Why etymology?

When I begin my classes on vocabulary building I generally try and explain the reason for the existence of etymology as a subject.

A language is an invention and not a discovery.[difference between invention and discovery : invention is when one creates something altogether new and discovery is something that is already there and one finds it]

An invention will always have a rationale behind its being invented ;while discoveries only have hypothesis to explain the reasons behind their existence.
eg. the big bang theory (which attempts at explaining the beginning of the universe)
      islands are discovered
      newton discovered the gravitational force and so on ......

A language being an invention (was invented by man to communicate) would have some logic behind its invention.When we say there are 26 letters in the English alphabet there has to be an explanation for the existence of these 26 letters in the alphabet.

Etymology tries to explain this rationale behind the invention of the words by tracing the origin of words and thereby tracing the origin of the language.

Introduction to Etymology

Understanding Etymology

Have you noticed that words ending in –ology always have some common feature?For example: 

• Biology the study of living
• Zoology the study of animals
• Psychology the study of human mind
• Sociology the study of society
• Geology the study of the earth
• Anthropology the study of mankind

In all the above words, the “study” part is common; so too is “-ology”. So can we say that –ology means the “study of” or “science of”.

Let’s apply “-ology” to other words and see if it is true of them too:

• Petrology study of rocks
• Teleology study of ethics
• Astrology study of stars or heavenly bodies
• Palaeontology study of fossils
• Theology study of religion
• Psephology study of elections

The list goes on and on. So we can conclude that “–ology” means “the study of”. Since –ology gives the base meaning to the word, we say it is the root of the word.

Let’s look at another word.

Misanthropy

The root of this word is “anthropos” or mankind. The “Mis-” before the root gives the word a negative meaning. Misanthropy means “hatred of men”.

Words placed before roots, like “Mis-” are called prefixes. The “-y” in Misanthropy denotes the grammatical part of the word. Words placed after roots are known as suffixes.

Thus, we can conclude that words have a distinct structure: Prefix+Root+Suffix

• Prefix gives a positive or negative connotation to a word
• Root gives the base meaning to a word
• Suffix gives the grammatical form to a word

Breaking up words according to these components is known as “word analysis”.

Note that many a time one root can have multiple meanings. For example, “–ology” also means “ratio”, as in the words “logic”, “logical” and “analogy”.

Analogy : relationship between two words

It also means “word” or “speech” as in “eulogy”, “philology”, “neology”, and “tautology”.

Eulogy good speech

Philology the humanistic study of language and literature

Neology new word usage

Tautology repetition of a word

Influence of Latin and Greek on English

English has had a strong influence on our Indian languages like Hindi and Marathi. “Station”, “file”, “pen”, “paper”, and “taxi” are English words used frequently by Indians without knowledge of English. The reason for this is the influence of the British during their rule in India. Similarly, due to the Romans rule in England (4th and 5th cent AD) the impact of Latin on English is very strong. Then again, the Greeks being the first to study medicine, religion, and philosophy, most of the words related to these fields are derived from the Greek language.