2014-02-12
4586Etymology (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.
English is generally regarded the richest of the world’s languages. English 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 (from Italian, Hindi, Greek and Russian).
The English language has been enriched throughout its history by borrowings from foreign languages. A borrowing or a loan word is a word taken over from another language and modified in phonemic shape, spelling, paradigm (changes in grammatical forms) 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. Up to 80 % of the English vocabulary consists of borrowed words. The Normans bestowed on English such words as duchess, city, mansion and palace. The Anglo-Saxon gave English ring and town.
Latin and Greek have been a fruitful source of vocabulary since XVI century. There are a lot of Latinate words which are common in English: distinct, describe, transport, evidence, animal, create, act, generation, recollection, confluence (a merging or flowing together).
Some borrowings have retained their original spelling, pronunciation, and foreign identity:
- rendezvous [΄rondivu:], coup [ku:], gourmet [΄guəmei], détente [΄deita:nt] from French
- status quo [˛steitəs΄kwəu], ego [΄egou], curriculum vitae [΄vi:tai], bona fide [΄bəonə΄faidi] from Latin
- patio [΄pætiəu], macho [΄ma:t∫əu] from Spanish
- kindergarten [΄kində˛ga:tn], blitz [blits] from German
- kowtow [˛kau΄tau], tea [ti:] from Chinese
- incognito [˛inkog΄ni:tou], bravo [΄bra:vəu] from Italian
A number of words in English have originated from the names of people: boycott [΄boikot], Braille [breil], hooligan [΄hu:ligən], mentor [΄mento:], saxophone [΄sæksəfoən], watt [wot]. 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 come from names of places: angora, denim, satin, tweed, suede [sweid]. A number of other words in English come fromplace names: bedlam, Spartan, gypsy.
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There are many words that have changed their meanings in English: mind used to mean “memory” and this meaning is left in the phrases ‘to keep in mind’, ‘time out of mind’ (since long ago). The word brown preserves its old meaning of “gloomy” in the phrase ‘in a brown study’ (in a reverie or daydream). There are examples when a word acquires a meaning opposite to its original one: nice used to mean “silly” some hundreds years ago.
Thus, there are two problems connected with the vocabulary of language:
- the origin of the word
- its development in the language
The etymological structure of the English vocabulary consists pf the native elements and the borrowed elements.
1) after Captain C. C. Boycott (1832-97), Irish land agent for the Earl of Erne, County Mayo, Ireland, who was a victim of such practices for refusing to reduce rents
2) Louis [breɪl ], French [bʀaj] (1809-52), French educationist. Blind from the age of 3, by the age of 15 he had developed his own system of raised-point reading and writing, which was officially adopted two years after his death.
3) late 19th cent.: perhaps from Hooligan, the surname of a fictional rowdy Irish family in a music-hall song of the 1890s, also of a character in a cartoon
Mentor – the friend whom Odysseus put in charge of his household when he left for Troy. He was the adviser of the young Telemachus [ti’lemekes] (the son of Odysseus and Penelope)
named after Adolphe Sax (1814-94), Belgian musical-instrument maker, who invented it (1846)
named after James Watt (1736-1819), Scottish engineer and inventor
named after John Bowler, 19th-century London hatter
named after James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan (1797-1868), British cavalry officer
высокие кожаные сапоги для верховой езды, спереди прикрывающие колено такие сапоги носил герцог Веллингтон [Duke of Wellington, 1769-1852]
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named after Charles Macintosh (1760-1843), who invented it
Angora: Ankara used to be called Angora until 1930
demin: джинсовая ткань: the town of Nîmes in France
satin: a town in China
tweed: he River Tweed in Scotland
suede: замша: a place in Sweden
bedlam: the hospital of St Mary of Bethlehem in London, used as an asylum for the insane
Spartan: showing the indifference to comfort or luxury traditionally associated with ancient Sparta
gypsy: originally gipcyan, short for Egyptian (because gypsies were popularly supposed to have come from Egypt)
