random etymology question: ta

[tron cat]

Just curious about the etymology of this. One source from a google search says ta is from Danish tak, etymonline.com gives "1772, "natural infantile sound of gratitude" [Weekley]"; actually here at least, ta is mostly parent-talk for "give that to me". I'm suspecting Scots is involved, but that's just a hunch.

[finlay]

I don't know, but my hunch would be from Norse/Danish/whatever, because it's most popular in the north of England, where the Vikings invaded and Norse was spoken. This would've bled over into Scotland, and you do hear it here too – my dad says it to mean thank you, for instance. Where do you live exactly, anyway?

[Io]

He lives in NZ.

Isn't 'ta' usually 'bye'!?

[vampireshark]

Isn't 'ta' usually 'bye'!?

From when I lived in the UK, that's what I gathered. Mostly spoken by women whenever I heard it.

[Yng]

I've never heard it used for 'bye'. Maybe you mean 't'ra' or 'tata'? 'Ta' is 'thanks'.

[Io]

I thought 'ta ta' was a doubled 'ta', like 'bye bye'. OK, obv I was rung.

[Zhen Lin]

I've heard ‘ta’ (as an expression of thanks) from a Cambridge native, which is rather far from the north. I always thought of it as a public school sort of thing...

[Dewrad]

I don't know, but my hunch would be from Norse/Danish/whatever, because it's most popular in the north of England, where the Vikings invaded and Norse was spoken.

I think that this is unlikely, actually. It's not wholly implausible that Scandinavian tak/takk/tack is indeed the etymology behind the English "ta", but the borrowing is unlikely to have occurred during the period when Old Norse was spoken in England. Anglo-Norse was, in comparison to the ON we're used to, fairly conservative- the form of tak used by the Vikings in England was probably something like *þank-.

[Viktor77]

Whatever it is, it didn't make the voyage across the Atlantic because this whole thread I've been going .

[Qwynegold]

Just curious about the etymology of this. One source from a google search says ta is from Danish tak, etymonline.com gives "1772, "natural infantile sound of gratitude" [Weekley]"; actually here at least, ta is mostly parent-talk for "give that to me". I'm suspecting Scots is involved, but that's just a hunch.

Huh? Anyway, in Swedish ta means take.

[richard1631978]

It's been a while since I've heard ta used in everyday speech.

Danelaw was roughly the north & east of England, the border with the Saxons being Watling Street, the London - Chester Road, today's A5.

[Davoush]

Hear it all the time in Liverpool and Leeds to mean 'thanks'.

[Salmoneus]

It could be Scandinavian - long after the Danelaw there continued to be big influxes of scandinavians in the north, particulary for mining.

That said, it seems too widespread for that. I think it's probably common in most of the country, at least among the lower classes.

[Niedokonany]

Polish has pa or pa pa for 'bye bye', FWIW.