Old English Word of the Week 001 cempa - warrior (Patreon)

Word of the Week series index

Old English WotW 001

cempa - warrior

Wes þū hāl, mīn freond! Joining our ancient languages Word of the Week series is Old English, the Anglo-Saxon language. When it comes to being truly masters of Modern English, I do sincerely believe that knowledge of Latin and Ancient Greek, that’s a must, French is exceedingly useful, and then I used to think... German? German is lovely, but the reason it’s worth learning in my example here is simply to keep us English speakers from thinking English is a Romance or Mediterranean language. Indeed, to truly get to our roots, we need to learn Old English.

Today I want to tell you the fascinating tale of the Anglo-Saxon word for soldier or warrior, which is cempa. This word comes from Proto-Germanic *kampijō, from *kampijan “to fight,” “to do battle,” no doubt you can hear German kämpfen in there.

You might think that’s the end of the story, but oh no no, it gets better. The verb *kampijan is from *kamp, the field of battle. Which, get this, is from Latin campus.

And even more amazingly, the Proto-Germanic *kampijō gets borrowed back into Mediaeval Latin as campiō, giving us campione in Italian, and champion in English. The Old English cempa comes into archaic Modern English as “kemp,” meaning a champion or a knight, which survives today as a Surname, like Jack Kemp, who in the twentieth century was a champion fighting on a field of battle of his own, the gridiron.

Iċ þancie þē! More ancient language words of the week coming to you soon.