Chapter IV: Appendix: I

ELEMENTARY HINTS ON ETYMOLOGY

(1) In borrowed words, especially when the borrowing language, as English, does not deal largely in sounding terminations, it is a common practice to let the termination drop, either altogether or partly, and leave only the simple root, as from λαμπάδα, _lamp_; from δημοκρατία, _democracy_; from κακοφωνία, _cacophony_, and other such feminines, as _theology_, _philology_, where the α is dropped, and the accent transferred to the antepenultimate after the favourite English fashion, while the German, more faithful to the Greek, preserves the accented ι, and marks the presence of the α by an _e_, as in _Theologié_, _Philologié_.

(2) As the Greek element in the English language often comes to us not directly from the Greek, but indirectly through the Latin of the Middle Ages, it sometimes happens that we find a pure Greek word with a Latin termination attached to it naturalised in English, as in _cathédral_, from καθέδρα, and in _ephemeral_, from ἐφήμερος. In this example the termination _al_, so common in Latin, takes the place of the Greek ος, with the same adjectival force; but in not a few cases, as _optical_, _ethical_, _clinical_, _political_, the _al_ is an unmeaning superfluity, as the adjectival character of the word is already fixed by the Greek termination κος, as in κλινικός from κλίνη. In verbs the termination _ate_ is pure Latin, but appears sometimes barbarously appended to a pure Greek verb, as _homologate_, from ὁμολογῶ.

(3) It is a general rule in etymology that cognate letters, that is, letters pronounced by the same organs, or a similar modification of the vocal organs, easily pass into one another; thus σ and τ being both dental, τ a pure dental, and σ a sibilant dental, and δ being only the blunt form of τ, these three letters pass into one another, as in Attic πράττω for πράσσω, and ῥόδον, English _rose_. So in German _das_ for English _that_. In like manner, λ and ρ being both liquids, λείριον becomes _lily_, and the Latin _Tibur_ becomes the Italian _Tivoli_, by the interchange of the labials and of the liquids.

(4) The termination _s_ in the names of many of the sciences, as _optics_, _acoustics_, _mechanics_, is simply the sign of the plural in English, put for ά the neuter plural in Greek, as in τὰ πολιτικά, _things belonging to the state_; τὰ ὀπτικά, _things belonging to vision_, which, however, the Greeks often express by ἡ ὀπτική in the nominative singular feminine, with τέχνη, _art_, or θεωρία, _theory_, understood.

(5) The termination _ise_ or _ize_, so common in English, generally though not always with an active signification, as in _advertise_, _solemnise_, is the ίζω of Greek, as in σοφίζω, _I make wise_, with σοφίζομαι, in the middle voice, _I profess myself wise_. The word σοφιστής from this verb, in English _sophist_, is the person who makes this profession, as in _baptist_, _theorist_, _atheist_, and other pure Greek words for an agent, with only the loss of the termination ής; sometimes in a hybrid way _ist_ is added to a Latin root, as in _deist_, etymologically but not colloquially identical with _theist_.

(6) Sometimes not only is the terminational syllable cut off, but the initial also, either wholly or in part; so ἐπίσκοπος, with the change of π into the kindred labial β, becomes _bishop_.

(7) When two consonants of different kinship come together, one of them, specially that not belonging to the root, disappears, as from λάπτω, _lap_; from τύπτω, τύπος, _type_.

(8) The aspirate _h_, in Greek _spiritus asper_, has a close affinity with the sibilant _s_; so for ἕξ we have in Latin _sex_, in English _six_; ὗς for _sow_; ἕδος, _sedes_, _seat_.

(9) When a word in Latin or Greek commences with a _p_, by aspiration it becomes _f_ in English and the Teutonic languages; thus for πῦρ we have _fire_, for ποδ-_foot_, for πατήρ, _father_, etc.

(10) The English _w_ is closely connected with the vowels, as appears from _water_ and _ooater_; hence it disappears in Greek altogether, or is represented by a breathing, as in οἶνος, _wine_; ὕδωρ, _water_; ὑετός, _wet_.

(11) In some adjectives the Latin _an_, like _al_, is superfluously appended to the Greek termination in κός, as _rhetorician_, from ῥητορικός.

(12) The Greek κ, as in κύων, and _cornu_ in Latin, appears in the Teutonic languages as _h_, so _hound_, _horn_; κολώνη, _collis_, _hill_.

(13) The letter _m_ at the end of an English word curtailed from Greek signifies the thing done, the product of the verb, as ποίημα, _poem_, the thing made, a poem, from ποιέω, _I make_; so _baptism_ from βαπτίζω, and _chrism_ from χρίω, _I anoint_, and other _isms_.

(14) Finally, as at least two-thirds of the technical words used in our scientific nomenclature, and not a few even outside of the range, are of Greek extraction, the student would act wisely if at starting he were to make a list of all such terms in familiar use, with their Greek form and Greek analysis in an opposite column; as—

_theology_ θεολογία
(θεός, _God_; λόγος, _discourse_)

He will thus find that he knows already some two or three hundred Greek words in a slightly disguised English form.