Where Do Words Come From?
BY “AWAKE!” CORRESPONDENT IN RHODESIA
AS WE master a language, our thinking becomes inseparably linked with words, so that it is impossible to formulate thoughts without using words. But where do words come from? How do they begin?
Those who are acquainted with the Holy Scriptures know that the Great Architect of language is none other than Jehovah God himself. He gave the first man and woman the ability to speak, and later, at the time of the building of the Tower of Babel, he brought into existence a variety of languages, each with its own vocabulary and grammar. This was an effective means of bringing to an inglorious end a project undertaken by opposers of God against his purpose.—Gen. 11:1-9.
The interplay among the various languages since that time and their effect upon one another make a fascinating study.
The Shaping of English
As for the English language, modern-day linguists group it among the Germanic languages, since its early origins are in the language of the Angles and Saxons, who hailed from the western part of Europe that became the Roman province of Gaul. Presently, however, the language is a veritable potpourri of many tongues. Although much of the language is derived from Greek and Latin, as well as the original Anglo-Saxon, the English-speaking person’s speech may contain traces of French, Italian, Hindi, Russian and Turkish, to name but a few.
The first part of a word, often called the “prefix” may give a clue to its origin. The prefix “tele-,” for example, may indicate that the word has been formed from Greek. So we have “telegram,” meaning “something written from a distance,” and “telescope,” which means “looking from a distance.” The word “television” is a hybrid, the first part being from Greek and the final part from Latin. Basically, it means “seeing from a distance,” which is exactly what we are doing when we look at a TV set.
“Pan-” is another Greek prefix. We have it in the word “pantheon,” meaning “all gods.” We also have it in the word “pandemonium.” Do you know what this word means literally? “All demons”; and that is what it seems like when there is pandemonium.
The final part of a word, or “suffix,” as linguists call it, often helps us to identify the word’s origin. You are sure to have noticed that many words end in “-logy,” such as “archaeology,” “anthropology,” “biology” and “geology.” Since the Greeks used the word logia to mean “speaking,” “discussion” or “study,” we can see that “archaeology” means “study of ancient things,” “anthropology” means “study of man,” “biology” means “study of life,” and “geology” means “study of the earth.”
A traveler through England cannot escape noticing that the names of certain towns and cities have the same ending. For example—Chester, Chichester, Manchester and Rochester, and Bicester, Chirencester, Leicester and Worcester. Why the similarity? The names are a relic of the Roman occupation of Britain, when military camps were established to maintain the Pax Romana (Roman peace). The Latin word for “camp” is castra, from which comes the “-chester” or “-cester” of today. One will also notice other English place-names, such as Wigston Parva and Wigston Magna, which again illustrate the impact of Latin on the English language. Since parva is Latin for “small” and magna is Latin for “great,” these names merely mean “Little” Wigston and “Big” Wigston.
In some cases, names of people and places have been accepted into the English language to signify things we use every day. When a builder uses a towering “derrick” to hoist some large component to the top of a building, he may not realize that this helpful machine receives its name from Derick, a seventeenth-century English hangman.
To protect his feet from snow and slush, an English mother may tell her son to put on his “wellingtons.” Why such a strange name for what others might call “rubber boots”? The word comes from the Duke of Wellington, the famous general of the Battle of Waterloo of 1815, and the type of footwear he wore. A German field marshal, who was a contemporary of the Duke of Wellington, Von Blucher, differed in his taste in footwear and so gave his name to another style of boots, “bluchers.”
A student of electricity soon learns that the electrical units of power, pressure, current and resistance come from the names of James Watt, a Scottish engineer, Alessandro Volta, an Italian physicist, the French scientist Ampère and the German Georg Ohm. These are designations that he uses in his calculations every day.
Words sometimes result from the union of parts of two or more English words. Examples of this are “avionics” (from “aviation electronics”) and “parsec” (from parallax and second), an astronomical unit equal to 3.26 light-years. Other words are formed from the mere initials of the words making up the longer name of the thing they designate. Notice this in the case of RADAR (radio detecting and ranging) and MASER (microwave amplification by simulated emission of radiation).
In the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, on the northeast coast of England, there is a street called Two Ball Lonnen. How did this strange name come about? The word “Lonnen” is easy, since that is an old north-country English word for “lane.” But why “Two Ball Lonnen”? Local inhabitants say that in former times the road used to lead to a large house that had at each side of its entrance a brick pillar surmounted by a large carved stone ball. Hence, today’s unusual name.
Language Exchange in Africa
Language exchange, which has had such a profound effect upon the English tongue, has also exerted its influence upon the languages of Central and Southern Africa. The Chishona, Cibemba, Cinyanja, Yao, Tumbuka, Zulu and other languages of Malawi, Mozambique, Rhodesia, South Africa and Zambia belong to the group of languages known as Bantu. With trade and travel among these countries, it is understandable that there should be exchange among their languages. A good example of this is the Cinyanja word for “rainbow,” which is uta wa Leza, literally meaning “bow of God.” However, the Cinyanja word for “God” is Mulungu, not Leza. So how did the word Leza come to be included in this word for “rainbow”? The answer is that the Cinyanja-speaking people have borrowed it from the Cibemba speakers of nearby Zambia, who do use this word for “God.”
The Bantu languages have also been influenced by visitors from outside Africa. A few hundred years ago, Portuguese sailors landed on the island of Mozambique and spread their influence inland. It was not long before they encountered Cinyanja-speaking people, and so the Cinyanja language today carries the unmistakable imprint of Portuguese. Hence, the Cinyanja words kapitao (foreman), fosiko (matches), mkaju (cashew tree), vinyo (wine), maora (hours), nsapato (shoes), and malinyero (sailor, same as the English word “mariner”).
One has to be careful, however, in assuming that all Bantu words that are similar in sound and spelling to words in other languages are transliterations. This is not always the case. Whenever Cinyanja-speaking persons meet, the first word out of their mouths is Moni, which is their word of greeting. The origin of this word has not been determined. Some feel it is derived from the English expression “Good morning,” especially since it is pronounced as maw-nee. However, there is just as strong a possibility that it may be a contraction of the Cinyanja moyo-ni (mo-yo-nee), meaning “health (or life) to you.”
The same is true of the Cinyanja word waulesi, which means “a lazy, soft, weak individual.” Since it is pronounced wa-oo-lay-see, one might conclude that it is derived from the English “lazy,” but not so, even though it has come to be a good equivalent for that English word. It actually comes from the root le, meaning “soft,” and has the idea of weakness of constitution from being born so, and a slight reproach is implied.
Illustrating the quaint origin of some expressions is lifule, the Cinyanja word for “snuff.” In Malawi, there is a mouse that shuts up its hole at the entrance, or some distance in, and the loose earth used for this purpose is called chifule. Due to its similarity to this dug-out earth, because of its looseness, “snuff” is called lifule.
In Cinyanja, another little mouse has the name lidiakhwere. The name comes from the words kudya (to eat) and kukwera (to climb), so it means, literally, “it eats while reaching up,” which accurately describes the habit of this small creature. From this same root kukwera comes the Cinyanja expression kukwera mtima (to be angry), which literally means “the heart rises.” The opposite expression, meaning “to calm down” (kutsika mtima), arises from the idea of the heart “going down” or returning to its place. This same thought of “going down” is seen in the Cinyanja word for “day” (tsiku), which comes from the impression of the sun “going down,” and so refers to a period at the end of which the sun goes down.
Both in English and Cinyanja there are words which are onomatopoeic, that is, they are imitative of the sounds made by whatever they name. Another name for the European bird, the lapwing, for example, is “peewit.” This is similar to the bird’s call. In Cinyanja we have chigagadagagada, meaning “hacking” or “chopping” and mtswatswa (noise of walking in the bush or on dry leaves), both of which are similar in sound to the action they describe.
From this brief stroll through the field of etymology we can see how absorbing a subject it can be. Trade, travel, conquest and culture—all have left their mark on the languages of the world.