What’s in a Word:
History and Culture as Reflected
in English Vocabulary
Timothy Taylor
22nd March 2014
Introducing Etymology
Part I – Words as the DNA of Meaning
Part II – The History of English: One Language
or Many?
Part III – The Evolution of Words: How Words
are Born, Grow, Change and Die
Whose Words?
―We seldom realize that our most private
thoughts and emotions are not actually our
own. We think in terms of languages and
images which we did not invent, but which
were given to us by our society.‖
~ Alan Watts
Etymology = Word History
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When did we become human?
When did we begin to speak?
When did we begin to write?
What were early languages like?
How are human languages related?
What were the earliest recorded words?
How does one language change and evolve?
Infinite Stars – Infinite Words
―If the stars should appear one night in a
thousand years, how would men believe and
adore; and preserve for many generations
the remembrance of the city of God which
had been shown! But every night these
envoys of beauty come out, and light the
universe with their admonishing smile.‖
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
What does the fox say?
Foxes have about 40 distinct calls, including:
―Danger!‖
―I‘m hungry!‖
―You‘re attractive!‖
―Where are you?‖
http://youtu.be/k_DVvNK7mRA
A Simple Idea
Wealth and power
are not what they
appear to be.
Richard Cory
by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
'Good-morning,' and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich - yes, richer than a king And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
Intersubjectivity
Zhuangzi and Huizi were strolling
along the dam of the Hao Waterfall when
Zhuangzi said, "See how the minnows come
out and dart around wherever they please!
That's what fish really enjoy!"
Huizi said, "You're not a fish — how do you know what fish enjoy?―
Zhuangzi said, "You're not me, so how do you know I don't know
what fish enjoy?―
Huizi said, "I'm not you, so I certainly don't know what you know. On
the other hand, you're certainly not a fish — so that still proves you don't
know what fish enjoy!―
Zhuangzi said, "Let's go back to your original question, please. You
asked me how I know what fish enjoy — so you already knew I knew it when
you asked the question. I know it by standing here beside the Hao."
+ Digital infinity
Ten symbols can denote any number:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0
But even two symbols can denote any number. In base two:
0=1, 1=1, 10=2, 11=3, 100=4, 101=5, 110=6, 111=7, 1000=8
Phonemes are the smallest discreet, distinguishable sound in
a language, and the number of phonemes varies widely in
different languages.
These few sounds can be rearranged to represent an infinite
variety of sound patterns (words). The sound patterns can
be rearranged to represent an infinite number of ―patterns
of patterns‖ (phrases, clauses, sentences)
Symbols are used to represent phonemes, multiple
phonemes, or whole words.
In English 26 letters represent 44 – 46 phonemes
Words as DNA ~
DNA as Words
From an Introduction to DNA:
We use codes everyday; alphabets are also codes. Let's take the word
"koala". In English, the letters 'k', 'o', 'a', 'l' and 'a' in that particular order
mean an animal that lives in Australia and eats eucalyptus leaves.
If you didn't know any English, you wouldn't be able to guess what
the word means from the letters that are in it. The letters 'k', 'o', 'a', and 'l'
appear in lots of other words where they don't have anything to do with
koalas. Different languages use different alphabets to convey meaning.
DNA's code is written in only four 'letters', called A, C, T and G. The
meaning of this code lies in the sequence of the letters A, T, C and G in
the same way that the meaning of a word lies in the sequence of alphabet
letters. Your cells read the DNA sequence to make chemicals that your
body needs to survive.
http://www.yourgenome.org/dgg/general/code/code_1.shtml
American DNA Sample
Tracking human migration
through DNA
Tracking human migration
through language families
PIE (Proto-Indo European) Chart
The Evolution of Words –
From the article:
―Languages change as
they are handed down from generation
to generation.
In a large population,
languages are likely to be relatively
stable - simply because there are
more people to remember what
previous generations did, he says.
But in a smaller population
- such as a splinter group that sets off
to find a new home elsewhere - there
are more chances that languages will
change quickly and that sounds will be
lost from generation to generation.
Professor Mark Pagel, an
evolutionary biologist at Reading
University, said the same effect could
be seen in DNA.
Modern-day Africans have
a much greater genetic diversity than
white Europeans who are descended
from a relatively small splinter group
that left 70,000 years ago.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1377150/Every-language-evolved-single-prehistoric-mother-tongue-spoken-Africa.html
Gaga to Water
Word changes occur in cycles that
sometimes occur across centuries and
thousands of miles… and sometimes across
a few months or years in one lifetime.
http://youtu.be/RE4ce4mexrU (from 4:00)
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/
news/queens-english-no-longerso-posh/
Earliest Recordings
of the Human Voice
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French song recorded in 1860
Robert Browning, reciting a poem
May 6th 1889
125 years ago
http://youtu.be/OYot5-WuAjE
Part II – A Brief History of English
http://www.childrensuniversity.manchester.ac.uk/media/services/thechildrensuniversityofmanchester/flash/timeline.swf
English – etymology of the word
English "people of England; the speech of England," Old
English Englisc (contrasted to Denisc, Frencisce, etc.),
from Engle (plural) "the Angles," the name of one of the Germanic
groups that overran the island 5 c., supposedly so-called
because Angul, the land they inhabited on the Jutland coast,
was shaped like a fish hook (see angle (n.)).
The term was used from earliest times without distinction for all the
Germanic invaders -- Angles, Saxon, Jutes (Bede's gens
Anglorum) -- and applied to their group of related languages by
Alfred the Great. After 1066, of the population of England (as
distinguished from Normans and French), a distinction which lasted
only about a generation.
In pronunciation, "En-" has become "In-," but the older spelling has
remained. Meaning "English language or literature as a subject at
school" is from 1889. As an adjective, "of or belonging to England,"
from late 13c. Old English is from early 13c.
Angle Land
Angle Land = “Hook Land”
English
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In 730 a monk wrote that three tribes of
Germany: Angles, Saxons and Jutes arrived in
the British Isles in the 5th century
Angli Saxones meant the ―English Saxons‖ as
opposed to the ―Old Saxons‖
English meant the people and the language
Engla land later referred to the country
Before the 14th century it appeared as:
Engle land; Englene londe; Engle lond;
Engelond; Inglad
Highlights in the History of English
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Romans leave Britain, taking Latin with them, around 500 a.d.
Angles, Saxons and Jutes arrive soon afterwards
Vikings raids begin about 800 a.d., English absorbs some 2000 words
Norman conquest 1066, English absorbs 10,000 French words, while
French rules for four hundred years
Latin is used in church for centuries
The Great Vowel Shift, 15th Century
Shakespeare introduces 2000 words, 16th Century (1564 – 1616)
King James Bible English translation, 1611
Scientific revolution, 17th century
English Empire (1583 – 1914) spreads English around the world
Samuel Johnson‘s dictionary 1746 – 1755 (14,773 entries)
Oxford English Dictionary 1857 (first edition finished in 1928)
American English, World Englishes, science, popular culture, and
multimedia (television, BBC, the Internet) and technologies continue to
spread English
The First English Dictionary ~
Samuel Johnson (1755)
Some of Johnson‟s less serious definitions:
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Cough: A convulsion of the lungs, vellicated by some sharp
serosity.
Distiller: One who makes and sells pernicious and inflammatory
spirits.
Dull: Not exhilaterating; not delightful; as, to make dictionaries
is dull work.
Far-fetch: A deep stratagem. A ludicrous word.
Lexicographer: A writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge that
busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification
of words.
Oats: A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in
Scotland appears to support the people.
The Oxford English Dictionary
The compilation of the OED began in 1857, it was one of the most ambitious academic
projects ever undertaken.
As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray,
discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand
entries. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light:
Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the
criminally insane.
Over the next several decades work on the Dictionary continued and new editors joined the
project. In April, 1928, the last volume was published, 70 years after the start of the
project. Instead of 6,400 pages in four volumes as originally anticipated, the Dictionary
published under the imposing name A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles –
contained over 400,000 words and phrases in ten volumes. The Dictionary had taken its
place as the ultimate authority on the language. The latest ediction contains over
600,000 words.
A readable history of the OED can be found in: The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
http://public.oed.com/history-of-the-oed/
The OED is the single best source for amateur etymologists. Availabe at most public libraries, and HKIEd:
http://80-www.oed.com.edlis.ied.edu.hk/
English Uses Words
from over 350 Languages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Origins_of_English_PieChart.svg
From Chinese
ketchup possibly from Cantonese or Amoy
茄汁, lit. tomato sauce/juice
kowtow from Cantonese 叩頭
(Mandarin, kòu tóu), lit. knock head
kumquat or cumquat from Cantonese name of
the fruit 柑橘 (gamgwat)
Cantonese
canton (n.) 1530s, "corner, angle," from Middle French canton "piece,
portion of a country" (13c.), from Italian (Lombard dialect) cantone "region,"
especially in the mountains, augmentative of Latin canto "section of a
country," literally "corner" (see cant (n.2)). Originally in English a term in
heraldry and flag descriptions; applied to the sovereign states of the Swiss
republic from 1610s. Related: Cantoned.
cantonment (n.) 1756, "military quarters," from French cantonnement,
from cantonner "to divide into cantons" (14c.), from canton (see canton).
Meaning "action of quartering troops" is from 1757.
Cantonese
Cantonese (n.) 1816, from Canton, former transliteration of the name of the
Chinese region now known in English as Guangzhou. The older form of the
name is from the old British-run, Hong Kong-based Chinese postal system.
Used as an adjective from 1840.
The changing sounds of English:
Old English ~ Beowulf
Hwæt! We Gardena
in geardagum,
þeodcyninga,
þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas
ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing
sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum,
meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas.
Syððan ærest wearð
feasceaft funden,
he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum,
weorðmyndum þah,
oðþæt him æghwylc
þara ymbsittendra
ofer hronrade
hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan.
Þæt wæs god cyning!
Ðæm eafera wæs
æfter cenned,
geardum,
þone god sende
Folce to frofre;
fyrenðearfe ongeat
þe hie ær drugon
aldorlease
lange hwile.
Him þæs liffrea,
wuldres wealdend,
woroldare forgeaf;
Beowulf wæs breme
(blæd wide sprang),
Scyldes eafera
Scedelandum in.
http://youtu.be/Y13cES7MMd8
Listen! We of the Spear-Danes
in days of yore
Of those folk-kings
the glory have heard,
How those noblemen
brave-things did.
Often Scyld, son of Scef,
from enemy hosts
from many people
mead-benches took,
terrorized warriors.
After first he was
helpless found, he knew the recompense for that,
grew under the sky,
in honors thrived,
until to him each
of the neighboring tribes
over the whale-road
had to submit,
tribute yield.
That was a good king!
To him an heir was
then borngeong in
young in the yards,
him God sent
the folk to comfort;
distress he had seen
that they before suffered
leaderless
a long while.
Them for that the Life-Lord,
of-glory ruler,
honor-on-earth granted;
Beowulf was famed
(renown wide spread),
Scyld's heir
in northern lands.
http://youtu.be/v9qpqyO_dmU
The changing sounds of English:
Middle English ~ The Canterbury Tales
When April with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root
And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,
Quickened again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun
Into the Ram one half his course has run,
And many little birds make melody
That sleep through all the night with open eye
(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)Then do folk long to go on pilgrimages,
And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
To distant shrines well known in sundry lands.
http://youtu.be/QE0MtENfOMU
The changing sounds of English:
Early Modern English ~ Shakespeare
SONNET 116 (Original Pronunciation)
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
http://youtu.be/Qabr7nyHpVc (0:45)
Part III – The Evolution of Words ~
How do words change?
The are many ways that words change. Here are just a few:
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Borrowing
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Loan words
Modifications
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Doublets
Folk Etymology
Semantic changes
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Generalization
Transformation
Functional Shift or
Conversion
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Generation
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Baby talk
Onomatopoeia
Coinages
How do words change?
1. Borrowing
Loan words – Words „borrowed‟ from other
languages to fill a gap in English. The British
and American global reach was the source of
massive borrowing. Most of the words have not
been returned.
English Empire
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From the Caribbean:
cannibal
canoe
barbeque
English Empire
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From India:
yoga
bungalow
English Empire
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From Africa:
zombie
chimpanzee
banana
English Empire
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From Australia:
nugget
boomerang
English Empire
Words entered English in America from both the native
people as well as new immigrants:
From native American languages:
raccoon, moose, skunk
tobacco, tomato, squash
 From Dutch:
coleslaw, cookies, boss
 From German:
pretzels, hamburger, poodle
 From Italian:
pizza, spaghetti, lasagna
 From Hawaiian
wiki, taboo
English Empire
 New words would immigrate to England from America:
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cool
movies
groovy
jazz
And old(er) English words survived in America and went
on to a life in other countries, including China
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fall (not autumn)
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diapers (not nappies)
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candy (not sweets)
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World Englishes Emerged
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Hinglish
Chinglish
Singlish
Spanglish
Untranslatable?
English borrows new words not only for unfamiliar animals and food,
but for concepts more precisely captured in another language
1 | German: Waldeinsamkeit
A feeling of solitude, being alone in the
woods and a connectedness to nature.
This poem titled waldeinsamkeit
was written in the 19th century:
Waldeinsamkeit
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
I do not count the hours I spend
In wandering by the sea;
The forest is my loyal friend,
Like God it useth me.
In plains that room for shadows make
Of skirting hills to lie,
Bound in by streams which give and take
Their colors from the sky;
Or on the mountain-crest sublime,
Or down the oaken glade,
O what have I to do with time?
For this the day was made…
Untranslatable?
2 | Inuit: Iktsuarpok
The feeling of anticipation that leads you to go outside and check if anyone is
coming, and probably also indicates an element of impatience.
Untranslatable?
3 | Indonesian: Jayus
Slang for someone who tells a joke so badly, that is so unfunny you cannot help
but laugh out loud.
Untranslatable?
4 | Hawaiian: Pana Po’o
You know when you forget where you've put the keys, and you scratch your
head because it somehow seems to help your remember? This is the word for it.
Untranslatable?
5 | Urdu: Goya
Urdu is the national language of Pakistan, but is also an official language in 5 of
the Indian states. This particular Urdu word conveys a contemplative 'as-if' that
nonetheless feels like reality, and describes the suspension of disbelief that can
occur, often through good storytelling.
How do words change?
2. Semantic changes
Generalization – When a particular word meaning is
generalized:
bread – from the word for piece or bit… to bit of bread… to bread.
nausea – from seasick… to sick in the stomach
thing – from OE assembly (cf OGerman ding)… to a matter before the
assembly… to any matter / any thing
Transformation – When the meaning of a word changes
nice – stupid/ignorant… fussy… precise… good/agreeable
Shift – A change from one part of speech to another
out – (see following)
Out, 9th century (Functional shift)
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Out (t. verb) expel something
Out (preposition) out the door
Out (exclamation) Out! Alas!
Out (adjective) The out crowd.
Out (a person) (t. verb) – a transformation in meaning; to
publicly declare a previously undisclosed sexual
orientation
The OED lists the following number of definitions for
―out‖: nouns (22); adjectives (8); verbs (15);
adv./prep./int. (98); prefixes (465). Total = 608!
Career (transformation)
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chariot – carrus (Latin)
carriera – course (Italian)
carriere – course (French)
career – a course (English, 16th century)
career – a job or profession
Food
pork (n.) c.1300 , "flesh of a pig as food," from Old French porc "pig,
swine, boar," and directly from Latin porcus "pig, tame swine," from
PIE *porko- "young swine" (cf. Umbrian purka; Old Church
Slavonic prase "young pig;" Lithuanian parsas "pig;" and Old
English fearh, Middle Dutch varken, both from ProtoGermanic *farhaz).
Body Parts
calf (n.1) "young cow," Old English cealf (Anglian cælf) "young
cow," from West Germanic *kalbam (cf. Middle Dutch calf, Old
Norse kalfr, German Kalb, Gothic kalbo), perhaps from PIE *gelb(h),
from root *gel- "to swell," hence, "womb, fetus, young of an animal."
Elliptical sense of "leather made from the skin of a calf" is from
1727.
calf (n.2) fleshy part of the lower leg,
early 14c., from Old Norse kalfi; possibly
from the same Germanic root as calf (n.1).
Body Parts and Food
knuckle (n.)
mid-14c., knokel "finger joint; any
joint of the body, especially a
knobby one; morbid lump or
swelling;" common Germanic (cf.
Middle Low German knökel,
Middle Dutch cnockel,
German knöchel), literally "little
bone," a diminutive of ProtoGermanic root *knuck- "bone" (cf.
German Knochen "bone).
gnocchi (n.)
1891, from Italian gnocchi,
plural of gnocco,
from nocchio "a knot in wood,"
perhaps from a Germanic
source akin to knuckle. So
called for their shape.
How do words change?
3. Modifications
Doublets – A pair of words with a common origin.
mouse/muscle – From Latin, mus (mouse) and musculus (little mouse).
Some muscles are shaped like mice?
cloak/clock – Both from Old French cloque, meaning ‗bell‘. Cloaks were
‗bell-shaped‘ and clocks sounded each hour with a bell.
tradition/treason – From Latin traditio, meaning to hand over. Tradition
came to English from Old French and treason from Latin.
Folk Etymology – New meaning from popular
misunderstanding.
spitting image – From spirit-in-image… spit ‗n image
plummet the depths – Actually plumb the depths; from plumb line
How do words change?
4. Generation
Baby talk – wee-wee, pee-pee, poo-poo, doo-doo,
doody, bunny, icky, jammies, teddy, tummy, wawa,
yummy
Onomatopoeia – haha, hohum, boo-hoo, bark, buzz,
moo, hiss, thump, wow, bang, boom, wham
Coinages – The creation of a new meaning from a
new or familiar sound.
Coinage ~
Celebrity Wordsmiths
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William Shakespeare
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/14/shakespeare-words_n_4590819.html
Thank you Shakespeare for…
Gloomy
Definition: Somewhat dark: not bright or sunny
Origin: "To gloom" was a verb that existed
before Shakespeare converted the word into an
adjective in a number of his plays.
Quote: "Forced in the ruthless, vast, and gloomy
woods?" - Titus Andronicus
Thank you Shakespeare for…
Lonely
Definition: Sad from being apart from other
people
Origin: "Alone" was first shortened to "lone" in
the 1400s.
Quote: "Believe it not lightly – though I go alone/
Like to a lonely dragon that his fen –Coriolanus
Thank you Shakespeare for…
Hurry
Definition: Move or act with haste; rush
Origin: Likely derived from the verb "harry―
Quote: "Lives, honors, lands, and all hurry to
loss." - Henry VI Part 1
Thank you Shakespeare for…
Critical
Definition: Expressing criticism or disapproval
Origin: From the Latin "criticus," which referred
specifically to a literary critic.
Quote: "For I am nothing if not critical." – Othello
Coinage ~
U.S. Presidents –
George Washington
Coinage ~
U.S. Presidents –
George Washington
Coinage ~
U.S. Presidents –
Thomas Jefferson
Coinage ~
U.S. Presidents –
George Bush
―I‘m the decider.‖
http://youtu.be/irMeHmlxE9s
My daughter –
Jessica
―I‘m wild awake.‖
―You unabled me from
finishing my homework.‖
―Is the line
unworthitly long?‖
Oxymorons ~ Interesting!
Self-contradictory collocations
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pretty bad
awfully good
now then
seriously funny
These examples are from the film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close:
http://youtu.be/WQQ1oGmCoeE
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deafening silence
found missing
student teacher
clearly confused
Google
From the word for 1 + 100 zeros: googol
Semantic shift from proper noun to verb in less
than 4 months in 1998.
And other words coined for technology:
• firewall, download, blog, reboot
Phubbing = phone snubbing
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The birth of a new word
http://youtu.be/ZSOfuUYCV_0
Lessons from Etymology
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Words are organic; they are forever being
born, growing, changing, dying.
A dictionary is a photograph of a word; some
meanings and uses at one moment in time
The true meaning of a word is exactly what
we understand and agree that it means:
―Those fish are __________ .‖
You are as much an authority as anyone else
on the meaning of words!
Further Study:
Google ngram viewer
Google‘s Ngram tool allows you to chart the frequency of the
use of particular words in published books over a period of
more than 200 years: https://books.google.com/ngrams
Try entering these words, separated by commas:
 Food Example: sushi, ketchup, catsup, pizza, hamburger
 Cities Example: Hong Kong, Canton, Peking, Guangzhou,
Beijing
 Clothes Example: sunglasses, jeans, brassiere, umbrella,
wristwatch
 Ethnicities Example: Chinese-American, African-American,
Italian-American, negro
Further Study:
Recommended Reading
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of English by David Crystal
The English Language by David Crystal
How to Read a Word by Elizabeth Knowles
The Life of Language by Sol Steinmetz and Barbara Ann Kipfer
The Miracle of Language by Richard Lederer
The Story of English by Joseph Piercy
The Story of English in 100 Words by David Crystal
Word Routes: Journeys through Etymology by Alexander Tulloch
The Words We Use by Robert Lord