{"id":16974,"date":"2018-10-31T13:49:10","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T12:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/blog\/?p=16974"},"modified":"2018-10-31T13:49:10","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T12:49:10","slug":"when-is-the-sky-not-the-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=16974","title":{"rendered":"When is the sky not the sky?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/omniglot\/45648161471\/in\/dateposted\/\" title=\"Useful phrase in Danish\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1936\/45648161471_037c438197_n.jpg\" width=\"180\" height=\"320\" style=\"float:right; margin:0 0 10px 20px;\" alt=\"Useful phrase in Danish\"\/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>In Danish, Norwegian and Swedish the word <strong>sky<\/strong> means cloud, as does <strong>sk\u00fd<\/strong> in Icelandic. The word for sky in these languages is <strong>himmel<\/strong> (<strong>himinn<\/strong> in Icelandic), and in Swedish <strong>sky<\/strong> also means sky or gravy.<\/p>\n<p>I learnt the Danish word sky the other day from the sentence: <strong>Enhj\u00f8rningen flyver p\u00e5 en sky<\/strong> (The unicorn is flying on a cloud) &#8211; are very useful thing to be able to say.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sky<\/strong> comes from the Old Norse <em>sk\u00fd<\/em> (cloud), from Proto-Germanic <em>*skiwj\u0105<\/em> (cloud, cloud cover), from Proto-Indo-European <em>*(s)kew-<\/em> (to cover, conceal), which is also the root of the English word sky [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/sk%C3%BD#Old_Norse\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>The English word <strong>cloud<\/strong> comes from the Old English <em>cl\u016bd<\/em> (mass of stone, rock, boulder, hill), from Proto-Germanic <em>*kl\u016btaz \/ *klutaz<\/em> (lump, mass, conglomeration), from Proto-Indo-European <em>*gel-<\/em> (to ball up, clench), which is also the root of the English words chill, cold, congeal, cool, gel, gelatin and jelly [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/cloud\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>In Old English there were different words for sky and cloud: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>heofon<\/strong> was the sky or heaven [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/heofon\">source<\/a>], which survives in such modern English expressions as &#8216;the heavens opened&#8217; (it started to rain heavily).<\/li>\n<li><strong>wolcen<\/strong> was cloud, and the plural, <strong>wolcnu<\/strong> was the sky or the heavens [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/wolcen\">source<\/a>]. This became <strong>welkin<\/strong> in modern English, an archaic and poetic word for the sky, the upper air; aether; the heavens.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/omniglot\/30707162167\/in\/dateposted\/\" title=\"A sunny day in Bangor \/ Dydd heulog ym Mangor\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1928\/30707162167_ced5116957_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"361\" alt=\"A sunny day in Bangor \/ Dydd heulog ym Mangor\"\/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Danish, Norwegian and Swedish the word sky means cloud, as does sk\u00fd in Icelandic. The word for sky in these languages is himmel (himinn in Icelandic), and in Swedish sky also means sky or gravy. I learnt the Danish word sky the other day from the sentence: Enhj\u00f8rningen flyver p\u00e5 en sky (The unicorn [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,104,107,124,10,31,33,36,44,45,67,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-danish","category-english","category-etymology","category-icelandic","category-language","category-norwegian","category-old-english-aenglisc","category-old-norse","category-proto-germanic","category-proto-indo-european","category-swedish","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}