20 May 2018

Etymology

Why does Scotland have earls while England has dukes?  It is partly because Scotland was never conquered by the Normans.

The word earl is derived from the Anglo-Saxon, a branch of the Germanic languages.  The Scandinavian cognate is jarl.  Scotland never had to cope with all these Norman nobles - dukes and counts - whose titles were of Latin origin (dux and comes) and who - after1066 - displaced the Anglo-Saxon earls in England.

But there was no feminine equivalent to an earl; so nowadays the term Countess is used.

Most of the words associated with royalty are also of Latinate descent: royal, majesty, prince.  Curiously, though, king and queen are of solid Germanic stock.

I thought you might want to know ...

   

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