Classics 22: Etymology

Key Periods and dates in the development of English:

Old English	mid-5c. CE-1066	Arrival of Angles, Saxons, and Jutes in Britain until the Norman Conquest
Middle English	1066	The Norman Conquest: Anglo-Norman French won the Battles of Hastings (which put them in control of English-speaking lands of England) and Stamford Bridge (which ended the Danelaw) and the French Influence on the English language became enormous
	1362	Statute of Pleading made English the language of the courts again: 50 years later, English became the official language of government again
	-late 15c.	the Renaissance and the arrival of printing press in England mark the end of Middle English and start of "Modern English"
Early Modern English	late 15c.-1800	period of advancing technology and science, British empire begins
Modern English	1800-now

Composition of English:

By anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet - This file has been provided by the British Library from its digital collections. It is also made available on a British Library website.Catalogue entry: Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, ff 94r–209v, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30380424

OLD ENGLISH (first evidence from mid-5th c. CE: ends in 1066CE), also known as "Anglo-Saxon"

What is Old English? Well, Beowulf, the epic poem is in Old English:

first lines read out loud
Dr. Thijs Porck: short presentation on Old v. Middle English
Beowulf in Old English with translation in matching column

Less than 4% of a typical dictionary's headword entries derive from Old English!

But that 4% makes up well over 50% of a typical sample of English prose.

Thus 50% of the words you say are from Old English, because you use those words repeatedly.
But if we ignore repetition, only 4% of the words we use are Old English.

There are a few non-Anglo-Saxon components of Old English:

OED ENTRIES FOR 'ASS,' 'INCH' AND 'OUNCE' ILLUSTRATE SOME OF THIS WELL: WE SHOULD LOOK AT THEM IN CLASS TOGETHER

When Old English came to England along with the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes (people always forget the Jutes: remember the Jutes!), there were Celts there already. You can call that a 'substrate' language: Those Celts spoke a variety of, yes, Celtic. The Celtic speakers moved westward and northward as the English-speakers moved westward and northward, until they reached the ocean. Those Celtic languages still exist as Welsh and other languages that are barely hanging on to existence. In Greece, the substrate language is sometimes called 'Pelagic.' In France and Spain too, there were Celtic languages before the Latin-derived French and Spanish languages.

Old English borrowed a few words from the indigenous Celts of the British Isles, some of which are still common terms (ass, bin, rich, inter alia) and others which have either disappeared or are less common as words now, at least in America (tor, brock, combe, inter alia).

But often, those forgotten elements from Celtic remain around. For example, we get place names in -combe and Cum- and their variants, all meaning "small valley, hollow." Many were transported to North America: Cumberland, Newcomb, etc.

During the period of Old English, a few Latin words entered English, often as a result of Christianization, many of which are still in use: charity, disciple, anthem, candle, noon, psalm, verse, martyr. In the spirit of full information, some of those came from Greek before they were Latin.

Place names in -caster, -chester, -cester, -ceaster all came from Latin castra "camp"
"inch" and "ounce" originate in Old English and are both from Latin uncia "one twelfth": so etymologically, an inch IS an ounce: a good illustration of "the etymological fallacy."

Vikings invaded in the 8th and 9th centuries (a time when Old English was spoken in England) and ruled half of England (their half is referred to as the Danelaw or Danlaga or Danelagh). They spoke Old Norse, another Germanic tongue.

A great many words entered Old English from Old Norse.

Examples:

arrow, fang, glove, knife, plough, skin, tidings, wrong
Place names in -by ("village, town"), -thorpe (hamlet, village), and -thwaite (a piece of land, a paddock).
Even pronouns such as their, them, they.

But many Old Norse borrowings occurred later, in Middle English (even though the Danelaw ends basically in 1066 with the Battle of Stamford Bridge: remember the Battle of Stamford Bridge!!).

AN AMAZING WEBSITE THAT SHOWS HOW ENGLISH VOCABULARY GREW OVER TIME:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/03/10/etymology_languages_that_have_contributed_to_english_vocabulary_over_time.html

MIDDLE ENGLISH (1066 CE-late 15th c. CE)

On top of the substratum of inherited Old English words were laid strata of new words:

French:

To give an idea of proportions, of the 8322 words whose first English appearance was in Middle English according to the New Oxford Dictionary of English, 3234 are from Old French: that is almost 40%

Many came via Anglo-Norman, the French spoken by the French-speaking elite of Norman England.

Latin:

Of those 8322 words whose first English appearance was in Middle English according to the New Oxford Dictionary of English, 1885 come directly from Latin: roughly 22%

Old Norse:

The Norman invasion broke the exclusivity of Old English (Anglo-Saxon) and let even more Norse terms enter the language, even though the Danes no longer ruled any part of England.

MODERN ENGLISH (15th c. onwards)

Modern English is a virtually undiscriminating sponge when it comes to words: it sucks them up from wherever, however. There is no Immigration and Naturalization Service or Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the language that tries to control the flow.
The most important sources of words are European, but many European borrowings are themselves originally from elsewhere in the world.
As England's cultural contacts grew, and as English was spoken in more and more parts of the world, so did the source languages from which it sucked up words.

Key Periods in the development of other languages that are important for English:

"Old," "Middle" (sometimes Medieval), and "Modern" are also used as labels for the Romance languages and Germanic languages.

The Middle Ages, also known as Medieval times, were roughly from the fall of the Roman Empire (5th century CE) until the Renaissance (about 1500).
"Old" is usually pre-medieval
"Middle" is usually medi-eval
"Modern" is usually post-medieval

Latin development

Just "Latin" refers to the Latin of the classical period, also called 'Classical Latin' (about 100 BCE to 100 CE).

Usually abbreviated L, sometimes CL
Also know as "Classical Latin": it is the Latin you can learn at UVM.

"Late Latin" refers to Latin of the later Roman Empire (i.e. about 200 CE until about 400 CE)

Usually abbreviated LL
It is still Latin, and not yet evolved into a separate language (it's closer to Classical Latin than Middle English is to Old English, for example). I can read it with just my Classical Latin.

"Medieval Latin" refers to Latin from about 400 CE until the Renaissance (about 1500 CE)

Usually abbreviated ML
note that ML is later than LL: so don't think of it as "middle Latin," because it's not in the middle: it's Medieval, in the Middle Ages
and it gets closer and closer to a truly separate language, but it's not there yet

"New Latin" or "Neo-Latin" refers to Latin from the Renaissance on.

Usually abbreviated NL
no babies spoke this Latin as their mother tongue: it is entirely a 'school language' that one had to acquire.
because they were constantly measured and corrected against Classical Latin taught in schools, these Late and Medieval and New Latins never really became separate languages, so they are more temporal labels than they are separate language labels.

"Vulgar Latin"

from a broad time period spanning pre-Classical Latin thru Medieval Latin?
refers to Latin that was the spoken language in various areas and was mostly not written down: forms from it occur frequently in dictionaries because vulgar Latin forms are hypothesized based on known sound-change patterns as the missing links between Romance language words and their Classical Latin etyma. Latin words that are asterisked are usually Vulgar Latin: the asterisk next to a word means it is not actually attested anywhere, but linguists still think it must have existed.

As time went on, Vulgar Latin turned into French in France, Spanish in Spain, Portuguese in Portugal, Italian in Italy, etc.

ISV means "International Scientific Vocabulary"

ISV is not a language
ISV is a label used by Merriam-Webster to identify a group of words and word elements that acquired a scientific meaning and were used as such to coin new scientific words
ISV is used to label mostly Latin- and Greek-derived word elements that have come to be used freely in creating technical and scientific terminology.

Often the meanings of these ISV elements are more specific or different from the meanings of their etyma in that they are usually more precise and technical.

Often it is impossible to determine where a given technical or scientific term originates, because it pops up virtually simultaneously in several languages.

That is because the scientific community has long been international.

ISV is a particularly appropriate label for the elements of terms like 'acetaminophen':

Acetaminophen, from acet- + amin- + -phen

meaning: "a crystalline compound C8H9NO2 that is a hydroxy derivative of acetanilide and is used in chemical synthesis and in medicine instead of aspirin to relieve pain and fever"
acet-: originally from Latin acetum "vinegar, acid" but in this instance it is probably short for acetanilide
amin-: refers to amine, as in amino acid, and derives from ammonium + -ine.

Ammonium derives from an Egyptian name
-ine is the chemical suffix from lesson 4.

phen: originally from Greek phainein "to show," but used in chemistry as follows:

a) "related to benzene" as in phenol:

i) "containing phenyl" as in phenethyl and phenobarbital;

ii) especially : "containing two benzene rings," as in phenazine and phenothiazine

b) "phenol" (sense 1), as in phenoxide

Clearly, knowing the Latin, Egyptian, and Greek roots of the elements of acetaminophen is not helpful. But knowing what acet-, amin-, and phen refer to in chemistry is helpful. Thus they are paradigmatic ISV terms, because they have lost any clear connection of meaning with their earlier Latin or Greek meanings and acquired modern technical scientific meanings.

Chemists (and others) in this class are encouraged to explore the meanings of word elements specific to their discipline: we won't have time to focus fully on these discipline-specific meanings, but they will crop up often, particularly in the Greek half of the course.

Etymons v. Cognates

One of the most important terms in this class is etymon, whose plural is either etyma or etymons.

An etymon is the actual ancestor of a word. In other words, it is the word that a word came from.

Sometimes, when the word is formed from more than one element, there is more than one etymon.

So an etymon is like the parent of a word: it is the direct ancestor of the word.

A cognate is a 'cousin' of the word.

It is a word that shares a common ancestor with the word.
For instance, snow has cognates in German schnee, Latin nix, niv-, and Greek νιφ-. All of those words share a common ancestor, an Indo-European word for snow.

Wiktionary let's it snow

Often cognates look alike and have similar meanings, but sometimes they do not (just like cousins).

The etymology in dictionaries:

It is almost always based on incomplete information.

Teams of readers scour written sources for the 'first' use.
The first use is often NOT actually the first occurrence of the item in question.

It is, however, the first use that has been found by the people who write dictionaries and do linguistic etymology.

sometimes it actually is the first use of the word, but that is rare.

Also, there is a difference between the first use of a word and the first use with a particular meaning:

the OED tracks both the first use overall as well as the first use with a particular meaning

words develop new meanings over time, and lose old meanings: NICE is a great example of this.

sometimes, etymologists can find the very first occurrence of a word (or the very first use of that word with that particular meaning (e.g. new inventions).

In that case, the author makes it clear that they are innovating: HIV and AIDS are a good example of this. TELEPHONE is another good example.

The process is subtle and a matter of judgement.

Therefore subject to correction if a better explanation is found.

In spite of that warning, figuring out the etymology of a language is like picking the ripe fruit of an orchard: most of the fruit gets picked right away, rather easily, except for a few problematic fruits (too high, too low, too small, etc.)

Most etymologies are pretty well set and will never need revision.

As soon as a new language is discovered or deciphered, usually a dictionary is the first helpful reference tool that is created, or maybe a grammar, and after that one of the first scholarly productions about it is an 'etymological dictionary' or other publication that includes all the "fruit" of the etymologist.

After that, there is more to do on many fronts, but new discoveries about etymologies are infrequent, because all of the low-lying fruit has been harvested.

Most dictionary-makers (lexicographers) do NOT produce their own etymologies.

They get them from other dictionaries.
Mistakes are inherited and even created in the process. Dord!!!

The OED and Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary both do some of their own etymologies.

BUT the OED is your best most accessible source for the most up-to-date and thorough English etymological information.
Both dictionaries rely on the expertise of scholars, some of whom work for the dictionaries we use, others of whom publish in scholarly journals or specialty dictionaries that are intended primarily for other scholars.

So what is needed for an etymology

three things

a plausible way for the meaning of the word to develop: the etymon and the word have to be plausibly connected semantically

plausibility can be stretched a lot, but it has to be there

a plausible way for the sounds/spelling of the word to develop: the etymon and the word have to be plausibly connected morphologically

mostly, this is about sounds
but in the historical, written world, it is also about spelling sometimes

a plausible way for the etymon and the word to be connected historically, some contact between the speakers of the etymon and the speakers of the word:

a counterexample might help: Klamath pniw means 'breath' and so does Greek pne, but the Klamath are in Oregon, and the Greeks are in Greece: there is no plausible historical connection. Thus there is no etymological connection.

The 'Etymological Fallacy'

The etymon of any particular English word often means something quite different from the English word.

Consider abacus, which is from Latin abacus, which is from Greek ἄβαξ, ἄβακος "slab, board," which is of Semitic origin, and probably is related to Hebrew 'abaq "dust"
There is a temptation to say that "slab," "board," or "dust" is the "true" meaning of abacus even in English. People feel some sort of mystical magical fascination with the etymology and meaning of a term's etyma as if they reveal the "original meaning" of a term.
But that is the "etymological fallacy": namely, the idea that the meaning of a term's etymon is the "true" or "underlying" or "basic" or "mystical" meaning of a word, and that etymology somehow puts us in touch with something deeper, some connection that has significance for the meaning of language. In the end, an etymon is a separate word with an independent but usually related meaning.
Calling it a "fallacy" does not mean that there is no semantic connection of meaning: it means that the new meaning is its own meaning, just as you are your own person, not just a version of your parents. You have connections to a parent, but you are not your parent, nor are you a replacement for your parent.

The upshot is that the meaning of a term's etymon is completely separable from the meaning of the term. Which is different from being actually separate.

There is always a connection, but that connection is merely an arbitrary artefact of history, not a matter of some "truth" or "law" or inevitable pattern, and the connection can be exceedingly tenuous and superficial.

Etymology as a section of the dictionary

"Of all the elements included in modern dictionaries etymology has the least to do with the essential purpose of a synchronic dictionary." Sidney Landau Dictionaries: the art and craft of lexicography, P. 127.
That said, etymology is used as the criterion for how many entries a given set of meanings that have the same part of speech gets in a dictionary:

should lead (the metal) and lead (as in "take the lead out") have two entries? only if they have different etymologies. an amusing link: http://www.appleseeds.org/Eng-lang-difficulty.htm and my own archived version (in case the link goes dead)

Nonetheless, etymology is the least useful part of dictionaries and is included in most dictionaries partially because of product inertia.
On the other hand, history is important, interesting, and informative: useless as it is in one way, in other ways etymology is tremendously useful (as an aid to memory and as a way to access historical matters) and it certainly is incredibly interesting, which is much more important than whether it is useful.
In sum, the etymology section of your dictionary is like the liberal arts part of your education: the most sublime part, and the part that does most at a deep non-obvious level to connect the other parts to each other and form your education into a coherent whole that will make you a better, more interesting, and more interested person. And yet, on the surface, it seems the most useless for any practical purpose. But why stoop to usefulness when you can be interesting! there are sublime regions to explore!

Note well: your vocabulary is incredibly useful, and this course will expand it greatly. It's just that that is not the really interesting part of the course, and the course works much better if we pay attention to the interesting bits.