Philology is the study of human speech, the science of language. Not only does it give us a chatting acquaintance with the fascinating history of the words we use or might use in speech; but it is an indispensable searchlight cast inward upon the cloudy nature, and backward upon the obscure early history, of man. The term philology once meant the study of the literature of a people (from Greek philein, love, and logos, a word, speech, discourse). Modern usage is limiting it to the science of language itself.

The best introduction to the science lies in a study of our own language, the English, rapidly becoming the American. What is true of word-building and word-journeying in English is largely true of every civilized speech; and we will find that the story of our own tongue brings it into contact with practically every language ever spoken. A recent standard English dictionary contained over 500,000 words—a good beginning for us, when the psychologists say that the vocabulary of the superior adult contains only 13,500 words.

How many words are possible? Far more than Einstein could count. By putting the 23 letters of an alphabet in every possible combination, we would have 25,852,016,738,884,976,640,000 words; with 24 letters we would get 620,448,401,733,239,439,360,000 words. Add to this that some languages, like Chinese, sing or drone their sounds, with varied accents for further varieties. Thus dai, in the Chinese speech of Annam, signifies 23 different things, depending upon the accent. The sentence

Ba ba ba ba

is said to mean, if properly pronounced, each syllable differently accented, “Three ladies gave a box on the ear to the favorite of the prince.” This would multiply the potentialities of speech beyond the numerical confines of this page.

Yet the hundreds of thousands, the millions, of existing words came from a far smaller number of original word-stems or roots. Max Muller lists 121 original Sanskrit roots, which lie at the base of all Indo-European languages. There was a Dr. Murray who imagined that he could derive our language from nine roots, AG, BAG, CWAG, DWAG, LAG, MAG, NAG, RAG, SWAG; an even more thorough-going Dr. Schmidt traced the whole Greek dictionary back to the root E, and the whole Latin dictionary back to the root HI. Let us do a little word-digging, and see where it lands us.

The English race may be regarded historically as a blend of Celtic or Briton, Teutonic (Anglo-Saxon), and French-Norman elements. The Celts once covered Europe from Asia Minor to Spain, Brittany in France, and Ireland; their place-names and a few other simple elements of language testify mutely today to their forgotten occupancy. The Teutonic conquerors who reached England, mainly Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, spoke a Teutonic speech. The Normans, or Northmen, were colonists from Scandinavia who founded Normandy in modern France, adopted the French tongue and French manners, and from their new home set forth and conquered England, Sicily, and several parts of Italy. The French tongue at this time was a corrupt provincial Latin. These three elements, Celtic, Teutonic, and French-Latin, are integral in our living English and American speech.

The historical fate of the early Britons dispossessed of their homes by the Anglo-Saxons is still obscure. Some undoubtedly joined their Celtic kinsmen in Ireland and Scotland; some blended in a servile condition with the new English race; a large number were annihilated with more or less rapidity. We find few words, beyond place names, definitely to be attributed to them. Among these are bin, brat, down (hill), mattock, crock. Later on the Welsh Celts contributed flannel, maggot, coracle. From the Gaels of Scotland came clan, mackintosh, ptarmigan, reel (dance), slogan, whiskey. From the Erse of Ireland were derived brogue, bog, galore, shamrock, spalpeen, Tory. This list is surprisingly small.

The earliest speech properly called English (from the tribe of Angles) was brought to the islands of Great Britain in the 5th century A. D. by Teutonic invaders from what is now northern Germany. This imported Englisc, later English, speech was a branch of the Western Germanic languages, which includes also High German, the literary language of modern Germany, as well as the Frisian, the Flemish language of Belgium, and the literary language of Holland. A degree more distant was the East Teutonic division which included the Gothic, and the North Teutonic, including Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Norwegian.

A few of the native English words have survived practically without change of form or meaning: among these are oft, and, in, word, full, from, for, to, God. At times there has been a slight change in sound or meaning, as in ofer, over; thaet, that; aer, ere; aefter, after. More often the change has been greater. Take the word wanton. This combines the old privative prefix wan, without, and an altered form of the past participle togan of the O. E. (Old English) verb teon, to train or rear. Thus wanton meant without training, and was applied first to children; its meaning today has a far wider application. These changes followed definite rules. The O. E. k sound, represented by the letter c, under certain conditions regularly became ch, as in choose, from ceosan; rich, from rice; much, from mycel. In the same way O. E. sc became regularly sh, as in should, from sceolde; shame, from sceamu; shadow, from sceadu. The vowels show changes as symmetrical: thus the long a sound in ath, tacn, aras, stan, lar, swa, mar, gast, becomes long o in oath, token, arose, stone, lore, so, more, ghost. Other vowels illustrate changes as regular.

The meaning in most cases showed a gradual alteration. Thus wadan, to advance, became wade, to advance in water; stingan, to pierce, became sting, when a bee pierces; spillan, to destroy, became spill, to waste liquid; craeft, force, became craft, cunning. The first two of these indicate how a word of general meaning is limited to a more specific meaning, as the language sharpens in its ability to convey ideas; spill shows a general tendency for words to become lighter and less impressive in meaning, as time corrupts their force; craft points to the historic fact that cunning succeeded force in the dealings of men. Mod, courage, weakens to mood, a state of feeling; wif, woman, is limited to wife, married woman; deor, beast, to deer, a particular wild beast; hamm, the back of the leg, is generally restricted to the leg of a beast used for food, especially of pork, although the old meaning is still slightly alive. Ceorl, freeman, was degraded to churl, a boorish fellow, by the conquering Normans. At times the Christian religion caused the alteration, as when it appropriated feond, enemy, and made fiend, devil; bletsian, to consecrate by blood (compare blood, bleed), has become bless. At times the general degradation of ideas caused the change. Thus cnafa, boy (compare German Knabe) grew to knave. Queer alterations have taken place, in such pairs of words as beam and tree. Beam, originally meaning tree (Ger. Baum, tree) means now a hewn product of the tree; treo, once applied to wood cut for use (compare single-tree, whiffle-tree, etc.) today in tree applies to the source of the wood. Bread and loaf have similarly exchanged their meanings: the old meaning of loaf appears disguised in lord (hlaford, bread-warden or guardian) and lady (hlaefdige, bread-kneader).

Thus of the original Old English, a few words persist with original form and meaning; more have altered one or both; and a large number have died, and are no longer in the living vocabulary. For words die as surely as men do. Among the corpses found only in archaic poetry and old prose are ween, to think; meed, reward; fain, gladly; rathe, early; lore, learning; bale, harm; dight, decked; don, put on (literally, do-on), and also doff, put off.

Literary English is, in reality, the East Midland dialect of the spread Wessex dialect of the Anglo-Saxon dialect of the Teutonic tongue, that split off from the Indo-European speech. It was not made the official speech by Act of Parliament or popular vote; languages do not grow that way. Skeat classifies forty-two dialects in the British Isles—nine in Scotland, three in Ireland, and thirty in England and Wales. If the political history or the geography of England had differed, we would today speak a tongue based on some other dialect. First, Old English became the basic speech in the 9th century, largely due to the literary activities of Alfred the Great, king of Wessex, in South England. The Wessex (lit., West Saxon) dialect at the time was only one of many; the political and literary prominence of Alfred made it selected as the speech of Anglo-Saxon England.

Then the Normans swept over the isle, and ended the reign of the English standard of speech. The English-speaking population became so reduced in social importance, that English was a forgotten speech in the ruling circles for almost 300 years; French and Latin became the accepted languages. Under Edwards I and III a national feeling grew up hostile to the continued use of French; and about 1400, at the time of Chaucer, English, as modified by French-Norman influence, became again the accepted speech, a position it has since held. This English again was only a dialect, the East Midland dialect, that of London, then merely one out of many dialects. If Alfred had come from the Scotch marches, if the island had been so skewed around geographically that the capital city had been on Tweed instead of Thames, we would speak a derivative of another set of dialects. Every language, living and dead, has grown so from some local dialect favored by circumstances geographical, political, or literary, or a combination of these.

More than this, a fact not as yet discovered by academic philology, climate plays a large shaping element in speech. The speech is determined, it might also be said, by isothermic lines. Study your map of the world for place-names, as samples of the spoken languages. The harsh Siberian and Russian Yakutsk, Kamchatka, Okhotsk, Tobolsk, Krasnoyarsk, Pustozersk, Petrozavodsk, Scandinavian Bukke Fjord, Tromso, Sundsvall, Laurvik, correspond to the explosive Eskimo gutturals, and to Umanak, Svartenhuk, Sukkertoppen, Tchaneta, Attumwapiskat, Winisk, Waskaiowaku, names modified by southerly settlers. The guttural Teutonic speech is similar to the American Massachusetts, Connecticut, Chingashcook, Androscoggin, Umbagog, Squam, Memphramagog, Mattawamkeag, Hopatcong, Keokuk, Saskatchewan, Iskut, Kamloops. The melting softness of Italian, southern French, Spanish finds its American parallel in Miami, Pensacola, Tuscaloosa, Tuscarora, Appalachicola, Alapha, Susquehanna, and the like. Equatorial speech is similar broadly the world around; the Southern hemisphere builds back from a lazy dwelling softness to a curtness and at last a staccato brusqueness, as we approach the southern pole. Civilized conquest of the world imports inept place-names everywhere: but the original speech was determined by the close-mouthed cold and the languid drawl of tropic warmth.

Thus English took her Teutonic speech from a local dialect. At first there was no general standard; but within a century, the spread of printed books, and the King James version of the Bible, made the form of the language comparatively rigid. If it were entirely rigid, it would be dead: never forget that living speech is a constantly growing thing.

The English language has been said to be French badly pronounced. There is some truth in the witticism; just as French, in turn, is mangled provincial Latin. Even before the Norman conquest, certain French words had crossed the channel, becoming among others purse, sot, castle, turn, trail, market, clerk, false. In the 12th Century, in the little written English coming down to us, these had been joined by such words as justice, war, peace, tower, treason, prison, court, crown, empress, chaplain, saint, grace, mercy, charity, faith. Notice how these words point to the part played by the Normans in English history, in military, court and religious circles. The middle of the 14th Century saw thousands of words borrowed. The legal terms especially were taken from the French: among these mortgage, forfeit, bail, jury, larceny, lease, perjury, assets, embezzle, seize, culprit, improve, attach, quit, matter of fact. General words, with the date of their first appearance from French sources in the Oxford dictionary, are havoc, 1585; plot, 1590; march, 1590; lobby, 1553; massacre, 1581; sentinel, 1579; attach, 1600; quatrain, 1585; gazette, 1605; dessert, 1600. Later additions are campaign, 1656; corps, 1711; memoir, 1673; group, 1686; profile, 1656; serenade, 1656; caprice, 1667; beau, 1687; brunette, 1713; cravat, 1656; pantaloons, 1661.

Some of these French words were from the Teutonic tribe of Franks: blank, blue, booty, butcher, button, choice, coat, crush, dance, freight. Some were from the French Celts: attach, attack, baggage, bar, basin, branch, brave, car, career, carpenter, carry. A large number were from the Latin through the French. Cavalry and chivalry come from the vulgar Latin caballus, a horse, rather than the classical Latin equus (whence equine, equestrian); cat, from Vulg. Lat. cattus, not classical felis (whence feline). We have words coming straight from the Latin, and from the Latin through the French, often with different meanings: this gave such pairs as monastery, minster; regal, royal; presbyter, priest; security, surety; fidelity, faith; gentile, gentle, genteel, jaunty; annoy, ennui; feast, fete; corpse, corps; capital, chief, chef. French is a lazy slurring tongue: it swallows and loses internal consonants, and adds often an initial vowel for euphony, or easier pronunciation. Thus capital, from the Latin, came through the French as chattel and cattle; study (Lat. studia) became etude; magistrate became master and mister; senior became sir; adjutant, aid; balsam, balm; collocate, couch; deacon, dean; deposit, depot; fragile, frail; juniper, gin; radius, ray; revindicate, revenge; separate, sever. The cause of this French slurring of pronunciation is largely geographic; compare American colloquial speech of immigrant Italians, police-a for police, give-a me da mon’, etc.

Not only did Latin come through the French; but the Renaissance, or revival of classical learning, of the Middle Ages, opened Latin and Greek to the language, and enriched our vocabulary with thousands of long-winded polysyllables—a process by no means ended yet. This borrowing, in non-classical cases as well, is true of all living European languages; but English is especially a blended tongue. Long before classical history began, the northern tribes had come into contact with Mediterranean civilization; had gained from it many products of art and industry; and had often taken at the same time the southern words to indicate these objects.

The evidence of archeology to show this southern interpenetration of the north is amply supported by what philology has discovered. Thus wine came from the South; the Lat. vinum survives in Eng. wine, Germ. wein, Danish, vin; the Lat. caupones, wine-dealers, gave a number of Teutonic words dealing with commerce, such as O. E. ceapian (from which Eng. cheap and chapman, merchant), and Ger. kaufen, to buy; Kaufmann, merchant. Mint, pound and inch came in at this period from Lat. moneta, pondere (to weigh), and uncia. Dish, scuttle, kettle, mortar were names of receptacles borrowed at this early period from the Latin; the same language also yielded cook, kitchen, mill, butter (Lat. butyrum), cheese (caseus), turnip (turn-napus), pea, cabbage, plum (pruna, Greek prounon, earlier proumnon, a plum tree; Eng. prune from same source), peach (persicum, Gr. persicon, from earlier malon persicon, the peach, literally, Persian apple. Similarly quince came from the phrase meaning Cydonian apple; the orange was Medic apple; the apricot Armenian apple. The Greeks in these cases named specific fruits by adding a place-name to the general word for apple, broadened to mean fruit. Compare French pomme de terre, apple of the earth, for potato.)

The Romans in Britain left their mark in such words as street (Lat. strata), port (porta), Win-chester, Wor-cester, Don-caster (castra, camp.) From early Roman Christianity came such words as abbot, apostle, bishop chalice, chapter, choir, creed, deacon, hymn, monk, pope, priest, saint, hymn; many of these in their turn derived by the Romans from the Greeks. School comes from Lat. scola, pointing to Roman control of education. A few typical words, showing their forms in modern and Old English, and in Latin, are:

Modern English	Old English	Latin
candle	candel	candela
chalk	cealc	calcem
cedar	ceder	cedrus
dragon	draca	draco
oil	ele	oleum
fever	fefer	febris
fork	forca	furca
giant	gigant	gigantem
gem	gimm	gemma
lobster	lopestra	locusta
mountain	munt	montem
poppy	popig	papaver
radish	raedic	radicem
sage	salfige	salvia

Many of these words re-entered English, long afterward, directly from the Latin; so that we have chalk and calcium; oil and Oleomargarine; fever, febrile; giant, gigantic; lobster, locust; sage, salvia, each pair with the same root. At times the Old English survived instead of the Latin: thus gospel comes from O. E. godspell, not Lat. evangelium; dawn from O. E. daegroed, not Lat. aurora. Of course, evangelical and aurora also entered the language, with slightly altered meanings.

In the century after the Norman conquest, words straight from the Latin, such as generation, persecution, sedition, tradition, made their appearance. These words, and the later additions, fraction, duration, position, which appear in Chaucer, may have been taken straight from the Latin, or come through Norman-French. The Renaissance brought in an immense number of words, among which (with year of first appearance in the Oxford dictionary) are abbreviate (1530); abduct (1834); abjure (1501); abnormal (1836); abolition (1529); absorb (1490); absurd (1557); abuse (1538), etc. Many such words failed to grow in the new speech: adminiculation, allect, annect, applicate, assentation, all used in 16th Century English, seem now pedantic monstrosities. Old English words fell by the wayside as surely: moond for lunatic, outpeopling for captivity, hunderer for centurion, frosent for apostle, biwordes for parables, crossed for crucified, freschman for proselyte, all appearing in Sir John Cheke’s translation of the New Testament, have died; although byword, crossed, and freshman took root with other meanings.

Law is full of Latin terms like alibi, subpoena, alias, proviso, and affidavit. Similarly came item, prospectus, impetus, deficit, terminus, referendum. The following table gives a list of the percentage of words from the Latin appearing in certain English writings:

Gibbon	30%
Samuel Johnson	28%
Tennyson	12%
Shakespeare	10%
King James Bible	6%

This refers to all the words used, not taking account of repetitions. If allowance is made for the frequent use of the simplest words, the Latin and other foreign elements swell larger. To sum the matter up another way, about one word out of every four in the complete Latin vocabulary found its way into English. Of course, one Latin word at times gave birth to scores of English words. Words are by no means monogamous; some are very Solomons.

Greek has paid its toll since the Renaissance. Many early Latin importations were derived by the Romans from the Greek speech—abbot, monk, priest, clerk, school, are of this type. The Greek gave directly such words as poetry, drama, comedy, tragedy, theater, scene, melodrama, episode, ode, theme, thesis, topic, climax, emphasis, phrase, paragraph, parenthesis, period, colon, idiom, dialogue, apology, comma, hyphen, etc. In the science of botany alone Greek contributed botany, protoplasm, stigma, petal, spore, parasite, etc.; in athletics, gymnastics, athlete, acrobat, trophy, stadium; in physiology and medicine, words almost countless. The nomenclature of science today is taken partly from Latin and largely from Greek sources.

It must never be forgotten that historically the Mediterranean peoples were overrun many times by the northern Teutonic barbarians, not only in the breakup of their rule, but long before classical history commenced. The classical conquest of the world was largely led by men in whose veins the blood of forgotten Teutonic conquerors flowed.

The Danish Conquest, which preceded the Norman victory, added all place-names in England ending in -by, -thorp, -throp, -beck, -dale, -thwaite, etc. It is not always easy to tell whether a word is Old English or of Scandinavian borrowing: the two speeches were often alike. One test lies in the fact that O. E. sk changed regularly to sh, and k before e and i altered to ch. Thus Teutonic words with these sounds unchanged, such as skill, skin, scare, sky, keg, kettle, kirk, are to be assigned to Scandinavian origin. The same roots appear from Old English in such words as shin and church. Couplets from the two sources are skirt, shirt; shriek, screech. Eggs, get, awe, give, husband, fellow, knife, wing, window, root, law, anger, gate, meek, low, odd, wrong, ill, ugly, rotten, die, cast, hit, take, call, want, scare, they, their, them, are a few Scandinavian contributions indicating the everyday character of the words.

The Dutch gave us many sea-faring terms, such as boom, cruise, sloop, yacht, ahoy, aloof, avast, belay, caboose, hoist, hold (of a ship), reef, rover, skipper, smack, strand. From them we also received deck, frolic, fumble, glib, hogshead, jeer, mop, rant, ravel, ruffle, snap, snuff, switch, toy, trick, uproar, wagon, furlough, cashier, forlorn, hope, plunder, spool, stripe, scour. The Dutch of South Africa have given trek, veldt, spoor; they brought in from the Arabic monsoon, from the Malayan bamboo and cockatoo. In the United States the Dutch settlement gave cold-slaw, boss, cookie, cruller, dope, hook, pit (of a cherry), sleigh, spook, stoop (porch), and waffle.

The High German has given less; but umlaut, kindergarten, meerschaum, poodle, waltz, carouse, cobalt, gneiss, quarts, shale, zinc, point to their influence.

Italy, with a Latin origin for its speech, has given attitude, fiasco, influenza, isolate, motto, stanza, umbrella, in the 16th century; and, later, macaroni, spaghetti, wop, finale, intermezzo, oboe, opera, piano, bust, fresco, cameo, colonnade, cornice, corridor, grotto, motto, studio, point to Italian influence in music, architecture, and elsewhere. Italian words coming to us through the French include alarm, alert, arcade, apartment, artisan, bulletin, cadence, caress, contrast.

The Spanish element entered first in the 16th century, in such words as armada, comrade, desperado, dispatch, negro, renegade. Later contributions include brocade, anchovy (from the early Basque speech), booby, capsize, caste, cigar, cork, embargo, mosquito, quadroon, sherry, tornado, vanilla. Spain’s conquest of the New World made them the agents for the entrance of cocoa, chocolate, tobacco, maize, hammock, barbacue, and potato, from various early American sources. Florida, alligator, dollar, sierra, Colorado, adobe, sombrero, canyon, lariat, corral, calaboose, lasso, ranch, locoed, broncho, cinch, bunco, are Spanish words coming to us through Spanish occupation of America.

Portuguese gave less; its contributions include cobra, palaver, madeira, port (wine), molasses, tank, fetish.

Russia, especially in its great prominence in the last few years, has made us familiar with vodka, duma, progrom, czar, mujik, bolsheviki, intelligentsia, soviet. In earlier times we had received from the Balto-Slavic group siskin, mammoth, mazurka, polka, howitzer, slave, ruble, samovar, crash (linen) and knout. The Hungarian language, quite outside the Indo-European group, gave vampire and coach.

The Semitic Hebrew, potent in the world’s religion, furnished amen, bedlam, cherub, jubilee, Satan, Jehovah, Messiah, rabbi, sabbath, maudlin; and also camel, cider, ebony, elephant, cinnamon, sapphire, sodomy, leviathan. The Semitic Arabic furnished even more. Through the Greek they gave elixir, talisman, alchemy, carat; more directly, albatross, alkili, attar, fakir, harem, mohair, sheik, sherbet, shrub, syrup, sofa; and in various roundabout ways naphtha, jasper, alcohol, zero, magazine, crimson, carmine, amber, cipher, cotton, garble, giraffe, gazelle, sumach, sash (girdle), talc, lime (fruit), mummy, zenith, admiral, sugar, assassin, lute, mate (in chess), mattress, saffron, sultan. Many doublets came from this source: the Arabic word for drink gave sherbet, shrub and syrup; Arabic sifr, cipher, through Span. and Fr. gave cipher; through Low Lat. and Ital., zero. Most of the astronomical names of the constellations are Latin: Pisces, Ursus Major, Taurus, Lyra, Libra, Virgo, etc.; but the Arabic names of individual stars, such as Rigel, Betelguese, Altair, Algol, Aldebaran, are generally used.

From the Persian, by routes largely indirect, have come azure, pajamas, toddy, magic, caravan, tiger, rice, scimitar, taffeta, julep, rook (in chess), check, checkers, chess, lemon, lilac, jasmine, spinach, tulip and scarlet. Scarlet has had a unique journey, indicating what irresponsible vagrants words may be. It is found in Eng., Dan., Germ., Swed., Icel., Hung., Old Bulg., Serv., all from the late Gr. skarlaton; this Gr. term came from the Turkish iskerat; the Turkish word from the Arabic saqarlat, a variant of saqallat, from the Persian saqalat, meaning scarlet cloth. We are not through yet: the Persian word comes from Lat. sigillatus, figured or painted, especially as applied to cloth. This was from Lat. signum, a mark or sign, whose root meaning is uncertain. To show how many words may be born of one word-stem, we have from this root, among many others, sign, signature, signal, signet, signify, assign, consign, design, countersign, ensign, resign, insignia, sigil, sigillate, seal, scarlet—the dictionary contains 49 words from this stem beginning with sig- alone. Thus far has the Persian step-word scarlet taken us.

From the Turkish, a race dependent upon others for culture, there are few words, including horde, turkey, turquoise, uhlan. India, the original home of the Indo-European speech to which Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic belong, is responsible for many words. Early words representing Oriental contributions to European civilization are pepper, camphor, indigo, china (ware), orange, candy, calico, chintz, sandal, jungle, loot, punch (beverage). Later borrowings are: juggernaut, pundit, rajah, sepoy, bandanna, thug, bungalow, shampoo, pariah, cot (bed), polo.

Relatively few words have come from China and Japan. Silk may be of Chinese origin; typhoon, tea, serge, mandarin, certainly are. From Japan emanate kimono, soy (bean), and few others. The South Seas have furnished more, including bamboo, cheroot, teak, caddy, gong, guttapercha, junk, orang-outang, gingham, bantam, taboo, tattoo, atoll, ukelele. Uncivilized Africa’s different races have given canary, chimpanzee, voodoo, hoodoo, tango, guinea, gorilla, yam, zebra. Australia is to be credited with boomerang and kangaroo.

The native speech of the pre-European Americans has given the words listed under the Spanish influence, and also mahogany, canoe, guava, cannibal, hurricane, guano, tapioca, buccaneer, pampas, alpaca, condor, tapir, banana, jaguar, coyote, also through the Spaniards. North American Indians have added to this a large number of place-names, and also caucus, pow-wow, hickory, hominy, moccasin, moose, opossum, raccoon, skunk, squaw, toboggan, wigwam, tomahawk. The Philippines gave the useful word hike. The expressive husky is said to be a corruption of Eskimo, first applied as a name for a dog.

With this we close the rapid survey of contributions to our language from every race of men. Each other language has grown by similar accretions; and the process is a continuing one. The world war added many words to the vocabulary; the uneasy peace now following is furnishing at least its daily dozen.

CHAPTER II THE FORMATION OF WORDS — The Blending of the Elements. — Word Creation. — Folk-Etymology. — Some Figures of Syntax. — Figures of Nearness.

The haphazard and nondescript way in which all modern civilized languages grow produces some curious philological phenomena. We have spoken of many of the doublets, especially the French-Latin ones, the Old English-Scandinavian ones, and two Persian examples. Again, from the Persian word for turban, dulband, have come both turban and tulip, the flower named for its shape. Deck and thatch are the same Teutonic root coming through O. E. and Dutch respectively. The Persian shah, ruler, has come recently in this form, and in earlier days in the verb check. The Greek pandoura, through Italian and French, gives mandolin; through Italian, with Negro modifications, banjo.

Fighting against this tendency is a simplification, by which different foreign words assume the same form in English. Thus five distinct Latin words have entered English with the one form bay, and mean (1) the color of a horse (Lat. badius); (2) a kind of laurel (Lat. baca, a berry); (3) an inlet of the sea (Lat. baia); (4) a form of window (Lat. badere); (5) a bark of a dog (Lat. baubari). Gin, a drink, is from Lat. juniperus, whence also juniper; in cotton gin, it is from Lat. ingenium. The differing meanings of curry, yet, hue, lay, dam, main, swallow, and many others, come from different word-roots.

Words from classical sources are selected for various reasons. Some are to render scientific nomenclature more specific; some, to soften tabooed subjects (compare viscera, guts; perspire, sweat; abdomen, belly). Others survive through the surge and thunder of their word-music: the lines

The multitudinous seas incarnadine,

Making the green one red

indicate the superiority in mere verbal tone of the classic over the native idiom. There is less excuse for the attempt to substitute classical vertigo for dizziness, coryza for cold, or urticaria for hives. This appears at its worst in the Bostonian reply, to “Have you eaten enough?” “Gastronomic satiety admonishes me that I have arrived at a state of deglutition consistent with dietetic satiety.” In American, this would be, “I have eaten enough.”

The place of native words in the language is a secure one. One-fourth of the whole task of expression in English is shouldered by nine native words:

and
be
have
it
of
the
to
will
you

These nine with thirty-four other native words form half of the words actually used in English speech:

about
all
as
at
but
can
come
day
dear
for
get
go
hear
her
if
in
me
much
not
on
one
say
she
so
that
these
they
this
though
time
we
with
write
your

Furthermore, in pairs of synonyms, one native, one classical in origin, the greater directness in the native words is striking. Compare fire, conflagration; bloody, sanguinary; stiff, rigid; fat, corpulent; sweat, perspire. On one occasion Samuel Johnson, the great Latinist, lapsed into native English: “It has not wit enough to keep it sweet.” After a moment’s reflection, he weakened this with the classical gloss, “It has not vitality enough to preserve it from putrefaction.” There are imported words, however, which enter into the very warp and woof of the language: for instance, easy, large, sure, bet, boot, quiet, brace, peace, city, soldier, hour, move, turn, table, place, very, save, single, clear, plain. In some cases the foreign word has supplanted the native in general use; compare beautiful, fair; prosperity, speed; valley, dale; divide, cleave; forest, wold; fort, fastness; tremble, quake; joyous, blithe; mercury, quicksilver; mirror, looking-glass.

A class at Columbia was recently asked to select the 50 words of most basic importance in the expression of human life. From two lists prepared 78 words were finally selected; of these, 39 were French, and 35 Anglo-Saxon. A public-speaking club selected the 21 most beautiful words in English: of these 3 were Anglo-Saxon, 1 Scandinavian, 3 Latin, and 14 French.

Many modern words are blended of two or more languages. Classic prefixes are suffixes with native roots are found in co-worker, pro-German, re-birth, ante-room, superman, breakage, laughable, righteous, wreckage. Native prefixes and suffixes are blended with classic roots to form unruly, besiege, bashful, misplace, outcry, overcharge, outline, by-product, finest, forceful, napkin, beautiful, painting, statecraft, uncivil, overturn, understudy, relentless. Hybrids formed of native and classic roots are found in window-pane, table-cloth, faint-hearted, simple-minded, Saturday, birthplace, candlestick, staircase, grandstand, cocktail, fireplace, outrage.

One remarkable word has recently been unearthed, a hybrid made of elements from five different languages. The word is remacadamizing, which may be analyzed into re (Latin), mac (Celtic), adam (Hebrew), ize (Greek) and ing (native English.) It is a good vigorous word too, despite its mottled ancestry.

One of the forms of words known to all languages staggers under the Greek term onomatopoetic, recently rechristened echoic—a word expressing a sound in Nature. The hiss of steam, the clang of a bell, the crash of falling timbers,—these words are echoic. Words like papa, mama, baby, probably of this type, are found in practically all languages. Bomb, murmur, cuckoo, go back through French to Latin, and to an antiquity hard to determine. Among echoic words originating independently in English are: buzz, fizz, purr, quack, hiss, boom, gibber, jabber, giggle, titter, whirr, ding-dong, hee-haw, hoot, chatter. The theory that this is responsible for all words has long been abandoned; yet there is a uniform overtone in a group of words like bosh, slosh, squash, plush, hush, mush, flush, blush; a related quality in crash, splash, smash, hash, trash, clash, dash, rash. Certain verbal sounds get associated with certain emotions; and out of the casual word creations, commencing as slang, come such words as the following list of recent additions to the first volume of the Oxford dictionary, all from the b’s: bamboozle, bang, bilk, blab, blabber, blare, blear, blight, blob, blizzard, blot, blotch, blubber, bluff, blunder, blunt, blur, blurt, bluster, bogus, boom, bore, bosh, bother, brash, brunt, bub, bump, bum, bunch, bungle, burr, bustle, buzz. Nonsense verse contributes here; but artificial word additions, such as Gelett Burgess’ fuddy for untidy, bimped for jilted, snosh for vain talk, cofle for “to try to find out a person’s name without asking,” may have a harder time horning into the language. The verb to horn in, a fine figurative phrase from the cattle country, is still ranked as slang; but it is beginning to receive academic approval.

Sometimes such word-formations are meant humorously, sometimes seriously. Thus from chimpanzee came humanzee, to describe one especial animal. Travelogue, from travel and dialogue, has more serious intention. Light recent creations are swellegant, yellocution, versiflage, alcoholiday, flumonia. The origin of these is obvious; but many accepted words in the language have roots as yet undiscovered, and may have come similarly. Dog came in before the Conquest, without known ancestry; the Teutonic name appears in hound, while the Latin canis furnishes canine. Girl, boy, lad, lass, big, bad, pig, cut, entered before Chaucer; bet, jump, dodge, before 1600; pun, in the 17th century; fun, bore, slang, fudge, in the 18th; rollicking, loaf (verb) in the 19th; the modern stunt and hooch are similar.

Another source of increase to the speech is the doublets, already mentioned. Other examples are of, off; through, thorough; porridge, pottage; shade, shed, shadow; strap, strop; courtesy, curtsey; fantasy, fancy; corpse, corps; posy, poesy.

The most prolific source has been the combination of two or more elements into one word. Almost back to the forgotten beginnings of our speech go such words as barn (O. E. bere-aern, barley-place); lord (hlaf-weard, bread-keeper); gossip (god-sibbe, good kinsman); hussy (house-wife); gospel (god-spell, good narrative); world (wer-eld, man age); sheriff (scir-gerefa, shire reeve); daisy (daeges-eage, day’s eye). The Elizabethan age was rich in compounds, such as freshman, huntsman, bookseller, keyhole, bookworm, potluck, and horseplay. Shakespeare offered honey-heave, pity-pleading, wind-changing, carry-tale, and others, which have not found permanent lodgings in the language. Others which have endured are rawboned, crestfallen, untutored, high-born, red-hot, blood-stained, mouth-filling, heart-ache, hairbreadth, break neck, even-handed, moss-grown. Among those which did not survive are hotspur, aleknight, maltworm, hangby, crackhemp, findfault (but compare fault-finder), makepiece, tearsheet, ticklebrain, tosspot, wantwit. A great stock of terms of contempt have survived, such as killjoy, scarecrow, pickpocket, daredevil, spitfire, hangdog, lickspittle, makeshift, skinflint, slipshod, turncoat, telltale. Modern equivalents are speak-easy, bootlegger, and juvenile tattletale and copycat. Smut-hound, dope-fiend, and other modern mixtures have not yet acquired lasting dignity.

The English settlers in America used this method in naming many natural objects: compare bullfrog, canvas-back, lightning-bug, mud-hen, cat-bird, razor-back, garter-snake, groundhog, live-oak, turkey-gobbler, pokeweed, copperhead, eelgrass, reedbird, eggplant, peanut, bluegrass, Junebug. Recent American blends include pussyfoot, skyscraper, bell-hop, hayseed, shin-plaster, bucket-shop, lounge-lizard, rum-hound, and many other -lizard and -hound blends.

Prefixes and suffixes are taken from all speeches. Native prefixes include mis-, un-, after-, be-, for-, man-; suffixes, -ness, -less, -ly, -ish, -er, -y, -head, -hood. With these may be used the Latin pro-, post-, inter-, ante-, pre-, co-, sub-, super-, -ation, -ative; French dis-, en-, -age, -al, -ment, -able, -ous, -ose, -ese, -gy, -ate, -ard, -esque, -ade, many of these borrowed by the French; Greek a- (without), hyper-, nec-, pseudo-, arche-, -ize, -ist, -ism, -ite, -itis; Scandinavian -ling, and others listed; Flemish -kin. Hundreds of compounds made from these have failed to survive; this is especially true of those made with native prefixes and suffixes. Wanton is the only word preserving the prefix wan-, once common in such combinations as wanthrift, extravagance; wanhap, misfortune; wanlust, languor; wanwit, folly; wantrust, lack of confidence; wantruth, falsehood; wanchance, ill-luck. Blameful, crimeful, dareful, deathful, ruthful, all from Shakespeare, are only a few of the -ful compounds that have died; aidless, bragless, heirless, effectless, also from Shakespeare, are four out of many more that have gone. Gainsay alone lives out of gainscope, gainstand, gainstrive, etc.; laughing-stock is the one relict of gazing-stock, jesting-stock, mocking-stock, etc. Five only of the -worthy adjectives (blameworthy, etc.) remain. Most of the -th nouns are gone: while keeping warmth, health, growth, wealth, and height (often pronounced heighth still) we have surrendered lowth, greenth, coolth, illth, spilth, etc. More of the classic prefixes and suffixes have taken root; there are five hundred words listed in the Oxford dictionary beginning with the Greek anti-. Only two tele- words were in Samuel Johnson’s dictionary; there are 130 in the present Oxford one. The Century Dictionary supplement contains 168 words beginning with auto-. The process is a living one: thus book-fiend, dope-fiend, chess-fiend, bomb-proof, fool-proof, near-beer, near-great, near-champion, are all recent inventions.

The shortening process gave, long ago, such words as van (from vanguard), van (caravan), patter (pater noster), canter (Canterbury gallop), wig (periwig), cheat (escheat), wag (waghalter), spend (dispend), rum (rumbullion), cab (cabriolet), still (distillery); the dandified speech of Queen Anne’s day gave mob (mobile vulgus), blues (blue devils), etc. From other sources came recently chum (chamber fellow), photo (photograph), cycle and bike (bicycle), gas (gasoline), pants (pantaloons), and countless others.

The World War saw folk etymology at work among us, in fascinating ways. Thus Mouquet Farm was promptly re-christened Moo Cow Farm. The conversion of the warship Bellerophon into Bully Ruffian has long afforded amusement; similar naval perversions are Ariadne into Harry Annie, Hecate into He Cat. Mistaken folk analogies are responsible for the conversion of the singular pease (compare peascod) into a pea, and for edit, rove, hawk (verb), beg, asset, vamp, burgle, launder (verb), jell, henpeck, and sunburn (both verbs).

Often it is an attempt to convert unfamiliar words into familiar, by altering the original spelling. Thus Milton’s sovran, by the influence of reign, became sovereign; cold-slaw came, not from cold, but from Dutch kool, cabbage. Blunderbuss, also of Dutch origin, came from donderbuss; isinglass, influenced by English glass, goes back to Dutch huysenblas, sturgeon-bladder. Country-dance was once contre-dance (from contre, opposite). Pick-ax came, not from ax, but from Fr. piquois. Barberry began as Lat. berberis, not kin to berry; gilly-flower from Fr. girofle, ultimately to Gr. karuophullon, nutleaf. Three words have been pulled toward the flower rose: primrose (Fr. primerole, Lat. primula de ver, first flower of spring); tuberose (Lat. tuberosa, tuberous); rosemary, (Lat. ros marinus, sea-dew). Similarly mushroom has nothing to do with room, but comes from O. Fr. mouscheron, from mousse, moss.

Animal names show the same trait. Mongoose is from native mangus, not kin to goose; muskrat is from Algonquin muskwessu. Titmouse has no more relation to mouse, but its second syllable derives from M. E. mose, O. E. mase, a name for several kinds of birds. Cray-fish and crawfish came into English as crevice from the same word in O. Fr.; the first syllable is kin to crab, the second has no original connection with fish. Often popular misreading adds an unnecessary second element to the word. The O. E. bran and Norse hreinn, reindeer, by analogy to the rein of a harness became reindeer, or literally deer-deer. The grey in greyhound is the name for a dog; by analogy to the color, we have the present form, which is literally dog-dog. Cot, from Hindustani knat, bedstead, is joined often into cot-bed, literally bed-bed. Cellar in saltcellar meant salt-receptacle (Lat. salarius, salt-receptacle; the modern word is literally salt-salt-receptacle). Turtle, in turtle-dove, meant dove; our compound is literally dove-dove. O. E. samblind, half-blind (from Lat. semi-, half) gave rise to sand-blind, and in Shakespeare to the facetious stoneblind and high-gravel-blind. Corporal gets its spelling from a popular error; properly from Lat. caporalis, from caput, head, it was connected with corps, from Lat. corpus, and so grew to its present form.

At times it has been the mistaken zeal of scholars that has led the word astray. Thus island (M. E. iland, water-land) was spelled island in the attempt to connect it with isle, from Lat. insula, island; rhyme (E. rime) was spelled to connect it with rhythm. The ending -gue, proper in French terms like vague, vogue, catalogue, was applied erroneously to tongue and rogue (M. E. tonge and 16th Cent. roge); although it has not survived in dogue and kingue. The initial wh- in who and whom is responsible for whole (O. E. hal) and whore (M. E. hore). Thus donkey is modelled from the color dun after monkey, parsnip after turnip, etc.

At times modern word usage comes from the effect of some highly imaginative process, poetic in its origin. Thus the meaning of a word is often shifted subtly. The Lat. horridus means rough, bristly, shaggy; hispidus was almost a synonym. The English horrid and hideous have shifted to mean that which has the psychological effect of making a person rough and bristly, causing what is called goose-flesh, or making the hair stand on end. Superb, from Lat. superbus, proud (compare Tarquinius Superbus) means that worthy of pride. The adjectives in sweet expression and grim determination have shifted from the active subject to the effect on the passive object. A deep thinker, a solid reasoner, a fluent speaker have brought the result of the activity back as a modifier of the activity; meaning literally one who thinks deep things, one who reasons solid things, one who speaks flowing speech.

Man thought first in concrete things: when it became necessary to coin words for vaguer abstractions, he used some familiar concrete term. Thus most words expressing divisions of time have roots expressing physical facts at the bottom: minute (Lat. minutus, small); second (Med. Lat. secunda minuta, second minute, or a smaller subdivision); week (underlying meaning probably change); month (moon); year (underlying meaning probably spring); season (Lat. satio, sowing); period (Gr. periodos, a circle). The same thing is true of psychical terms in general. Intellect is from Lat. inter-legere, to choose between; perceive and comprehend mean literally to seize, to grasp. The process is more obvious in using mental grasp and the slang to catch on. Ruminate refers to the cud-chewing of cows; brood, to meditate, goes back to sit on eggs; cogitate means originally to mix together; ponder, Lat. pondere, to weight; deliberate (Lat. libra, scales); reflect (Lat. reflectere, to bend back); calculate (Lat. calculus, pebble, from calx, lime); investigate (Lat. vestigium, foot-print) illustrate this further.

Moral conceptions illustrate the same process. Right and wrong meant in their origins straight and crooked (compare right angle, right away, and the verb wring, to twist). The colloquial straight and crooked hark back to the earlier idea, with new moral application. The fundamental meaning of good is suitable; that of evil, excessive. Moral and ethical both go back to words meaning custom, or manners. True, in its original meaning, is related to the oak tree. Integrity means untouched (Lat. in, not, and tangere, to touch). Holy comes from O. E. halig, from hal, whole. Wicked was M. E. wikke, feeble, connected with weak. Virtue, from Lat. vir, man, meant manly physical strength. Character is from the similar Greek word meaning a tool for stamping or marking.

As physical facts alter, words are put to queer uses. Thus a university course ends with a commencement; a steamer sails; an airplane lands on the sea; a ship is manned with women. We have weekly journals (literally, weekly dailies, from Lat. diurnalis, daily). Black-berries are red when they are green. A manuscript (literally, hand-written) may be typewritten. Words come to the place where they mean the same as their negatives: as passive and impassive, ravel and unravel, valuable and invaluable.

Language, Emerson said, is fossil poetry. Words, says Santayana, are the tombs of ideas. These mental pictures, traced back to their origins, may be of astonishing vividness. Seminary meant originally seed-plot; stimulate is literally to goad on—though even goad has now lost its physical vigor. Sop, used now of a drunkard, meant in O. E. bread, then used for dipping into liquids. Cloak meant originally bell (Late Lat. cloca, bell, and huntsman’s cloak through similarity of shape). Daisy meant literally eye of day; aster, a star (Gr. aster, star; whence astronomy). Tansy comes from Gr. athanasia, deathlessness, immortality, a thought once applied to the plant; pansy derives from Fr. pensee, thought or remembrance. Geranium meant originally crane’s bill, from the shape of the seed; tulip goes back to the Persian word seen more clearly in turban, shape again determining the application to the flower. Sentimental associations in English appear clearly in lady-slipper, bleeding-heart, maiden-hair, heartsease. Some of these derivations are humorous in intent; as an artist’s easel (Ger. Esel, a donkey, because the easel bears burdens); cab from cabriolet, a little she-goat.

Many words grow from other words connected, closely or loosely, with the idea they represent. Thus, by a process of de-personization, we speak of a hunter as a nimrod, a teacher as a mentor, a wise man as a Nestor, a legislator as a solon, after definite individuals. Tongue acquires the wider meaning of language, as in “the English tongue.” Language itself is from Lat. lingua, tongue. Copper and nickel stand for small coins of those metals; bloodshed for destruction of life; reds, anarchists; the bench, the judges; the pulpit, the clergy; cockcrow, dawn. We say the kettle boils when we mean the water boils; we use youth for young people, salt and deep for ocean, and an author’s name for his works, as “I read Shakespeare.”

At times the shift is more disguised. Thus front is a long way from Lat. frons, the forehead. Book comes from O. E. boc, the beech-tree, the name of the material out of which books were first made. Similarly code is from Lat. codex, earlier caudex, tree-trunk; Bible from Gr. biblion, diminutive of biblos, inner bark of the papyrus; library from Lat. liber, book, originally bark of the tree. In a different way volume comes from Lat. volumen, roll, the form in which Roman records were kept. In the case of deer, the class name O. E. deor, wild beast, has come to apply to a special kind of beasts. The same is true of hound, originally the word for all dogs. In the case of rabbit, bird, and pig the word originally meaning the young of a species stands today for the whole species. This is being repeated today in the word chicken. There is no limit to the eccentricity of word creation.

CHAPTER III THE BEHAVIOR OF WORDS — The Words for Colors. — Generalization and Specialization. — Euphemism and Hyperbole. — Degeneration and Elevation.

Any subdivision of the vocabulary could with profit be set aside for particular study. Let us concentrate on the names for the colors, and learn from them what they have to teach of the development of man and his speech. The chief Sanskrit name for the abstract idea color is varna, derived from var, to cover. Color, therefore, was conceived originally as the result of the act of covering or smearing or painting. Our word, from the Lat. color, is connected with oc-cultare, to hide; also with Gr. chroma, color, from Gr. chros, skin. Another Sanskrit root for painting is ang, from which comes Lat. unguere, to besmear, to anoint, and Sanskrit ak-tu, ointment, dark tinge, night, and likewise light tinge or ray of light, from which Gr. aktis. Here we have the first indication that the original conception of colors did not distinguish clearly between them.

As Bucke’s “Cosmic Consciousness” indicates, the primitive Aryans, perhaps 15,000 years ago, perceived or were conscious of only one color. Primitive man of this time saw no difference of tint between blue sky, green leaves, brown or gray earth, and the golden or purple clouds of sunrise and sunset. Pictet finds no color word whatever in primitive Indo-European speech; Max Muller finds no Sanskrit root with reference to any definite color. At a later period, but before the oldest literary compositions that have come down to us, the color sense developed into an appreciation of two colors, black and red. The most ancient games, such as chess and checkers, have black and red pieces. About the time that the Rig Veda was composed, yellow was perceived as a separate third color. Later came white, and then green. But throughout the Rig Veda, the Zend Avesta, and the Bible the color of the sky is not once mentioned, and was not recognized. The 10,000 lines of the Rig-Veda are largely concerned with a description of the sky; the Bible mentions the sky and heaven more than 430 times; neither mentions the color of the sky. The 48 long books of the Odyssey and Iliad make no reference to it, despite the crystal clarity of blue Mediterranean skies. 4,000, perhaps 3,000 years ago, blue was unrecognized; the subsequent names for blue were all merged in the names for black. Xenophanes knew of only three colors of the rainbow—purple, red, and yellow; Aristotle spoke of the tri-colored rainbow; Democritus knew only four colors, black, red, white, and yellow.

Let us trace down the words for color, and find how these abstract conceptions were first phrased. Starting with the word black, we trace it through M. E. bleke, A. S. blaec (confused with a related word meaning shining, white, etc., whence bleak), O. H. G. blah, black; Icel. blakkr, dark, dusky; Sw. black, grayish; Dan. blak, dark; and so on back to a verb appearing in Dan. blaken, burn, scorch; M. L. G. blaken, burn with much smoke; L. G. verblekken, scorch, as the sun scorches grain. This in turn is akin to Lat. flagrare, Gr. phlegein, to burn; flagrant, flame, phlegm, anti-phlogiston are from this root. From the bleak form of the ancestry, going back to Sanskrit bhraj, as did the black meaning, akin to Gr. phlegein, burn, Lat. fulgere, shine, we get the Eng. blank, blink, blanch, bleach, bright. The Lat. niger, black, whence negro, etc., is remotely kin to the Sanskrit nic, night. Thus the original meaning of the root of black is primarily to burn, to scorch—a physical fact.

Red, the second color to be distinguished, goes back through Teutonic equivalents to A. S. reodan, make red, kill; akin to Lat. ruber (for ruthr-), Gr. eruthros, red; Lat. rufus, red; rubidus, dark red (whence ruby), russus and rutilus, reddish. The Ir. Gael, has ruadh, Welsh rhudd, red; Bulg., Bohem., Russ., and other languages use similar terms. Sanskrit has rudhira, red, blood. Thus blood was the original meaning. In M. Eng., it was pronounced like reed; thus the proper names Read, Reade, Reed, Reid, as well as Redd, are forms of it; although at times these names came from other stems. The synonym scarlet has already been traced through Turkish and Persian sources to Lat. sigillatus, from signum, a mark. Vermilion, vermeil, come from Lat. vermiculus, a little worm, used for the cochineal-insect which gave crimson and carmine. These two words in turn both come from kermes, the cochineal-insect, Sanskrit krimija, produced by an insect, from krimi, worm. Our worm is from the same source. Carnation is from the Lat. root meaning flesh, more originally a part, something divided (as food). Gules is akin to gullet; lake from Sanskrit laksha, the lac-insect. Lobster-red is from the Lat. locusta, shell-insect. Maroon meant a chestnut—chestnut-colored; pink, M. E. pinken, to prick, was a nasalized form of pick; the color use came from the flower, named for its jagged edges. Peach we have traced back to “Persian apple”; rose comes from an ancient root meaning the flower, whence the color name. Flush came from flash, akin to Scandinavian words meaning blaze or passion; florid meant flowery; blush, another Scandinavian word meaning blaze, torch, etc. Thus red and its synonyms have the physical origins of (1) blood, (2) a mark, (3) a little worm, (4) flesh or a part, (5) gullet or throat, (6) an insect, (7) a shell insect, (8) the chestnut, (9) to prick, (10) Persian apple, (11) the rose, (12) blaze, (13) flowery, (14) torch. From the stem (3) alone we get vermilion, vermeil, crimson, carmine, worm, vermin, and many others. When man wanted a name for the abstract color akin to blood, the cochineal insect, etc., he used the words already applied to these things.

Yellow, the third color, from M. E. yelow, yelwe, zelwe, yolwe, zelu, etc., A. S. geolu, goes back to Lat. helvus, light yellow; akin to Gr. chloa, verdure, chloros, yellowish-green; Lithuanian zalias, green; Sanskrit hari, yellow. It traces back thus to the light green of verdure. Gold received its name from the same stem. Ochre meant originally pale; aureate, golden, came from the Sanskrit ushas, dawn from ush, burn. Other words from this Sanskrit root are Auster, the South wind; helios, the sun; East. It thus meant “the burning thing.” Saffron, a product of dried crocus, was named for its color. Fallow meant pallid; flavous is part of the flame, flagrant stem meaning burning, as is fulvid. Lurid comes from the same stem as yellow; topaz was named for its brightness, from Sanskrit tapas, heat. Thus the words meaning yellow split off from the light green of growing things, or from the stems meaning to burn.

White, the fourth color, M. E. hwit, D. wit, Icel. hvitr, traces back to Sanskrit cveta, white, from cvit, be white, or shine. From the same stem comes wheat, whittle, etc. The bleak stem we have already traced, in its kinship through Gr. phlegein to the word meaning black. Blanch, to make white, comes from the same stem, as does bleach; argent meant originally silvery; blond, originally yellow, has a lost origin.

Green, the fifth color, is comparatively simple in origin. To give its full kinships, we have M. E. grene, A. S. grene, O. North, groene, groeni, O. S. groni, O. Fries., grene, Dan. groen, M. L. G. grone, L. G. gron, O. H. G. gruoni, M. H. G. gruene, Ger. grun, Icel. graenn, Sw. Dan. gron; from the A. S. growan, to grow, with the formative -ni. To the same root belong grow, grass, perhaps, gorse.

Blue goes back through the Teutonic speeches to M. Lat. blavus, blavius, Dan. blaa, blue, livid; perhaps from Lat. flavvus, yellow—color names being inevitably variable in their early application. Indigo gets its name by a simple transference from the East Indian plant, and meant literally Indian.

Of the other colors, brown goes back to Gr. phruros, brown, from phruros, a toad; compare Lat. rubeta, a toad, ruber, reddish. It is Sanskrit bhru, reddish-brown, plus the formative -ni. Gray is a Teutonic word meaning gray; its origin is obscure, and is not connected with gray (with age) from greis, an old man, whence grizzle, nor from the Gr. graios, old. Orange, formed to resemble Lat. aurum. gold, had originally an initial n-, and came from Persian naranj, an orange; compare Pers. nar, a pomegranate. Purple is from Lat. purpura, the purple fish; Gr. porphura, same; apparently originally from Gr. phurein, to mix or mingle. Violet is named from the flower, coming as a diminutive from the Latin; puce, from the Fr. word meaning a flea; plum (as also prune) from the Greek word meaning a plum; lilac, properly the indigo plant originally, came with alternation of initial consonant, from the Sanskrit nila, dark blue, indigo. Lavender was that used in washing; compare lave, lavatory. Amethyst, Gr. amethustos, from a combination meaning a remedy for drunkenness. Our mead, strong drink, comes from the same Gr. stem methu, strong drink.

This, then, is a brief survey of the way our names for colors came into the language. Comparative philology is able to ascertain with some accuracy the order and the comparative periods at which colors were first distinguished by man; and the results of this study are paralleled, as Bucke points out, in a physical study of the nature of color waves, and by a psychological study of color, color-blindness, and the rare occurrence of color in dreams, when measured against a similar study of human ability to recognize and differentiate other sensory impressions. This has, too, a practical value. It is an interesting fact that an untinted photograph to most people resembles the original more than a tinted one. When we look at an uncolored picture, or an uncolored moving picture, we are looking through the eyes of our ancestors of some fifteen thousand years ago; the process is accordingly restful. If certain colors are added, say the red for fire scenes in the movies, this too is restful; for red was the first color split off from the uniform gray-blackness of the original. In most dreams we are entirely unaware of color, and yet find the dream-world entirely natural. The practical lesson may be applied, among other things, to the proposition for colored movies. It is quite possible that these will never be as restful or satisfying as the uncolored ones.

Language grows in an unbelievably haphazard manner. First, of course, came specific names; much later from these were chosen terms to describe collective and then abstract things. Many languages today show a queer absence of collective and abstract terms, such as we regard as indispensable. The aboriginal Tasmanians, as Jespersen points out, had no terms whatever for abstract things. They had names for each species of gum-tree, wattle-tree, etc., but no class name for tree. They had no names for general conceptions, such as hard, soft, warm, cold, long, short, etc. The Society Islanders, in like manner, can talk of a dog’s tail, sheep’s tail, etc., but have no general name for tail.

To the contrary, modern cultured languages pass through a period where they glory in a great number of general terms of slightly different meaning, many of which later on die a natural death. Thus the English language speaks of a flock of birds or sheep, a drove of cattle or swine, a herd of cattle, a bevy of quail, a covey of partridges, a swarm of bees, a school of fish, and (in slang) a bunch of men. A similar lack of proper generalization appears in cow-byre, horse-stable, dog-kennel, pig-sty, dove-cote, falcon-mews, rabbit-hutch. The wealth of terms such as horse, mare, filly, stallion, foal, colt; cow, calf, heifer, bull, steer, ox; calf, colt, lamb, puppy, fawn, kid, cub, shoat, farrow, cygnet, duckling, parr, smolt, for offspring, and cow, mare, ewe, doe, bitch, heifer, sow, hen, goose, duck, for females points to the time when animals, for breeding and hunting, had much greater importance in man’s eyes than today. We have rooster, cock, cockerel, chantecleer, hen, pullet, chicken, chick, but no class name for the family; we have no class name for the group led by Mr. Bull and Mrs. Cow. Sea-life has given rise to a large number of unrelated words descriptive of boats, such as ship, boat, brig, sloop, schooner, wherry, shallop, dinghy, punt.

Scene was originally a Greek theatrical term meaning tent; it grew into booth (on a stage), stage, and at last into the more universal meaning today. Person was originally from Lat. persona, an actor in a play, named from his mask with large mouth for the sound to pass through, from per-sonare, to sound through. The impersonal thing traces back to a Teutonic stem meaning assembly or council. Many of our simplest word-elements have been generalized a long way from their original meaning. The earliest prepositions cannot be traced with certainty; but, among later ones, around gets its second element through Fr. from Lat. rotundus, derived from rota, wheel, whence rotate; while among goes back to O. E. ongemang, in the crowd; the second element being derived from the verb gemengan, to mingle.

The most obvious way to specialize the meaning of a word is to add a qualifying word. For example, by the addition of Indian to the word corn, which meant grain in general, the name Indian corn stood for the American grain whose native name was maize. Similarly, engine, mechanical device, was used to form steam engine for a specific device. During the last century the associated words became unnecessary; so that corn and engine, in America today, mean maize and the steam-engine. Similarly pipe has come to mean tobacco pipe; poise, mental poise; conceit, self conceit; execute, execute a capital sentence; corpse, dead corpse.

The auxiliary verbs in English are colorless survivals of once specific action-verbs. The conjugation of to be includes three distinct stems: the am, is, are element probably with an original meaning to breathe; the was and were originally meaning to dwell; the be, being, been originally meaning to grow. Do meant originally to put or place; compare don, to put on (garments), and its opposite doff, to take off. Shall goes back to the earlier meaning of owe; will, to wish or intend.

It was once a common belief that there was a definite connection between a thing and its name. A savage will not give his name to a stranger, lest he thereby place himself in the stranger’s power. The name of a god must not be mentioned, or his power will pass to the hearer; thus we do not have the original name of the Hebrew deity derived from the Kenites who is now the Christian god, but only a late representation of it in the sacred tetragrammaton, or four-letter-word, J-H-V-H, usually misread Jehovah, but more closely rendered as Jahweh, pronounced Yahweh (compare pronunciation of last syllable of hallelu-jah). Open sesame was the Arabic phrase that opened the cave to Ali Baba. The word charm, Lat. carmen, a song, indicated the belief in the magic properties of words when sung; enchantment (Lat. cantus, song) points to the same thing.

In illustration, the dreaded bear has no name in the Balto-Slavic or Teutonic tongue. Direct naming of the evil animal was avoided by phrases like the eater of honey, the noise maker, the brown, or the licker. Similarly the Lapps, Finns, and Esthonians avoided direct reference through such substitute names as the glory of the forest, the old one, the hairy one, proud honey foot, big foot. The Irish even today never refer to the fairies, or shee (compare banshee); they are the gentry, the good people, the little people. The devil is the Old Gentleman, the Old Boy, etc. Deities today are preferably referred to as the Almighty, the Creator, the Lord, the Savior, the Redeemer, Our Lady, Madonna, etc. The Greeks timidly spoke of the Furies as the Eumenides, the gracious goddesses. Rulers are still addressed indirectly as your Majesty, your excellency, your highness. A servant is addressed by his first name—he is already in the power of the master; but the ancient savage taboo operates to prevent a servant’s calling his master by the first name. Many European countries similarly distinguish even the pronouns used in addressing servants.

Kin to this primitive superstition is the squeamishness about naming certain parts of the body. Leg is slowly replacing limb, as Victorianism weakens; but abdomen, viscera, expectorate, perspiration, illness, still replace the stouter English equivalents. Thus fresh and soiled have taken the place of clean and dirty in the language of the laundry. Stevenson’s reference to a pediculous malady successfully hides lousy disease; couch beetle recently gentilified the bedbug. The derogatory infidel and atheist are softened to freethinker. Another example of euphemism, or “speaking well” of a thing, is the prevailing taste for the grandiloquent. Thus the English public-house was rechristened saloon in America, through the word’s aristocratic associations; compare a ship’s saloon, and salon. The barber uses tonsorial art and hair-dressing parlor; tonsorial emporium is one step further on.

Hyperbole, or exaggerated speech, is responsible for many of our linguistic eccentricities. The young lady from Nevada who said in an interview that within the week she had “simply died from the heat,” was “tickled to death by the movie comedians,” was “driven crazy by telephone pests,” and was “frozen just stiff” while auto riding, is merely typical of a general human trait. Thus we have phrases like volcanic applause, a roar of laughter, and expanded words like daredevil, skinflint, numskull, lickspittle, bleacher, skyscraper. The original exaggeration in bleacher is overlooked by most minds; in astonish and stun, literally thunder-stricken, it has gone entirely.

Words of dignity fade in meaning, through excessive use. Dame and madame, from Lat. domina, mistress of slaves; Mister and Miss and Mrs., from Lat. magister, master; Sir, sire, from Lat. senior, elder, were all once associated with high honor. Gentleman meant a man of good family (Lat. gens, race.) The native English title of honor, lady, has degenerated into uses like lady friend, ladies and gents, chorus lady, wash lady. There was the colored woman who inquired, “Who is the colored lady working for the woman across the street?” Yes and no have lost much of their exaggerated force: yes from A. S. gea swa, yes indeed; not from ne-a-wiht, literally not ever a bit.

Running counter to exaggeration is the spirit of understatement. Thus the ocean is referred to as the pond, the big drink, the puddle. Money becomes dough or jack or brass. Skirt and frail and jane show similar dispraise of the skirted sex.

The constant usage of words cheapens their meaning, as a rule. Vulgar, once meaning belonging to the crowd (Lat. vulgus, crowd) means today low, debased. The word-fixing aristocratic classes have as a rule cheapened all words referring to the uneducated masses. Heathen, pagan, once meant merely dwellers on the heath and on the field (Gr. pagos, field). Common and ordinary, taken to replace vulgar, are started on the same downward trail. Peasant, boor, rustic, once meaning merely countryman, suggest rudeness (compare Boer from same stem as boor). Villain, perhaps through association with the unrelated vile, has left its meaning of countryman, villa-inhabitant, far behind. By a contrary understatement, a cottage or “little place in the country,” may possess 140 rooms, with two baths to each. Wench was originally a reputable name for a girl or child; maid in poetry still has nobility, in ordinary speech meaning a servant. Knave (O. E. cnafa, boy) has sunk lower. Hick, hayseed, rube, point further to the lack of dignity of farm labor in city eyes.

Naughty, terribly wicked in Shakespeare’s time, “a thing of naught,” means merely slightly bad. Homely, once almost a word of praise, means downright ugly now; plain is following the same course. Mean has dropped from its original meaning of middle (Lat. medianus) to its present meaning. Soon, anon, presently, by and by, successively meant immediately; immediately, instantly, and right away will probably take the same course—mute evidences of man’s innate inertia and procrastinativeness. Sanctimonious, once meaning holy, has suffered the disrepute in which the pharasaical are held. Charity, once meaning love, suggests today a patronizing attitude. Prude, kin to proud and prowess, once meant high human excellence; it has ironically altered itself wholly. Minion, once favorite, is much less today; scurrilous, Lat. scurra, fine gentleman, grew after the Latin word had been altered to mean jester, buffoon. Dapper, once brave or sprightly (Germ. tapfer, brave) is today an adjective of contempt. The weakness of old age has depressed the meaning of senile and senility; senator, from the same stem, has not yet been lorimered and otherwise lowered wholly. History itself is responsible for the contrasting fates of frank and slave (from the races Frank and Slav). Sullen is a variant of solemn. It was once proper to speak of the enormity of the Mammoth Cave; today only enormousness could be so used, as enormity means very wicked. Very, from Lat. veritas, truth, is weakening daily. Asylum, from Gr. asulos, inviolable, through association with orphan and insane, means a place of confinement rather than a refuge.

At the same time earlier words, through association with the more aristocratic things of life, have risen in connotation. Court goes back to Lat. cohors, inclosure or poultry-yard; knight, once O. E. cniht, boy, has gone the other road from knave. Marshal was once horse-servant (O. E. mearh, horse, scealc, servant). Steward was originally sty-ward (O. E. stigweard), or guardian of a sty, before sty had degenerated to its present meaning. Civil, civilize, (Lat. civis, citizen) and urbane (Lat. urbs, city) have gained dignity; although urban is rather colorless. Quaker, Methodist, Yankee, Whig, Tory, applied first in ridicule, today are accepted without offense.

CHAPTER IV. THE ROMANCE OF WORDS — Words and Archeology. — The Romance of Words. — Place Names. — Personal Names. — The American Language.

The 18th century rediscovery of the close connection between Sanskrit roots and European speech has opened up a mine of information about the culture of our primitive ancestors. Our word pecuniary, for instance, from Lat. pecunia, money, is derived from pecus, cattle, pointing to the time when property consisted, not of coins (Lat. cuneus, a wedge, Gr. konos, a peg or cone, from which cuneiform, cone, coign, hone) but of cattle (from Lat. caput, head, whence capital, chattel, chief, chef, Eng. head, etc.) Carrying the word pecus further back, its meaning changes from cattle to sheep; then to wool; then to a verb stem meaning to pull or pluck. Thus the whole idea of property may be traced in the wanderings of meaning of this one word. Cognate words in the Indo-European languages for hound, ox, cow, ewe, goat, sow, swine, pork, and for ech, an early English word for horse (kin to Skt. acva, Gr. hippos, Lat. equus, Irish ech, etc.) indicate an acquaintance with at least six domestic animals before the separation of the European peoples.

Philologists have dug deeply in such cases. Thus the English beech has as cognates Ger. Buch, Lat. fagus, meaning beech; also Gr. phegos, oak; Curdish buz, elm; Old Bulg. buzu, elder. The English fir appears in Ger. Fohre, fir; Lat. quercus, oak, etc. In such cases, as in the involved etymology of tree, the term before the separation, undoubtedly starting as the name of a specific tree, may have been broadened into the class-name for tree, and been applied in each country to the chief tree at the time of the migration.

The Indo-European tongues have cognate words for field and mow and furrow, indicating agriculture before they separated. It is quite different with the names for metals. The word metal itself first appears in Herodotus, as metallon, a mine. Hammer, found in cognates in many Indo-European languages, meant originally stone, and points back to the Stone Age. The one metal known during the late Stone Age was copper; we find Lat. aes, Gothic aiz, Skt. ayas, Avestan ayah, all meaning copper. The name copper comes from the island of Cyprus; just as bronze is connected with the city of Brindisi, in the Lat. aes Brundisinum, Brindisi copper.

In the cases of the other metals, there are no such cognates. The Greek word for gold, chrusos, is said to be of Hebrew origin; Lat. aurum originated from a Latin word meaning yellow or shining. Another form is seen in gold, found both in Teutonic and Slavic speeches. Its origin is unknown; it may have been geographic. Silver has no common Indo-European name; it gets this name from the Pontic city Salube. Iron and lead are in the same category; the Teutons received from the Celts both metals and names. Steel, appearing in many Teutonic dialects, is comparatively late. Of recent metals, cobalt is from the German kobold, a sprite; nickel, named by the Swedish mineralogist Cronstedt in 1754, came from Ger. Kupfernickel; the element nickel referring to another demon, nickel, pet form of Niklaus (compare The Old Nick; from St. Nicholas, whence Santa Claus, originally from Gr. Nicholas, akin to nica, victory.) Tungsten, still more recent, is named from Swed. tung-sten, heavy stone. Platinum comes from Span. plata, silver, from the metal’s appearance. Aluminum or aluminium was discovered in 1812, and is named from alum (Lat. alumen, alum, origin unknown).

House is from Teutonic origins, probably connected with hut, hoard, hide; the Lat. domus, house, is the older root, akin to Gr. demein, to build, Skt. dama, etc.; our dome, domicile, domestic, come from it, as does timber. Bolster, bed, and other words for the contents of the house, are found in the Indo-European group of cognates; wheel, wagon, axle, thill, yoke, lynch (pin), also so found, point to their antiquity in Indo-European culture. Thus the study of words gives us a rude picture of our primitive ancestors, long before they left the Asian plateaus for their bloody scattering over the world.

One of the most amusing phases of word study is the false etymologies around which much early history is gathered. Thus Britain, an old Celtic word, was traced back to the fall of Troy by the invention or connection with a Brut, or Brutus, a descendant of Aeneas, supposed to have settled in England. A similar process connects Corineus, a companion of Brutus, with the naming of Cornwall, properly Corn-Wales, strangers in the land. Lisbon was mistraced to Ulysses by spelling in Olisipo. The Scots go the nations one better by tracing descent to Scota, daughter of Pharaoh. The Early Greeks invented a mythical Hellen, whose sons Aeolus and Dorus, and grandsons Achaeus and Ion, were the parents respectively of the collective Hellenes or Greeks, and the tribes of Aeolians, Dorians, Achaeans, and Ionians, all in an endeavor to prove general kinship.

Consider the recent attempts to derive Yankee. Among the explanations offered are (1) an Indian attempt to pronounce Anglois, French for English; (2) Eankke, coward, in an Indian dialect; (3) Scotch yankie, a great falsehood; (4) Yankoos, a tribe of Indians conquered; (5) Jannekin, a Dutch taunt at New Englanders; (6) a corruption of Yorkshire; (7) Chinese Yang jung, East Indian Yang Gee, you are a foreigner; (8) as Yankee Doodle, from Persian Yanhi Dunia. We may confidently expect (9) from Egypt. Tut-Ankhamen, colloquially Dude-Ankhy, whence Doodle-Yankee. The greatest philological mishmash we have encountered is entitled “Prehistoric Times, or Milestones in the Evolution of Man,” by four woman authors, proceeding:

It is because words related originally to sex, which is dual, that we have the double letters in a word, as in woRRy, EEl, fOOl (both kinds)! The two letters are, one for the one sex, one for the other. BRIC-a-BRAC is the CRIBbing male and the CRABbed female. WIG-WAG is the WICKed male, always so considered, and the WAGon-like female, which carries the young.

After this, we are not surprised at the River Picket-wire in Texas, locally derived from its shape, though the French named it Purgatoire, Purgatory. Many local legends account for the English inn names Plum and Feathers (from the Plume of Feathers, the Prince of Wales’ crest); the Bull and Gate (from the Boulogne Gate, to commemorate the taking of Boulogne by Henry VIII); and the Goat and Compasses (from the fine old Puritan signboard, “God encompasseth us”).

Place names, like coins in circulation, have in many cases lost their original markings. Thus York, as named by the old Britons, was Eburacon, perhaps from a man Eburos. The Teutonic Angles altered this to Evuroc, which was further modified and took on the Anglian termination -wic, arriving at the form Eoforwic, read as Boar Town (eofor, boar, and wic, dwelling place). The Danes gave it a new spelling and pronunciation, Iorvik, which was corrupted to the present York. Thus the German city Mainz is remote from the original Lat. Mogontiacum; Laon from Lat. Laudunum. More recently Chateau Vert, Green Castle, near Oxford, appears in English as Shotover.

There is hardly a river in England that has not a Celtic name. The Celt. avon, river, is used for a dozen streams. The Celt. dun, fortress, appears as far apart as Carrodunum on the Dneister and Singidunum, old name for Belgrade, to Dundalk, Dungannan, etc., in Ireland. In France it is hidden in Autuc (Augustodunum), Lyons (Lugdunum), Verdun, (Verodunum); in Great Britain it appears in Dumfries, Dumbarton, Dundee, Dunstable, etc. The Latin castra, camp, dots England in -caster, -chester, and -cester terminations; strata, road, is fixed in Stratford, Stratton, Streatham, Stretford, etc. Simpler derivations are Oxford, (ox-ford), Swinford (swine-ford), etc. Anglo-Saxon place-names are often derived from persons; as Brighton, from Brihthelmestun, farmstead of Brihthelm. The termination -ing enters into a tenth of the number of names of English villages and hamlets. Thus Washington is the town (ton) of the family (ing) living on the Wash. The Norse occupation is shown by -by, -thwaite, beck, and dale; -thorp is usually Scandinavian.

In America, the native Indian names range from the harshness of Connecticut and Massachusetts, and the grotesque in Canojoharie, Kalamazoo, Ypsilanti, Skaneateles, to the liquid beauty of Miami, Appalachicola, Tuscarora, Tuscaloosa. Dutch names, Hoboken, Brooklyn, Spuyten Duyvil, Catskills, Yonkers, point to Dutch occupation. The French gave Vermont, Detroit, Joliet, Terre Haute, St. Louis, Baton Rouge, Mobile, New Orleans. The Spanish contributed Florida, San Antonio, El Paso, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Colorado, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Montana, and many others. Occasional German and Scandinavian place-names point to their occupation.

Free use was made in America of the old names. There are more than 600 postoffices beginning with New. London appears in 11 states; Paris, 21; Berlin, 24; Florence, 34. There is 1 Babylon, 3 Ninevehs, 16 Romes, 19 Spartas, 22 Athenses, 29 Troys. There are 18 Alphas, but only 11 Omegas. There are 12 Bethlehems, 22 Bethels; 13 Paradises, and 1 Hell Creek, Colo. There are 11 Freedoms, 26 Independences, 38 Unions; 28 Enterprises, and 1 Money Creek; 16 Harmonies, but 25 Lonelies; 7 Sunshines, 1 Twilight; 3 Faiths and 18 Hopes. There are 2 Nellies, 11 Coras, and 17 Adas. There is a Beef Creek, a Greasyridge, a What Cheer, a Yelk, a Yell, a Dead Broke, a Murderer’s Bar. The progress of culture is indicated in the Kansas village that changed its name from Wild Cat to Keats. There are 3 Whynots, 1 Josh; infinite Washingtons, Franklins; 22 Brooklyns, 75 Buffalos (in various compounds). There is Seven, Tenn.; Fourteen, W. Va.; Seventeen, O.; Seventy-Six, Ky. and Md.; Ninety-Six, S. C. So has the American spirit spoken.

Among unique English perversions, in addition to Shotover, are Leighton Beau-desert to Leighton Buzzard, Burgh Walter to Bridgewater, and Beau Chef to Beachy (Head). Chemin Couvert became, in Arkansas, Smackover. Even Bunker, in Bunker Hill, was once Bon coeur. There is more approval for the transformation of the amazing Indian Quah-Tah-Wah-Am-Quah-Duavic to French Petamkediac, and later English Tom Kedgwick. In similar fashion Gramercy Square, New York, was not originally French but Dutch for crooked lane, De Kromme Zee.

Most Englishmen of the Anglo-Saxon period were content with a single name. A frequent element is Aelf-, elf or fairy, as in Aelfgar, Aelfhelm, Aelfred. Aethel-, meaning noble (Germ. Edelman, nobleman) appears in Aethelbald, Aethelred. Ead-, association with eadig, happy, appeared in Eadgar, Eadgyth, Eadmund, Eadweard, Eadwine. Other elements are bald, bold; ecg, edge; god, good; wig, battle; sie, victory; wulf, wolf, as prefixes: and, as suffixes, heard, strong; here, army; mund, hand; roed, counsel; wine, friend. Less pretentious are such names as Brand, sword; Cytel, kettle; Wulf, Hild (a), Hengest, Horsa, Hudda, perhaps pet forms of longer names. These survive, often greatly disguised, in such modern names as Baldwin (Bealdwine), Harold (Herewald), Bardell (Beorhtwulf), Elmer (Aelfmaer), Herbert (Herebearht), Herrick (Hereric), Hubert, Hubbard, Hobart, Hibbert, Hibbard (Hygeeorht), Wyman (Wigmund), Kemp (Cempa, warrior), Cob (Cobba), Froude (Froda, prudent), Tucker (Tuccao), etc.

After the Norman Conquest, the names most widely used were John, William, Thomas, Richard, Robert, in the order given. John (Lat. Johannes), found in other languages Ital. Giovanni (from which Zany), Fr. Jean, Welsh Evan, Scotch Ian, Breton Yves, Russian Ivan, Dan. and Dutch Hans, is responsible also for Shawn, Jane, Joan, Jones, Johnson, Jennings, etc. Thomas, also Scriptural in origin, owed its popularity to pilgrimages to the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket. We have from it Thoms, Thomson, etc., and from the ending, a French clipped form, Macey, Massie, Machin, Masson, etc. The other three names are Teutonic. William, M. H. G. Willehelm, helm of resolution, had in French two forms, Guillaume and the one with the initial W-. From these comes the parallel forms Gautier and Walter, Guy and Wyatt. Williams, Wills, Williamson, Wilson, Wilkins, Willett, Gilliam, come from it. Robert was O. H. G. Hruodbert, fame-bright; Richard was Richart, powerful. From these came Rick, Hick, Dick, Rob, Hob, Dob, Bob; also Ricketts, Hicks, Hixon, Dix, Dixon, Rich, Ritchie, Hitch, Higgs, Bigg, Robb, Ditch, Robbins, Robson, Robinson, Hobbs, Hobson, Dobbs, Dodson, etc.

Along with this went the relative infrequency of Arthur, Charles, and George. Their popularity was later, from the royal houses of Stuart and Hanover, and from Arthur, Duke of Wellington. Similarly Frederick’s vogue came from Frederick the Great.

In the period before the Conquest, individuals often earned an epithet, as Edmund Ironsides, Aethelred the Unready, Edward the Confessor; but these were not transmitted from father to son. The earliest form of surname proper was the patronymic, the name of parent or ancestor. Thus Alfred the Great was properly Alfred Aethelwulfing, or son of Aethelwulf. Thus the Beowulf characters are the Scyldings and Scylfings, sons of Scyld and Scylf respectively; similarly the Greeks Hippias and Hipparchus were Pisistratidae, sons of Pisistratus, etc. With later Hebrews, Abou ben-Adhem meant son of Adhem. In Slavic languages the patronymic ends with -vitch; in Norman fitz (Mod. Fr. fils, son) served the same purpose; among Scotch and Irish Mac, relative. In Welsh, Map, or later Ap or Ab, was used: it appears disguised in many names, as Pugh (ap-Hugh), Bowen (ap-Owen), Powell (ap-Howell), Price (ap-Rhys), Pritchard (ap-Richard), Prothero (ap-Roderick), Blood, (ap-Lud), as well as Upjohn, Updike, etc. The Irish O’ serves practically the same function as Mac. Scandinavians use -son; thus Olson (Olaf-son), Anderson (Andrew-son), Pedersen (Peter’s son). In the South of England the old genitive ending -s accomplished a similar function; thus Tom’s Mary would be distinguished from Herbert’s Mary. From this we get many surnames ending in -s. especially among the Welsh, such as Jones, Williams, Hughes, Evans, Roberts, Edwards.

A second source of surnames is from the locality where a man lived. Scott is an English name applied to Scotchmen; the reverse is true of English. Cornish and Cornwallis, for dwellers in Cornwall, originated in neighboring Devonshire. Similar are Brett, Britton (Brittany), Picard, Power (Picardy), Loring (Lorraine), Bullen (Boulogne), Bloss (Blois), Loving (Louvain), Sessions (Scissons). Place-names more purely local, with or without the terminal -s, are Ford, Bridges, Field, Craig (crag), Lake, Rivers, Brooke, Cairnes, Glenn, Dunne and Dun (hill), Hill, Wood, Forrest. From the O. E. burh (dative byrig), fortified place, came Burrows, Burroughs, Borrow, Brough, Burke, Bury, Berry. Peak, Pike, Peck, Pick, meant hill-top; Law, Low, Lynn, Shaw, Holt, Hurst, Barrows are similar. More definite are the place-names in Tuttle (Toot-hill), Tyndall (Tyne-dale), Haywood (Hay, hedge, and wood), Radcliffe, Wycliffe, Dodd-ridge, Bradshaw (broadwood), Crashaw (crow-wood), Earnshaw (eagle-wood), Renshaw (raven-wood), Schofield (school field). From the cliff root came also Clifford, Clifton, Cleaves, Cleveland. The old northern form yett for gate appears in Yeats and Yates. Hyatt is high-yett. Dialect variants of Hedge appear in Hay, Haig, Haigh, Haw, Hey; plurals, Hayes, Hawes.

A third principal source of modern surnames is found in names of occupations. Smith, Butcher, Carpenter, Miller, Taylor, are fairly obvious. From crafts less in evidence come Chaucer (shoemaker), Hunt (hunter), Day (dairyman), Webb, Weaver (weaver), Frick (warrior), Wright (worker). Webster, Brewster, Baxter are feminines of weaver, brewer, baker; others are Millard (millward or guardian), Plummer (plumber), Inman (landlord), Ward (guard), Firminger (cheese-maker), Barker (tanner), Chapman (merchant), Clark (clerk or scholar). Among obsolete occupations are Arrowsmith, Fletcher, and Flower (all arrowmaker: compare O. E. fla, arrow); Boulter (bolt-maker), and Bowyer, Bower, Boyer (bow-maker). Fuller, Tucker, Shearer, Sherman, Walker, point to early cloth-making. Tyler (tile-man), Chandler (candlemaker), Hawker (itinerant salesman), Parmenter (parchment-maker), Pilcher (fur cloak maker), Quiller (maker of quilted ruffs), Cutler (knife maker), Spooner (spoon maker), Collier (coal worker, charcoal burner), Croker, Crocker (maker of crocks), Cooper, Cowper (maker of casks), Lorimer (bridle maker), Sellars (saddle maker), Parker (park guardian), Hayward (literally hedge ward, guardian of tilled fields), Constable (stable-man), Stuart, Stewart (steward) are a few more. Graves blends two forms: O. E. gerefa, reeve, and Greaves for Grove. The same is true of Howard, both from Hayward and earlier Hereward.

A fourth source of surnames is nicknames. Henry Plantagenet, Richard the Lion-Hearted, Edward Longshanks, are examples. Wolf, Lovell, Lovett, are all from wolf; Drinkwater, Doolittle, Larned (from learned), Longfellow, Fairfax (fair hair), Purdy and Pardee (from a French oath), Shakespeare, Wagstaff, Hurlbutt, Benbow (from bend-bow), Lovejoy, these require no comment. There were also Stout (meaning brave), Little, Seeley (happy), Moody (courageous), Bragg (brave). From the French came Burnett (diminutive of brown), Blunt and Blount (blond), Power (poor), Curtis (courteous). The Celtic gave Gough and Roe, both red; Bain, Wynne, and Gwynne, white; Glass and Lloyd and Floyd, gray; Sayce, Saxon; Vaughan, little; Cameron, Scotch for crooked nose; Campbell, wry mouth; Kennedy, Irish for ugly head.

There was no uniformity in the spelling of personal names at first. In addition to the varied spellings of Shakespeare, Dr. Crown, 17th century, spelt his name variously Cron, Croon, Crown, Crone, Croone, Croune. Pierce, Peirce, Pearce, Pearse, Pears, all derive from Piers, Fr. for apostle Peter. Lea, Lee, Ley, Leigh, Legh, Legge, Lay, Lye, all come from O. E. for meadow. Elspeth, Elsie, Eliza, Liza, Lisa, Lizzie, Beth, Bet, Bettie, Betsy, derive from Elizabeth. Suffixes like the diminutives -kin, -in, -ie, -ett, give to Pierce, Perkins, Pierson, etc. Matthew gave rise to Matthews, Mayhew, Mayo, May, Mee, Mayes, Mekins, Meeson, and at times Mason. The list is interminable.

Corrupt spelling, following slurred pronunciation, gave Farrar from Farquhar, Mean from Meaghan, Calhoun from Colquhoun, Beecham from Beauchamp. The Saints’ names suffered a speech-change: Bartholomew to Tolley; Edmund to Munn; St. Aubyn, Tobin; St. Osith, Toosey; St. Maur, Seymour; St. Clair, Sinclair; St. Paul, Semple. The reverse tendency is found in Alys, Edythe, Nellie, etc.

Dutch names in the United States suffered such alterations as Reiger to Riker, Haerlen to Harlan. French changed Caille to Kyle, Soule to Sewell, Bon Pas to Bumpus, de l’ hotel to Doolittle. German shifts were Blum to Bloom, Reuss to Royce, Oehm to Ames, Furth to Ford. At times they were translated: Pfund to Pound; Konig, King; Schwartz, Black; Weber, Weaver. Jewish names have also seen such changes as Rosenberg to Rosen to Rose to Ross; Hilkovitch to Hilquit to Hill; Schneider to Taylor; Schlachtfeld to Warfield; Schonberg to Belmont. In the New York City directory, Smith, Brown, Miller, Murphy, Meyer, are first five in order of popularity. Cohen and Levy come 8th and 9th; Jones 10th, Taylor 23rd.

There are those who think that typical American speech is found in such a sentence as, Them guys ain’t got no pep. Here the first is ungrammatical; the second, slang; the third, bad grammar again; the fourth, colloquial; the fifth, illogical; the sixth, slang once more. And yet the meaning is plain and unambiguous, even though no word passes accepted English standards. Luckily, American speech means more than this. America has added to the language, in making it its own, such words as blaze (a trail), blizzard, back number, back-bone, barber shop, barroom, beeline, belittle, bleachers, blinders, bloomers, blue laws, bluff, bob-sled, bogus, boom, boost, brainy, brief (lawyers), bully (adj.), campus, cave in, cocktail, commuter, contraband, crib, cow-catcher, crawfish, derail, diggings, dipper, doughnut, dovetail, fizzle out, grit (courage), make good, joyride, maverick, shyster, scalawag, snap, splurge, spree, spry, wilt, whole-souled, yegg, among thousands of others. Her new political terms are innumerable; in every walk of life she creates her own speech. These are live words, rich in soil-tang and the glow of health. It would be an evil hour if we relied on England for our speech. But the study of our words, embalmed in English and other tongues, including the earliest, is a helpful and informative way of broadening our own understanding, and adding to the speech of our maturing soul.

An Introduction to Philology

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I THE SOURCES OF OUR WORDS — What Is Philology? — The First Recorded English Speech. — The Teutonic Element. — How English Became Our Speech. — The French Element. — The Classical Elements: Latin and Greek. — Other Teutonic Elements. — Varied Sources.

CHAPTER II THE FORMATION OF WORDS — The Blending of the Elements. — Word Creation. — Folk-Etymology. — Some Figures of Syntax. — Figures of Nearness.

CHAPTER III THE BEHAVIOR OF WORDS — The Words for Colors. — Generalization and Specialization. — Euphemism and Hyperbole. — Degeneration and Elevation.

CHAPTER IV. THE ROMANCE OF WORDS — Words and Archeology. — The Romance of Words. — Place Names. — Personal Names. — The American Language.