Welcome to the Street Prophets Coffee Hour cleverly hidden at the intersection of religion and politics. This is an open thread where we can share our thoughts and comments about the day. Think back for a moment to the last time you heard the expression “kith and kin.” While most native English speakers have probably heard or read this expression at some time, it is probably not a part of their everyday vocabulary. The phrase “kith and kin,” meaning “native land and people,” has its first recorded appearance in English in 1377 in Piers Plowman.
Piers Plowman is an allegorical narrative poem written by William Langland. It was written in what is today called Middle English and is considered by many literary critics to be one of the greatest works of Middle English literature. The poem, written from the perspective of medieval Catholicism, is about the intense quest for the true Christian life.
Originally, kith and kin referred to blood relatives or members of one’s own nation: kith are the people one knows, and kin are those to whom one is related.
Kith
Kith is today considered to be obsolete. With regard to etymology, it comes from the Old English noun cyth which means “knowledge; known, familiar country; acquaintances, friends.” Cyth comes from the proto-Germanic noun *kunthith which is a derivative of *kunthaz meaning “known” which is the past participle of the verb *kunnan meaning “to know, know how.”
In Middle English, kith was used as a general synonym for knowledge. It also implied knowledge of acceptable behavior or it could be used to denote the region or place with which one was familiar.
On another note, *kunnan became the verb cunnan in Old English. The first-person singular of cunnan serves today in Modern English as can. In addition, the verbal noun and adjective of cunnan became the English cunning which first appeared in the fourteenth century.
The proto-Germanic *kunthaz became the Old English adjective cūth meaning “known, familiar.” While cūth became obsolete in English by 1600, its negative form, uncouth, has survived. In 1896, the word couth was created by Max Beerbohm as a jocular back-formation.
Kin
As an anthropologist, kin and its related concept kinship, are a standard part of my working professional vocabulary and are used to describe an important aspect of social organization. On the other hand, for most other people—I’m tempted to say for “normal people”—the primary use of kin can be found in the expression next of kin.
Kin comes from the Old English cynn meaning “family; race; kind; rank; nature; gender; sex.” Cynn comes from the proto-Germanic *kunjam meaning “family” which became the Old Frisian kenn, the Old Saxon kunni, and the Old Norse kyn. Going deeper into the etymology, it seems to be related to the Proto-Indo-European *gen(e)- meaning “to produce.”
Open Thread
This is an open thread—all topics are welcome.