Etymology - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Etymology of the word

Étymologie is a made up Mot erudite Greek, ἐτυμολογία / etumología , itself formed on the radical ἔτυμος étumos “true” and of the base - λογια - logia (derivative of λόγος “speech, reason”), which provides the names of disciplines. It is thus, at the origin, the study of the true significance of a mot. This naive definition must however be exceeded: the etymology studies the origin of the words.

One considers that the words of a language can, from a diachronic point of view, to have mainly three origins:

they are words inherited an older state of the same language or a language-mother, words which thus underwent the processes of evolution phonetic; the old term at the origin of the new word is named étymon . For example the Petit Robert gives the following etymologies:

for people : Latin populus ; poblo (842); pueple , pople (XIe); populate (about 1430)
for ox: Latin boss, bovis; buef (XIe)

in fact words borrowed from another language are thus adapted to the phonological and graphic system of the receiving language;
they are creations or “Néologisme S” (often starting from Greek Racines and Latin for the European languages, sometimes starting from roots suitable for the language itself, as for the Icelandic).

Popular and erudite doublets

When, in a language, same a étymon was inherited and borrowed later on, the two words obtained are named doublets . A great number in French of it is found: the majority of the French words come indeed from the Latin ; some were transmitted since the vulgar Latin while changing phonetically, they are the inherited words; same the étymon was sometimes also borrowed subsequently, in the erudite vocabulary; the two words resulting from same only the étymon Latin but having followed two different ways name respectively popular doublet and erudite doublet . Their directions are most of the time different, the erudite doublet keeping a meaning closer to the etymological direction. Thus the Latin word potionem gives potion in the erudite language, but poison in the popular language!

It is also the case for the étymon fabrica (m) :

the word inherited Latin vulgaire forging mill gave after having followed the laws of the phonetic evolution;
the Latin word was borrowed from the 14th century to become the doublet savant manufactures .

Other important doublets, in the vulgar order / erudite (étymon Latin) : toe / article (articulum) , thing / causes (causam) , frail / fragile (fragilem) , cold / ice-cold (frigidum) , mould / muscle (musculum) , trade / ministry (ministerium) , sheet / table (tabulam) , etc

It is thus necessary to distinguish between the words inherited the language-mother who is Latin, and those which were borrowed.

To consult lexical Doublet for other information

Sources of loans of French

The French language was worked out slowly starting from Latin changing with the liking of its meetings with Celtes (the Gallic ones), Francs, Burgondes and others Visigoths. It is undoubtedly about the time of Charlemagne that people realize EC evolution: they do not speak any more Latin but the “ancestor” of French! But it will be necessary to await François Ier so that this language supplants Latin like written language and much longer still so that it is included/understood and spoken in all the areas. It thus borrowed many words from other languages:

with the Francique during the the Middle Ages, which gave number of words of the vocabulary of the war and the armament;
with the old Greek to form erudite words;
with the Italian ;
with the German ;
with the Hebrew ;
with the Amerindian languages as from the 17th century,
with the Indian languages (of India),
with the English, especially at the 20th century;
with the Arab , in the fields of astronomy, chemistry, mathematics and the trade;
with the Spanish , etc

Henriette Walter in the Adventure of the French words come besides raises: “As an indication, the French linguistic loans are quite real: thus on the 35 000 words of a current French dictionary, 4 200 are obviously borrowed from of the foreign languages ”, whose principal ones are: English (25%), Italian (16,8%), the francique one (13%), Arabic (5,1%).

For the detail of these loans, to refer to the article lexical Loan.

See too

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