Etymology

Etymology (/ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/, ET-im-OL-ə-jee[1]) is the study of the origin and evolution of words,
including their constituent units of sound and meaning, across time.[2] In the 21st century a subfield
within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study.[1] Most directly tied to
historical linguistics, philology, and semiotics, it additionally draws upon comparative semantics,
morphology, pragmatics, and phonetics in order to attempt a comprehensive and chronological catalogue
of all meanings and changes that a word (and its related parts) carries throughout its history. The origin of
any particular word is also known as its etymology.

For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts, particularly texts about the
language itself, 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 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.

Terminology
The word etymology is derived from the Ancient Greek word ἐτυμολογία (etumologíā), itself from
ἔτυμον (étumon), meaning 'true sense or sense of a truth', and the suffix -logia, denoting 'the study or
logic of'.[3][4]

The etymon refers to the predicate (i.e. stem[5] or root[6]) 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 different forms of a suffix that originated as the Latin castrum 'fort'.

Reflex is the name given to a descendant word in a daughter language, descended from an earlier
language. For example, Modern English heat is the reflex of the Old English hǣtu. Rarely, this word is
used in reverse, and the reflex is actually the root word rather than the descendant word. However, this
usage is usually filled by the term etymon instead. A reflex will sometimes be described simply as a
descendant, derivative or derived from an etymon (but see below).

Cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an
etymological ancestor in a common parent language.[7] Doublets or etymological twins or twinlings (or
possibly triplets, and so forth) are specifically cognates within the same language. Although they have the
same etymological root, they tend to have different phonological forms, and to have entered the language
through different routes.

A root is the source of related words within a single language (no language barrier is crossed). Similar to
the distinction between etymon and root, a nuanced distinction can sometimes be made between a
descendant and a derivative.

A derivative is one of the words which have their source in a root word, and were at some time created
from the root word using morphological constructs such as suffixes, prefixes, and slight changes to the
vowels or to the consonants of the root word. For example: unhappy, happily, and unhappily are all
derivatives of the root word happy. The terms root and derivative are used in the analysis of
morphological derivation within a language in studies that are not concerned with historical linguistics
and that do not cross the language barrier.

Methods
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 Diagram showing relationships
related languages, etymologists may often be able to between etymologically related
detect which words derive from their common ancestor words
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

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 term meaning
'to mark with blood').
Semantic change may also occur. For example, the English word bead originally meant 'prayer', and
acquired its modern meaning through the practice of counting the recitation of prayers by using beads.

History
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. Etymology has 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
c. 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 during the 9th
century, one of several similar Byzantine works. The 13th-century Golden Legend, as written by Jacobus
de Voragine, begins each hagiography of a saint with a fanciful excursus in the form of an etymology.[8]

Sanskrit
In ancient India, Sanskrit linguists and grammarians were the first to undertake comprehensive analyses
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:

Yāska (c. 6th–5th centuries BCE)

Pāṇini (c. 520—460 BCE)
Kātyāyana (6th-4th centuries BCE)
Patanjali (2nd century BCE)
These were not the earliest Sanskrit grammarians, but rather followed an earlier line of scholars who
lived several centuries earlier, who included Śākaṭāyana (814–760 BCE), and of whom very little is
known. The earliest of attested etymologies can be found in the Vedas, 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 Vedas contained deep
encoding of the mysteries of the soul and God.

Greco-Roman
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
Isidore of Seville compiled a volume of etymologies to illuminate the triumph of religion. Each saint's
legend in Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend begins with an etymological discourse on their 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
Etymology in the modern sense emerged in the late 18th-century European academia, in the context of
the 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.[10]

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

The study of etymology in Germanic philology was introduced by Rasmus Rask in the early 19th century
and elevated to a high standard with the Deutsches Wörterbuch (German Dictionary) compiled by the
Brothers Grimm. The successes of the comparative approach culminated in the Neogrammarian school of
the late 19th century. Still, Friedrich Nietzsche used etymological strategies (principally and most
famously in On the Genealogy of Morality, but also elsewhere) to argue that moral values have definite
historical origins, where the meaning of concepts such as good and evil are shown to have changed over
time according to the value-system that appropriates 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
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

Linguistics portal

Etymological dictionary
Lists of etymologies
Bongo-Bongo – Name for an imaginary language in linguistics
Etymological fallacy – Fallacy that a word's history defines its meaning
False cognate – Words that look or sound alike, but are not related
False etymology – Popular, but false belief about word origins
Folk etymology – Process of reinterpretive word formation
Malapropism – Misuse of a word
Pseudoscientific language comparison – Form of pseudo-scholarship
Onomastics – Study of proper names
Wörter und Sachen – science school of linguistics
Suppletion – A word having inflected forms from multiple unrelated stems

Notes
1. "Etymology" (https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?q=Etymology). Oxford English
Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. "the scientific study of words and the way
their meanings have changed throughout time" (Subscription or participating institution
membership (https://www.oed.com/public/login/loggingin#withyourlibrary) required.)
2. "Etymology" (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=etymology). Etymonline.com.
"etymology" (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/etymology). Dictionary.com
Unabridged (Online). n.d.
"etymology" (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/etymology). Merriam-
Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster.
"etymology" (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/etymology).
Cambridge Dictionaries (Online). Cambridge University Press. n.d.
3. Harper, Douglas. "etymology" (https://www.etymonline.com/?term=etymology). Online
Etymology Dictionary.
 4. ἐτυμολογία (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entr
y=e)tumologi/a), ἔτυμον (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.
04.0057:entry=e)/tumos). Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; A Greek–English Lexicon at
the Perseus Project.
5. According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann, the ultimate etymon of the English word machine is the
Proto-Indo-European stem *māgh 'be able to', see Zuckermann 2003, p. 174.
6. According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann, the co-etymon of the modern Israeli Hebrew word glida
'ice cream' is the Hebrew root gld 'clot', see p. 132, Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2003). Language
Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-
1723-2.
7. Crystal, David, ed. (2011). "Cognate" (https://books.google.com/books?id=3ZPQVuSgDAkC
&pg=PT104). A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics (6th ed.). Blackwell. pp. 104, 418.
ISBN 978-1-4443-5675-5.
8. Jacobus; Tracy, Larissa (2003). Women of the Gilte Legende: A Selection of Middle English
Saints Lives (https://books.google.com/books?id=Ek1skuzIZH0C&q=legenda+aurea+etymol
ogy+beginning&pg=PA27). DS Brewer. ISBN 978-0-85991-771-1.
9. "Medieval Sourcebook: The Golden Legend: Volume 2 (full text)" (https://web.archive.org/we
b/20001209054700/http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/goldenlegend/GoldenLegend-Volu
me2.htm#Lucy). Archived from the original (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/goldenlege
nd/GoldenLegend-Volume2.htm#Lucy) on 2000-12-09. Retrieved 2005-05-28.
10. Szemerényi 1996:6

References
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. 260–267.
Philip Durkin. The Oxford Guide to Etymology. Oxford University Press, 2009.
William B. Lockwood. An Informal Introduction to English Etymology. Montreux, London:
Minerva, 1995.
Yakov Malkiel. Etymology. Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Alan S. C. Ross. Etymology, with a special reference to English. Fair Lawn, NJ: Essential
Books; London: Deutsch, 1958.
Michael Samuels. Linguistic Evolution: With Special Reference to English. Cambridge
University Press, 1972.
Bo Svensén. "Etymology", chap. 19 of A Handbook of Lexicography: The Theory and
Practice of Dictionary-Making. 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
List of etymologies of words in 90+ languages (http://www.ezglot.com/etymologies.php)
Online Etymology Dictionary (https://www.etymonline.com/)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Etymology&oldid=1261824908"