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a world of words

pamela fox

Ive always had a thing for words In high school, I made the people carpooling with me bring in words to

discuss during each morning ride, and in uni, I plastered word of the day posters all over campus. Now, I want

to share my favorite part about words their deep origins and vast connections.

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evolution

!irst, some starter "nowledge. #ust li"e animals, languages evolve over time and branch into new languages.

$inguists classify these languages into families, and then identify a root or proto language for each family. %here

are &' language families in the world, and over (&)) currently spo"en languages.

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families

*ur +nglish language comes from the ermanic branch of the Indo-+uropean family, the most spo"en family in

the world.

language is li"e a distinct species, but instead of the ability to interbreed, you have the ability to understand

everyone else spea"ing that same language. Now - you guys might find it harder to understand me than native

ussies. %hats cu/ languages are divided into things called dialects.

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dialects

dialect is still intelligible by any spea"er of the language, but can differ in pronunciation, vocabulary, or

grammer. %he ussie dialect is actually closer to the 0outhern 10 dialect than my own from New 2or", which is

why I say fisher and yall say 3fisha. 4esides regional dialects, there are also social dialects li"e ebonics, or the

one many of you use leet spea"5

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6roto-

7orld8

#ust li"e all humans evolved from one amoeba, some linguists thin" that every language in the world evolved from

9ust one. %hey loo" for words in diverse languages that have similar meanings and spellings, li"e mali: for

breast;suc";nec";swallow. 4ut its nearly impossible to prove theyre related, because meanings and morphology

can both change so much over time.

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0o, we may never figure out if we all share the same parent language, and we may argue endlessly over what

constitutes a dialect of +nglish, but either way, the fact remains that the languages in the world have all

influenced each other in big ways, and Im going to show you how.

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word

wurdan

*were (speak, say)

!irst, they influence eachother in the obvious way a child language inherits words from its parents, usually

modifying them slightly over time. +xample %he +nglish word word comes from the proto-ermanic wurdan

which comes from the proto-indo-european root were, meaning to spea" or say.

inheritance

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borrowing

4ut a more interesting type of influence is one called borrowing. $anguages often borrow words from another

language during an invasion or coloni/ation, and typically they borrow words for a particular type of thing li"e

the names of the invading countrys animals. %hese borrowed words are called loan words.

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loan words

word

semantics

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origins of

+nglish

+nglish doesnt 9ust borrow words from other languages, it

chases them down bac" alleys and then goes through their

poc"ets for spare metaphors. eorge 4ernard 0haw

+nglish is particularly well "nown for borrowing words, with about @AB of our words coming from other languages

though mostly in the same indo european family. 2ou could almost thin" of +nglish as a language that is

ermanic in syntax but Comantic in vocabulary. $ets loo" at some of the ways that +nglish borrows.

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verb

verbe

*were (speak, say)

verbum

!irst, a familiar example. %he +nglish Derb came from *ld !rench verbe, from $atin verbum, and ultimately from

the same proto-indo-european root as word. 0o, word and verb are in fact, cognates words that share acommon root. *ne was borrowed, the other was inherited.

verb

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doublets

chief;chef

frenetic;frantic

host;guest

secure;sure

7hen two words in the same language have the same root but entered from different routes, linguists call them

doublets or etymological twins. It usually happens when a language borrows from another at E different points in

its history, and happened often in +nglish with words with $atin roots. 0ome examples are chief and chef, andhost and guest.

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tea

tF

chG

0ometimes we borrow from way outside our language family.

+nglish gets the word tea from Hutch traders in the south of hina, who heard one pronunciation of the symbol

for tea. nother ') languages of the world use cha from 6ortuguese traders who heard the other pronunciation.cha later entered +nglish from Indian chai, and now all 0tarbuc"s-lovers "now it.

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orange

naranga-s

narang

naran9naran9o

naran/a

orenge

0ince +ngland wasnt the best place for growing fruits, a lot of our fruit names come from other languages, li"e

the notoriously unrhymable word orange. *range trees first grew in hina, then the word started in India,

traveled over ( languages, and eventually landed in our laps. nd a few centuries later, we decided it was apretty good word for the color, too.

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*rangutan

orang-utan

orang-outang

0ometimes people get confused when they borrow a word. 7hen Hutch people heard

Jalays referring to the orangutans of the woods, they assumed they meant the funny

loo"ing orange haired apes when actually they meant the native tribesman. 4ut now

we will always refer to the apes as orangutans meaning man of the wild woods which actuall fits rett well.

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re-borrowing

le bKuf

beef

le bifte"

beefstea"

el bistec

1sually a word is ta"en from a language and never given bac" so really loanword is a misnomer. 4ut,

sometimes a language ta"es it bac" after its changed a bit. %he english too" beef from !rench, combined it withstea" to mean a cut of beef, and then !rench and 0panish thought that was nifty and too" it bac" as bistec.

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mirror

mireormirari

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marvel

mirandus

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*(s)mei

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learn more

http;;delicious.com;f"edupmon"ey;worldwords

If youre now inspired to learn more about word meanings, there are a lot of places to loo". 2ou can subscribe to

podcasts or C00 feeds for words of the day, or whenever youre curious loo" up a word in the dictionary, andtrace its roots bac" as far as possible 2ou never "now what wondrous marvels youll find

http://delicious.com/fkedupmonkey/worldwordshttp://delicious.com/fkedupmonkey/worldwordshttp://delicious.com/fkedupmonkey/worldwords