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Old French Carole Author(s): Urban T. Holmes Reviewed work(s): Source: Language, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Mar., 1928), pp. 28-30 Published by: Linguistic Society of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/409500 . Accessed: 29/12/2011 05:22
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OLD FRENCH Carole

URBAN T. HOLMES
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA

The chief meanings of this word as registered by Godefroy, are 'round dance' and 'circle'.' The difficulty lies in whether it is to be traced to a Celtic etymon or to the Latin choraules 'a flute player'.2 Skeat in the second edition of his English Etymological Dictionary suggested the Celtic origin. He was severely criticized by C. Nigra, in the following terms :3
Le prof. Skeat appuie son 6tymologie celtique sur 'autorit6 du CornishLexicon de Williams et cite, entre autres, les termes bret. karoll, corn. carol, gael. carull, etc. ['song'] dont cependant la provenance frangaise semble bien 6vident.

Skeat abandoned his Celtic etymology in the subsequent editions of the dictionary and accepted choraules as the starting point. Joseph Loth took essentially the same point of view. He wrote that 'le gallois carawl ['song'] ainsi que le cornique semblent emprunter au vieux-frangais carole par l'anglais carol, de choraulare'. But he added: 'L'armoricain coroll "danse" = corolla.'4 Now Breton, Welsh, and Cornish carol, carawl, or karoll, and possibly Manx carval, meaning 'carol' or 'song' are obviously borrowings from the English as M. Loth believed; but Loth saw with his customary keeness that Breton coroll 'a dance' must be derived from something else. The semantics of his explanation that Lat. corolla 'little crown' > coroll 'a dance' have never been accepted and require no refutation here. It was by no means necessary to look so far afield. There exists in both surviving branches of the Celtic tongue a native word cor, meaning 'circle'. Morris Jones gives the following history:5
de l'ancienne langue frangaise etc., Paris, 1880-1901. First suggested by Diez in his Etymologisches Wirterbuch der romanischen Sprachen 539 (Bonn, 1878). 1 Rom. 35. 519, note 2. 4Les Mots latins dans les langues brittoniques145 (Paris, 1892). 6 A Welsh Grammar159 (Oxford Press, 1913). 28
2

1 Dictionnaire

OLD FRENCH CAROLE

29

IE *qer- > Kop<W'rv, Lat. curvus, Irish cor, cruind 'round', Welsh c6r, crwn 'round'. Pedersen inclines to a root *qwer- with the cognates Ir. corr The modern 'round', Gothic Ivairban, and Kaprbs, Kaprc&dXtoso. Scotch Gaelic form of the root is car 'a turn or twist'.7 If there were any question of Latin charus8 (< xopbs) being present here in Celtic dress, it would have resulted in Welsh *cur and Irish *cuar.9 Similar to the series gwr 'man', gwrol 'manly', and gwroli 'to act like a man' we expect and find in Welsh cor 'circle,' corol (or corawl) 'circular', and coroli 'to move in a circle'. The Breton forms are the same with slight variation in spelling. Did the native Celtic word coroli have no part in the etymology of OF caroler 'to dance a round dance'? That the postverbal carole (< caroler) had a Celtic flavor and tradition to a Frenchman of the year 1155 is evident from a passage in Wace's Brut. While referring to the circle of stones at Stonehenge Wace says: Breton les solent en bretans Apeler Karole as gaians; Senhange ont non en englois, Pieres pandues en frangois

(8383 ff).

It remains to demolish entirely the etymology choraules 'flute player or chorus leader' > coraula > coraulare > caroler 'to dance a round dance'. This I can not do. Choraules certainly exists in classic Latin with the meaning noted."' For Vulgar Latin and the later period DuCange shows that coraula was preserved by Petronius and Ordericus Vitalis, and choraules by a number of others. It retained the meaning of jocularius or 'minstrel' down through the 12th century. By that same period it had also acquired the secondary meaning in question, that of 'circle' or 'circular dance'; e.g . ... . 'non in morem nostrorum ordo disponitur, sed circulatim in modum coraulae sepulcrum unius multa ambiunt.' (Guibert de Nogent, De Vita Sua, ch. I). This would mean the following semantic changes: choraules 'a flute player' > coraula 'a jongleur' > coraulare 'to act as a jongleur' > coraula 'a round dance'. If we admit this series we must also agree, it seems, to a confusion with our Breton word coroll 'to dance a circular dance'. The old Welsh cor 'a circle' has certainly suffered a contaminaVergleichendeGrammatik der keltischen Sprachen 1. 121 (Gittingen, 1909). 7Macbain's Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language 71 (Stirling, 1911). 8 Grandgent, An Introduction to Vulgar Latin ?186 (Boston, 1907). g Pedersen, ibid., 1. 217. 10 See Forcellini Totius latinitatis Lexicon etc., Schneebergae 1831-5.
6

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URBAN T. HOLMES

tion with Lat. chorus, to judge from the modern meanings of the word: 'circle; college; choir; pew; stall, crib'." In conclusion I shall state again that the Breton coroll doubtless had something to do with the history of OF caroler. If it was not the sole etymon it must certainly have influenced the direct one, its homonym coraulare < choraules.
11Spurrell's Welsh-English Dictionary, Carmarthen 1920.