So you know the lyrics to Christmas carols? They may not be what you think.

Some of them have evolved over time, and how they’ve changed can tell us about language long ago.

Linguist Daniel Midgley gets festive on this episode of Talk the Talk.


Listen to this episode

52: Carols

Download this episode

You can listen to all the episodes of Talk the Talk by pasting this URL into your podlistener.

http://danielmidgley.com/talkthetalk/talk_classic.xml

Show notes

You can find out about the origins of a good many words by looking at the Online Etymological Dictionary.
www.etymonline.com

collie
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=collie

troll
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/troll#Etymology_3

Yule
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule

God rest you merry
http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxgodres.html

Tempest, storm, and wind: Singing Early Music, page 15.
Google books link