Hi I'm certainly no expert but I can't help noticing [only from Wikki I'm afraid] that Frideswide's name incorporates an element from her mother's name Safrida. ['Frideswide was born to Didanus (an Anglo-Saxon king) and his wife Safrida around AD 650.'] Also remember something about the Anglo Saxon 'th' sound being voiced or not (as in though and through) so Friðuswiþ might have been pronounced as more of a Fritheswithe earlier on. So ... is it possible that the z in your handwriting might be a y? If so that reminds me of the way 'Ye' was meant to be pronounced 'the' as the letter Y was one of the ways in which medieval scribes got round the earlier different d sounds. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2922077] Of course the dd letter in Welsh is much used and pronounced as an unvoiced 'th' as in Ffrydd (mountain pasture) and Dafydd (David) Incidentally there's a similar story to that of Frideswide given for St Etheldreda which I was reading recently when visiting Ranworth Church in Norfolk. Etheldreda was another high status woman, daughter of an East Anglian king, who hides from an amorous male and goes on to found a prestigious early religious centre, Ely Cathedral. Best wishes Barbara ough and Through - the 'th' Sounds
Sorry. There was a stray fragment of a note I made for myself at the bottom of my last posting which I forgot to delete before sending; 'ough and Through - the 'th' Sounds'. Barbara ----- Original Message ----- From: "Barbara Walker" <msbwalker@tiscali.co.uk> To: <old-english@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2009 11:19 PM Subject: [OEL] C16th given name Hi I'm certainly no expert but I can't help noticing [only from Wikki I'm afraid] that Frideswide's name incorporates an element from her mother's name Safrida. ['Frideswide was born to Didanus (an Anglo-Saxon king) and his wife Safrida around AD 650.'] Also remember something about the Anglo Saxon 'th' sound being voiced or not (as in though and through) so Friðuswiþ might have been pronounced as more of a Fritheswithe earlier on. So ... is it possible that the z in your handwriting might be a y? If so that reminds me of the way 'Ye' was meant to be pronounced 'the' as the letter Y was one of the ways in which medieval scribes got round the earlier different d sounds. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2922077] Of course the dd letter in Welsh is much used and pronounced as an unvoiced 'th' as in Ffrydd (mountain pasture) and Dafydd (David) Incidentally there's a similar story to that of Frideswide given for St Etheldreda which I was reading recently when visiting Ranworth Church in Norfolk. Etheldreda was another high status woman, daughter of an East Anglian king, who hides from an amorous male and goes on to found a prestigious early religious centre, Ely Cathedral. Best wishes Barbara ough and Through - the 'th' Sounds ==================================== WEB PAGE: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~oel/ ARCHIVES: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index?list=OLD-ENGLISH ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to OLD-ENGLISH-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message