Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Ox, in my words + oxen

ocs : ox

The Illunse word for ox (adult castrated bull) is ocs. Ocs is a rare last name. In the military, OCS is an acronym for Officer Candidates School or Officer Cadet School. Similar Ocs (or Öcs) is the name of a place in Hungary.

This word is a mixture of the Latin word for ox (or bovine) which is bos, and the Old English word for ox which is oxa (which I transliterate to ocsa).

ocsan : oxen

The Illunse word for oxen (nominative plural) is ocsan. Ocsan is a unusual last name.

Oxen (or bovines or cattle) in Latin is bovis. Oxen in Old English is oxan.

My Illunse words are very close to Modern English when you consider my transliteration of X to CS. Note that the English plural, oxen, ends in N instead of S, which is a remanant from Old English.

That's enough of the bovine related words. There actually other words I'm not going to do, such as steer (a young ox especially one castrated before sexual maturity and raised for beef) and heifer (a young cow especially one that has not yet given birth to a calf). I might do calf, but not now.

Cattle were a big thing in Anglo-Saxon times. Cattle were personal property. Way back then, counting your cattle was like counting your money.

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