Halloween (or Hallowe'en) is fast approaching and people all over the world are gearing up for the event.Halloween originated in Europe as a Celtic New Year celebration. In the Celtic calendar, October 31st was Samhain [ˈsaʊ(ə)n, ˈsɑːwɪn], a pagan festival. The Celts believed that the dead returned to possess the living during that night and so they left food on their doorsteps for the good souls and wore costumes to scare off evil ones. Their priests - the druids - led the people out into the forests where they made bonfires and sacrifices to their gods.
Finally, each family took home an ember from the fire in turnip lanterns, in order to start new home fires. The fires warmed their houses throughout the cold winter and kept away evil spirits.
In the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church established November 1st as All Saints' Day.
According to Wikipedia,
[t]he word Halloween is first attested in the 16th century and represents a Scottish variant of the fuller All-Hallows-Even ("evening"), that is, the night before All Hallows Day. Up through the early 20th century, the spelling "Hallowe'en" was frequently used, eliding the "v" and shortening the word. Although the phrase All Hallows is found in Old English (ealra hālgena mæssedæg, mass-day of all saints), All-Hallows-Even is itself not attested until 1556.
The name Halloween is also phonetically interesting. When pronounced in isolation it is ˌhæləʊˈiːn in RP, thus with main stress on the last syllable and secondary stress on the antepenultimate. But in connected speech it often has the pattern ˌhæləʊiːn, thus having greater stress on the antepenultimate rather than on the last. This phenomenon is called stress shift and is very common in English. Consider the following examples:
a) ˌHalloween ˈparties
b) ˌHalloween acˈtivities
c) ˌHalloween ˈcostume
d) ˌHalloween ˈproducts
e) ˌHalloween paˈrades
In all the above phrases native speakers of English naturally tend to switch around the stress levels in the first element, in order to maintain the regular alternation between stronger and weaker syllable typical of English rhythm.
According to Professor Wells (LPD3, 2008, p.784),
[i]n principle, stress shift can apply to any word that has a secondary stress before its primary stress. In practice, though, it is most likely to apply to those which are regularly followed in a phrase by a more strongly stressed word: most adjectives, but only certain nouns. [...] In some cases usage is divided.
Thus, stresses in English seem to be altered according to context: we need to be able to explain why this occurs, but it's a difficult question and one for which we have only partial answers.
Here are some more instances of the same phenomenon:
a) ˌfourteen ˈstudents
b) ˌChinese ˈpeople
c) a ˌfar-ˌreaching ˈchange
d) an ˌantique ˈchair (sometimes an anˌtique ˈchair)
e) the ˌacademic coˈmmunity
Was it telepathy that made you write on the same topic?
ReplyDeleteMy readers may want to have a look at Kraut's phonetic blog, too:
ReplyDeletehttp://matters-phonetic.blogspot.com/2010/10/halloween.html
I don't know, Kraut. As I say, our two blog entries complement each other well... And that's good!
ReplyDeleteIn his report, Robert Pigott pronounces "Samhain" as [sɑːˈweɪn], probably influenced by the spelling. I must say, though, that's not the only spelling pronunciation I've heard of this term. [sæmˈheɪn] is what some people also say.
ReplyDeleteTalking about "stress shift", notice how in the BBC video Druid priest Michelle Axe pronounces the word "Halloween": the first time it sounds like [ˌhæləʊˈiːn], but in the sentence "...where Halloween comes from..." it sounds more like [ˌhæləʊiːn], since the word is followed by the more strongly stressed "comes".
Hello,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this wonderful article. I have mentioned it in my recent post about the term.
Unfortunately, in Spain is still very comon to hear the word with the stress in the fisrt syllable, whether it's isolated or in discourse. Besides, in my opinion, since it's a foreign word we should not stand on the stress shift possibility, i.e., everytime we mention "Halloween" is actually an "isolated" term. However I do not have a grammatical rule to back this. It's just my view. Do you have an opinion on this?
On the other hand, I'd like to ask you why the strees was originally placed upon the third syllable. Is it because in the original phrase "all hallows even" the strongest stress was on the word "even"? Or is it maybe because everytime there's a long vowel sound it will carry the main stress?
Thank you!
"[S]ince it's a foreign word we should not stand on the stress shift possibility, i.e., everytime we mention "Halloween" is actually an "isolated" term. However I do not have a grammatical rule to back this. It's just my view. Do you have an opinion on this?"
DeleteI'm not sure I understand what you mean: could you explain it a little better?
"I'd like to ask you why the strees was originally placed upon the third syllable. Is it because in the original phrase "all hallows even" the strongest stress was on the word "even"?"
Yes, it's probably because of that.
Thank you for replying. I'll rephrase my first question.
ReplyDeleteWhat I mean is that for us, Spanish people, Halloween is an imported festivity; moreover, the word "Halloween" does not belong to our language.
On the other hand, Spanish does not allow noun phrases such as "Halloween disfraces"; we will always say "disfraces de Halloween" (Halloween costumes), "fiesta de Halloween" (Halloween party), "¿celebras Halloween?" (Do you celebrate Halloween?). We cannot transform it into a sort of an adjective. It is always a proper noun.
So because it's a proper noun that always takes its own place in discourse it will always carry a main strees.
I hope I made myself clear, although I admit it's pretty difficult to explain it. Maybe I want to tinker too much.