: SKVR (n. 23 above), Vol. I1, poem 370, ll. 77 and 82). Sadeniemi (Die Metrik (n. 7 above), pp. 27–39) argued for a mandatory caesura, and makes the very interesting observation of a slight preference not only for the lift, but for the beginning of a dipod (Sadeniemi, Die Metrik (n. 7 above), p. 98). However, as Pentti Leino (Language (n. 20 above), pp. 133–4) stresses, it is also quite natural for a pure trochaic line to contain a word of five or six syllables (cf. luonani lovehtimahan, ‘by me to speak’, minun nostatellessani, ‘when I was raising [you]’: SKVR (n. 23 above), Vol. I4, poem 15, ll. 3 and 6), and the patterns of word placement more practically approached in terms of right justification, which with words of four syllables or less could also be exchanged for left justification. 43. Leino, Language (n. 20 above), p. 133; cf. W. Anderson, Studien zur Wortsilbenstatistik der älteren estnischen Volkslieder, Tartu, 1953, p. 188. It should be observed that these phenomena are concerned with word length which reduces the frequency of stressed syllables occurring in the cadence, but alliteration was not avoided in the final foot: cf. ‘käänty’ and ‘päänä’ in the longer example above. 44. Leino, Strukturaalinen alkusointu (n. 2 above), p. 179. 45. M. Kuusi, ‘Kalevalaisen runon alkusointuisuudesta’, Virittäjä, 57, 1953: 198–207 (203–7); Лаугасте, Начальная (n. 3 above), p. 20; E. Laugaste, ‘Die Arten der Alliteration und der Assonanz sowie ihre Häufigkeit im altestnischen Volkslied’. In Heikinmäki, M.-L. Schellbach, I. and Ravila, P. (eds), Congressus Secundus Internationalis Fenno-Ugristarum: Helsingiae Habitus 23.– 28. VIII. 1965, Vol. 2, Helsinki, 1968, pp. 211–16 (212). 46. Leino, Strukturaalinen alkusointu (n. 2 above), p. 227; Kuusi, ‘Kalevalaisen’ (n. 45 above). 47. Sarv, ‘Regilaul’ (n. 9 above), pp. 132–7; cf. W. Steinitz, Der Parallelismus in der finnisch-karelischen Volksdichtung untersucht an den Lieden des karelischen Sängers Arhippa Perttunen, Helsinki, 1934, pp. 182–3; J. Saarinen, ‘Miten Arhippa lauloi? Tutkimus Arhippa Pertusen runosta Laivaretki ja Kantele’, Kalevalaseuran vuosikirja, 89, 2010: 35–53. 48. Leino, Strukturaalinen alkusointu (n. 2 above), pp. 132–7, 186. 49. L. Harvilahti, Kertovan runon keinot: Inkeriläisen runoepiikan tuottamisesta, Helsinki, 1992, p. 14; L. Virtanen, ‘Suomalaisen ja virolaisen kansanrunouden suhteista’. In Virtanen, L. (ed.), Viron veräjät: Näkökulmia folkloreen, Helsinki, 1987, pp. 14–34 (18). 50. Leino, Language (n. 20 above), pp. 136–40; Kallio, K., ‘Interperformative Relationships in Ingrian Oral Poetry’, Oral Tradition, forthcoming: when addressing the value of these dictated poems for metrical analysis, Heinonen points out that dictated poems generally contain more shorter word forms and more often drop the last syllable of a line than sung performances (cf. Lauerma, Larin Parasken epiikan kielellisestä (n. 23 above), pp. 36–70; Leino, Language (n. 20 above), p. 139). Heinonen has also pointed out that these metrical phenomena are found especially in Izhorian and Votic poems

216

51.

52. 53.

54. 55.

56.

57. 58. 59.

60.

61.

62. 63.

64.

65. 66. 67.

Alliteration in Culture (personal comment). Matti Sadeniemi (Die Metrik (n. 7 above), pp. 43–53) found less variation in the placement of long and short stressed syllables in Ingria than in Arhippa’s poetry, but Petri Lauerma (‘Larin Parasken epiikan metriikasta’ (n. 23 above), p. 54) takes into account word forms arising from gemination and shows that the variation is approximately the same. Harvilahti, Kertovan runon (n. 49 above), pp. 18–22; Heinonen, ‘Interperformative’ (n. 50 above). Kallio has pointed out that these variations also appear in solo performances. Leino, Strukturaalinen alkusointu (n. 2 above), p. 184. A.-L. Siikala, ‘Runolaulun käytäntö ja runoston kehitys’. In Hakamies, P. (ed.), Runo, alue, merkitys: Kirjoituksia vanhan kansanrunon alueellisesta muotoutumisesta, Joensuu, 1990, pp. 7–28 (14–19); L. Harvilahti, Kertovan runon (n. 49 above), p. 18; Kallio, ‘Interperformative’ (n. 50 above). Kuusi, ‘Kalevalaisen’ (n. 45 above), p. 203. See M. Kuusi, Maria Luukan laulut ja loitsut: Tutkimus läntisimmän Inkerin suomalaisperinteestä, Helsinki, 1983, pp. 191–4; Sarv, ‘Regilaul’ (n. 9 above), p. 131. J. Ross and I. Lehiste, The Temporal Structure of Estonian Runic Songs, Berlin, 2001, pp. 20–1; Leino, Language (n. 20 above), p. 136; see also A.V. Kõrv, Värsimõõt veske ‘Eesti rahvalauludes’, Tartu, 1928. Laugaste, ‘Die Arten’ (n. 45 above), p. 212. Ibid., pp. 211–16. Text and translation, L. Honko, S. Timonen and M. Branch, The Great Bear: a Thematic Anthology of Oral Poetry in the Finno-Ugrian Languages, trans. Keith Bosely, Pieksämäki, 1993, p. 653. The example comes from a lyric–epic song about a girl defending her maidenhood from a highwayman. Anderson, Studien (n. 43 above); M. Sarv, ‘Language and Poetic Metre in Regilaul’, Folklore (Tartu), 7, 1998, http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol7/ maripar.htm Ross and Lehiste, The Temporal Structure (n. 56 above), pp. 21–2: cf. the unusual ten syllable lines in northern regions only allow the increased flexibility in the first foot (n. 20 above). Laugaste, ‘Die Arten’ (n. 45 above), p. 212. Simplified notation and translation, M. Arukask, ‘Religious Syncretism in Setu Runo Songs’. In Valk, Ü. (ed.), Studies in Folklore and Popular Religion, Vol. 2, Tartu, 1999, pp. 79–92 (90); full text, J. Hurt (ed.), Setukeste laulud: Pihkva-Eestlaste vanad rahvalaulud, Vol. 1, Helsinki, 1904, poem 253, ll. 137–42; alliteration in imekana falls on the first syllable of the second part of the compound word, ime-kana. The example comes from a lyric–epic song describing a girl’s attempt to recover her brother from the world of the dead, which can also be found in the kalevalaic poetry of Ingria. Cf. V. Sarv, Setu itkukultuur, Tartu, 2000, pp. 142–62; L. Honko, The Maiden’s Death Song and the Great Wedding: Anne Vabarna’s Oral Twin Epic Written Down by A. O. Väisänen, Helsinki, 2003, pp. 38–9. Cf. Ross and Lehiste, The Temporal Structure (n. 56 above), pp. 121–7. K. Krohn, Kalevalankysymyksiä, Vol. I, Helsinki, 1918, p. 133. M. Korhonen, ‘The Early History of the Kalevala Metre’. In Siikala, A.-L. and Vakimo, S. (eds), Songs beyond the Kalevala: Transformations of Oral Poetry, Helsinki, 1994, pp. 75–87 (82–4); contra A.R. Niemi’s (A.R. Niemi, Vanhan

Frog and Eila Stepanova 217

68.

69.

70.

71. 72.

73.

74. 75.

suomalainen runomitan synnystä, Suomi, series 4, part 19.2, Helsinki, 1918) argument that the trochaic tetrameter derives from Baltic influence through comparison with Latvian daina poetry rather than that the Finnic metre was assimilated into this Latvian poetic tradition (see further S. Skrodenis, ‘Liettuan ja Suomen kulttuurisuhteiden varhaisvaiheita’. In Vento, U. (ed.), Dainojen henki: Latvian ja Liettuan kirjallisuudesta ja kultuurista, Helsinki, 1990, pp. 240–52 (243–5)). Korhonen’s argument that the metre has persisted from a much earlier period through comparison with certain Mordvian poetry is interesting (cf. Sarv, ‘Regilaul’ (n. 9 above), p. 131), but this position is highly doubtful owing to the history of cultural influences on Mordvian poetry and poetics on the one hand, and the absence of corresponding traditions among the Sámi on the other (cf. Leino, Strukturaalinen alkusointu (n. 2 above), pp. 13–14). Cf. M. Kuusi, and Ü. Tedre, ‘Dialogi Suomenlahden yli: Viron ja Suomen vanhan runomitan suhteista’. In Virtanen, L. (ed.), Viron veräjät: Näkökulmia folkloreen, Helsinki, 1987, pp. 36–50; Kuusi, ‘Questions’ (n. 19 above); Jonathan Roper recently reviewed similarities and potential relationships between the Finnic trochaic tetrameter and the four-footed Germanic alliterative meters in ‘On Finnic and English Alliterative Metres’. In Kilpiö, M., Kahlas-Tarkka, L., Roberts, J. and Timofeeva, O. (eds), The Anglo-Saxons and the North, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 364, 2009, Tempe, pp. 89–108. Kuusi, ‘Questions’ (n. 19 above), p. 43, and works cited; Kuusi, ‘Varhaiskalevalainen runous’. In Kuusi, M. et al. (eds), Suomen kirjallisuus, Vol. 1, Helsinki, 1963, pp. 129–215 (129–31); cf. U. Harva, ‘Vanhan kansan loitsulauluista’, Kalevalaseuran vuosikirja, 15, 1935: 38–46. This includes the White Sea Karelians, Olonets Karelians, Ludes (see n. 5 above) and also the Tver Karelians, who migrated from north-western areas around Lake Ladoga to a small area west of Moscow in the seventeenth century. On the complex cultural area of Ingria and its diverse Finnic populations see Nenola, Inkerin itkuvirret (n. 5 above), pp. 11–16, 54–8. L. Honko, ‘Finnic Lament Poetry’. In Leino, P. (ed.) with Kaivola-Bregenhøj, A. and Vento, U., Finnish Folkloristics 1, Helsinki, 1974, pp. 9–61 (17); Honko, The Maiden’s (n. 64 above), pp. 93–6; A. Nenola, ‘The Units of Comparison in the Study of Baltic-Finnish Laments’, Journal of Folklore Research, 23, 1986: 205–20. L. Honko, ‘Itkuvirsirunous’. In Kuusi, M. et al. (eds), Suomen Kirjallisuus, Vol. 1, Helsinki, 1963, pp. 81–128; A. Nenola-Kallio, Studies in Ingrian Laments, Helsinki, 1982, pp. 33–56; Nenola, Inkerin itkuvirret (n. 5 above); Степанова, А., Метафорический мир карельских причитаний, Ленинград, 1985; Степанова, Карельские (n. 12 above); E. Stepanova, ‘Itkukielen metaforat ja itkujen dramaturgia’. In Huttu-Hiltunen, P., Frog, Seppänen, J. and Stepanova, E. (eds), Kantele, runolaulu ja itkuvirsi, Juminkeko Julkaisuja 76, Jyväskylä, 2009, pp. 13–25, 113. Степанова, Карельские (n. 12 above), pp. 86–108. Гомон. А., ‘О музыкальных особенностях карельских причитаний’, in Карельские причитания, сост. Степанова, А. and Коски Т., Петрозаводск, 1976, pp. 441–54 (443–5).

218

Alliteration in Culture

76. Степанова, А. and Коски Т., Карельские причитания. Петрозаводск, 1976, pp. 49–50. The example comes from the beginning of a (ritual) wedding lament collected in 1967, in which the lamenter functions as the voice of the bride on her wedding day, addressing the groom’s retinue. 77. E.g. aijan, helun, innon, kajon, kiran, kujin, kyhän, luavun, manun, oimun, panun, suarnan, suimun, tunnon, vallan, verran, visan, uusin. See further Степанова, А., Карельские (n. 12 above), p. 90. On the use of expletives in northern Finnish Karelian laments, see Hakamies, Venäjän-taipaleelta (n. 7 above), p. 114. On expletive elements in the trochaic tetrameter, see notes 36 and 50 above. 78. Степанова and Коски, Карельские причитания (n. 76 above) pp. 49–50. 79. Степанова, А. and Лавонен, Н., Карельские ейги, Петрозаводск, 1993, pp. 6–40; see also N. Lavonen, ‘Die karelischen Joiks’, Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher, new series 17, 2001–2: 9–26. 80. Степанова and Лавонен, Карельские ейги (n. 79 above) p. 59. 81. Ibid., p. 66. 82. Ibid., pp. 52–3. 83. Ibid., p. 54. 84. Ibid., p. 70. 85. Cf. P. Leino, ‘The Language of Laments: the Role of Phonological and Semantic Features in Word Choice’. In Leino, P. (ed.) with Kaivola-Bregenhøj, A. and Vento, U., Finnish Folkloristics 1, Helsinki, 1974, pp. 92–131. 86. Text and translation, Nenola, Inkerin itkuvirret (n. 5 above), p. 245: an Ingrian occasional lament from the Laukaa District sung by a dying mother to her children. 87. Nenola-Kallio, Studies (n. 73 above), pp. 57–77. 88. Ibid., p. 255. 89. Text and translation, Nenola, Inkerin itkuvirret (n. 5 above), p. 385, a short Ingrian wedding lament sung by a mother to her daughter. 90. E.N. Setälä, and J.H. Kala, Näytteitä äänis- ja keskivepsän murteista, Helsinki, 1951, pp. 310–11. 91. Text and translation, Honko, Timonen and Branch, The Great Bear (n. 59 above), p. 546. 92. Cf. Honko, The Maiden’s (n. 64 above), pp. 37–59. 93. V. Sarv, Setu itkukultuur (n. 64 above), pp. 145–62. Sarv approaches this as part of the verse metre – the fifth foot. Sarv rejects that the Seto metres should be classed with the trochaic tetrameter, but she makes a comparison with the conservative northern metrical system outlined by Leino rather than considering the distribution and change of the poetic system across regions. See also P. Hagu, ’Lamenter’s Strategy in the Performance of Wedding Laments’, Arv, 51, 1995: 115–24 (120). 94. Text and translation, Honko, The Maiden’s (n. 64 above), p. 252. 95. V. Salminen, ‘Kalevalan kertovat runot Inkerissä’, Kalevalaseuran vuosikirja, 9, 1929: 52–76 (60). 96. Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Wälchli, ‘The Circum-Baltic’ (n. 4 above), pp. 638–40. 97. Ibid.; cf. Roper, ‘On Finnic and English’ (n. 68 above), pp. 90–2.

13 Alliteration in Somali Poetry1 Martin Orwin

Abstract Alliteration is a very important compulsory stylistic aspect of Somali poetry along with metrical structure. It is always word initial and the same sound must be sustained throughout the whole poem in every line or halfline according the metrical structure. This chapter presents the principles of how this system works: which sounds alliterate with each other, the interaction with the metrical structure of the line and how the alliterative sound is chosen. It also considers the creative use of alliteration in some example poems, looking at the iconic use of alliteration and also the way in which the principles of alliteration can be used for particular effects.

Somali is a Lowland East Cushitic language (part of the Afro-Asiatic superfamily) which is spoken in the eastern part of the Horn of Africa in the countries of Somalia (including the self-declared Republic of Somaliland), eastern Ethiopia, south-eastern Djibouti and north-eastern Kenya. Reliable figures of the number of speakers are not available, but there are probably about 12–13 million speakers in total. There are three major socio-economic groups: the nomadic pastoralists, agriculturalists and townspeople. The farmers live predominantly along and between the two main rivers, the Shabeelle and Jubba, which flow from the southern Ethiopian highlands through the central regions of the Somali territories. The dialects spoken by these people are mostly those referred to as Af Maay in Somali. The nomadic pastoralists range in the surrounding areas and predominantly speak dialects which are referred to as Af Maxaad Tiri2 in Somali. Other dialects, sometimes collectively 219

220

Alliteration in Culture

termed the Banaadiri dialects, are spoken in and around Mogadishu and along the neighbouring coastal areas. Although all dialect groups use alliteration, it is the Af Maxaad Tiri poetry which this chapter will deal with. When considering Somali poetry, it is important to bear in mind that it is heard poetry. Although there are now printed books of poems, these are not the way in which poetry is appreciated by the vast majority of people; rather they listen to poetry, either in direct performance or on cassette tape and nowadays increasingly the Internet. Most poetry is still composed, memorised and transmitted orally, although a few poets do use writing in the composition process and others write their poetry once they have composed it in their head. In Somali poetry alliteration is a systematic stylistic characteristic, one that is so prevalent that in the first published collection of poems3 the poems are organised into sections according to the alliterative sound they follow. There are three terms used for it in Somali: qaafiyad is one and is an Arabic loan word which in Arabic actually means ‘rhyme’, a major stylistic feature of poetry in that language; xarafraac is a compound term made up of the Arabic loan xaraf meaning ‘letter of the alphabet’ and the Somali word raac meaning ‘to accompany’, the two coming together with the meaning ‘to follow, accompany a letter’. The final term is higgaad or hikaad which is also used for ‘spelling out a word sound by sound’. The other systematic stylistic feature in Somali poetry is metre, which, as we shall see, interacts with the alliteration. In order to introduce how alliteration works, let us look at the following lines from the poem ‘Jacayl Dhiig ma lagu Qoray’ (Has Love Been Blood-written) by Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame ‘Hadraawi’ in which the alliterative sounds are underlined:4 Jacayl dhiig ma lagu qoray Weli dhuux ma loo shubay Qofna saanta dhabarkiyo Ma u dheegay feedhaha

Has love been blood-written Has marrow yet been poured for it A person peeled The skin from their back or ribs5

Two things stand out from this example. Firstly the alliterative sound is at the beginning of the word and secondly there is an alliterative word in every line. The alliterative sound being found at the beginning of the word contrasts with other examples of alliteration where it occurs at the beginning of, for example, a stressed syllable. It is to be noted that stress does not figure in Somali, in which suprasegmental phonology is characterised by pitch accent, which plays no role, as far as we know, in alliteration or metre. The pattern of the alliterative sound being the same in all lines reflects the fact that the alliterative sound is always sustained

Martin Orwin 221

throughout the whole poem, thus in this poem alliterating in there is at least one word beginning with that sound in every line. In this example the lines are fairly short since it is in a metrical pattern known as jiifto. If we consider another, longer metrical pattern we see how alliteration is used not just throughout the whole poem but within the line. The gabay metre is an example of a long line which is divided into two half-lines, the division between which is shown by a comma in the following example, where the alliterative sounds are again underlined: Waxa gabayga loo qaadayaa, waa qalqaalsamiye Waxa geela qaaliga ka dhigay, qiimuhuu yahaye Qarfo Hawda waxa loogu wadi, waa qatimayaaye Fardaha qoolka waxa loogu guri, qoobka orodkiiye A gabay is memorised for its making a point well What makes the camels a measure of wealth is their great value Camels are driven to the desolate Hawd6area because they can resist thirst The halter is taken up for the horse to make it gallop on its hooves Here we see that there is an alliterative word in each half-line, a pattern which again is sustained throughout the whole poem. So in this poem of 38 lines there are at least 76 words beginning with ‘q’. Note that in this form, the alliterative word in the second half-line must begin within the second half-line. The buraambur genre of poetry, which is composed and performed exclusively by women, also has a long metrical line but the alliterative word in the second half-line may begin in the first half-line as long as it runs into the second.7 As to the alliterative consonant sounds themselves, they must always be the same.8 Aside from consonants, a poem may alliterate in vowels, in which case all five vowel qualities are equivalent and the length of the vowel is not significant, as we can see from the following example by Yawle from the first half of the twentieth century: Irdhaa galay raggii Weeraraw idinku oodnaaye Afartaa gabyahan bay qabteen sida ugaadheede Afka Gubato sidii Reer Xuseen loogu wada aasay Indhahay ka meer-meeriyaan urur aad joogtaane Intuu inan ka noolyahay ha sugin inay illaaweene9 A wariness has entered the men, oh Weerar,10 who are living around you They fled in [all] four directions like wild animals

222

Alliteration in Culture

In that way the Reer Xuseen11 were all buried at the mouth of Gubato They move their eyes from here looking away from where you are While a [single] one of them is living don’t expect them to forget I have suggested elsewhere 12 that each syllable in Somali has an obligatory onset consonant by phonological rule and that in words which begin with a vowel this is realized as a glottal stop, which, according to the context, may or may not be realized phonetically. Vowel alliteration might therefore be considered to be alliteration of the glottal stop. When a poem alliterates in vowels it is said in Somali to alliterate in alif the first letter of the Arabic alphabet. Another feature of alliteration which is very important is that the alliterating words must be ones with some lexical substance (nouns, adjectives, verbs or adverbs). It is not possible to get away with using pronouns, focus markers, negative particles, etc. as the alliterative word. We see this in the example by Yawle above in which there are a few other words which begin with vowels, but which would not count as the alliterative words for this reason. Furthermore, the same word must not be used over and over, unless, of course there is line or half-line repetition. Using the same alliterative word in different lines within a poem does happen occasionally, but to use one word more than a couple of times, and certainly to do this more than a couple of times with different words, would indicate a poet’s lack of skill and would be recognised as such by the listener. Equally the use of words which are chosen just because of alliteration and which otherwise might be regarded as forced or irrelevant is not appreciated. Said Sheikh Samatar comments amusingly on this by quoting Mohamed K. Salad, a poet and literary critic who complained of a certain poet: who trying to alliterate in ‘t’ took off at Taleeh [the Dervish capital in northern Somalia] and then went soaring towards Tanzania and from Tanzania to the Thames via Tanarive. ... His hapless audience eventually traced him to Tokyo only to find that he had taken precipitous flight to Timbuktu via Tangier!13 One occasionally comes across compound words in poems in which the second part of the compound is the alliterative word. An example is the word kabo-caseeye ‘shoeshine boy’14 used in a poem of that name by Mohamed Hashi Dhama ‘Gaarriye’ and in which the alliteration is on (the ‘ayn of Arabic), here found in the second part of the compound.

Martin Orwin 223

We have seen above how alliteration interacts with the half-lines in long metrical patterns. There is further interaction with the metre, however, in that the alliterative word can only begin in certain places in the line. This is not a feature of alliteration per se, but rather is a corollary of the fact that word boundaries only occur in certain parts of the line. To show this we shall take the jiifto metre as an example. This may be represented as follows, where ∪ represents a short vowel syllable and ∪∪ represents a position which may be realised as either one long vowel syllable or two short vowel syllables.15 The different metrical positions are labelled MP1, etc. for convenience. ∪∪ MP1

∪∪ MP2

∪ MP3

∪∪ MP4

∪∪ MP5

Aside from the vowels in the metre, consonants are also patterned in the metre.16 There is a constraint on syllable final consonants such that they may only be found at the end of a metrical position or within MP1. That is to say when MP2, MP4 or MP5 are realised as two short vowel syllables the first syllable cannot end in a consonant. This constraint does not however apply to MP1. This constraint also applies to word breaks, so words can only begin at the start of a metrical position or within MP1 when it is realized as two short vowel syllables. When MP2, MP4 or MP5 are realised as two short vowel syllables, the second syllable may not be the beginning of a word. The corollary of this is then that the alliterative sound is only found in certain positions in the line. Given all these characteristics of alliteration we can see that making a good poem in Somali requires some skill. One basic aspect of this skill is to possess a large vocabulary. It is recognised by Somalis that a poet who is regarded as particularly skilful has a large vocabulary at his or her fingertips. Imagery, metaphor and allusion in Somali poetry has relied heavily on the vocabulary of the life of the nomadic pastoralists and this continues in modern times by poets who may not have actually lived in the countryside for any great length of time, if at all. This vocabulary relates to camel husbandry, animals and plants, the weather, star constellations, different types of clouds, etc. Poets may also use words of foreign origin, particularly from Arabic and, given the European involvement in the Somali territories since the later nineteenth century, English, Italian and French, according to the poet’s knowledge of those languages which would to a large extent depend on which part of the Horn of Africa the poet was from. Poets may also

224

Alliteration in Culture

coin words, or subtly alter words, although this must be used carefully. All of these words can sometimes lead to difficulty in understanding, but must not make the meaning opaque. Somalis greatly value the creative use of language and people more knowledgeable will often give an explanation or expand on particularly difficult lines in poems. The explanation of such lines is common when a poet is reciting a poem and listeners tend to appreciate the subtleties that, once explained, such usage can bring to the affective force of the poem. Another feature of this which must be mentioned is the aesthetics of the sound of lines in a poem. Although this requires much more research I have heard people say how they really appreciate the beauty of the sound, even when the precise meaning of the line is not necessarily clear to them. Of course, when the sound of a line coincides with a particularly striking image or use of language which is clear to the listener, then it is all the more appreciated. The way in which poets choose the alliterative sound for a poem is something that has not been researched as yet. However, given the prominence of the sound, it is not generally an arbitrary matter and is often picked up from a prominent or important word in the poem. For example, we mentioned above the use of the compound word kabocaseeye in Gaarriye’s poem of that name alliterating in . The poem is about street children, represented by the shoeshine boy, who were being rounded up from the streets of Mogadishu because the regime did not want them to be seen by foreign dignitaries who were gathering there for the Year of Children in 1979. The word for ‘children’ in Somali is carruur and thus the initial sound of this key word resonates as the alliterative sound throughout the poem. Hadraawi’s hees poem ‘Beledweyne’ written in the middle of the 1970s is a love poem in which the poet meets a woman in the town of Beledweyn. As a member of a travelling theatre group, he has to leave the next day, much to his regret, and the prominence of the town as the place where he met the woman is reflected in the use of ‘b’ as the alliterative sound. Another example is a poem by Abdi Muhumed Amin which was composed in 1992, about the destruction of Somalia and the fact that many people were leaving their country as refugees. A word that occurs throughout the poem is dalkaygow ‘oh my country’, and the initial sound of this important word for the whole poem is the alliterative sound of the poem as a whole. Another factor affecting choice is the relative difficulty in using some sounds. This relates to the simple fact that there are more words beginning with certain sounds than with others. Alliteration in alif is

Martin Orwin 225

one of the easiest since there are many words beginning with all the vowels, long and short. Other sounds that are relatively easy are /s, d, g/. Some sounds on the other hand are recognised as difficult, the most difficult being /j/ (written ), with /t/ and /k/ also being regarded as particularly difficult (in the main Somali–English dictionary17 there 7½ pages of words beginning with and 30 pages of words beginning with ‘d’). As with any aspect of language use in poetry, alliteration is not simply something to be suffered in the composition process, rather it can be manipulated and used creatively. Instead of seeing it as a restriction on creativity Somali poets and connoisseurs of poetry see it as something which allows a poet to bring more out of the poem, something which gives the poet more raw material out of which to craft the poem. We shall look at three poems in which alliteration is used creatively in different ways. Having said that, it is important to note that there have been some people who have considered making poetry without alliteration, and for that matter without following a metrical pattern. This has not been researched, and I myself have not come across any poetry that does not alliterate, apart from the specific use of jacbur mentioned below. The use of metre is a different matter since there are some modern poems which do not seem to use a recognisable metre, but which are linked to a particular musical structure. We shall not look into this further here. The first poem we shall look at is by Ahmed Ismail Diiriye ‘Qaasim’ (d.2006) and is concerned with human nature, with the poet presenting himself as bitter and sweet, bad and good, at different times. Most of the poem is in the first person or refers to the poet in the first person, this pattern being broken in the last three lines when he addresses the listener directly with an imperative verb telling us to pass along the path that we choose, the good or bad one. I have written more extensively on this poem18 but shall look here at one way in which alliteration is used creatively in it. The alliterative sound is /m/ and each line, of course, fulfils all the requirements of alliteration described above. However, we find in this poem the use of further words beginning with <m>, one of which I shall concentrate on. Let us consider the first line: Dacartuba mar bay malab dhashaa, aad muudsataa dhabaqe19 The aloe sometimes produces honey which you suck as sweet There are two words beginning with <m> in the first half-line: ‘mar’ (sometimes) and malab (honey) which here stands for the nectar of the

226

Alliteration in Culture

aloe plant.20 Whilst there is nothing unusual about finding more than one alliterative word in a line, when it is considered in light of other words in this poem, it has, I suggest, a particular effect. Aside from its use in line 1, ‘mar’ is used a further ten times in a set of parallelistic structures describing good and bad characteristics. For example lines 8 and 9: Mar baan ahay muddeec camalsan oon, maagista aqoone Marna macangag laayaan ahoo, miiggan baan ahaye Sometimes I am an even-tempered, obliging person, unprovocative And sometimes I am an obstinate, dangerous, single-minded person We can see here that although ‘mar’ is used repeatedly, there is another word in each first half-line which alliterates. No poet could get away with using ‘mar’ as the single alliterative word in so many lines. Let us now consider the final line: Iska soo mar waa kuu bannaan, marinkaad doontaaye Just pass along it, it is open to you, the path you wish. Here we see the word ‘mar’ used in the first half-line and, as it is the only word beginning with <m>, it must be the alliterative word. Here though the word does not mean ‘sometimes’, it is rather a homonym, the imperative singular form of ‘mar’ (to pass along, pass by). As such, it is a different word from ‘mar’ as used everywhere else in the poem and thus does not contravene any of the conventions of use of alliteration. However, the sudden introduction of this homonymic imperative following the repeated instances of ‘mar’ (sometimes), is a powerful way of bringing the message home to the listener, amplified by the fact that it is the single alliterative word in that half-line. Furthermore, when we consider the metrical position in which it is found, we see it is the same as the first use of ‘mar’ in line 1, namely the first compulsory short vowel syllable position.21 Finally, the alliterative word in the second half-line of the last line is a derivative of the verb ‘mar’, ‘marinkaad’ (the path which you ...).22 We see that through the use of the word ‘mar’ and its interaction with the requirements of alliteration in the poem, Qaasim skilfully primes the listener for the forceful imperative in the final line with a further echo of it in the second half-line. This is an example of the structural use of interacting with metrical patterning and vocabulary to give the poem (a very commonly known and wellloved poem among the Somalis) its strong impact.

Martin Orwin 227

The second example is of alliteration being used in an iconic manner. The poem is called ‘Samadoon’ (Seeking Good Things) and is by Abdulqadir Haji Ali Haji Ahmed who died young in London in 2001. The poem is a very powerful commentary on the terrible situation so many Somalis found themselves in between the late 1980s and 1995 when the poem was written, a time of war, violence and insecurity from which huge numbers of people fled as refugees. It begins with the following lines: Dulman iyo Xirsoow dagan Xirsoow, dabar danbeedaysan Dahan deyrran dool seben ku-maqan, dayrada u laalan Dilan duuggan diihaal u fidhan, dawriyo u looggan Duwan deeqda Eebbahay ka madhan, damac u heensaysan Dacdarraysan deebaaq u xidhan, godob u dooyaysan Dar ka-maqan haddana ceel-dul-tuban, garasho roon diiddan Hirsi the oppressed deceived screened off enclosed disowned killed buried slaughtered for those astray saddled for greed neglected bound up from resentment sitting the water trough’s absent

hobbled from behind absent perpetually dangling stick thin destitute without compassion empty of the grace of God for the bitterness of the aloe head and hands on knees even from the well good sense is refused23

As can clearly be seen, it alliterates in , but we find many more words in these lines than the required single word in each half-line. Given what this poem is concerned with, I suggest that this is an iconic use of the alliterative sound, the repetition of words beginning with ‘d’ is like an insistent, acoustic hammering home of the message. Ahmed Adan Ahmed comments on similar use of extra alliterating words and the addition of words beginning with the retroflex sound written in the poem ‘Dardaaran’ by Sayid Mohamed Abdille Hassan, saying: ‘The nature of the sounds “d” and “dh” is such that a definite sense of a biting, vehement attack results when these sounds are tightly compacted, as they are in “Dardaaran”.’24 The final example is a poem composed in 1998 by Abdullahi Hassan Bootaan, a young poet living in London. It was made a month and a half after he arrived in the UK and addresses the experience of being in central London for the first time. In it he uses a number of words from

228

Alliteration in Culture

English, but what is particularly interesting here is that the vast majority of these English words are the alliterative words beginning with . Some are words which in English begin with the voiceless /p/, but since this sound is not found in Somali the voiced equivalent is used, namely /b/. They include some words which are regular loans in Somali, such as booliis ‘police’, baaskiil ‘bicycle’, and tareen ‘train’, but most are words which are not regularly used and that only those with a good knowledge of English would know. These include the following: biliis ‘please’, benefiid ‘benefit’, Bii Em ‘BMW’ and baybar ‘[news]paper’. Of the words such as this that do not begin with ‘b’ all except kaamera are used in short phrases which do begin with ‘b’ such as biliis jeenj ‘please change’. Two places also feature, Barta Leesta ‘Leicester Square’ and Bikidhili ‘Piccadilly’ which, as we can see, also alliterate. The use of these words as alliterative words draws attention to them, something which, according to Bootaan himself, was an effect he wanted to achieve. He has also used this device in another poem and we may see it as a further way in which alliteration is used creatively to make poems which are aimed particularly at the Somali community in London. Having looked at these examples of the creative use of alliteration there is another way in which it can be made to stand out, namely by its absence! The reader may be surprised to know, after all that has been said, that there are a very few instances of poems which do not use it. These, however, are very rare and there are only two poets I have come across who have used it, both of them among the greatest living poets. The man to introduce this phenomenon was Abdullahi Ma’allin Dhoodaan, who in the 1970s made some poems which were comical, looking at the ways of people in the city, particularly in Mogadishu. He brought together incongruous images to comic effect without using alliteration for which the term jacbur was coined, which means gathering together lots of different things. The technique was used by Maxamed Ibraahim Warsame ‘Hadraawi’ in a poem about dictators and in which Ferdinand Marcos, the former president of the Philippines, is represented as speaking directly and when he does it is without alliteration, in jacbur. To conclude, given the all-pervasive nature of alliteration in Somali poetry, it is not surprising to find it used in other spheres. Proverbs are an obvious example which display various aspects of sound patterning, including alliteration. Plays, since large sections are composed in verse, also show alliteration; although each part alliterates in itself, I have not come across a play which sustains the same alliterative sound throughout. The names of the cast might also alliterate such as in Cali Sugulle’s

Martin Orwin 229

Indhasarcaad in which all but one of the cast of nine have names beginning with ‘d’. Also, when prose fiction writing began, alliteration was sometimes used in the titles of novels and stories, for example ‘Colaad iyo Caashaq’ (War and Love) by Isman Ali Guul. Finally, within families we occasionally find children being given names which alliterate. I know someone who is called Warsan – her sister is called Wanaag and her brother Warsame.

Notes 1. In preparing this chapter I am grateful for the help of Abdullahi Hassan Bootaan, Mohamed Hassan ‘Alto’ and Abdi Aden Abdille ‘Eelow’. 2. In the Somali writing system, <x> represents the voiceless pharyngeal fricative, the voiced pharyngeal fricative, the uvular plosive and the voiced retroflex plosive. 3. Jaamac C. Ciise, Diiwaanka Gabayadii Sayid Maxamad Cabdulle Xasan, Mogadishu, 1974. 4. Remember the digraph represents the retroflex voiced plosive, a simplex consonant; see note 2. 5. M. Orwin, ‘Introduction to Somali Poetry and Translations of Samadoon by Cabdulqaadir Xaaji Cali and Jacayl Dhiig Ma Lagu Qoray by Maxamed Ibraahim Warsame “Hadraawi” with Notes’. In Watts, S. (ed.), Mother Tongues, Non English-Language Poetry in England, Modern Poetry in Translation, 17, London, 2001, pp. 12–30. Note all translations are my own unless otherwise stated. 6. A large, important grazing area in the Somali territories in Ethiopia. 7. See G. Banti and F. Giannattasio, ‘Music and Metre in Somali Poetry’. In Hayward, R.J. and I.M Lewis, I.M. (eds), Voice and Power: the Culture of Language in North-East Africa. Essays in Honour of B.W. Andrzejewski, London, 1996, pp. 83–127. 8. J. Greenberg, ‘African Prosodic Systems’. In Diamond, S. (ed.), Culture in History: Essays in Honor of Paul Radin, New York, 1960, p. 929, on the basis of some very early work on Somali poetry by Kirk and Cerulli, suggests that the use of equivalence sets in alliteration occurs, but I have never come across this, nor heard this mentioned by Somalis nor seen it in some of the examples he seems to be referring to. The basis upon which he makes this suggestion needs to be further looked into. 9. Note here that there are other words beginning with a vowel: idinku, aad, intuu and inay. These are all words which play a grammatical role (the first two are pronouns and the latter two introduce subordinate clauses) and as such would not be suitable for use as the alliterative words. 10. A warrior’s name. 11. A clan lineage. 12. M. Orwin, ‘Aspects of Somali Phonology’, PhD dissertation, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1994. 13. Said S. Samatar, Oral Poetry and Somali Nationalism: the Case of Sayyid Mahammad ‘Abdille Hasan, Cambridge, 1982, p. 61.

230

Alliteration in Culture

14. The word comprises kabo ‘shoes’ and caseeye, literally, ‘reddener’. 15. We shall ignore the option of anacrusis here. 16. See Maxamed X. Dhamac ‘Gaarriye’, ‘Miisaanka Maansada’. Xiddigta Oktoobar, 24 January 1976, p. 3 and M. Orwin, ‘On Consonants in Somali Metrics’. Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere, 65: 103–27 for details. 17. R.D. Zorc and M.M. Osman, Somali–English Dictionary with English Index, 3rd edn. Kensington, Md, 1993. 18. M. Orwin, ‘A Literary Stylistic Analysis of a Poem by the Somali Poet Axmed Ismaciil Diiriye “Qaasim”’. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 63(2), 2000: 194–214. 19. For the reader familiar with the metre of the gabay line, this line may seem a little odd. I have written about this in ibid., p. 210. 20. The plant is itself regarded generally as bitter and is used in poetry elsewhere in this more negative way; see for example the extract from the poem Samadoon below. Here it is a metaphor for the poet and for human beings generally who can be both bitter and sweet, bad and good, in nature. 21. The beginning of the gabay metre is the same as the jiifto metre described above, so the word mar in these two lines is in the equivalent of MP3. 22. This is made up of marin, the verbal noun of the verb mar, ka the definite article suffix and aad the second person singular subject pronoun introducing a relative clause. 23. The translation has been published in M. Orwin, ‘Introduction to Somali Poetry and Translations of Samadoon by Cabdulqaadir Xaaji Cali and Jacayl Dhiig Ma Lagu Qoray by Maxamed Ibraahim Warsame “Hadraawi” with Notes’. In Watts, S. (ed.), Mother Tongues, Non English-Language Poetry in England, Modern Poetry in Translation, 17, London, 2001. Reasons for the typography of these translated lines are given there. 24. Ahmed A. Ahmed, ‘Maanso Structure and Content (an Application of Guuleed’s Maanso Scansion System to the Meaning of “Dardaaran”’. In Labahn, T. (ed.), Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Somali Studies, University of Hamburg, 1–6 August 1983, Hamburg, 1984, pp. 333–71. Note there is no suggestion here of d and dh alliterating with each other, rather he is making the point that the way is used in the poem reinforces the acoustic iconicity he refers to.

14 Alliteration in Sign Language Poetry1 Michiko Kaneko

Abstract This chapter explores the notion of alliteration in sign language poetry. It suggests that the fundamental function of alliteration is applicable to sign language poetry, despite it being a soundless art form. Analogies can be made between the repetition of sounds and repetition of sign constituents (called ‘parameters’). They both fulfil aesthetic and metaphorical purposes in artistic language. A simplified definition of alliteration is the repetition of initial consonants (such as ‘Fly o’er waste fens and windy fields’ in ‘Sir Galahad’ by Alfred Tennyson). Among five parameters that constitute a sign (handshape, location, movement, palm orientation and non-manual features), handshape is argued to have the most consonantal quality. With its solid visual appearance at the onset of a sign articulation, handshape can produce the same initial impact as consonants do. As well as providing pure aesthetic pleasure, the repetition of the same (or similar) handshape can be used metaphorically. This I call ‘handshape symbolism’, parallel to the notion of ‘sound symbolism’ in spoken languages. For example, open handshapes are more likely to be associated with positive concepts, while closed handshapes, or those with ‘bent’ fingers, tend to create negative impression. Deaf poets make the most of such aesthetic and symbolic functions of handshape. They carefully select signs with certain handshapes that can convey their poetic message in the most effective way. The chapter provides a wide range of examples taken from actual poems composed and performed by Deaf poets.

231

232

Alliteration in Culture

Introduction The phenomenon of alliteration is prevalent in our linguistic activities. It can be found not only in poetry, but in prose, proverbs, riddles, songs, tongue-twisters, speeches and adverts. It also underlies some grammatical phenomena (see, for example, Yip (1999) for alliteration in reduplication processes). Its aesthetic pleasure and mnemonic facilitation deserve this wide popularity. While alliteration is clearly not restricted to artistic language, this chapter focuses on alliterative power in poetic contexts, but not in poetry in the modality of spoken languages. Instead, it will focus on alliteration in sign language poetry – poetry in languages without sound. It is true that alliteration has primarily been seen as an aural phenomenon, but the same (or similar) mechanism can be found in sign languages. The repetition of sounds can be paralleled with the repetition of parameters that constitute a sign, resulting in visual, rather than aural, pleasure. Furthermore, the poetic effects alliteration achieves in a given poem, such as symbolic interrelation between form and meaning, can equally be found across spoken, written and signed poetry. This chapter applies the notion of alliteration to sign language poetry. I am not making a claim here for the existence of a clear homologue for alliteration in poetic signing. What I rather hope to do is to shed light on some aspects of the notion of alliteration which can go beyond the notion of sound and be fitted into the context of visual–manual language. Specifically, I would like to suggest that handshape (the configuration of a hand), among other basic parameters that constitute a sign, shows some poetic forms and functions which can be described as alliterative. Several examples will follow to illustrate my point.

Alliteration Alliteration is one of the aural devices in poetic language making use of sound patterns and repetition. It can be defined as the repetition of consonants or consonant clusters. Whereas in a broader sense it includes repetition of word-internal consonants, or sometimes even vowels, it is most commonly understood as repetition of word-initial consonants. This aspect of alliteration can be highlighted when compared with other related terms, such as assonance, consonance and rhyme. Assonance is the repetition of the same vowel sound; consonance is the repetition of the final consonants or consonant groups; rhyme is the

Michiko Kaneko 233 Table 14.1 Sound patterns and examples

Alliteration Assonance Consonance Rhyme

Pattern

Examples

CVC CVC CVC CVC

glory, glitter, glide light, sign, wide kick, pick, trick rhyme, time, chime

repetition of the last vowel and the consonant cluster. Table 14.1 summarises the differences among these terms.

Functions and effects of alliteration There are several functions of alliteration in poetic context. First of all, alliteration is primarily used to create aural beauty and amusement. This is especially true in ludic language, where the main purpose of linguistic activities is to entertain people. Beuchat (1965) reports some examples of Bantu riddles, in which the mere fact that sounds in two words are alliterated (regardless of their meaning) can provide the answer to the question. Poetic language experiences the same kind of foregrounding. Alliteration is effectively used to highlight the poetic language, leading to pure aesthetic pleasure. Secondly, alliteration provides mnemonic assistance in retaining and retrieving our thought. Ancient wisdom and axioms often take the form of proverbs with alliterated sounds, as it is easier to remember the message in this way than in randomly selected sounds. This is particularly important in oral cultures which do not have written systems. Oral literature is known to be rich in sound patterns and repetitions to facilitate the remembering, recall and transmission of their unwritten tradition. Ong (1982: 9) argues that people from primarily oral cultures need to organise their thought in ‘heavily rhythmic, balanced patterns, in repetitions or antitheses, in alliterations and assonances, in epithetic and other formulary expressions’. The aesthetic and mnemonic functions discussed above are common to all types of sound patterns. But alliteration also has its own poetic effects. Aligned at the beginning of each word, alliterated sounds are often very noticeable and have the power to captivate the audience. They produce what I call ‘initial impact’, putting more ‘punch’ into the language, as it were. Another feature of alliteration is the proximity of repeated sounds. Fabb (1997) compares alliteration and rhyme

234

Alliteration in Culture

and claims that they are fundamentally very similar phenomena (both involve repetition of syllables, copying prosodically prominent syllables) but with one important difference: alliteration requires greater proximity than rhyme. Whereas rhyme occurs at the end of each line, alliteration can take place between consecutive words within the same line. The repeated sounds’ closeness to one another creates a unifying aural effect throughout the passage. Alliteration in this sense is linked with the concepts of ‘structural echoes’ or ‘chiming effect’. Tamplin (1993) values highly the function of what he calls ‘structural echoes’, the same quality of sounds spreading over a poem, in unifying various aspects of the poem, especially in creating a metaphorical relationship between sound and form. A chiming effect is defined as ‘a phonetic bond between words’ (Leech 1969), and, like the notion of structural echoes, it is often metaphorically associated with the theme of the poem. Alliteration can be understood as a special case of chiming effect, where the echoing sounds are restricted to the initial consonants of words or syllables. This metaphorical function of alliteration is especially indispensable for poetic language, and it can be found in sign language poetry as well. I will discuss the symbolic nature of alliteration in a later section of this chapter.

Sign language poetry Sign language poetry can be defined as a piece of poetic signing originally composed and performed in a sign language by a Deaf person. It is different from ‘Deaf poetry’ which refers to any poetic activity that involves Deaf people, including poems composed by Deaf people in written language. It is also distinguished from the translation from spoken/written poetry. In short, sign language poetry is original work of Deaf people in their own language. Poetry is the height of linguistic activities in any language. Especially in the context of sign language and Deaf people (who regard themselves as a cultural/linguistic minority in a hearing-dominant world) poetry can serve as a celebration of the oppressed language and empowerment of the minority people (SuttonSpence 2005). The history of sign language poetry only dates back to the 1960s. Before the spread of videos in the latter half of the twentieth century, it was very difficult to for Deaf poets to review, revise or elaborate their poems or to appeal to a wider public (see Rose (1992) for the notion of pre- and post-videotape literature in sign language art forms).

Michiko Kaneko 235

Except for a seminal analysis by Klima and Bellugi (1979), most research began in the 1990s. This is related to the fact that research in sign languages itself is a recent development. Sign languages have suffered a long history of untrue ‘myths’ (such as sign languages are mere pantomimes and not ‘real’ languages), and when linguists finally started to take an interest in sign languages (Stokoe (1960) as a pioneer) they needed to spend a few decades to validate the linguistic status of sign languages. Research of artistic signing was left behind at the initial stage, as linguists were careful not to shed too much light on the artistic aspects of sign languages, which might appear to be ‘pantomimic’ to lay observers. However, the very fact that sign languages do possess literature (above all poetry) can serve as a proof that they are true, complex and symbolic languages. The rich form and imagery of sign language poetry cannot be made without accessing the highly complex structure of the language.

Phonology of sign language There is not enough space here to explore the complex linguistic structure of sign languages, but a simple description of sign language phonology is useful. Just like a sound in any given spoken language can be described by a set of features (namely, place of articulation, manner of articulation, and voicing; for example, [t] is described as ‘a voiceless alveolar plosive’), each sign in sign language is decomposable into several parameters (Stokoe 1960, Battison 1974, Friedman 1977). The three basic parameters are handshape, location and movement, often supplemented by orientation of the hand (whether the palm is facing upward or downward, for example) and non-manual expressions. Change of one parameter often results in different signs (minimal pairs). In the early stage of research in sign linguistics, the simultaneity of such phonological construction was emphasised, in contrast to the linear sequences of consonants and vowels in spoken languages (Stokoe 1960, Klima and Bellugi 1979). However, since Liddell (1982), researchers have begun to acknowledge that there is some degree of linearity in sign formation. Liddell (1982) attempted to decompose signs into a segment of holds (H) and movements (M), and changes in location or handshape as a result of the movement. Brentari (1998, 2002) also takes the segmental approach but incorporates suprasegmental features. In her prosodic model, Brentari splits the sign into two branches of features, namely inherent and prosodic. Handshape and location are classed as inherent (IF), as they remain quite unchanged throughout the segment of the sign. Movement is in sharp contrast with other

236

Alliteration in Culture

parameters and is classed as prosodic (PF), because it is more temporal, sequential and undergoes change during articulation. There is no agreement on the equivalent elements to vowels and consonants in sign languages. However, Liddell likens his H–M segments to the division of spoken language into consonants and vowels. Brentari also compares her two sets of features directly to consonants and vowels, by saying: First, the IF branch of structure carries more lexical contrast than the PF branch of structure, just as consonants carry more potential for lexical contrast in spoken languages. Second, movements (PFs) function as the ‘medium’ of the signal, just as vowels function as the medium of spoken languages. Third, movements (PFs) function as syllable nuclei in sign languages, just as vowels function as syllable nuclei in spoken languages. For these reasons, the IF branch of structure is analyzed as more consonant-like and the PF branch is analyzed as more vowel-like. (Brentari 2002: 45) This notion is important for discussion of alliteration in sign languages, because, as I already mentioned above, the most widespread notion of alliteration is the repetition of initial consonants. Among the two constituents of Brentari’s IF branch, handshape stands out in particular as having a consonantal quality. It is visible at the very onset of the sign articulation; it does not involve duration as vowels/movements do; with its unique complex visual appearance (by definition, it has a ‘shape’) it can produce the same initial impact as consonants do; it has much more lexical contrastive power than location and movement. For example, there are 57 different handshapes listed in the Dictionary of British Sign Language and English (Brien 1992), although some of them are more marked than others. Other sign languages have different numbers of handshapes. However, one noticeable difference is that, as Brentari points out, both IFs and PFs are realised simultaneously in sign languages, whereas consonants and vowels are discrete units. Handshapes are visible throughout the articulation of the sign while consonants are only present at a certain part of the syllable (onset and/or offset). This implies that the nature of alliterative effect is different in spoken language and in sign language. With its retained effect, handshape alliteration can be even more persistent and prevailing. In the following sections, I will show that handshape can potentially possess the same alliterative power as initial consonants in spoken language in the context of sign language poetry.

Michiko Kaneko 237

Handshape as alliterative element The basic effect of manipulating handshapes is to create visual resonance by repeating the same handshape. This technique has been widely considered as equivalent of rhyme in spoken language poetry. While movement and location can form a rhyming pattern, ‘organising the structure of a poem around the repetition of a single handshape seems to be the most usual, the most conscious and the most easily perceivable organising principle’ (Blondel and Miller 2000: 61). Clayton Valli (1951–2003), an American Deaf poet and scholar, was the first (and so far perhaps the only) researcher to suggest alliteration occurs in sign language poetry. He applied the poetic framework of spoken/written language to the analyses of sign language poetry. In his research (1990, 1993), he pursued the notions of rhyme, meter and a division of ‘line’ in American Sign Language (henceforth, ASL) poetry. His ultimate goal was to identify the line breaks through the rhyming patterns of a signed piece. He claimed that ASL rhyme is formed through the repetition of particular handshapes (handshape rhyme), movement paths of signs (movement path rhyme), or non-manual signals (NMS rhyme, such as facial expression, body orientation, eye gaze, etc.). He also explained that a line in ASL poems can be identified when there is a change in one of those ‘rhymes’. He directly compares handshape rhyme with alliteration, and movement rhyme with assonance. Valli’s work is highly valued in that it was a first step in the analysis of sign language poetry. But it raised ‘more questions than it answers’ (Bauman 2006: 98). The main problem with Valli’s approach is that he tried (perhaps too much) to make an analogy between ASL poems and English poems, using some formal devices to determine a line. As Bauman (1998, 2003, 2006) points out, a notion of ‘line’ is deeply related to the linear structure of a language (especially a written language), and sign languages are fundamentally visual, simultaneous and three-dimensional. What Valli tried to do was to squeeze spatial and simultaneous capability of sign languages into temporal and sequential arrangements. Researchers are especially indifferent to the set of traditional poetic terms Valli tried to apply in ASL poetry. As Sutton-Spence (2005: 42) summarises: This repetition might loosely be called ‘rhyme’, but the distinctions of rhyme, assonance, alliteration, consonance and others that are made in spoken language poetry are not directly applicable to signed poetry. These distinctions in spoken poetry only arise because of the sequential

238

Alliteration in Culture

nature of spoken words, and in sign languages the parameters such as handshape, location and movement tend to occur simultaneously. When researchers saw the inadequacy of Valli’s model, they started to look for other frameworks which are more suitable to analyse the poetic features of visual–manual language (represented by Bauman’s (2003) cinematographic framework). This leaves Valli as one of the very few researchers who straightforwardly applied traditional poetic terms to sign language poetry. However, Valli’s attempt to incorporate traditional poetic terms into sign language poetry has some merit. Especially in relation to the topic of alliteration, the fact that Valli made an analogy between handshape rhyme and alliteration, and between movement rhyme and assonance, is significant. Unfortunately, he did not give any explanation why he came up with these parallels. It is presumed that he was aware of the discussions regarding the parallels between handshape (plus location)/ movement in sign language and vowel/consonant in spoken language. In any case, Valli’s approach supports the view that handshape can be an equivalent of alliterated consonants.

Symbolism in auditory alliteration Some of the alliterating sounds/signs are purely for aural/visual pleasure. When Beatles sang ‘Let It Be’, there is not much ‘meaning’ attached to the sound of [w] in the sequence of ‘whisper words of wisdom’. However, sometimes the repeated sounds have some degree of symbolism and appeal to the reader’s emotion. A simple, non-poetic example is ‘break bread’ or ‘sew silk’. The voiced plosive of the consonant /b/ is linked to the act of breaking bread, while voiceless fricative /s/ arouses soft and delicate image of silk. In poetry, the symbolic association between the sound and meaning abounds. Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Annabel Lee’ shows a cluster of the same consonant /l/, in the lines: But we loved with a love that was more than love – I and my Annabel Lee; (lines 9–10) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. (lines 25–6) In this poem, the repetition of the liquid sound /l/ (represented in the name of a heroine) adds a flowing, smooth and fragile impression,

Michiko Kaneko 239

which links the frailness of the heroine and the fleeting happiness of the lovers. The effect is subtle but it contributes greatly to the overall impression of a poem. Lord (1962: 200) referred to the symbolic nature of alliteration, defining alliteration as features that are ‘clustered about the key word of a passage’ as it bridges between idea and sound. This leads us to the notion of sound symbolism in general where the selection of sound is motivated by the referent (the best examples are onomatopoeia). In poetry, the echoing/chiming aspect of alliteration greatly contributes to the symbolic association between form and meaning.

Symbolism in handshape alliteration In sign language poetry, many poems rely on the alliterative power of the visual associations between handshapes and their meaning. The notion of sound symbolism is useful in the context of sign language as well. Just like the abruptness and smoothness respectively of the /b/ and /s/ sounds we discussed above, a handshape, even before it is combined with other parameters and formed into a word, can possess a meaning in itself. Some handshapes are more easily associated with positive meaning, whereas others are more inclined to have negative connotation. In order to support this observation, I conducted a small project co-relating handshape and meaning of sign entries in the Dictionary of British Sign Language and English (henceforth DBSL). There are 1736 entries in DBSL, but as a result of dividing an entry into more than one sign (whenever there are several distinct meanings attached to one entry), there are 2124 signs with distinct form and meaning. Each entry is categorised into different handshapes, and also into three semantic value categories (positive, neutral or negative meaning). My questions were as follows: Does each semantic value category have a different handshape distribution pattern? Does each handshape have its favourite semantic value category? If there is no relationship between handshape and those semantic values, handshapes will be equally distributed into three categories and each handshape will not have any particular semantic value. The results showed, however, that there is clearly uneven distribution of both handshape in each semantic value and semantic value in each handshape. Each semantic category shows a completely different pattern of handshape distribution. Due to limited space, it is impossible to present all the data from this project, but one illustration below can

240

Alliteration in Culture

highlight the results. Handshapes can be categorised into ‘plain’ and ‘bent’. Fingers and the thumb are either fully extended or completely closed in so-called plain handshapes, whereas bent handshapes involve ‘claws at joints’. I hypothesised that bent handshapes, because they have visually more disturbing features (claws at joints express tenseness, uneasiness, and thus negative connotations), are more likely to be associated with negative semantic categories. When cross-tabulated with the semantic categories, it clearly supported my hypothesis as shown in Table 14.2. These connotations of handshape are reinforced in poetic signing. Sutton-Spence (2005) points out the association of particular handshapes and the emotional effects created in the mind of the audience. For example, open handshapes are more positive than closed handshapes, and handshapes which are ‘bent at knuckles [...] are associated with more tension and are “harsher” than other non-claw handshapes, which are more relaxed and “softer”’ (2005: 25–6). She also observes that some handshapes are ‘sharper’ than others, some are unidimensional while others are more substantial, and some are more ‘solid’ than others. There are numerous examples of signed poems where the alliterative effect of handshape is used purely for aesthetic pleasure. For example, Raquib Din’s poem, composed in ASL, starts with three signs: LAST DAY SUMMER. These three words obviously do not alliterate in translation into the English language, but they share similar ASL handshapes. Strictly speaking, they involve two different handshapes, namely ‘G’ (index finger extended) for LAST and ‘I’ (little finger extended) for DAY and SUMMER. But they are visually very similar, as they both involve the extension of a single finger ([+single finger extended]). The visual image given by this feature is a long, thin object standing like a stick, and this allows these two handshapes to alliterate in this particular poetic context. Due to this visual alliteration, the transition between

Table 14.2 Contrast of plain and bent handshapes in their semantic categories Handshape

Positive

Neutral

Negative

Total

Plain Bent

280 8

1485 170

131 48

1896 226

Total

328

1655

139

2122

Michiko Kaneko 241

these two handshapes is smooth and subtle, which contributes to the overall poetic performance. More symbolic use of handshapes can be found in other poems. I already mentioned that bent handshapes tend to arouse negative feelings in the mind of viewers. This tendency is effectively used in poetic signing across different sign languages. Wim Emmerik (a Dutch Deaf poet) strongly associates bent handshapes with negative meaning in his poetic signing. Some examples are individual and ad hoc, but in many other signs Emmerik displays a systematic use of bent handshapes in accord with the theme of his poem. One of his poems, ‘Desert’, is a highly symbolic and mysterious story of a traveller wandering into a desert and encountering various eerie symbols (skeleton, ghost and death). Emmerik shows the consistent use of bent-5 handshapes in the sequence shown in Figure 14.1. This greatly contributes to the overall uncanny atmosphere of the poem. The following two poems have a very similar theme, and they share a similar handshape used to represent that theme. One is Rita DeSarker’s ASL poem which can be titled as ‘Rose’ and the other is Penny Beschizza’s BSL poem ‘Grass’. The English translations of these poems are as follows: Rita DeSarker ‘Rose’ A rose was beheaded By the frost that had fallen On its crying bloom (translation by PEN International) Penny Beschizza ‘Grass’ Grass streaming in the breeze Strong sun appears

PASS-BY-SKELETON

EERIE-FEELING-OCCURRED-TO-ME 1

EERIE-FEELING-OCCURRED-TO-ME 2

Figure 14.1 Sequence of signs from Wim Emmerik’s ‘Desert’

242

Alliteration in Culture

And slowly scorched the grass (my translation) Both of them talk about a small plant overwhelmed and killed by an external strong natural force. They metaphorically suggest some kind of oppression and deprivation of freedom. When they express the external force (frost and sun), they both use the bent-5 handshape as Wim Emmerik used in his poem in Dutch Sign Language. They are shown in Figures 14.2 and 14.3. My final example shows how Deaf poets alternate different handshapes in order to create a contrast in their poems. In his brief poem ‘Deaf’, Nigel Howard shows consistent use of the flat handshape throughout the poem. The only sign which he does not sign with the flat handshape is COCHLEAR-IMPLANT, which comes at the very end of the poem. This

FROST

FROST-APPROACHES

FROST-COVERS-ROSE

Figure 14.2 The sign sequence from Rita DeSarker’s ‘Rose’

GRASS-STREAMING

STRONG-SUN

Figure 14.3 Three signs from Penny Beschizza’s ‘Grass’

GRASS-WITHERS

Michiko Kaneko 243

BABY

DEAF?

LAY-DOWN

GIVE-BABY-TO-DOCTOR

IMPLANT-BABY (COCHLEAR-IMPLANT)

Figure 14.4 Signs from Nigel Howard’s ‘Deaf’

COCHLEAR-IMPLANT is signed with the bent-V handshape (see Figure 14.4). The English translation of this poem is as follows: A baby is born! – Oh … is he Deaf? Take him to the doctor Implant him! (my translation) Some background knowledge about Deaf people and their culture as opposed to hearing culture is necessary to appreciate the strong message this poem conveys. Deaf people regard themselves as a linguistic/cultural minority, and not as disabled people who need medical care. They are proud of being Deaf and being signing people. Therefore, hearing doctors’ attempts to ‘implant’ Deaf babies with cochlear implants are seen as negative (especially because the cochlear implants in most cases do not enable children to hear completely). Howard’s poem quietly expresses his anger towards ignorance of hearing people regarding cochlear implants. This is best expressed by the sudden change in the handshape. The strong

244

Alliteration in Culture

contrast between the flat, open, positive handshape throughout the poem, and the bent, tensed and negative ‘bent-V’ at the very end, is striking.

Conclusion So far I have shown how handshape in sign language poetry displays similar poetic effects to those of alliteration in spoken language poetry. I explained that certain aspects of the form and function of handshape are analogous to that of initial consonants. It is especially the symbolic aspect of alliteration, namely the sound–meaning relationship, that can be found in the use of handshape in sign language poetry. Some handshapes have an inherent semantic quality (such as bent handshapes having negative connotation), and Deaf poets carefully select handshapes which can carry their message in the best way. Alliteration in a broad sense is a useful tool to analyse symbolic connections between form and meaning in poetry. However, there is a danger of broadening it too much, a kind of danger O’Nolan (1969) detected in Lord’s attempts to illustrate numerous examples of alliterating sounds which symbolise a certain theme in Homeric poems. In many of his examples, the frequency of the sound–form correspondence is ‘the accidence of the [Greek] language’ (O’Nolan 1969: 18) and it does not lead to much poetic effect. In the same way, open handshapes are very common in sign languages, and a sequence of these handshapes can easily occur. However, mere strings of the same handshapes without any poetic effect should be excluded from the discussion of alliteration. O’Nolan concludes his criticism of Lord by saying that ‘[a]lliteration must be deliberate’ (ibid. 18). Yet this too is a risky idea, because we can never be sure how much poetic effect is intended by the poet. Sometimes we can find some subtle but significant alliterative patterns which the poets themselves may not have been aware of. The poet’s intention does not matter, as we, as readers, not only read out of, but also read into the poems (Dundes 1965: 108). The important thing is whether or not certain sound patterns, regardless of being deliberate or spontaneous, lead to a significant poetic effect. The same thing can be said about handshapes. The repetition of handshapes by itself does not make a sequence alliterative. The ultimate goal of sign language poetry is visual pleasure. Alliteration in poetic signing needs to contribute to the symbolic link to the theme of the poem and to the overall beauty of the poem. When used in an effective way, the strong visual appeal of handshape serves as an ideal tool to fulfil such a function.

Michiko Kaneko 245

Note 1. I would like to thank Dr Rachel Sutton-Spence for her advice on this chapter. Wim Emmerik’s poems are available on the sign language poetry section of the webpage of ECHO (European Cultural Heritage Online). The use of pictures of the poem of Rita DeSarker is courtesy of PEN-International, National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester, NY. I am also grateful to Penny Beschizza and Nigel Howard for their kind permission to use images from their poems. Chris John helped with the technical process of making the illustrations here.

References Battison. Robbin. 1974. ‘Phonological Deletion in American Sign Language’. Sign Language Studies, 5: 1–19. Bauman, Humphrey-Dirksen Lippmann. 1998. ‘American Sign Language as a Medium for Poetry: Poetics of Speech, and Writing in Twentieth-Century American Poetics’. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Binghamton University. Bauman, Humphrey-Dirksen Lippmann. 2003. ‘Redesigning Literature: the Cinematic Poetics of American Sign Language Poetry’. Sign Language Studies, 4(1): 34–47. Bauman, Humphrey-Dirksen Lippmann. 2006. ‘Getting out of Line: toward a Visual and Cinematic Poetics of ASL.’ In Bauman, Humphrey-Dirksen L., Nelson, Jennifer Lee and Rose, Heidi (eds), Signing the Body Poetic: Essays on American Sign Language Literature. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, pp. 95–117. Beuchat, P. D. 1965. ‘Riddles in Bantu’. In Dundes, Alan (ed.), The Study of Folklore. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Blondel, Marion and Christopher Miller. 2000. ‘Rhythmic Structures in French Sign Language (LSF) Nursery Rhymes’. Sign Language and Linguistics, 3(1): 59–77. Brentari, Diane. 1998. A Prosodic Model of Sign Language Phonology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Brentari, Diane. 2002. ‘Modality Differences in Sign Language Phonology and Morphophonemics’. In Meier, Richard P., Cormier, Kearsy and Quinto-Pozos, David (eds), Modality and Structure in Signed and Spoken Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brien, David (ed.). 1992. Dictionary of British Sign Language and English. London: Faber and Faber. Dundes, Alan (ed.). 1965. The Study of Folklore. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall. Fabb, Nigel. 1997. Linguistics and Literature. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Friedman, Lynn A. 1977. ‘Formational Properties of American Sign Language’. In Friedman, Lynn A. (ed.), On the Other Hand: New Perspectives on American Sign Language. New York: Academic Press. Klima, Edward and Bellugi, Ursula. 1979. The Signs of Language. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Leech, Geoffrey. 1969. A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry. London: Longman.

246

Alliteration in Culture

Liddell, Scott K. 1982. ‘THINK and BELIEVE: Sequentiality in American Sign Language’. Language, 60: 372–92. Lord, Albert Bates. 1962. ‘Homer and Other Epic Poetry.’ In Wace, Alan J.B. and Stubbings, Frank H. (eds), A Companion to Homer. London: Macmillan, pp. 179–214. Ong, Walter J. 1982. Orality and Literacy: the Technologizing of the Word. New York: Routledge. O’Nolan, K. 1969. ‘Homer and Irish Heroic Narrative’. The Classical Quarterly, New Series, 19(1): 1–19. Rose, Heidi. 1992. ‘A Critical Methodology for Analysing American Sign Language Literature’. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Arizona State University. Stokoe, William C. 1960. ‘Sign Language Structure: an Outline of the Visual Communication Systems of the American Deaf’. Studies in Linguistics: Occasional Papers, 8. Buffalo, NY: University of Buffalo. Sutton-Spence, Rachel. 2005. Analysing Sign Language Poetry. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Tamplin, Ronald. 1993. Rhythm and Rhyme. Buckingham: Open University Press. Valli, Clayton. 1990. ‘The Nature of a Line in ASL Poetry’. In Edmondson, W.H. and Karlsson, F. (eds), SLR ’87: Papers from the Fourth International Symposium on Sign Language Research. Hamburg: Signum Verlag, pp. 163–70. Valli, Clayton. 1993. ‘Poetics of American Sign Language Poetry’. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Union Institute Graduate School. Yip, Moira. 1999. ‘Reduplication as Alliteration and Rhyme’. In GLOT International, 4: 1–7.

Index abecedarius poems 183, 191 actors 4, 62, 69, 71–2 adjective 27, 39, 42, 50, 85–7, 121, 181, 184, 208, 214, 222 adverb 50, 85, 111, 121, 169, 222 Agnew, Spiro 46, 58 alliteration analogies of 8, Ch. 14 passim and arbitrariness 15–16, 224 archaic feel of 13, 80, 210 average rate of 15, 45, 51, 56–8; see also per mille measures of alliteration avoidance of 5, 9, 11, 47, 58, Ch. 6 passim, 228: avoidance of at line end 12, 201–2 awkwardness of 22 constraints on 12, 94, 99, 223, 226; see also alliteration, avoidance of culture-bound conventions of 2, 12 density of 14, 50, 200, 205, 207–8, 233; see also alliteration, heavy use of as expression of values 21 heavy use of 22, 35, 41, 8, 46–7, 63, 68, 82, 117–18, 141–2, 144–5, 149, 151–3, 226–7 imprecision of 15–16 and lexical innovation 224 line-external 7–8, 11, 15, Chs 10 and 13 passim line length and 168–72, 191, 205, 207 mnemonic use of 76, 79, 86, 233 native terms for, Mongolian: büse qolbolta (joining the belts), tolgoi xolboc (head joint) 158; Somali: higgaad (spelling out a word sound by sound), qaafiyad (rhyme), xarafraac (to accompany a letter) 220 and parallelism 58, 110–13, 118–19, 121, 156–7, 159, 165, 247

168–70, 174–9, 181, 187, 189–90, 198, 201–2, 204, 206–7, 215, 226 as part and parcel of writing poetry 123–5, 136–7 and semantics 9, 15–17, 102, 105 109–12, 114–16, 118, 120–1, 156–7, 159, 168, 175, 181, 183, 202, 218, 239–40, 244; see also alliteration and synonymy; tautology stylistic connotations of 5, 12–15, 45, 47, 58, 79, 106, 123, 126, 128, 136–7, 210 and synonymy 84, 90–1, 112, 204, 208–9 and syntax 16, 58, 90, 92, 114, 118, 121, 156–7, 165, 168–9, 201–2 terms to describe it 1, 11–12, 17; see also cluster alliteration; cross-alliteration; epenthetic alliteration; imperfect alliteration; morphological alliteration; ornamental alliteration; overalliteration; perfect alliteration; s-alliteration; secondary alliteration; strong alliteration; vocalic alliteration; weak alliteration and text-type 2, 11–12; see also ballads; blason populaire; blessing; character names; charms; fieldnames; hunting songs; laments; laws; lullabies; lyrics; newspaper headlines; proverbial comparisons; proverbs; riddles; titles of books; titles of poems; tongue-twisters; twin formulas; verse plays; vocal warm-ups; wedding songs; yoiks word choice motivated by 3, 16, 40, 218, 222 and word class 3, 34, 37–9, 42, 84–6, 110–14, 117, 121–2, 163, 181; see also word, content; word, grammatical working definitions of 4, 49–50

248

Index

alliterative compounds 86 alliterative metonymy 16 alliterative name-giving 14, 183, 229 alliterative phrases, as repositories of obsolete words 87 Germanic cognates of 84, 86 alliterative prose Introduction and Chs 2–6, 10–11 passim alliterative restatement 13–14 alliterative verse Introduction and Chs 4, 7–13 passim alliterative free verse 133–7 American Sign Language 237, 240–1, 245–6 analogues of alliteration Ch. 14 passim apposition 111 Arabic 181, 183, 191 asega (Frisian legal expert) 77 assonance 7, 41–2, 93, 98–9, 101–2, 124, 156–7, 159, 162, 164, 166–7, 169, 171–2, 192, 197, 212, 214–15, 232–3, 237–8 Augustine 4, 78 Baesecke, Georg 77, 89 bahuvrihi compounds 24 ballads 186–7, 192, 198, 213 Baltic languages 195–6 Balto-Finnic 7–8, 12, 16, Ch. 12 passim see also Finnic beggar as field-name element 14, 28, 31 beings, supernatural 29–30 Beowulf 5, 16, 19–20, 116, 122, 124, 126, 215 Bible, The 5, 63, 78, 86, 184 binomials see twin formulas blason populaire 26 blessing 171 Borchling, Conrad 76–7, 89 brageyra (‘poetic ear’) 125, 131 breakback as field-name element 23 British Sign Language 8, 236, 239–41, 245 Buma, Wybren Jan 77–8, 88–92 Buryat 156–7, 165–6, 168, 173, 183, 190

Bush, George W. 45, 47–8, 51–7, 61 cæsura 6, 110, 195, 201, 210, 215 Chamisso, Adalbert 5, 109, 116–21 character names 13, 228–9 charms 195, 198, 200, 202, 208 chiasmus 85 Chinese 190 Cicero 4, 78 class, social 21, 23 Clinton, Bill 45, 47, 52–5, 57–8, 61 cluster alliteration 9–10, 99, 120–1, 127, Ch. 9 passim cochlear implants 242–3 cold as field-name element 24 compound words 14, 24, 28–9, 64, 216, 220, 222–4 consonance 157–8, 197, 201, 212, 232–3, 237 consonant 9–10, 12, 14, 34, 36, 64, 66, 96–7, 99, 106, 114, 143, 146–7, 156–7, 173, 180–2, 191, 197, 200, 221–3, 229–32, 234–6, 238, 244 consonant, absence of initial see zero onset consonantal clusters 1, 9–10, 64–6, 99, 121, 127, 129, Ch. 9 passim, 197, 232, 238–9 cross-alliteration 11, 181, 200 Danish 104 derogation 14–15, 21, 23–8 devil as field-name element 29–30 diphthong 10, 157, 197, 207, 212 direct speech 114 dithematic names Ch. 6 passim double names 93, 96–7, 100–4 dróttkvætt 124, 126–9, 131, 137, 139, 150, 154 Dundes, Alan 63, 65–8, 72, 244–5 Dutch 63–5 Dutch, Middle 84 Dutch Sign Language 242 echo words 163, 173–4 Edda, The Elder 109–10, 117, 121–2 Edda, The Poetic 124, 138, 144, 152, 155

Index 249 eddic verse Chs 7 and 8 passim, 145 Efik 64–5 elocution 62, 70–1 English Introduction and Chs 1–4 passim, 87, 107, 116, 122, 125, 128, 136, 138, 142, 176, 185–6, 188, 212–13, 217–18, 224–5, 230, 236–7, 239–41, 243, 245 English, Middle 3, 5, 9, 11, 19, 25, 84, 87, 92 English, Old 5, 9, 14, 18–20, 74, 77, 87, 89, 91–2, 94, 124–5, 217–18 epenthetic alliteration 6, 141, 143, 146–8 epic 156, 159, 166, 168–9, 189, 195–8, 200 epitheton ornans 180, 184 eponymy 27 equivalence class 6, 127, 141, 143, 145–7, 149–50, 187, 191, 228–9 equivalence set see equivalence class Estonian 1, 5–7, 17, 196, 198, 202, 211–12, 214–16 etymology 27 European Society for Phraseology 3, 35–6, 39–40, 43 Evenki 156, 174 eye alliteration 3–4, 7–9, 12, 17, 49, 172–3, 189 female names 93–4, 96, 101–6 Field, John 22, 25, 31–2 field-names 2, 14–15, 21–33 figura etymologica 4, 85–6, 159, 162, 166, 180, 183–4, 187, 189 filler words 206, 218 finger fumblers 8, 64 Finnic Ch. 12 passim Finnish 7–8, 11, 181, 189, 193, 196, 211, 213 Finno-Ugric 7–8, 11, 180–1, 186–7, 189, 192, 196–7 first names 5, Ch. 6 passim folk etymology 180, 184 formulaicity 79, 110, 113 fornyrðislag 6, 110, 117, 124, 126 free verse 123, 125

French 3, 11, 26, 35, 37, 40–1, 64, 66, 109–10 Frisian 4–5, 11, 13, Ch. 5 passim Frisian, Old Ch. 5 passim gaudy as field-name element 28–9 German 3–4, 35, 37, 40–1, 104, 109, 116–22, 129 German, Middle High 84 German, Old High 74, 87, 91–2, 117, 124 Germanic 1–2, 4, 6–12, 14, 16, 18–19, 74–8, 84–8, 91–4, 97, 99, 106–11, 117–18, 121–2, 124–6, 133, 138, 145, 186, 196, 217 gnystudul 6, 143, 148, 150–1, 153 grammatical rhyme see morphological rhyme grapheme 17 see also eye alliteration graphic alliteration see eye alliteration Grimm, Jacob 4, 18, 74, 76–7, 89, 186 Hálfdanarson, Helgi 130–3, 137 Halliwell, James Orchard 64–5, 70, 73 handshape 8, Ch. 14 passim as counterparts of consonants 235–8, 244 symbolism 231–2, 237–40, 244 Háttatal, The 124 head stave Chs 8 and 9 passim Hebrew 181, 183 Helgason, Jón 125, 130, 133, 137–8 Heusler, Andreas 138, 145, 154 Heyne, Moritz 74, 76, 89 Hob 23, 30 hovedstav see head stave homonymy 188, 226 homophony 42, 67 Hoops, Johannes 1, 18, 108 Hungarian 7, 14, Ch. 11 passim, 211 hungry as field-name element 22–3

250

Index

hunting songs 170, 198 hyperbole 24 Icelandic rímur poetry 128–9, 146 Icelandic 4–6, 10, 13, 77, 89–90, 92, 107, Chs 7–9 passim, 181, 198, 210, 213 idiom-final nouns 3, 34, 37–8 idioms 3, 34–44 variability of 38–9 imperfect alliteration 10, 17, 98–9 improvisation 197, 206 inaugural addresses 2, 3, 45–60 Indo-European 94, 106, 109, 192, 211, 214 inversion 114, 164 irony 24, 27 Italian 11 Izhor-Ingrian 196, 199, 202, 204, 207, 209–10

liminality 29 Lincoln, Abraham 46, 51–6, 58, 60 literacy 9, 74–5, 78, 80, 83, 88, 91, 195–6 litotes 24 little as field-name element 26–7, 31 Livonian 196, 203 ljóðaháttr 124, 126 Lönnrot, Elias 198 love as field-name element 28 lullabies 199 lyrics 14, 156, 159, 187, 189, 192, 195, 198, 200, 202

Kalevala, The 8, 184, Ch. 12 passim Kalevala-metre Ch. 12 passim Kalmyk 156, 166, 175 Karelian 7–8, 196, 198–9, 202, 204–7, 212, 217–18 kenning 76 Kögel, Rudolf 74, 76–7

male names 93–4, 96, 100–2, 106 Manchu 156, 172, 174, 190 merism 16, 89 metaphor 24, 36, 39, 76, 175, 223, 230 metonymy 16, 76 Meyer, Richard 111–12 Mieder, Wolfgang 35, 43–4, 46, 58–9 Minkova, Donka 1, 2, 10, 19, 138 Mongolian 7, 11, Ch. 10 passim, 180, 183, 189, 190–1, 193, 214 morphology 12, 107, 173 morphological alliteration 17 see also figura etymologica morphological rhyme 158, 164–6, 169–70 movement as counterpart of vowels 236, 238

labourers, agricultural 21–5, 30 laments 8, 14, 187–9, 195–7, 203–9, 217–18 language learning 62, 70, 73 Latin 4–5, 7, 27, 74–5, 78–80, 82–4, 88, 90–1, 128, 181, 183–5, 188–9, 192 Latin rhetorical training as source of alliteration 4–5, 7, 74, 78–9, 82, 85–6, 88, 90, 188–9 laws 4–5, 14, Ch. 5 passim believed to have been metrical 76–7 oral delivery of 77–8

names 2–3, 50, 180, 183, 229 lists of 180, 183 referential character of 21, 30 rhetorical character of 21–2, 24, 26, 30 see also dithematic names; double names; female names; field-names; first names; male names; non-existent names; personal names; place-names; settlement names; surnames newspaper headlines 2, 14–15, 163 noa words 4 non-existent names Ch. 6 passim

Jackson, Andrew 45, 47, 52–5, 57, 60 Jefferson, Thomas 45, 52, 55–8, 60 Johnson, Lyndon 49, 51–3, 61 Jorgensen, Marilyn 63, 66–7, 72

Index 251 Norse, Old 74, 87 noun 3, 13, 16, 34, 37–9, 42, 50, 64, 68, 80, 85–7, 95–6, 100, 103, 108, 113–15, 122, 141, 145, 163–4, 169, 181, 184, 192, 208–9, 214, 222, 230 Obama, Barack 4, 45–9, 52, 57–8, 61 obscenity 4, 67–8, 72 Ob-Ugric 189, 193 onomatopoeia 22–3, 115–16, 120–1, 239 Opie, Iona and Peter 67–9, 73 oral poetry 109, 186, 213–16, 229 orality 12, 17, 36, 42, 62, 64–6, 68–71, 74, 77–8, 80, 83, 88–9, 92, 157, 174, 184, 189, 192, 195–6, 198, 220, 229, 233 ornamental alliteration 5, 156–7, 159 over-alliteration 6, 117, 141–2, 144–5, 149, 151–3 Paczolay, Gyula 35–6, 41, 43–4 palatisation 182 parallelism see alliteration, parallelism and paronomasia 119–21 perfect alliteration 17, 98–9 per mille measures of alliteration 4, 50–1, 57, 97–8, 100–1, 104–5 Persian 181, 183, 191 personal names 14, Ch. 6 passim, 114, 183–4 personification 24 persuasion 9, 13, 46, 56, 58–9 Pertunnen, Arhippa 199–200, 202, 213, 216 Pétursson, Hallgrímur 129, 131–2, 137, 139, 146, 148, 152, 154 phoneme 9, 12, 17, 66–7, 96–7, 102, 118, 121, 126–7, 181–3, 189, 191 phonology 9–12, 15, 49, 179, 218–22, 235 place-names 2, 21–3, 95–6, 184–5 poems, placed in book according to their alliterative sound 220 pop lyrics 6, 123, 135–7

populism 4, 45–8, 53–4, 57–8 preposition 39, 113, 122, 132 pronoun 114, 175, 208, 222, 229–30 Presley, Elvis 135–6 pronunciation, native taxonomies of 66, 68 proverbial comparisons 2–3, 15 proverbs 2–3, 34–44, 58, 64, 77, 117, 156, 159, 165, 180, 181, 186, 192–3, 199, 202–3, 228, 233 message of 35, 43 Puck 30 pudding as field-name element 22, 30 pun 64 radio, alliteration overheard on the 15, 37–8, 40 Ray, John 3, 11, 15 Reagan, Ronald 45, 47, 52, 54–8, 61 Rebsamen, Frederick 5, 19 reduplication 156, 164, 171, 232, 246 register 2, 12, 14–15, 40, 46, 59, 67, 117, 203–7 remoteness 26 rhetorical devices 24–5, 45–8, 50, 58, 197, 200, 203, 212–13 rhyme 11–12, 15–16, 17, 26, 41, 77, 93, 98, 100, 105–7, 123–4, 126–9, 137, 156–8, 162–6, 170–1, 188–9, 192, 198, 210, 232–3, 237, 246 avoidance of 106 riddles 41, 64, 156, 159, 170–1, 186, 192, 199, 203, 232–3, 245 right justification see winnowing principle Roosevelt, Franklin 45, 47–8, 51–2, 54–58, 61 rotten as field-name element 27–8 Russian 208 sacrality 79 s-alliteration 6, Ch. 9 passim Sámi 195–6, 206–7, 211 Sanskrit 190 sarcasm 24 Saxon, Old 74, 87, 92

252

Index

secondary alliteration 6, 142, 144–5, 151–3 semantic field 109–10, 115–16, 120–1 semantics 15–16, 102, 109–21, 156–7, 159, 168, 175, 181, 183, 202, 218, 239–40, 244 Sepp, Rein 5–6, 20 Seto 204, 209–10, 212, 216 settlement names 25–6 Shakespeare 26, 130–1, 139, 159, 184 shibboleth 63, 66 Siebs, Theodore 76–7, 89 Sievers, Eduard 114, 122, 138, 145, 155 sign language 64 linearity in 235–6 poetry Ch. 14 passim see also American Sign Language; British Sign Language; Dutch Sign Language silver as field-name element 27 simile 6, 24 skaldic verse Chs 8 and 9 passim Slavic 196 slurs 186 Somali 8, 11–12, 14, Ch. 13 passim sound-patterning 7–8, 15, 17, 62, 121, 228 sound repetition 17, 62, 119, 182, 187 see also assonance; consonance; rhyme sound symbolism 8, 115, 187, 227, 230–1, 238, 244 see also handshape symbolism sound vs sense 15, 224 sounds, alternation of 62 speech, alliteration in overheard 36, 39 stress 4, 7–8, 11–12, 34, 36–9, 42, 50, 93, 96–7, 100, 102–6, 108, 110, 112, 114, 117, 122, 124–6, 128, 131, 142, 144, 149, 157, 163, 174–5, 181, 190–1, 196–7, 199–202, 211, 213–16, 220 initial syllable 7–8, 11–12, 157, 197, 211, 218 strong alliteration 197, 200, 202, 205, 212

Sturluson, Snorri 124, 135, 138–9, 142, 144, 152, 155 stylistics 2, 4–5, 12–15, 22, 35, 41, 46, 74–80, 85, 88–9, 110, 121, 198, 219–20, 230 surnames 5, 93–7 Swedish 4–5, 12, Ch. 6 passim Szadrowsky, Manfred 4, 78, 90, 92 taboo words 4 tautology 77, 84, 86 Þrymskviða, The Ch. 7 passim Tibetan 190 titles of books 12–14, 163, 229 of poems 162–3 tongue-twisters 2, 8, 17, 41–2, 62–73, 232 translation, alliteration in 5, 41, 82–3, 92, 116–22, 130–1, 156, 159, 181, 183–4, 187–9 triads 168, 170–1 Tungusic 173 Turkic 7, 8, 11, 180, 183, 190–1, 193 Turkic, Old 156, 173–4 twin formulas 54, 76–8, 83, 88, 90–2, 112, 122, 177 complementary twin f.s 84, 86 contrastive twins f.s 85 Uighur (also Uygur) 7, 172, 174, 180, 190–3 ‘unfixed’ metres 204–11 Uygur see Uighur Vepsian 196, 203–5, 208 verb 38–9, 42, 85, 114–15, 122, 158, 164, 169, 181, 183, 185, 199, 208, 213–14, 225–6, 230 verse plays 228 vocalic alliteration 10, 96–7, 114, 136, 156–7, 166, 181–2, 191, 197, 201–2, 212, 221–2, 225, 229, 232 Votic 196, 204, 207, 210 vowel 10, 18, 64, 66–7, 96–7, 99, 108, 127, 129, 136, 141, 143, 147, 149–51, 156–7, 166, 180–2, 191–2, 197, 212, 221–6, 229, 232, 235–8

Index 253 vowel length, insignificance of for alliteration 182, 197, 221 Warburg Institute 17 warm-ups, vocal 69–70 Washington, George 45–52, 54–7, 60 weak alliteration 197, 200–1, 205, 212 wedding songs 198, 202, 218 wergeld 75–6 winnowing principle 12, 201–2, 209, 215

word class 3, 156, 163, 197, 222, 226, 230 see also alliteration and word class words content 16, 50 grammatical 4, 50, 229 yoiks

195–6, 206–7, 211

zero onset 10, 222 Zwillingswörter see twin formulas

Alliteration in Culture

Read more

Alliteration and Sound Change in Early English

Read more

Alliteration and Sound Change in Early English (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics)

Read more

Culture in Psychology

Read more

Science in Popular Culture

Read more

Drosophila Cells in Culture

Read more

Milton in Popular Culture

Read more

Corruption in Corporate Culture

Read more

Gullah culture in America

Read more

Food Culture in Spain

Read more

Learning in Contemporary Culture

Read more

Walking in Roman Culture

Read more

Sport in Consumer Culture

Read more

Mathematics in Western Culture

Read more

Humor in Arabic Culture

Read more

Postfemininities in Popular Culture

Read more

Culture)

Read more

Culture

Read more

Julius Caesar in Western Culture

Read more

Hominid culture in primate perspective

Read more

William James in Russian Culture

Read more

Explorations in Consumer Culture Theory

Read more

Witchcraft Myths in American Culture

Read more

Youth Culture in Global Cinema

Read more

Poplar Culture in North America

Read more

Pierre Bourdieu: Fieldwork in Culture

Read more

Shakespeare's culture in modern performance

Read more

Beautiful Things in Popular Culture

Read more

Experiments in Plant Tissue Culture

Read more

American Culture in the 1960s

Read more

Recommend Documents

Alliteration in Culture

Alliteration and Sound Change in Early English

This page intentionally left blank AL L I TER ATI O N A N D S O U N D C H A N G E IN E AR LY E N G LI S H This study...

Alliteration and Sound Change in Early English (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics)

This page intentionally left blank AL L I TER ATI O N A N D S O U N D C H A N G E IN E AR LY E N G LI S H This study...

Culture in Psychology

Culture in Psychology Culture in Psychology breaks new ground by attempting to understand the complexity and specifici...

Science in Popular Culture

SCIENCE IN POPULAR CULTURE: A Reference Guide A. Bowdoin Van Riper GREENWOOD PRESS SCIENCE IN POPULAR CULTURE SCIE...

Drosophila Cells in Culture

Drosophila Cells in Culture This Page Intentionally Left Blank Drosophila Cells in Culture Guy Echalier Groupe de G...

Milton in Popular Culture

Milton in Popular Culture This page intentionally left blank Milton in Popular Culture Edited by Laura Lunger Knop...

Corruption in Corporate Culture

Contents Corruption in Corporate Culture Special Issue Editors Randy Martin and Ella Shohat Introduction: Corruption in...

Gullah culture in America

GULLAH CULTURE IN AMERICA Wilbur Cross Foreword by Emory Shaw Campbell Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication...

Food Culture in Spain

Food Culture in Spain F. XAVIER MEDINA GREENWOOD PRESS Food Culture in Spain Food Culture in Spain F. XAVIER MEDI...