[Ansteorra] history of SCA placenames - wne / why the second "r"

Deborah May auntdwen at sbcglobal.net
Tue Sep 26 21:50:41 PDT 2006


Of course, as Vicount Tiernon of Calontir pointed out, the good people of the Texas part of Ansteorra might not have missed the alternate "Lone Star" interpretation of "Unicus et  Singularis..."
 
Blessings,
Ceridwen, Stirrer of Pots


----- Original Message ----
From: HerrDetlef at aol.com
To: ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 10:27:01 PM
Subject: Re: [Ansteorra] history of SCA placenames - wne / why the second "r"


Incidentally, the Old English phrase "an steorra" simply means "a star" or  
"one star".  "eo" is an Old English diphthong, and is pronounded as one  vowel. 
In Middle English the word "steorra" experienced the characteristic  
inflection weakening, and the diphthong was replaced orthographically with the  
similar sounding "e"...often becoming "sterre", then going into Modern English  as 
"starre"....but the loss of the inflectional ending resulted in the current  
spelling of "star".  "An steorra" is properly pronounced "ahn STAY oh rah"  or 
even "ahn STAIR ah", but the pronunciation of the kingdom's name seems to  
have become set in stone.  The primary stress seems to have been fixed on a  
vowel that, in the Old English period, was the weak half of a dipthong.   The 
reference is to an entry in 1066 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, where notice  is 
given to a star, "unique and singular" (think our motto "Unicus et  
Singularis"), that portended the Norman invasion of England.

In a message dated 9/25/2006 9:47:26 PM Central Standard Time,  
dontivar at gmail.com writes:

At 01:10  PM 9/25/2006, you wrote:
> >Jay Yeates jyeates at  realtime.net
> >speaking of the history "placemenames" ... some of us  silverbacks were
> >discussing the old days at our weeekly communal  dinner yesterday, and a
> >question came up ... exactly when/why did  the kingdom name get the second
> >"r" tacked onto it ?????  our  oldest documents (popular and official) that
> >we still hold use the  origional spelling of "ansteora"
>
>I have been told that the  change occured when the principality became  a
>kingdom.
>
>(and I bet folks thought I just couldn't type  :) )
>
>Marc/Diarmaid


The original name (when we first  became a region of Atenveldt) was 
Ansteorra. When Sir Sean became Prince,  he decided to change the 
spelling to Ansteora (and the name of the  newsletter from "Black 
Star" to "Sable Star".) Prince Randall changed it  back to Ansteorra, 
and there was a fair bit of joking that Prince Simonn  would spell it 
"Ansteorrra".

Just think, if we'd kept up that  tradition we'd now live in  
Ansteorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrra.

-Tivar Moondragon



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