I was certain that the phrase was somehow related to printing. Phil Cousineau and Gregg Chadwick wrote, "When I was late with a story at my first newspaper job I didn't have an inkling about deadlines, until my editor Roger Turner told me, 'Son, when it's ink, it's real.'" [1] However, they did say that it derived from the obscure Middle English word, nyngkiling or a whisper.
The earliest example of nyngkiling is from the 15th century Alliterative Romance of Alexander the Great. "[Alexander] Herd a nyngkiling of his name, & naytis him [exerted himself] to ryse."
The UK Phrase Finder web site gives the following:
So, if you heard an inkling your senses were alerted to listening for something that might interest you and it is that sensation that has led to our current usage of the word. To be more accurate, in the 13th century you would have had a ninkling rather than an inkling. Inkling is one of those nouns that were originally spelled with an 'n' at the start of the word but later lost it in everyday speech. In this case, sometime in the 16th century, 'a ninkling' became 'an inkling'. Other examples of this are 'a napron' and 'a nadder' [snake]. This reformation of words is called metanalysis and these 'n' examples of it are difficult to explain fully. There are examples of words going in the other direction, that is, adding an 'n'; for example, 'an ekename' is now 'a nickname' (eke means also) and 'an ewt' is now 'a newt'. Other examples, like 'nangry' where the originally spelled 'angry' gained an 'n' but then failed to become publicly accepted, show how precarious such changes are. Curiously, the most commonly heard example of an English word losing its initial 'n' happened in France rather than England. The French obtained 'orange' via a route through several languages, ultimately from the Sanskrit 'naranga', and 'une narange' became 'une arange'. By the time oranges appeared in England they were already oranges - there never was an English word noranges.
Walter Skeat, the quintessential source for this word, gives the following:
Inkling, a hint, intimation, (Scand, ?) M. E. Inkling, a whisper, murmur, low speaking. Alexander, when in disguise, feared he was discovered, because he 'herd a nyngkiling of his name,' Allit, romance of Alexander, 2968; where a nyngkiling stands for an yngkiling. "To incle the truth' = to hint at the truth, Alisaunder (in app. to Wm. of Palerne), 616. I suspect it to be corrupted from Dan. ymte, to murmur, mutter, an iterative verb from ymja, to mutter, hum (of imitative origin); so also Ucel. ymta, to mutter. [2]
So. An inkling of a chance would mean that there is the barest whisper that one will succeed. Or the inkling of the truth would be a quiet murmur, barely heard below the lies.
[1] Cousineau, Chadwick. p185
[2] Skeat (1), p219 or from other pages in the referenced Skeat sources.
Archipresbyter, Leo. The Wars of Alexander: an Alliterative romance. Kraus Reprint, 1973.
Cousineau, Phil; Chadwick, Gregg. The Painted Word: A Treasure Chest of Remarkable Words and Their Origins. Cleis Press, 2012.
Kuhn, Sherman M. Middle English Dictionary, Issue 2. University of Michigan Press, Feb 1, 1979.
Skeat, Walter William. A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. Harper & brothers, 1882
Skeat, Walter W. The Concise Dictionary of English Etymology. Wordsworth Editions, 1993 edition
Skeat, Walter W. An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. Courier Corporation, Feb 15, 2013
Skeat, Walter William. Twelve Facsimiles of Old English MSS., with Transcriptions and an Introd. Clarendon Press, 1892.
Skeat, Walter William. The Wars of Alexander: An Alliterative Romance Translated Chiefly from the Historia Alexandri Magni de Preliis, Issue 47. Early English text society, 1886
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