Etymology & Folk Etymology
10 12 2007
Etymology probably sounds like a disease to you, unless you are a Linguistics graduate. In fact, Etymology is the study of the origin (history) of words which is based on scientific tools. Linguists do that because it’s part of their job and it’s important for better understanding the nature of languages.
The word hazard(n.) danger; (vb.) to risk or expose to danger, for example, evolved from the Arabic al zahr, which means the dice. This word made a long way until it settled into English. In Western Europe the term came to be associated with a number of games using dice, which were learned during the Crusades whilst in the
Holy Land. The term eventually took on the connotation of danger because, from very early on, games using dice were associated with the risky business of gambling and con artists using corrupted dice.
As for Malaria (n.) (infectious disease characterized by chills and fever and caused by the bite of an infected anopheles mosquito). This word comes from the medieval Italian mal (=bad) and aria (=air), describing the miasma from the swamps around
Rome. This ‘bad air‘ was believed to be the cause of the fever that often developed in those who spent time around the swamps. In fact the illness, now known as malaria, was due to certain protozoans present in the mosquitoes that bred around these swamps, and which caused recurring feverish symptoms in those they bit.
Pedigree (n.) A line of ancestors; genealogy. Believed to be derived from the French ped de gru, which meant crane’s foot (the modern French equivalent is pied de la grue). The crane’s foot is said to resemble the /|\symbol on genealogical trees. It has also been suggested that it comes from par degrés, the French for by degrees. A pedigree chart records the relationship of families by degrees.
Folk Etymology is a commonly held misunderstanding of the origin of a particular word. Language is dynamic and in the course of history, certain words were misheard or misunderstood. As a result, people made the wrong analogy and another word was born. Needless to mention that folk etymology exists in every language and is not unique to any language in particular.We may look into the spelling of the English word lethal which reflects a belief that it is derived from Lethe, the river in the mythological kingdom of the dead. In fact it comes from the unconnected Latin word letum, meaning death.
The word cockroach was created when English native speakers heard the Spanish word for beetle: cucaracha. What they processed in their minds were sounds familiar to them, which is what humans tend to do when they hear sounds they are not accustomed to. So, by analogy they started saying ’cockroach’ (combining the two different animals: cock & roach.)
By now I am getting hungry, so let me end this article by mentioning the English word ‘hamburger’, which is originated from the German hamburger, meaning someone or something originally from Hamburg (a city in North Germany). English speakers thought, mistakenly, that hamburger is comprised of two words: ham + burger. Therefore, it did not take long until cheese burger entered the language and of course double-cheese burger…..
[...] We linguists engage, among other things, in comparing languages and exploring their histories, in order to find universal properties of language as well as to account for its development and origins. [...]