sumer

Before English settled on the neat, doubled spelling summer, scribes were happily wandering around with forms like sumor and sumer. That little vowel shuffle is ordinary medieval messiness, the same kind of spelling drift that leaves us with somer in one manuscript and summer in another. The word has honest Germanic family ties: German Sommer, Dutch zomer, and Swedish sommar are all cousins, still wearing versions of the same old season-name. Do not confuse this with the ancient Sumer of Mesopotamia, the civilization of Uruk and cuneiform tablets; that famous name is a different word entirely, just an awkward lookalike. So sumer is really the warm-season word in an older coat, like a shop sign repainted a few times but never changing the store inside.