Where Words Come From

The Chapter entitled “Where Words Come From” in Bill Bryson’s “The Mother Tongue” discusses the origins of most the words in the English language. Bryson states that “English retains probably the richest vocabulary and most diverse shading of meanings, of any language”. Bryson then goes on to describe the five ways in which he believes words in the English language were created. The first of these is through error. Bryson states that many of the words in the English language were created due to incorrect transcriptions, such as the words “message” and “sweetheart” (originally “ménage” and “sweetart”). The second way words were created was through adoption. According to the text, “even in the sixteenth century, English had already adopted words from over fifty languages”. This means that most of the words we used today were taken from languages such as “shampoo” from India and “sofa” from Arabic. The third way was that the words were simply created. For words such as “dog” and “numskull” no one really understands why these words came to be. Only that they started being used at some point in time and they stuck. The fourth way words have come to be is by having nothing done to them. The text stated that words such as “counterfeit” and “manufacture” have had nothing done to them but the meaning of them has changed over time (“counterfeit” originally meaning “authentic” and “manufacture” meaning “using hands”). The fifth and final way words in the English language were created was through the adding or subtraction of something. The way this was usually done was through the adding of prefixes and suffixes as in the words “invaluable” and “priceless”. I found this whole section of the text quite fascinating regarding the origins of the English language.
Reading this chapter, I remember that Queens is the most culturally diverse place on the planet. I find it very intriguing that most of the people we meet on the street speak a different language other than English and we don’t even realize the impact their language might have had on our own. Because even though sometimes we may not understand them, the roots of the words we use everyday might have come from their language. My only question would be “Is the evolution of the English language dependent on the changing of other languages?”

Chapter's 6,7, and 8

Chapters 6, 7, and 8

Chapter’s 6, 7, and 8 in Yule’s text discuss a variety of things such Words and Word Formations, Morphology, and Grammar. In Chapter 6, Yule brings up the different ways words have been formed in the English language throughout history. He talks about things such as etymology, coinage, blending, and infixes. Each of these terms has played a vital role in the formation of the modern English language. For example, Yule educates on how the words “smoke” and “fog” were blended to create the word “smog”. These terms and ideas carry over to many languages all over the world. The book then goes on to Chapter 7, which delves into the world of Morphology. The Chapter goes into great detail about different types of morphemes such as “Free” and “Bound” morphemes, which are morphemes that can stand by themselves as words and morphemes that cannot. There are also “derivational” and “inflectional” morphemes which are the two types of “bound” morphemes. The chapter then goes onto to implicate the rules of morphology into languages such as Tagalog and Kenuri. Chapter 8 finally goes on to the grammar of the English language and the arguments between the “prescriptive” and “descriptive” approach. The Chapter describes the structural analysis of sentences and also gives us the tools to “analyze the constituent structure of it”. I found Chapter 6 the most fascinating because I never realized the multiple ways the words of the English language came to be, as well as how English has influenced other languages around the world.
After reading Chapter 6, I can now understand why certain “new” words are very similar in most languages. It is because other languages are just “borrowing” the route of the word and having it make sense in their own language. An example would be the word “football” and how the Japanese incorporated that word into their language as futtobōr or sakka (soccer). The only question I would have is “Is this process still taking place of borrowing words from other languages?”