Etymology

Throughout human history, people have developed a variety of languages to communicate with one another. As cultures and histories evolve, so do languages. Etymology is the study of the history of words, including their origins, meanings, connotations, forms, and spellings.

The etymology of a word refers specifically to its origin rather than its definition. Words originate in several basic ways, including through borrowing, when one language adopts a word from another language; word formation, the derivation of a new word from an existing one or the compounding of two words together; and onomatopoeia and sound symbolism, in which a word is created by imitating the sound of another word in another language. Etymologists also study how words change over time. The history of a word can sometimes be obscured as a result of changes in both semantics (how a word is used; that is, its meaning) and sound (how a word is pronounced).

Background

Etymologists have long used ancient texts in various languages to gather evidence and knowledge about the history of particular words, such as how they may have been used when first recorded in written form. Other methods of determining the origins of words include examining the changes that occur in their form and meaning, through ancient texts if available (philology); examining the form or meaning of words in different dialects (dialectology); comparing similar words in related languages and tracing the genesis of their lineage (comparative linguistics); and hypothesizing about particular changes in meaning of words, then testing these hypotheses against known semantic shifts and similar changes that might have occurred in other languages during a similar time period (semantic change).

Etymologists use comparative linguistics to reconstruct information from related languages when direct evidence is not readily available. Using the comparative linguistics method requires etymologists to first look at words that may have shared parent languages and then make inferences about the vocabulary or meaning. In comparative linguistics, etymologists look for words that share similar roots in order to trace when a word first entered a particular language’s accepted vocabulary, or lexicon.

Overview

Languages, and the words that make up those languages, can change for a variety of reasons, including changes in grammar and usage and assimilation of foreign words. In English, assimilation is commonly seen with scientific terms that originated in Latin or Greek and with words acquired due to the close proximity of disparate cultures.

Scholars suggest that the first known modern etymologist was János Sajnovics (1733–85), a Hungarian linguist and astronomer. Sajnovics is considered a pioneer in modern etymology because of his systematic approach to studying the relationship between the Hungarian and the Sami languages, a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people of northern Europe (specifically modern-day Finland, Sweden, Norway, and parts of Russia). Other pioneering linguists in modern etymology include William Jones (1746–94), an English philologist who studied the relationships between Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin and learned nearly thirty languages, mostly on his own.

Overall, etymology is a linguistic discipline that examines the meaning, origin, and usage of words. Etymology gives a level of reliability to the meanings of words found in a dictionary or a thesaurus, helping people better understand languages. For the English language, the value of etymology can best be seen in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which outlines not only definitions but also the earliest known usage of words and examples of usage over time. It is essentially a historical dictionary, showing how words can change over time and extend their meanings to fit within modern context and usage. While the OED has long been held as the authoritative collection that synthesizes the work of linguistics, philologists, and etymologists as it applies to the modern English language, some scholars have pointed out that it makes several assumptions based on its own biases and the interpretations of its contributing scholars. Nonetheless, it remains an authoritative source for the underpinnings of modern English.

Bibliography

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