“Wander” Has Barely Changed for 10,000 Years

A Linguistic Look at the Most Commonly Tattooed Word

I drove for hours into the middle of nowhere today. I drove to the edge of farmland marked with “No trespassing” signs and parked off the side of the road. Leaving my car and ignoring the signs, I hopped the fence and walked through knee high grass, unsure of my destination.

I hadn’t planned the trip. I’ve known for awhile that there were sights hidden in the midwest farmland, but a five hour drive to see a few rocks never seemed worth it. Today, however, I felt restless. I felt the need to venture out into the world.

You see the tattoos all the time. “Wanderlust”, “Not all who wander are lost”, “Wanderer”, etc. The word Wander has some poetry within its six letters. It calls to something innate within us. Some holdout from the lives of our nomadic ancestors. There’s a desire to keep moving, to find somewhere new. As time moves on we begin to feel that we must move as well.

The word began more than 7000 years ago. Speakers of a language known as Proto-Indo-European lived on the Eurasian steppes. They moved on foot, from camp to camp. And while some followed set paths, others broke out on their own. These pioneers were mocked by the others for not following the straight path of the others, but choosing instead to move without direction. They used the word wendh, meaning to wind or weave.

While walking different paths was enough at first, there was more of the world to explore. So these Eurasian nomads domesticated the wild horses of the steppes, giving them a way to move farther and faster. They began spreading out from their homeland, further and further away, in all directions. Many moved into Asia, their descendants are the speakers of languages like Hindi and Sanskrit. Others moved into southern Europe, leading to Italian, Greek and countless others. Still more pushed farther and farther north, carrying the word for the winding path with them.

The languages changed and shifted, and the word changed with it. 2200 years ago, in the first and second century BCE, the word had grown and shifted to wandran. Still those that had traveled from their homeland, from Urheimat on the steppes, pressed on. They built boats and sailed to islands in the Atlantic, and again their language shifted. In the 4th century CE, speakers of Old English looked at those who refused to settle down, to remain in one place, and used the word wandrian. For the first time the word captured the oddity of wandering. Translated it means “to move about aimlessly.” The speakers of Old English understood that when one wanders, they do so with no destination in mind, no assurance that there will be an end to their journey.

The heroes in the oldest tales of the english language, when they find themselves at a crossroads, often wander, seeking some sign or direction. As we move closer to modern English, we see the word change to wandren, and finally wander in the 16th century CE. And that’s how it has stayed. The main difference now is that we have been applying it to a class of people. Wanderers.

For the most part I’m sedentary. My ancestors came and settled on farms, 3000 miles from their homeland was far enough, and that desire to finally put down roots has taken a few generations to wear off. Every so often, I have the desire to move off the path I’m on, to wander.

Today, I trudge through a fallow field, still soaked from the weekend’s rainstorm. As I come over a ridge I see below me a line of rock formations, formed eons before my ancestors ever left their home on the steppes. They are arranged in no set pattern, the ancient sea that once covered the Great Plains had eroded them, leaving pocks and craters, holes and cracks. They rise out of the plains like a god’s discarded dentures. I don’t hike to them. I just stare for awhile, before continuing on, wandering aimlessly.