Talk:Kirk

Etymology

Kirk is ultimately Norse in origin? It seems to be a variation on the same theme as church and to be Greek in origin. Laurel Bush 09:27, 28 July 2005 (UTC).

Sorry, I just noticed this. Yes, of course it is of Greek origin. But it came into Germanic, probably through Gothic, and has forms with k- in all continental Germanic languages. Old English palatalisation changed it to ch-, and this should normally also be ch- in Scots, if the usual rules applied. Child, cheese and chick were likewise palatalised in earliest English (cf German: Kind, Käse, Küken), and all the Scots forms related to them have the palatalised ch-. But Scots has many Norse loan-words, which explains how in this case it has the unpalatalised form. So, yes, Greek, but via Norse. --Doric Loon 11:23, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Mind you - Scots also has many borrowings from early Dutch, like coft ('bought') in the 15th century. The dictionaries don't mention this possibility, but I don't actually see why it couldn't equally well come from the Netherlands. But at any rate, it is definately a loanword from continental Germanic. --Doric Loon 19:26, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, I withdraw that Dutch hypothesis - it was just an unconsidered thought, and on further checking it doesn't hold up. The element kirk is found in place names far earlier than the earliest attested reference to it as a common noun, and thus it predates the earliest possible borrowing from Dutch. Also, it is found mainly in areas with a strong Viking influence on the language generally, and is found at a very early date in names like Kirkby where the other element is definitely Norse. So that seems to clinch it. But I still don't have a solution to the problem of why such a word would be borrowed from Norse at a time when the Vikings weren't Christians. Anyone got any ideas? --Doric Loon 01:06, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

High Kirk

Hey, Mais oui, thanks for that very useful section.--Doric Loon 18:32, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome. This page is becoming quite good. It will surely soon be a "Featured Article" ;) Mais oui! 19:39, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Disambig?

Is this really still a disambiguation page? --Doric Loon 18:24, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Not really, no. Perhaps we should just put normal categories on it and then initiate a Kirk (disambiguation) page?--Mais oui! 19:42, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

It looks like an interesting case of a disambig page that is migrating into an article. It started out as a redirect to a user page, then a redirect to Star Trek's James T. Kirk. Even the version from a year ago, was still primarily a disambig for everyone's favourite starship captain. Now it is more fixed on the Scottish church. -- Solipsist 20:01, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I've restored + expanded the actual disambig page, and trimmed this so that it falls 100% into article category--205.188.116.66 21:48, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I may have made a slight mess of things, but I think I've made overall positive changes, although the disambig page might be a bit non-stanbard--205.188.116.66 21:53, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Personally I thought it was fine as it was, but if the list of personal and place names is going to grow, a separate disambig article may be sensible. So I don't mind you doing something along these lines, but the place names and personal names are not unrelated things which happen to use the same word - they are directly derived. What you have moved to the disambig page is partly information on this, which as you say yourself, is non-standard for a disambig. I would suggest you reinstate the place-name and personal-name sections of this article, move the discursive bits back here, also the note on Dunkirk and the book reference, and a couple of examples. Then if you want to leave the main list of cross-references on the disambig page, that's fine. --Doric Loon 12:06, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

recent edits

Some of my concerns regarding User:Retrophonicum's edits have been addressed: a form of church was ambiguous. I initially read it to mean e.g. an architectural subset thereof (clearly wrong) and this has now been addressed.

Some of the phrasing and piping of links with regard to the new source is still problematic. The source refers to "all Scots dialects" (and, incidentally, in regard to Scandinavian lexis, not specifically the word "kirk"). In the current wording, it asserts (if the piped link is removed) that it is "found in some... Scottish English dialects". The source does not address Scottish English at all, let alone supposed dialects thereof. There are dialects of Scots but I don't think anyone would claim Scottish English has distinct dialects, more that it is itself a dialect of English. So the term is used, simply, in Scottish English and in (all dialects of) Scots. I'll address this in the article... Mutt Lunker (talk) 23:14, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Furthermore, I'd like to know the wider context in which the new source is placed. What is the "lexical material" it is referring to? Is it material regarding modern usage, usage throughout history or is it, for example, in relation to place names?

If the latter, clearly kirk is widely found in English placenames, coming indeed from Old Norse and extant in Middle English. It may even be in more placenames than in Scotland, I have no idea. (If this assertion is based on on the list given at Kirk (placename element) this is not sound. The list is very far from, and not intended to be, exhaustive and, given ten minutes, one could easily list as many placenames again as currently given for Scotland (I could probably do it from e.g. Fife alone).) These long-coined placenames do not provide evidence that the term continues to be used. A similar example is the element burn, bourne etc. Very widespread in placenames all over England, including the south in this instance, but not in (widespread, if at all) modern English usage. It is however the common modern term for a stream in Scots and Scots English. I'm sceptical about quite how widespread the modern usage of kirk has survived in northern England outside place names. I don't recall the term being employed by any friend from northern England, unless to a building or institution in Scotland.

I'd be happy to have it's mention as historically used in northern England but am unconvinced about its current usage. Mutt Lunker (talk) 23:43, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Jut twigged that the vast majority of examples at Kirk (placename element) had been added only today by Retrophonicum themself, so likely to be skewed to placenames they know.

To get a rough idea if the element kirk "is MORE frequent in England than Scotland" as they assert I searched for the term in my Memory-Map mapping package. I have OS maps for all of Scotland and England and counted the incidence of terms in each. Now there are probably quite a lot of incidences of some of the terms being umpteen variants of the same farm/village/stream/hill/bridge or whatever, but all things being equal, this probably roughly balances out. Also, the list petered out at the start of the letter "P" stating that there are "too many items" but there is no particular reason to believe the proportion would be significantly different thereafter. However, A-O is covered and significantly, this covers those places beginning with "Kirk-" (583 of them). This can only be indicative but the case that it is more common in England is not compelling since I counted 222 English place names (note - all of England, not just the north) and 494 Scottish ones. Mutt Lunker (talk) 02:41, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I actually suggested a compromise which would have kept User:Retrophonicum's new information without getting into the quagmire which he presumably didn't know he was treading, but he reverted it. He will not get away with his original proposal, which makes this mainly English. Look it up in the Oxford English Dictionary. It says, first, that Kirk is both Scots and Northern English (so he is right about wanting Northern English added and it should be) but second that the form is "now mainly Scottish". Scots and Scottish English are two different things, and this word is first and foremost a word in these two language varieties, which is found also in the dialects of N. England. And it occurs in all dialects of Scots, not just some. As for the placenames, these represent usage 1000 years ago, so they are not really relevant here (and actually, the source he is citing also seems to be a historical rather than a current one). But I doubt very much if there are more Kirktons etc in England than in Scotland - our list of Scottish ones was never intended to be comprehensive. --Doric Loon (talk) 08:18, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

In complete agreement. I had seen your compromise and prefer it to the current wording, only coming up with the latter to minimise differences from Retrophonicum's last version as a further compromise. Both wordings however give the impression that it is still in significant current usage in northern England and I am unconvinced of this or that the new source supports this. In its reference to the lexis of dialects this is, as Chambers puts it, "the total stock of words in a language" and depending on the wider context of the quote this could be a millenium or so of material we're dealing with, with usage changing dramatically through the course of it. The quote as given does not indicate it is assessing current usage. I'd like more info on its context.

I believe a more accurate wording would be:

"As a common noun, kirk is the Scots and Scottish English word for 'church', found also, though largely historically, in dialects of Northen England".

and probably no need even for "also, though largely".

As you say place names are not indicative of current usage. Since you refer toKirktons, you might be interested that from the search of OS maps and in the style of the fitba results teleprinter of old we have:

Scotland 110 (one hundred and ten) - O England

and I haven't counted a Kirktoun and ten Kirktowns in that. Mutt Lunker (talk) 10:54, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Really? 110! A long time ago I added a note at Kirk (placename element) that there are lots of these, but I had no idea how many. I also noted that they are often paired with a milton or castleton, i.e. when a traditional parish has several hamlets and a single name X for all of them, they distinguish by saying "kirkton of X" for the one with the parish church. --Doric Loon (talk) 11:20, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

While we're at it, you in particular may be interested that 34 of the 110 are in Aberdeenshire (and 7 of the Kirktowns; I assume this is the modern definition Aberdeenshire). Yes, am familiar paricularly with the Kirkton/Milton pairing, as well as Newtons (these 3 being farms near my childhood village), and Hattons (Ha (hall) toun), the initial settlements being ferm touns. Mutt Lunker (talk) 11:50, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

current usage in England

Following on from the above, I have started asking northern English friends about the word "kirk". So far I've only talked to two, one from West Yorkshire, the other from County Durham, both with accents distinctive of those parts of England. I don't think I've been in their company with people from their locale but even in company of people from a variety of parts of the UK and abroad the latter uses some dialect terms, the former not so much. CD has lived in Scotland for a while, WY has not.

I asked each of them independently "Where you're from do people use the word "kirk"?". The response from WY was yes, from CD a blank look and a shake of the head. To "Do you know what the word means?" WY replied "It's in some street names isn't it?" and CD simply "No". To "in Scotland it means "church", have you heard that meaning?" in both cases the response was negative. Not the widest of samples and not citable but also not supportive of the idea that the term is in current usage in northern England.

I'll keep asking though. Mutt Lunker (talk) 01:07, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I've asked two more people the same questions. Three "no"s from one from North Yorkshire and "it's in a lot of place names" but otherwise "no" from the one from Tyneside.

I'm ceasing to give the benefit of the doubt that the citation gives support to anything other than a historical usage of the word "kirk" in northern England and will amend the article accordingly. Mutt Lunker (talk) 19:50, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I can't see the rationale behind this proposal, as it's a question of two institutions with separate histories, each of which deserves its own explanation. Quite apart from the technical difficulties involved in providing a single narrative, it hardly does justice historically to the separation in the first place (still maintained by part of the Free Church). Would anyone suggest merging the history of the German Federal Republic with the history of the German Democratic Republic in the period 1949-89, now that they have rejoined, or would one continue to treat them historically as separate subjects? Kim Traynor (talk) 22:18, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree. The point is, Free Kirk is a disambig article. If somebody enters "Free Kirk" they are wanting one of the two articles on the Free church. Giving them the opportunity to click forward to the one they want is the most helpful solution. --Doric Loon (talk) 01:06, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

A quarter of a year on, nobody has given an argument supporting this merge, so I have now removed the merge tag from the top of the page.--Doric Loon (talk) 10:27, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

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