{"id":23930,"date":"2025-03-05T16:18:49","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T16:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=23930"},"modified":"2025-03-05T16:18:50","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T16:18:50","slug":"go-climb-a-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=23930","title":{"rendered":"Go Climb a Tree"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Was the <strong>b<\/strong> in <strong>climb<\/strong> ever pronounced? Or was it added by interfering busybodies to make it more like a Latin root? Is it related to <strong>clamber<\/strong>? Let&#8217;s find out.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/blacktigersdream\/31648592943\/in\/photolist-QdFj4z-2n1g33R-2mPKX8b-2cLZHgn-2hEirpq-2kXPj7R-FF8tmo-2pQ2GWu-2pEPdQJ-Hp52K6-TqBLoL-2mKPMkJ-NygmKy-24tyoig-4Szqze-Lktj4b-uND2yA-2kRCHXd-2mgZj1z-FG7e29-2ocYFjW-2kuwtY8-CjnFML-5Dw5bZ-2n2ebNF-7uTLs3-F3vADm-FUqNrj-2jjXAtv-X91png-sXiXr-2i67fft-Gvy7wW-2nymLGX-2nDV5pB-2p7HYSE-GGWt9d-6odcT-7VQMWc-2qChDJ6-2i66dAH-2pkppDT-2ou8xHy-F3vADG-2omMX5s-QTpaBh-Mgock4-2i63PCz-2nKr7RX-2kP6mr4\" title=\"Climbing wildcat\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/280\/31648592943_0753128e25_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" alt=\"Climbing wildcat\"\/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong>Climb<\/strong> comes from Middle English <em>climben<\/em> [\u02c8kli\u02d0mb\u0259n] (to scale, scale, soar, extend, reach), from Old English <em>climban<\/em> [\u02c8klim.b\u0251n] (to climb), from Proto-West Germanic <em>*klimban<\/em> (to climb), from Proto-Germanic <em>*klimban\u0105<\/em> [\u02c8klim.b\u0251.n\u0251\u0303] (to climb), possibly from <em>*kliban\u0105\/*klib\u0101n\u0105<\/em> (to stick, cleave), from Proto-Indo-European <em>*gleyb\u02b0-<\/em> (to stick, cling to) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/climb#English\">source<\/a>]. <\/p>\n<p>So the <strong>b<\/strong> was pronounced in Middle and Old English, and maybe it became silent when the word lost its <em>en<\/em> ending. <\/p>\n<p>Words from the same roots include <strong>climbing<\/strong>, <strong>cleave<\/strong>, <strong>cliff<\/strong> and maybe <strong>clamber<\/strong> in English, <strong>klimmen<\/strong> (to climb) and <strong>kleven<\/strong> (to stick, glue, be sticky) in Dutch, <strong>kleben<\/strong> (to glue, stick) in German, and <strong>kl\u00edfa<\/strong> (to climb) in Icelandic [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European\/gleyb%CA%B0-\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>A word for <strong>to climb<\/strong> in Latin was <em>scandere \/ scand\u014d<\/em>, which also means to ascend, mount or clamber. It comes from Proto-Indo-European <em>*skend-<\/em> (to jump, dart, scale, scan). Words from the same roots include <strong>ascend<\/strong>, <strong>descend<\/strong>, <strong>transcend<\/strong>, <strong>scale<\/strong>,  <strong>scan<\/strong>, and possibly <strong>scandal<\/strong> and <strong>slander<\/strong> in English, <strong>ascendere<\/strong> (to go up, ascend, rise) in Italian, <strong>skandera<\/strong> (to chant) in Swedish, and <strong>esgyn<\/strong> (to ascend) in Welsh [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/scando#Latin\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p>One of the tunes that was played at the music session I went to last night is called <em>If you do not love me, go climb a tree<\/em> (it may have other names) and goes something like this:<\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-23930-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/soundfiles\/Ifyoudonotlovemegoclimbatree.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/soundfiles\/Ifyoudonotlovemegoclimbatree.mp3\">http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/soundfiles\/Ifyoudonotlovemegoclimbatree.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>It inspired me to write this post. If you recognise the tune and know it by another name, do let me know.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.japanesepod101.com\/member\/go.php?r=759259&amp;i=b0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/banners\/banner_japanesepod.jpg\" alt=\"The Fastest Way to Learn Japanese Guaranteed with JapanesePod101.com\" width=\"630\" height=\"83\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Was the b in climb ever pronounced? Or was it added by interfering busybodies to make it more like a Latin root? Is it related to clamber? Let&#8217;s find out. Climb comes from Middle English climben [\u02c8kli\u02d0mb\u0259n] (to scale, scale, soar, extend, reach), from Old English climban [\u02c8klim.b\u0251n] (to climb), from Proto-West Germanic *klimban (to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,104,107,116,124,128,10,15,26,33,44,45,202,67,77],"tags":[361,360,359,362,164,158,138,281,163],"class_list":["post-23930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dutch","category-english","category-etymology","category-german","category-icelandic","category-italian","category-language","category-latin","category-middle-english","category-old-english-aenglisc","category-proto-germanic","category-proto-indo-european","category-proto-west-germanic","category-swedish","category-welsh","tag-ascend","tag-clamber","tag-climb","tag-descend","tag-english","tag-etymology","tag-language","tag-omniglot","tag-words"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23930","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=23930"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23933,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23930\/revisions\/23933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}