Introduction

ETYMOLOGY treats of the structure and history of words; its chief divisions are Inflection and Derivation.
Inflection, applied to the forms of words, signifies some addition to or change in a word to denote a modification of meaning. Inflection is treated of in Grammar.
Derivation traces the meaning and formation of words back to their origins.
English Etymology treats of the sources whence the English language is derived.

A knowledge of the etymology of words is a great help to accuracy in using them, the shade of difference being often supplied by the original root.

For the meaning, etc. of the words etymology, inflection, derivation, language, look out et'umos and log'os among the Greek roots, and flec'to, ri'vus and lingua among the Latin.

The languages of the civilized world are divided into two great families—the Semitic and the Indo-European.

As the Semitic words in the English language are very few, it will be sufficient to observe that the Hebrew, Phoenician, Syriac, Chaldee, Arabic, Ethiopic and Coptic are included in this family.

The subdivisions of a family are called stocks; and the subdivisions of a stock, branches.
The Indo-European family is divided into the following stocks: Sanscrit, Persian, Slavonic, Celtic, Classical and Teutonic.

Of these the Sanscrit and Persian are Asiatic stocks, and the languages of the remaining stocks are, or were, spoken by the inhabitants of Europe. Hence the name Indo-European has been applied to this family. It is now more commonly known as the Aryan family. Arya is a Sanscrit word, meaning "noble."

The dialects of the Slavonic are spoken throughout Eastern Europe—in Russian, Poland, Bohemia, Hungary, etc.
The Celtic, Classical and Teutonic stocks are, more or less, closely connected with the history of the English language.
To the Celtic stock belong the Welsh, the Cornish, the Irish-Gaelic or Erse, the Scotch-Gaelic, etc.

Descendants of the Celts, more or less unmixed, still exist in the centre and south of Ireland, the north of Scotland, in Wales, Cornwall and Armorica, a district in the west of France; and in all of these places, except Cornwall, varieties of their original language are still spoken.

The Classical stock is divided into two branches, the Hellenic (Greek) and the Italian. It includes what are commonly called the Classical languages—Greek and Latin; and hence comes the name by which the stock is usually known.

The Latin word clas'sicus (classical), from clas'sis, a class, related to the CLASSES of the Roman people, and especially to the first class; hence, the term classic is applied to Latin and Greek authors of confirmed celebrity.

The Romaic or Modern Greek, the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French languages are all offshoots from the Classical stock.

The Teutonic stock is divided into two branches: (1) The Scandinavian, including the languages spoken in the district anciently called Scandinavia (the northwestern portion of Europe); and (2) the Gothic.
The Scandinavian branch of the Teutonic includes the Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish languages.
The Gothic branch of the Teutonic is subdivided into High and Low German—i.e., the dialects spoken in the upland districts of the south and in the lowlands of the north of Germany, and along the coast of the German Ocean.
To the Low German division belongs the Anglo-Saxon, from which, in process of time, was evolved the grand English language.

In specimens of English, German and Latin, we are struck at once by the small differences between the two languages of the Teutonic stock (German and English), and the great differences between them and a language of the Classical stock (the Latin). For example:

IN ENGLISH

And John was clad with camel's hair and with a leathern girdle about his loins; and he ate locusts and wild honey.

IN GERMAN.

Johannes aber was bekleidet mit Cameel's haaren und mit einem ledernen Gurtel um seine Lenden; und ass Henschrecken und wilden Honig.

IN LATIN

Et erat Johannes vestitus pilis cameli et Zona pellica circa lumbos ejus, et locustas et mel sylvestre edebat. (St. Mark i. 6.)

The English language, as now used, although it has borrowed largely from other languages, has two principal sources—Anglo-Saxon and Latin.
The An´gles and the Saxons were tribes from Northern Germany, probably the parts now known as Hanover and Westphalia. They began to occupy England about 449 A. D. They conquered and dispossessed the British or Celtic inhabitants, and drove the remnants of them into the remote mountainous corners, especially Wales and Cornwall.
Celtic was the language of the natives of Britain when the country was invaded by the Romans under Julius Cæsar, fifty-five years before the Christian era.
The incursions of the Danes into England, and their settlement in several parts, had little effect upon the Anglo-Saxon tongue, as the Danish tribes were kindred with the Saxon, being descendants of the same great Gothic race.
The Saxons, or a large portion of them, called themselves Angles, their new country England (Angle-land), and their language English.
English thus became the predominant language in England from the Frith of Forth to the English Channel, and has continued so for more than fourteen centuries. During this time it has, of course, undergone many changes.
It has adopted many new words from other languages, and its forms have been altered to some extent; but the grammar or framework of the language is still purely Saxon. The earliest form of it with which we are acquainted is commonly called Anglo-Saxon.
Of the foreign elements which go to make of English a composite language, the Latin is so extensive and important as to render all others insignificant in comparison. Hence we often speak of Saxon (Teutonic) and Latin as the two factors of which the English language is composed.
The Latin words in the English language have been adopted at various periods: (1.) Sparingly during the Roman occupation of England, between A. D. 43 and A. D. 418. (2.) At the introduction of Christianity by the Roman missionaries, A. D. 596. (3.) With the Norman-French, A. D. 1042. (4.) At the revival of classical learning in the sixteenth century. (5.) By modern writers on science, art, social and political economy, etc.
The Norman Conquest was the beginning of the third wave of Latin influence. In the eleventh century the Normans, or North-men, a tribe of Teutonic origin, who had, two centuries before, seized and possessed that part of France since called Normandy, subdued England.
The Normans brought with them into England that form of Latin which we call French—a language which they had adopted from the people amongst whom they had been settled. Thus English got many indirect additions from the Latin.
The Normans spread through England as a superior caste; and there were now two languages, which would not unite. They contended for supremacy during the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

For a long time the laws of England were written in Norman-French, and the proceedings of courts of justice were conducted in the same language, to the serious oppression of the conquered Saxons.

But the tongue of the lower classes—the majority—prevailed against that of the upper—the minority. The North-men, or Normans, who had become Frenchmen in France, at last became Englishmen in England.
The Anglo-Saxon element predominates (though far from exclusively) in our words of one or two syllables; while the great majority of our words of three, and almost all our words of four or more, syllables are derived from the Latin, Greek, French and other languages, but particularly from the Latin.

For a list of monosyllabic words that have come to us from the Latin and Greek, chiefly through the French, see page 189.

English Etymology

Derivatives, Prefixes and Suffixes

Introduction