I’m very interested in the etymology (hermeneutics, too, I guess) of all languages I learn. I find it fascinating to know how a words has evolved and changed in meaning over time, yet I don’t know why. I got interested in it when I learned French, seeing how many words in English came from French. Now, when I study Eastern history, I love seeing that there are possibly the same roots for the words “Amen/Amin” and the Aum in Hinduism/Buddhism. Knowing that “hell” came from the name of a Nordic god…and so on on on.
I should start a OED fanclub. I look up the etymology of at least one word a day.
I’m wondering if anyone could give me practical reasons as to why a good knowledge of etymology/hermenteutics. Is it useful?
Some words have such a complex, not to mention highly disputed, and political provenance that the whole area, while fascinating, rewards the critical realist, if not the out and out sceptic. C.S.Lewis’s Studies in Words, might be a fun read for you. Most of his other academic works touch on the subject too.
As to why it can be useful - if you’re in a country the native language of which you don’t speak, an understanding of the commonality of languages can help you read the signs to the airport (for example).
I don’t speak a word of Italian (well, alright, maybe “ciao”), but my girlfriend does and when we holiday there she makes a point of speaking to waiters etc in Italian even though they all speak English. However, I understand almost all of the conversations she has because I have a relatively large English vocabulary, I’ve learned French and German, and even some Latin, and I can use my intelligence and experience of similar words/sentence constructions to translate what they are probably saying. If it were two genuine Italians chatting at the speed of light I would struggle, but my girlfriend natters away at a reasonable pace. The difficulty comes when, having smiled at the jokes, nodded in agreement, followed the conversation etc, the waiter then looks at me and asks me something (like “and how’s the pizza for you”) and although I understand the question I can’t reply!
I’m from Spain. Spanish as primary language (which is not necessarily the case here), classes always in Spanish except for English-as-a-foreign-language.
We started having individual times set aside for specific lessons in 4th grade, so 4-12 I got Spanish class 5hr/wk. Depending on the year, the emphasis on one part or another changed, but it always included grammar, spelling and punctuation, literature, and etimology.
The one year of Latin (5hr/wk as well) was compulsory for all high school students. When us “science track” people complained, we were told to think about it as “an extra dose of etimology”. There’s enough Latin and Greek in Spanish, specially for technical words, to let you figure out the meaning of a word you hadn’t encountered before from etimology and context.
Etimology is one reason Romanic-language students do so well on the vocabulary parts of the GRE: many of the words that “Anglo” students find hard are easy for Frenchies or Hispanics! Either they mean what they would mean in our language - or we were warned about them in English class because they “got turned around”.
(Spanish “plaza” or Italian “piazza” is an open space between buildings, what you’d call a square in English. Seeing “plaza” used in English to mean “a building or group of buildings” is like seeing black being called white)
This isn’t day-to-day useful, might be stretching things a bit, and it’s not clear to me that it’s even etymology…but in Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel, he has chapters on using word origins to trace the geographic migrations of language groups. That in turn revealed popluation shifts, and contributed to his theory, which in turn has been a ringing blow struck against racist theories of history.
So one could say it’s useful to anthropology and it’s been used to demolish racist theories.
Fromage A Trois makes a good point about it helping with the comprehension of other languages; also, I find knowledge of etymology helps me with things like spelling and pronunciation. (For example, I’m not one of those people who spells “atheist” as “athiest”, and I think that’s at least partly down to recognizing the Greek root.)
I stumble in etymology in my field of work every day. As a marine biologist I see latin names of marine critters all the time. I mean its not necessary to know if the latin name has a meaning (it does not have to according to the rules of zoological nomenclature), but very many of the names do anyway. Lets take an example, we have here a nudibranch (or seaslug of you prefer) named Dendronotus frondosus. Most nudibranchs do not have common names. So what does this name tell us: it tells of a critter with treelike appendages on the back (dendron = tree, notum = back) which is bushy (frondosus = rich in leaves), an etymology quite descriptive of this beatiful little seaslug.
On the other hand, sometimes one encounters other latin names which are a tad bit more indecent. Take the Priapulids for example, which are a group of marine _____shaped “worms”. The latin meaning of priapulus really means “little male reproductive organ (so you can insert the five letter word on the lines)”… I guess the eighteen century naturalists had their ways of having fun too.
I love etymology, too. For some languages (particularly English and French) it really gives a deeper insight into the spelling system, as often words are spelled according to much older pronunciations (e.g., “knight” in English, or “vingt” in French).
Also, seeing how different words and phrases shift meaning and gain prominence gives me a lot thicker skin in griping about current changes in language. For example, 100 years ago or so purists railed against the use of “terrific” as an intensifier; to them the word should only mean “terrifying”, in the sense of evoking great fear, and certainly not ever used in a positive sense. This objection would seem bizarre and archaic to us today, and knowing this allows me shrug off things like using “begs the question” almost universally now used to mean “raise the question” (when it used to mean pretty much the opposite).
All of these have been good points. I have had many of the same encounters with foreign languages (esp. Italian) as you have mentioned.
That is interesting. I have the book, but I’ve never read it from cover to cover. I remember hearing, a while back, an interview on NPR with a man who was writing a DNA of languages. This was a couple of years ago, but I suppose it has somewhat the same effect.
