n.
'Yule, Christmas'
(Modern English yule)OE had a str. neut. n. spelt <geol, geohhol, gehhol> ‘Yule, Christmas’, cognate with the ON neut. (pl.) represented by OIcel jól and thus supposing a PGmc root *jexwl- or (with Verner's Law) *jegwl-. The only known Gmc formations on the same root are the masc. ja-stem represented by Go jiuleis (in fruma jiuleis ‘the month before the Yule month’), OIcel ýlir ‘Yule-month, i.e. mid-November to mid-December’ and probably early (Angl.) OE <giuli> (later wk. <geola>) ‘December or January’, and its ulterior connections are obscure (see esp. de Vries, Orel, Bj-L, and GED). ME ʒol (and other forms with initial /jo:/ or /ju:/, including PDE Yule) can be derived straightforwardly from the OE <geol-> type (thus OED), assuming shift of stress to the second element of the diphthong (OE /je:ol/ > ME /jo:l/), a common enough occurrence after initial palatals (see Jordan-Crook §84 Anm. 4). However Luick (§384 Anm. 3) adduces the ON word in order to help account for the near-universality in ME of variants in ʒo-, ʒu- (since one might expect forms without shift of stress (ʒe-) to appear more frequently in reflexes of the native cognate), and a number of authorities derive the ME form wholly or partly from ON (e.g. Kluge 1901: 936, de Vries, TGD, GDS). This requires the existence of a VAN variant jól in which stress-shift had already taken place, and it is possible that this change may have occurred early enough in the initial position to be reflected in ON (and ON-influenced) place-names in England and lexical loans in English.
PGmc Ancestor
*jexwl- or *jegwl-
Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)
jól 'Yule, Christmas'
(ONP jól (sb.))
Other Scandinavian Reflexes
Far jól, Icel jól, Norw jôl, Dan jul, Sw jul
OE Cognate
geol, geohhol, gehhol ‘Yule, Christmas’
Phonological and morphological markers
[ON /jo:/ < */eu/ by shifting stress in diphthong] (possibly diagnostic)
Summary category
CC2c
Spellings implying /jo:/ (or /ju:/) are cited in MED from c. 1200 onwards (inc. Orrm), and N and E texts are preponderant. Occurs in MnE Sc. and N/EM usage.
Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus
Gaw 284, 500