Word history and origins

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

«Etymologies» redirects here. For the work by Isidore of Seville, see Etymologiae.

Etymology ( ET-im-OL-ə-jee^[1]) is the study of the origin and evolution of a word’s semantic meaning across time, including its constituent morphemes and phonemes.^[2][3] It is a subfield of historical linguistics, and draws upon comparative semantics, morphology, semiotics, and phonetics.

For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts, and texts about the language, to gather knowledge about how words were used during earlier periods, how they developed in meaning and form, or when and how they entered the language. Etymologists also apply the methods of comparative linguistics to reconstruct information about forms that are too old for any direct information to be available. By analyzing 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 in many European languages, for example, can be traced all the way back to the origin of the Indo-European language family.

Even though etymological research originated from the philological tradition, much current etymological research is done on language families where little or no early documentation is available, such as Uralic and Austronesian.

Etymology[edit]

The word etymology derives from the Greek word ἐτυμολογία (etumología), itself from ἔτυμον (étumon), meaning «true sense or sense of a truth», and the suffix -logia, denoting «the study of».^[4][5]

The term etymon refers to a word or morpheme (e.g., stem^[6] or root^[7]) from which a later word or morpheme derives. For example, the Latin word candidus, which means «white», is the etymon of English candid. Relationships are often less transparent, however. English place names such as Winchester, Gloucester, Tadcaster share in different modern forms a suffixed etymon that was once meaningful, Latin castrum ‘fort’.

Methods[edit]

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 variations between dialects, which may yield clues about its earlier history.
• The comparative method. By a systematic comparison of related languages, etymologists may often be able to detect which words derive from their common ancestor language and which were instead later borrowed from another language.
• The study of semantic change. Etymologists must often make hypotheses about changes in the 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 may be substantiated by showing that the same type of change has occurred in other languages as well.

Types of word origins[edit]

Etymological theory recognizes that words originate through a limited number of basic mechanisms, the most important of which are language change, borrowing (i.e., the adoption of «loanwords» from other languages); word formation such as derivation and compounding; and onomatopoeia and sound symbolism (i.e., the creation of imitative words such as «click» or «grunt»).

While the origin of newly emerged words is often more or less transparent, it tends to become obscured through time due to sound change or semantic change. Due to sound change, it is not readily obvious that the English word set is related to the word sit (the former is originally a causative formation of the latter). It is even less obvious that bless is related to blood (the former was originally a derivative with the meaning «to mark with blood»).

Semantic change may also occur. For example, the English word bead originally meant «prayer». It acquired its modern meaning through the practice of counting the recitation of prayers by using beads.

History[edit]

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, which began no earlier than the 18th century. From Antiquity through the 17th century, from Pāṇini to Pindar to Sir Thomas Browne, etymology had been a form of witty wordplay, in which the supposed origins of words were creatively imagined to satisfy contemporary requirements; for example, the Greek poet Pindar (born in approximately 522 BCE) employed inventive etymologies to flatter his patrons. Plutarch employed etymologies insecurely based on fancied resemblances in sounds. Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae was an encyclopedic tracing of «first things» that remained uncritically in use in Europe until the sixteenth century. Etymologicum genuinum is a grammatical encyclopedia edited at Constantinople in the ninth century, one of several similar Byzantine works. The thirteenth-century Legenda Aurea, as written by Jacobus de Varagine, begins each vita of a saint with a fanciful excursus in the form of an etymology.^[8]

Ancient Sanskrit[edit]

The Sanskrit linguists and grammarians of ancient India were the first to make a comprehensive analysis of linguistics and etymology. The study of Sanskrit etymology has provided Western scholars with the basis of historical linguistics and modern etymology. Four of the most famous Sanskrit linguists are:

• Yaska (c. 6th–5th centuries BCE)
• Pāṇini (c. 520–460 BCE)
• Kātyāyana (6th-4th centuries BCE)
• Patañjali (2nd century BCE)

These linguists were not the earliest Sanskrit grammarians, however. They followed a line of ancient grammarians of Sanskrit who lived several centuries earlier like Sakatayana of whom very little is known. The earliest of attested etymologies can be found in Vedic literature in the philosophical explanations of the Brahmanas, Aranyakas, and Upanishads.

The analyses of Sanskrit grammar done by the previously mentioned linguists involved extensive studies on the etymology (called Nirukta or Vyutpatti in Sanskrit) of Sanskrit words, because the ancient Indians considered sound and speech itself to be sacred and, for them, the words of the sacred Vedas contained deep encoding of the mysteries of the soul and God.

Ancient Greco-Roman[edit]

One of the earliest philosophical texts of the Classical Greek period to address etymology was the Socratic dialogue Cratylus (c. 360 BCE) by Plato. During much of the dialogue, Socrates makes guesses as to the origins of many words, including the names of the gods. In his Odes Pindar spins complimentary etymologies to flatter his patrons. Plutarch (Life of Numa Pompilius) spins an etymology for pontifex, while explicitly dismissing the obvious, and actual «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 overall. Others make the word refer to exceptions of impossible cases; the priests were to perform all the duties possible; if anything lays beyond their power, the exception was not to be cavilled. 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.

Medieval[edit]

Isidore of Seville compiled a volume of etymologies to illuminate the triumph of religion. Each saint’s legend in Jacobus de Varagine’s Legenda Aurea begins with an etymological discourse 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.^[9]

Modern era[edit]

Etymology in the modern sense emerged in the late 18th-century European academia, within the context of the wider «Age of Enlightenment,» although preceded by 17th century pioneers such as Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn, Gerardus Vossius, Stephen Skinner, Elisha Coles, and William Wotton. The first known systematic attempt to prove the relationship between two languages on the basis of similarity of grammar and lexicon was made in 1770 by the Hungarian, János Sajnovics, when he attempted to demonstrate the relationship between Sami and Hungarian (work that was later extended to the whole Finno-Ugric language family in 1799 by his fellow countryman, Samuel Gyarmathi).^[10]

The origin of modern historical linguistics is often traced to Sir William Jones, a Welsh philologist living in India, who in 1782 observed the genetic relationship between Sanskrit, Greek and Latin. Jones published his The Sanscrit Language in 1786, laying the foundation for the field of Indo-European linguistics.^[11]

The study of etymology in Germanic philology was introduced by Rasmus Christian Rask in the early 19th century and elevated to a high standard with the German Dictionary of the Brothers Grimm. The successes of the comparative approach culminated in the Neogrammarian school of the late 19th century. Still in the 19th century, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche used etymological strategies (principally and most famously in On the Genealogy of Morals, but also elsewhere) to argue that moral values have definite historical (specifically, cultural) origins where modulations in meaning regarding certain concepts (such as «good» and «evil») show how these ideas had changed over time—according to which value-system appropriated them. This strategy gained popularity in the 20th century, and philosophers, such as Jacques Derrida, have used etymologies to indicate former meanings of words to de-center the «violent hierarchies» of Western philosophy.

Notable etymologists[edit]

• Ernest Klein (1899-1983), Hungarian-born Romanian-Canadian linguist, etymologist
• Marko Snoj (born 1959), Indo-Europeanist, Slavist, Albanologist, lexicographer, and etymologist
• Anatoly Liberman (born 1937), linguist, medievalist, etymologist, poet, translator of poetry and literary critic
• Michael Quinion (born c. 1943)

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

• Alfred Bammesberger. English Etymology. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1984.
• Philip Durkin. «Etymology», in Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd edn. Ed. Keith Brown. Vol. 4. Oxford: Elsevier, 2006, pp. 260–7.
• Philip Durkin. The Oxford Guide to Etymology. Oxford/NY: Oxford University Press, 2009.
• William B. Lockwood. An Informal Introduction to English Etymology. Montreux, London: Minerva Press, 1995.
• Yakov Malkiel. Etymology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
• Alan S. C. Ross. Etymology, with a special reference to English. Fair Lawn, N.J.: Essential Books; London: Deutsch, 1958.
• Michael Samuels. Linguistic Evolution: With Special Reference to English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.
• Bo Svensén. «Etymology», chap. 19 of A Handbook of Lexicography: The Theory and Practice of Dictionary-Making. Cambridge/NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
• Walther von Wartburg. Problems and Methods in Linguistics, rev. edn. with the collaboration of Stephen Ullmann. Trans. Joyce M. H. Reid. Oxford: Blackwell, 1969.

External links[edit]

• Media related to Etymology at Wikimedia Commons
• Etymology at Curlie.
• List of etymologies of words in 90+ languages.
• Online Etymology Dictionary.

The history of the English language is our favorite subject. We go into the archives to research the fascinating etymologies of thousands of words.

What is the history and origin of a word?

The study of the history and origin of words is called ”etymology.

What is origin of words called?

Etymology is the study of the origins of words. …

What is the oldest word?

According to a 2009 study by researchers at Reading University, the oldest words in the English language include “I“, “we“, “who“, “two” and “three“, all of which date back tens of thousands of years.

What is the most used word in the world?

‘The’ is the most used word in the English-speaking world because it’s an essential part of grammar and communication.

What is the world’s worst word?

‘Moist’ – a word apparently despised the world over – is about to be named the worst word in the English language. The word has emerged as a clear frontrunner in a global survey conducted by Oxford Dictionaries.

What is the least popular word?

Fewer than 3% of participants marked they knew the 20 English words below.

• genipap.
• futhorc.
• witenagemot.
• gossypol.
• chaulmoogra.
• brummagem.
• alsike.
• chersonese.

What word is used most in English?

‘The’ tops the league tables of most frequently used words in English, accounting for 5% of every 100 words used.

What are the three most powerful words?

Do you know the three most power words? According to Derek Prince, they are, ‘I forgive you. ‘ Read this book and discover how to apply them to your life! The Bible clearly points out, that as long as you resist forgiving others, you allow the enemy legal access into your life.

What was the most used word in 2020?

Covid

What are the most beautiful words in the world?

The Top 10 Most Beautiful English Words

• 3 Pluviophile (n.)
• 4 Clinomania (n.)
• 5 Idyllic (adj.)
• 6 Aurora (n.)
• 7 Solitude (n.)
• 8 Supine (adj.)
• 9 Petrichor (n.) The pleasant, earthy smell after rain.
• 10 Serendipity (n.) The chance occurrence of events in a beneficial way.

What is a unique word?

To explain this very simply, a unique word is one that’s unusual or different in some way. It might have a complicated history or interesting connections to another language. But, primarily what makes an English word interesting is its unusual spelling, pronunciation or meaning.

What is the happiest word?

The happiest word: Laughter.

What is the most beautiful French word?

Here are the most beautiful French words

• Argent – silver. Argent is used in English too to refer to something silver and shiny.
• Atout – asset. Masculine, noun.
• Arabesque – in Arabic fashion or style. Feminine, noun.
• Bijoux – jewelry. Masculine, noun.
• Bisous – kisses. Masculine, noun.
• Bonbon – candy.
• Brindille – twig.
• Câlin – hug.

What is the most French word?

The longest French word has 27 letters and is “intergouvernementalisations”. However, the word isn’t really popular so most French people consider “anticonstitutionnellement” as being the longest known word.

What is a pretty French word?

Gorgeous French Words That Mean Beautiful Just like in the English language, there are many ways to say “beautiful” in French. attrayant (masculine adjective) – attractive. belle (feminine adjective) – beautiful. charmante (feminine adjective) – charming or lovely. éblouissante (feminine adjective) – dazzling.

What are the 1000 most common words in French?

This is a list of the 1,000 most commonly spoken French words….1000 Most Common French Words.

Number	French	in English
1	comme	as
2	je	I
3	son	his
4	que	that

How do you say 1000 in French?

When talking about “one hundred” or “one thousand” in French, we don’t say the “one”, we only say “cent” and “mille”. However when talking about “one million”, “one billion” we do say the one: “un million, un milliard”.

What are the 1000 most common words in Spanish?

This is a list of the 1,000 most commonly spoken Spanish words….1000 Most Common Spanish Words.

Number	Spanish	in English
1	como	as
2	I	I
3	su	his
4	que	that

What are the 100 most used Spanish words?

The 100 Most Common Words in Spoken Spanish

Rank	Word in Spanish	Meaning in English
1	que	that
2	de	of, from
3	no	no
4	a	to

Does Como mean what?

Cómo means how. “

What are common words in Spanish?

Basic Spanish Words

• Hola = Hello.
• Adiós = Goodbye.
• Por favor = Please.
• Gracias = Thank you.
• Lo siento = Sorry.
• Salud = Bless you (after someone sneezes)
• Sí = Yes.
• No = No.

Is callate a bad word?

Cállate may not be very polite, but it’s not rude. An equivalent to “shut up” could be the expression Cállate la boca.

What are the most popular slang words?

Below are some common teen slang words you might hear:

• Dope – Cool or awesome.
• GOAT – “Greatest of All Time”
• Gucci – Good, cool, or going well.
• Lit – Amazing, cool, or exciting.
• OMG – An abbreviation for “Oh my gosh” or “Oh my God”
• Salty – Bitter, angry, agitated.
• Sic/Sick – Cool or sweet.

Can I learn Spanish in 3 months?

If you have just started learning Spanish, it is understandable that you would want to become fluent in Spanish quickly. It is possible to achieve this goal in three months, provided you do the work and stay consistent throughout the process of learning Spanish.

What’s the best country to learn Spanish?

8 Best Places for Spanish Study Abroad Programs

1. Barcelona, Spain. Immerse yourself in Catalonian culture when you study Spanish in Barcelona.
2. Buenos Aires, Argentina.
3. Galápagos Islands, Ecuador.
4. Granada, Spain.
5. Madrid, Spain.
6. Quito, Ecuador.
7. Salamanca, Spain.
8. Santiago, Chile.

What is the trick to learning Spanish?

Five Simple Tricks to Learn Spanish Quickly

• Never pay for a group lesson in your life ever again.
• Repetitively test yourself on commonly used words until they come to you naturally.
• Have a good old chinwag in Spanish with native speakers.
• Train your ear by listening to videos and films in Spanish.

The etymology of a word refers to its origin and historical development: that is, its earliest known use, its transmission from one language to another, and its changes in form and meaning. Etymology is also the term for the branch of linguistics that studies word histories.

What’s the Difference Between a Definition and an Etymology?

A definition tells us what a word means and how it’s used in our own time. An etymology tells us where a word came from (often, but not always, from another language) and what it used to mean.

For example, according to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the definition of the word disaster is «an occurrence causing widespread destruction and distress; a catastrophe» or «a grave misfortune.» But the etymology of the word disaster takes us back to a time when people commonly blamed great misfortunes on the influence of the stars.

Disaster first appeared in English in the late 16th century, just in time for Shakespeare to use the word in the play King Lear. It arrived by way of the Old Italian word disastro, which meant «unfavorable to one’s stars.»

This older, astrological sense of disaster becomes easier to understand when we study its Latin root word, astrum, which also appears in our modern «star» word astronomy. With the negative Latin prefix dis- («apart») added to astrum («star»), the word (in Latin, Old Italian, and Middle French) conveyed the idea that a catastrophe could be traced to the «evil influence of a star or planet» (a definition that the dictionary tells us is now «obsolete»).

Is the Etymology of a Word Its True Definition?

Not at all, though people sometimes try to make this argument. The word etymology is derived from the Greek word etymon, which means «the true sense of a word.» But in fact the original meaning of a word is often different from its contemporary definition.

The meanings of many words have changed over time, and older senses of a word may grow uncommon or disappear entirely from everyday use. Disaster, for instance, no longer means the «evil influence of a star or planet,» just as consider no longer means «to observe the stars.»

Let’s look at another example. Our English word salary is defined by The American Heritage Dictionary as «fixed compensation for services, paid to a person on a regular basis.» Its etymology can be traced back 2,000 years to sal, the Latin word for salt. So what’s the connection between salt and salary?

The Roman historian Pliny the Elder tells us that «in Rome, a soldier was paid in salt,» which back then was widely used as a food preservative. Eventually, this salarium came to signify a stipend paid in any form, usually money. Even today the expression «worth your salt» indicates that you’re working hard and earning your salary. However, this doesn’t mean that salt is the true definition of salary.

Where Do Words Come From?

New words have entered (and continue to enter) the English language in many different ways. Here are some of the most common methods.

• Borrowing
  The majority of the words used in modern English have been borrowed from other languages. Although most of our vocabulary comes from Latin and Greek (often by way of other European languages), English has borrowed words from more than 300 different languages around the world. Here are just a few examples:
  futon (from the Japanese word for «bedclothes, bedding»)
• hamster (Middle High German hamastra)
• kangaroo (Aboriginal language of Guugu Yimidhirr, gangurru , referring to a species of kangaroo)
• kink (Dutch, «twist in a rope»)
• moccasin (Native American Indian, Virginia Algonquian, akin to Powhatan mäkäsn and Ojibwa makisin)
• molasses (Portuguese melaços, from Late Latin mellceum, from Latin mel, «honey»)
• muscle (Latin musculus, «mouse»)
• slogan (alteration of Scots slogorne, «battle cry»)
• smorgasbord (Swedish, literally «bread and butter table»)
• whiskey (Old Irish uisce, «water,» and bethad, «of life»)
• Clipping or Shortening
  Some new words are simply shortened forms of existing words, for instance indie from independent; exam from examination; flu from influenza, and fax from facsimile.
• Compounding
  A new word may also be created by combining two or more existing words: fire engine, for example, and babysitter.
• Blends
  A blend, also called a portmanteau word, is a word formed by merging the sounds and meanings of two or more other words. Examples include moped, from mo(tor) + ped(al), and brunch, from br(eakfast) + (l)unch.
• Conversion or Functional Shift
  New words are often formed by changing an existing word from one part of speech to another. For example, innovations in technology have encouraged the transformation of the nouns network, Google, and microwave into verbs.
• Transfer of Proper Nouns
  Sometimes the names of people, places, and things become generalized vocabulary words. For instance, the noun maverick was derived from the name of an American cattleman, Samuel Augustus Maverick. The saxophone was named after Sax, the surname of a 19th-century Belgian family that made musical instruments.
• Neologisms or Creative Coinages
  Now and then, new products or processes inspire the creation of entirely new words. Such neologisms are usually short lived, never even making it into a dictionary. Nevertheless, some have endured, for example quark (coined by novelist James Joyce), galumph (Lewis Carroll), aspirin (originally a trademark), grok (Robert A. Heinlein).
• Imitation of Sounds
  Words are also created by onomatopoeia, naming things by imitating the sounds that are associated with them: boo, bow-wow, tinkle, click.

Why Should We Care About Word Histories?

If a word’s etymology is not the same as its definition, why should we care at all about word histories? Well, for one thing, understanding how words have developed can teach us a great deal about our cultural history. In addition, studying the histories of familiar words can help us deduce the meanings of unfamiliar words, thereby enriching our vocabularies. Finally, word stories are often both entertaining and thought provoking. In short, as any youngster can tell you, words are fun.

Becoming Interested in the Origin of Words

Words, like facts, are difficult to remember out of context.  Remembering is greatly
facilitated when you have a body of information with which to associate either a word
or a fact.  For words, interesting origins or histories will help provide a context. 
For example, a hippopotamus is a «river horse,» from the Greek hippos, meaning «horse,» and potamos, meaning «river.»

Indiana is called the Hoosier state, and its people Hoosiers.  Why?  In the early days, the pioneers were gruff in manner; when someone knocked
at the front door, a pioneer’s voice would often boom, «Who’s yere?»

If you were offered a Hobson’s choice, would you know what was meant?  Thomas Hobson owned a livery stable in seventeenth-century
England.  He loved his horses, and to prevent any one horse from being overworked,
he hired them out in turn, beginning with stall number one.  Customers had to take
the horses they were given.  Thus Hobson’s choice means no choice at all. (Pauk, p. 314)

Etymology is the study of the origins of words.  The English language is living and growing. 
Although many of our words have been part of our language for many years, new words
are added all the time.  Following are various ways our language is influenced.

• Derived from Foreign Words — English, in many cases, has been commonly expanded by incorporating foreign words
  into it.  Most of our language has ancient Anglo-Saxon or Latin origins.  Other languages
  have also added to our vocabularies.

• Additions through Technology & Products — Our words often reflect current interests, trends, and innovations.  One of the
  most recent contributors to our language has been computer technology, which has created
  words such as bytes, monitor, and disk.

  Another way new words come into our language is through the development of products. 
  Some examples include: Kleenex, Walkman, Scotch tape, Xerox, and Linoleum.

• People’s Names — sometimes when a person invents or introduces something, that thing becomes associated
  with the person’s name.  The person, through time, is forgotten while the name lives
  on in our language.  Examples include:

  • mesmerize — F.A. Mesmer, an Austrian doctor and hypnotist.
  • sideburns — an American English alteration of burnsides, Ambrose E. Burnside, a Union general.

• Words from Letters — The initials for the names of things may actually come to replace the names.  The
  initials become the words that represent the thing, concept, or group.  The following
  are examples of words that have developed from initials.

  • TV — TeleVision
  • DWI — Driving While Intoxicated
  • COD — Cash On Delivery
  • ZIP — Zone Improvement Plan

• Word Histories — Some words also have interesting histories.  Learning the stories behind the meanings
  is a good way to learn those words.  The following examples will give you an idea
  of how history can affect language.

  • footman — It was once thought to bring bad luck if a person stepped on the door threshold
    when entering a house.  Rich people hired a servant to stand at their doors.  His
    job was to guard against a guest’s stepping on the threshold.  The guard became known
    as a footman.
  • hooker — A synonym for prostitute.  The term became popular during the Civil War.  The women
    involved were camp followers.  General «Fighting Joe» Hooker approved their presence
    in order to boost the morale of his men.

1. The etymological composition of ME.

2. The native and borrowed elements of the EV.

3. Classification of borrowings according to the language.

4. Etymological doublets.

5. International words.

Etymology
(from Greek etymon
«truth»
+ logos
«learning»)
is a branch
of linguistics that studies the origin and history of words tracing
them to
their earliest determinable source.

The following list provides a sample set of words that have been
incorporated into English:

French:
cuisine,
army, elite, saute, cul-de-sac, raffle.

Latin:
cup,
fork, pound, vice versa.

Greek:
polysemy,
synonymy, chemistry, physics, phenomenon.

Native
American languages: caucus,
pecan, raccoon, pow-wow.

Spanish:
junta,
siesta, cigar.

German:
rucksack,
hamburger, frankfurter, seminar.

Scandinavian
languages: law,
saga, ski, them, they, their.

Italian: piano, soprano, confetti, spaghetti, vendetta.

South
Asian languages: bungalow,
jungle, sandal, thug.

Yiddish:
goy,
knish, schmuck.

Dutch:
cruise,
curl, dock, leak, pump, scum, yacht.

Chinese:
mandarin,
tea, serge.

Japanese:
bonsai,
hara-kiri, kimono, tycoon, karate, judo.

English is
generally regarded as the richest of the world’s languages. It owes
its exceptionally
large vocabulary to its ability to borrow and absorb words from
outside. Atomic,
cybernetics, jeans, khaki, sputnik, perestroika are
just
a few of the many words that have come into use during XX century.
They
have been taken from Italian, Hindi, Greek and Russian.

«The
English
language», observed Ralph Waldo Emerson, «is the sea which
receives
tributaries from every region under heaven.» (в
презентацию)

The English
vocabulary has been enriched throughout its history by
borrowings from foreign languages. A
borrowing
(a
loan word) is a word
taken over from another language and modified in phonemic shape,
spelling, paradigm or meaning according to the standards of the
English language.

The process
of borrowing words from other languages has been going on for more
than 1,000 years. The fact that up
to 80 per cent of the English vocabulary consists of borrowed words
is due to the specific conditions of the English language
development.

When the Normans crossed over from France to
conquer England in 1066, most of the English people spoke Old
English, or Anglo-Saxon — a language of about 30,000 words. The
Normans spoke a language that was a mixture of Latin and French. It
took about three centuries for the languages to blend into one that
is the ancestor of the English spoken today. The
Normans bestowed on English words such us duchess,
city, mansion, and
palace. The
Anglo-Saxon gave English ring
and town.

Latin and Greek have been a
fruitful source of vocabulary since the 16^th
century. The Latin word mini,
its converse maxi
and the Greek word micro
have become popular adjectives to
describe everything from bikes to fashion. Perhaps the most important
influence in terms of vocabulary comes from what are called Latinate
words,
that is, words that are originally Latin. Latinate words are common
in English: distinct,
describe, transport, evidence, animal, create, act, generation,
recollection, confluence, etc.

There are practically no limits to the kinds of
words that are borrowed. Words are employed as symbols for every part
of culture. When cultural elements are borrowed from one culture by
another, the words for such cultural features often accompany the
feature. Also, when a cultural feature of one society is like that of
another, the word of a foreign language may be used to designate this
feature in the borrowing society. In
English, a material culture word rouge
was
borrowed from French, a social culture word republic
from
Latin, and a religious culture word baptize
from
Greek.

Such words become completely absorbed into the
system, so that they are not recognized by speakers of the language
as foreign. Few people realize that garage
is borrowed from French, that thug
comes from Hindustani, and that tomato
is of Aztec origin.

However, some words and phrases have retained
their original
spelling, pronunciation and foreign identity, for example:
rendezvous,
coup, gourmet, detente (French);
status quo,
ego, curriculum vitae, bona fide (Latin);
patio,
macho (Spanish);
kindergarten,
blitz (German);
kowtow, tea
Chinese,);
incognito,
bravo (Italian).

We may distinguish different types of borrowing
from one foreign language by another:

(1) when the two languages
represent different social,
economic, and political units and

(2)
when the two languages are
spoken by those within the same social, economic, and political unit.
the
borrowing of linguistic forms by one language or dialect from another
when both occupy a single geographical or cultural community.

The
first of these types has been usually called «cultural
borrowing»
while the second type has been termed «intimate
borrowing«.

Another
principal type is between dialects of the same language. This is
called «dialect
borrowing»
(в
презентацию).

Sometimes the
idea of a word rather than the word is borrowed. When
we talk about life
science instead
of
biology, it
is a type of borrowing the
meaning of the Greek derivative, but not the actual morpheme. This
type of borrowing is rather extensive, particularly in scientific
vocabulary
and trade languages as, for example, in Pidgin English in the South
Pacific.

A
number of words in English have originated from the names of people:
boycott,
braille, hooligan, mentor, saxophone, watt. Quite
a few names
of types of clothing originate from the people who invented them:
bowler,
cardigan, Wellingtons, mackintosh. A
number of names of different
kinds of cloth originate from place names: angora,
denim, satin, tweed,
suede. A
number of other words in English come from place names:
bedlam,
spartan, gypsy.

There are
many words that have changed their meaning in English, e.g.
mind
originally
meant «memory», and this meaning survives in the
phrases «to keep in mind», «time out of mind»,
etc. The word brown
preserves
its old meaning of «gloomy» in the phrase «in a brown
study».
There are instances when a word acquires a meaning opposite to
its original one, e.g. nice
meant
«silly» some hundreds of years ago.

Thus, there
are two main problems connected with the vocabulary of a language:
(1) the
origin of
the words, (2) their
development
in the language.

The
etymological structure of the English vocabulary consists of the
native element (Indo-European and Germanic) and the borrowed
elements.

By
the
Native
Element we
understand words that are not borrowed from
other languages. A
native word is a word that belongs to the Old English word-stock. The
Native Element constitutes
only up to 20-25% of the English vocabulary.

Old English,
or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English
language. It was spoken from about a.d.
600
until about a.d.
1100,
and most of its words had been part of a still earlier form of the
language.
Many
of the common words of modern English, like home,
stone,
and
meat
are
native,
or Old English, words. Most of the irregular verbs
in English derive from Old English (speak,
swim, drive, ride, sing), as
do most of the English shorter numerals (two,
three, six, ten) and
most of
the pronouns (I,
you, we, who).

Many Old
English words can be traced back to Indo-European, a prehistoric
language that was the common ancestor of many languages.
Others came into Old English as it was becoming a separate language.

(a)
Indo-European
Element:
since English belongs to the Germanic branch
of the Indo-European group of languages, the oldest words in English
are of Indo-European origin. They form part of the basic word stock
of all Indo-European languages. There are several semantic groups:

• words
  expressing family relations: brother,
  daughter, father, mother,
  son;

• names
  of parts of the human body: foot,
  eye, ear, nose, tongue;

• names
  of trees, birds, animals: tree,
  birch, cow, wolf, cat;

• names
  expressing basic actions: to
  come, to know, to sit, to work;

• words
  expressing qualities: red,
  quick, right, glad, sad;

• numerals:
  one,
  two, three, ten, hundred, etc.

There are many more words of
Indo-European origin in the basic stock of the English
vocabulary.

(b) Common
Germanic
words are not to be found in other Indo-European languages but the
Germanic. They constitute a very large layer
of the vocabulary:

• nouns:
  hand,
  life, sea, ship, meal, winter, ground, coal, goat;

• adjectives:
  heavy,
  deep, free, broad, sharp, grey;

• verbs:
  to
  buy, to drink, to find, to forget, to go, to have, to live, to make;

• pronouns: all,
  each, he, self, such;

• adverbs:
  again,
  forward, near; ‘

• prepositions:
  after,
  at, by, over, under, from, for.

The rest of the English vocabulary are borrowed
words, or loan
words.

Some scientists point out three periods of Latin borrowings in old
English:

1. Latin-Continental borrowings,

2. Latin-Celtic borrowings,

3. Latin borrowings connected with the Adoption of Christianity.

To the first period belong
military terms (wall,
street, etc.),
trade terms (pound,
inch), names
of containers (cup,
dish), names
of food (butter,
cheese), words
connected with building (chalk,
pitch), etc.
These were
concrete words that were adopted in purely oral manner, and they were
fully assimilated in the language. Roman influence was felt in the
names
of towns, e.g. Manchester,
Lancaster, etc.
from the Latin word caster
— лагерь.

Such
words as
port, fountain and
mountain
were
borrowed from Latin through
Celtic.

With
the Adoption of Christianity mostly religious or clerical terms were
borrowed: dean,
cross, alter, abbot (Latin); church, devil, priest, anthem,
school, martyr (Greek).

Latin and Greek borrowings of
the Middle English period are connected
with the Great Revival of Learning and are mostly scientific words:
formula,
inertia, maximum, memorandum, veto, superior, etc.
They
were
not fully assimilated, they retained their grammar forms.

Many words from Greek, the other major source of
English words, came
into English by way of French and Latin. Others were borrowed in
the sixteenth century when interest in classic culture was at its
height. Directly
or indirectly, Greek contributed athlete,
acrobat, elastic, magic, rhythm,
and many
others.

There are some classical
borrowings in Modern English as well: anaemia,
aspirin, iodin, atom, calorie, acid, valency, etc.
There are words formed
with the help of Latin and Greek morphemes (roots or affixes): tele,
auto, etc.

Latin and Greek words are
used to denote names of sciences, political and philosophic trends;
these borrowings usually have academic or literary associations (per
capita, dogma, drama, theory, and
pseudonym).

Many other
Latin words came into English through French.
French
is the
language that had most influence on the vocabulary of English; it
also influenced its spelling.

After the Norman invasion in 1066, English was
neglected by the Latin-writing and French-speaking authorities.
Northern French became the official language in England. And for the
next three hundred years, French was the language of the ruling
classes in England. During this period, thousands of new words came
into English, many of them relating to upper class pursuits: baron,
attorney, luxury.

There are several semantic groups of French borrowings:

• government terms: to
  govern, to administer, assembly, record, parliament;

• words connected with
  feudalism: peasant,
  servant, control, money, rent, subsidy;

• military terms: assault,
  battle, soldier, army, siege, defence, lieutenant;

• words
  connected with jury: bill,
  defendant, plaintiff, judge, fine;

• words connected with art,
  amusement, fashion, food: dance,
  pleasure,
  lace, pleat, supper, appetite, beauty, figure, etc.

During the seventeenth
century there was a change in the character of the borrowed words.
From French, English has taken lots of words to do with cooking, the
arts, and a more sophisticated lifestyle in general (chic,
prestige, leisure,
repertoire, resume, cartoon, critique, cuisine, chauffeur,
questionnaire,
coup, elite, avant-garde, bidet, detente, entourage).

In addition to independent words, English borrowed
from Greek, Latin, and French a number of word parts for use as
affixes and roots, for example prefixes like поп-,
de-, anti— that
may appear in hundreds of different words.

English has continued to borrow words from French
right down to the present, with the result that over
a third of modern English vocabulary derives from French.

Scandinavian Borrowings
are connected with the Scandinavian
Conquest of the British Isles, which took place at the end of the 8^th
century. Scandinavians belonged to
the same group of peoples as Englishmen and the two languages were
similar.

The impact of Old Norwegian on the English
language is hard to evaluate.
Nine hundred words — for example, take,
leg, hit, skin, same —
are of Scandinavian origin. There
are probably hundreds more we cannot account for definitely, and in
the old territory of the Danelaw in
Northern England words like beck
(stream)
and garth
(yard)
survive in regional use. Words
beginning with sk
like sky
are Norse (the Danes — also called
Norsemen — conquered northern France, and finally England).

In many cases Scandinavian borrowings stood
alongside their English
equivalents. The Scandinavian skirt
originally
meant the same as the English shirt.
The Norse deyja
(to die) joined its Anglo-Saxon
synonym,
the English steorfa
(which
ends up as starve).
Other
synonyms include:
wish
and
want,
craft and
skill,
rear and
raise.

However,
many words were borrowed into English, e.g. cake,
egg, kid,
window, ill, happy, ugly, to call, to give, to get, etc.
Pronouns and pronominal forms were also borrowed from Scandinavian:
same,
both, though,
they, them, their.

In the modern period, English has borrowed from every important
language in the world

Over 120 languages are on
record as sources of the English vocabulary. From Japanese
come
karate,
judo, hara-kiri, kimono,
and tycoon; from
Arabic,
algebra,
algorithm, fakir, giraffe, sultan,
harem, mattress; from
Turkish,
yogurt,
kiosk, tulip; from
Farsi,
caravan,
shawl, bazaar, sherbet; from
Eskimo,
kayak,
igloo, anorak; from
Yiddish,
goy,
knish, latke, schmuck; from
Hindi,
thug,
punch, shampoo;
from
Amerindian
languages,
toboggan,
wigwam, Chicago, Missouri,
opossum. From
Italian
come words
connected with music and
the plastic arts, such as
piano, alto, incognito, bravo, ballerina, as
well as
motto,
casino, mafia, artichoke, etc.
German
expressions
in English have been coined either by tourists bringing back words
for new things they saw or by philosophers or historians describing
German concepts or experiences (kindergarten,
blitz, hamburger, pretzel, delicatessen, poodle, waltz, seminar). The
borrowings from other languages usually relate to things, which
English speakers experienced
for the first time abroad (Portuguese:
marmalade,
cobra; Spanish:
junta,
siesta, patio, mosquito, comrade, tornado, banana, guitar, marijuana,
vigilante; Dutch:
dock,
leak, pump, yacht, easel, cruise,
cole slaw, smuggle, gin, cookie, boom; Finnish:
sauna;
Russian:
bistro,
szar, balalaika, tundra, robot).

Although borrowing has been a very rich source of new words in
English, it is noteworthy that loan words are least common among the
most frequently used vocabulary items.

Most of the
borrowed words at once undergo the process of assimilation.
Assimilation of borrowed words is their adaptation to the system
of the receiving language in pronunciation, in grammar and in
spelling.
There are completely assimilated borrowings that correspond to
all the standards of the language (travel,
sport, street), partially
assimilated
words (taiga,
phenomena, police) and
unassimilated words (coup d’état,
tête-à-tête, ennui, éclat).

Borrowed words can be classified according to
the aspect which is borrowed. We can subdivide all borrowings into
the following groups:

• phonetic
  borrowings (table,
  chair, people);

• translation
  loans (Gospel,
  pipe of peace, masterpiece);

• semantic
  borrowings (pioneer);

• morphemic
  borrowings (beautiful,
  uncomfortable).

Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origin, and how their forms and meanings change over time. For languages that have a long written history, etymologists use texts to understand how words were used during earlier periods and when they entered a given language. Etymologists also use comparative linguistics to reconstruct information about languages when no direct information is available.

Where do new words come from?

New words come into being in a language through three basic mechanisms: borrowings, word formation and sound symbolism.

Borrowing

Borrowing means words are taken from other languages. Words borrowed this way are called loanwords. It is extremely common: over half of all English words have been borrowed from French and Latin, and loanwords from Chinese are important parts of Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese.

Loanwords are usually adapted to fit the phonology and spelling of the language they are borrowed into. English words in Japanese are often barely recognizable. For example, バレーボール (borēboru) comes from English and means «volleyball», but v and l have been replaced by b and r because these sounds do not exist in Japanese, and a vowel has been added at the end because Japanese words cannot end in any consonant but n. These changes were not deliberate: borēboru is what happens naturally when Japanese speakers say volleyball according to the pronunciation rules of their language.

A loanword can have a different meaning than it had in the original language: the Russian word портфель portfel′ (“briefcase”) comes from the French portefeuille, which means “wallet”. Pseudo-anglicisms are common in many languages: Handy means “mobile phone” in German, which is only indirectly related to the meaning of “handy” in English.

Words can also be reborrowed: that is a word can go back and forth between languages. For example, the French word cinéma was taken from the Greek word κίνημα kínima, which means “movement”, later Greek reborrowed the same word from French and respelled it σινεμά sinemá.

Word formation

Languages have lots of ways of creating new words. One of them is derivation, that is creating a new word on the basis of an existing word, other types include compound words, which are formed by putting words together.

Other ways include acronyms (“radar” comes from “radio detection and ranging”), clipping (“ad” from “advertisement”) and portmanteaus (“brunch” = “breakfast” + “lunch”)

Read more about word formation in Morphology.

Sound symbolism

Some words such as “click” are examples of onomatopoeia.

How do words evolve?

Everything about languages evolves: pronunciation, grammar and words. New words appear, old words disappear and existing words change.

Knowing the history of words is relatively easy when old written documents exist, but when they don’t, the comparative method allows linguist to reconstruct ancient languages by comparing their descendants. One key feature of language evolution is regular sound change: changes in pronunciation don’t affect random words, but the entire language. As an example, the ancestor of modern Slavic languages had a G sound. It was maintained in most languages, but in some of them, such as Czech and Slovak, it gradually changed to H: the word for “mountain” is gora in Russian and Slovene, but hora in Czech and Slovak. Sound changes are not always this easy, because sometimes sounds are modified only in particular contexts (at the end of a word, before a vowel, etc.), but this is the general principle that linguists use to compare languages and reconstruct their ancestors.

Thousands of years of evolution can change words so much that they are unrecognizable: the Proto-Indo-European *ḱm̥tóm (the symbol * is used by linguists to indicate that a word is reconstructed and has never been found in a text), which means “hundred”, turned into such different words as šimtas in Lithuanian, sto in Slavic languages, cent in French, صد sad in Persian and εκατό ekató in Greek.

Reconstructing languages is made more difficult by borrowings and by the fact that the meanings of words change: “decimate” now means “destroy almost completely”, but originally meant “kill one in ten”, and the French word travail (“work”) comes from the Latin tripalium (an instrument of torture).