WHAT is your favourite Christmas carol? Do you know the lyrics and origins? Do consider the words or is it that comforting feeling that linguists would call the ‘pragmatics’ that works for you?

The first reference to a ‘carol’ in the Oxford English Dictionary, from around 1300AD, suggests originally these songs were ‘round dances’.
In Breton ‘koroll’ meant ‘dance’ as did the French ‘carole’.

Carolling events were originally perhaps a bit like our West Country wassailing, where movement and lively festivities were the order of the day.

This dynamic, dancing origin partly means linguists are unsure if the noun ‘carol’ or the verb ‘carolling’ came first.

There is a strand of thought suggesting ‘carol’ shares a very ancient link with the Greek-Latin ‘chorus’, perhaps echoing the predictable structure of these old songs.

There is also a suggestion that ‘carol’ is linked to a word that means much to us from a more recent and much less positive connection: the Latin ‘corolla’ (little crown) which we might recognise as itself linked to the description of ‘coronavirus’ of 2019/20.

Whatever its origin, by 1502 ‘carol’ was being used to refer to a Christmas song in celebration of the Nativity and within 50 years it had widened into meaning a song of religious joy.

In the 1590s the related word ‘carolet’ was being used to mean a little song. By 1806 the agent noun ‘caroler’ was in use, suggesting the ritual of carols was established enough to warrant a name for those participating.

We all have our favourites – from childhood or more recent association. I wonder if you, like me, have that image of the traditional, English Christmas with snow on a dark evening, the sacred voices of young children, the gathering of kin…

For me, such songs of peace transcend faith and connect to something even deeper than language: that sense of the end of something as another year closes.

Silent Night stirs me deeply whenever I hear it.

Often cited as one of the nation’s favourites, it is a carol only translated from its native German in 1859 – some 40 years after first being performed.

If you are able to take some time out this festive season – do sleep in heavenly peace, and perhaps enjoy a little figgy pudding too.

Marcus Barrett is course manager for English Language A-level at Richard Huish College, Taunton, and a Trustee of The English Project, Winchester.