Etymology

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Etymology

Etymology is the study of the origins of words. Through old texts and comparison with other languages, etymologists reconstruct the history of words — when they entered a language, from what source, and how their form and meaning changed.

In languages with a long written history etymology makes use of philology, the study of old texts. However, etymologists also apply the methods of comparative linguistics to reconstruct information about languages that are too old for any direct information (such as writing) to be known. By comparing related languages with a technique known as the comparative method, linguists can make inferences about their shared parent language and its vocabulary. In this way, word roots have been found which can be traced all the way back to the origin of, for instance, the Indo-European language family.

Even though etymological research originally grew from the philological tradition, nowadays much etymological research is done in language families where little or no early documentation is available, such as Uralic and Austronesian.

The word etymology itself comes from the Greek ἔτυμον (étymon, true meaning, from 'etymos' true) and λόγος (lógos, word). The term was originally applied to the search of supposedly "original" or "true" meanings of words, an idea which is rejected as unscientific by modern linguistics.

Types of word origins

Etymological theory recognizes that words originate through a limited number of basic mechanisms, the most important of which are the following:

Borrowing, i.e. the adoption of loanwords from other languages.
Word formation such as derivation and compounding.
Onomatopoeia and sound symbolism, i.e. the creation of imitative words.

While the origin of newly emerged words is often more or less transparent, it tends to become obscured through time due to:

Sound change: for example, it is not obvious at first sight that English set is related to sit (the former is originally a causative formation of the latter), and even less so that bless is related to blood (the former was originally a derivative with the meaning "to mark with blood", or the like).
Semantic change: English bead originally meant "prayer", and acquired its modern sense through the practice of counting prayers with beads.

The combination of sound change and semantic change often creates etymological connections that are impossible to detect by merely looking at the modern word-forms. For instance, English lord which comes from Old English hlāf-weard, meaning literally "bread guard". The components of this compound, in turn, yielded modern English loaf and ward.

Methods of etymology

Etymologists apply a number of methods to study the origins of words, some of which are:

Philological research. Changes in the form and meaning of the word can be traced with the aid of older texts, if such are available.
Making use of dialectological data. The form or meaning of the word might show variation between dialects, which may yield clues of its earlier history.
The comparative method. By a systematic comparison of related languages, etymologists can detect which words derive from their common ancestor language and which were instead later borrowed from another language.
The study of semantic change. Etymologists often have to make hypotheses about changes of meaning of particular words. Such hypotheses are tested against the general knowledge of semantic shifts. For example, the assumption of a particular change of meaning can be substantiated by showing that the same type of change has occurred in many other languages as well.

English etymology

Main article: History of the English language.

As a language, English is derived from the Anglo-Saxon, a West Germanic variety, although its current vocabulary includes words from many languages. The Anglo-Saxon roots can be seen in the similarity of numbers in English and German, particularly seven/sieben, eight/acht, nine/neun and ten/zehn. Pronouns are also cognate: I/ich; thou/Du; we/wir; she/sie. However, language change has eroded many grammatical elements, such as the noun case system, which is greatly simplified in Modern English; and certain elements of vocabulary, much of which is borrowed from French. In fact, more than half of the words in English either come from the French language or have a French cognate. However, the most common root words are still of Germanic origin. For an example of the etymology of an English irregular verb of Germanic origin, see the etymology of the word go.

When the Normans conquered England in 1066 (see Norman Conquest) they brought their Norman language with them. During the Anglo-Norman period which united insular and continental territories, the ruling class spoke Anglo-Norman, while the peasants spoke the English of the time. Anglo-Norman was the conduit for the introduction of French into England, aided by the circulation of Langue d'oïl literature from France. This led to many paired words of French and English origin. For example, beef is cognate with the modern French bœuf, meaning cow; veal with veau, meaning calf; pork with porc, meaning pig; and poultry with poulet, meaning chicken. In this situation, the foodstuff has the Norman name, and the animal the Anglo-Saxon name, since it was the Norman rulers who ate meat (meat was an expensive commodity and could rarely be afforded by the Anglo-Saxons), and the Anglo-Saxons who farmed the animals.

English words of more than two syllables are likely to come from French, often with modified terminations. For example, the French words for syllable, modified, terminations and example are syllabe, modifié, terminaisons and exemple. In many cases, the English form of the word is more conservative (that is, has changed less) than the French form.

English has proven accommodating to words from many languages. Scientific terminology relies heavily on words of Latin and Greek origin. Spanish has contributed many words, particularly in the southwestern United States. Examples include buckaroo from vaquero or "cowboy", alligator from el lagarto or "the lizard", and rodeo. Cuddle, eerie and greed come from Scots; honcho, sushi, and tsunami from Japanese; dim sum, gung ho, kowtow, kumquat, and typhoon from Cantonese Chinese; behemoth from Hebrew; taiga, sable and sputnik from Russian; and lagniappe from American Spanish through American French; ketchup, kampong, and amok from Malay. See also loanword.

History of etymology

The search for meaningful origins for familiar or strange words is far older than the modern understanding of linguistic evolution and the relationships of languages, with its roots no deeper than the 18th century. From Antiquity through the 17th century, from Pindar to Sir Thomas Browne, etymology has been a form of witty wordplay, in which the supposed origins of words were devised to satisfy the etymologist's requirements. Analogously, since Jane Ellen Harrison, one of the recognized functions of myths has been to explain archaic rituals that were no longer comprehensible. In his Odes Pindar spins complimentary etymologies to flatter his patrons. Plutarch (Life of Numa Pompilius) spins an etymology for pontifex ("bridge-builder"):

the priests, called Pontifices... have the name of Pontifices from potens, powerful, because they attend the service of the gods, who have power and command over all. Others make the word refer to exceptions of impossible cases; the priests were to perform all the duties possible to them; if any thing lay beyond their power, the exception was not to be cavilled at. The most common opinion is the most absurd, which derives this word from pons, and assigns the priests the title of bridge-makers. The sacrifices performed on the bridge were amongst the most sacred and ancient, and the keeping and repairing of the bridge attached, like any other public sacred office, to the priesthood.

Plutarch's etymology of "syncretism", involving Cretans banding together, rather than a parallel to concrete or accrete, is uncritically accepted even today (see Syncretism). Degrading and insulting pseudo-etymologies were a standard weapon of Jerome's arsenal of sarcasm, and Isidore of Seville compiled a volume of etymologies, some quite far-fetched, to illuminate the triumph of religion. Each saint's legend in Jacob de Voragine's Legenda Aurea begins with an etymological riff on the saint's name:

Lucy is said of light, and light is beauty in beholding, after that S. Ambrose saith: The nature of light is such, she is gracious in beholding, she spreadeth over all without lying down, she passeth in going right without crooking by right long line; and it is without dilation of tarrying, and therefore it is showed the blessed Lucy hath beauty of virginity without any corruption; essence of charity without disordinate love; rightful going and devotion to God, without squaring out of the way; right long line by continual work without negligence of slothful tarrying. In Lucy is said, the way of light. ^*.

No desciption of etymology is complete without the mention of the Sanskrit grammarians of ancient India, who were the first in the world to make such a comprehensive analysis of linguistics, and especially etymology. Indeed, it is only the study of Sanskrit etymology which has provided the Western scholars the basis of Historical linguistics and modern etymology. Three of the most famous Sanskrit grammarians are:

, variously dated around 4th or 6th century BCE.
, dated around 2nd century BCE.
, dated around 2nd century BCE.

Note that they are not the earliest Sanskrit grammarians; however, they follow the line of more ancient grammarians of Sanskrit going many centuries back in time. The earliest of attested etymologies can be found in the Vedic literature itself — in the philosophical explanations of the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas and the Upanishads.

The analyses of Sanskrit grammar of all the three involve extensive studies on the etymology (called Nirukta or Vyutpatti in Sanskrit) of Sanskrit words, because the ancient Indo-Aryans considered sound and speech itself to be sacred, and for them, the words of the sacred Vedas contained deep encoding of the mystries of the soul and God.

A little later, in the 19th century, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (a philologist by academic training) used etymological strategies (primarily in On the Genealogy of Morals) in the attempt to show that moral values have origins, using a form of proto-psychology as a foil against which to justify his claims. Although many of Nietzsche's etymologies are wrong, the strategy has gained popularity in the 20th century, with philosophers such as Jacques Derrida using etymologies to indicate former meanings of words with view to decentring the "violent hierarchies" of Western metaphysics.

Bibliography

Skeat, Walter W. (2000), The Concise Dictionary of English Etymology, repr ed., Diane. (ISBN 0788191616)
Skeat, Walter W. (1963) An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, (ISBN 0198631049)
C. T. Onions, G. W. S. Friedrichsen, R. W. Burchfield, (1966, reprinted 1992, 1994), Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, (ISBN 0198611129)

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Types of word origins

Methods of etymology

English etymology

History of etymology

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