All right guys now we'll have a histrical lesson....
Get ready to turn back time then we'll understand more about ENGLISH words.
languages change into different languages over time. In fact, the various dialects of a single language may change into different languages. Over the past 2,000 years, Latin has turned into French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. English has developed from the same original language as German, Dutch, Danish, and Swedish.
They all originated from a language for which no written record has survived, a language called "Proto-Indo-European" (PIE), spoken 5,000-6,000 yeas ago. We don't know exactly what kind of language it was, but we can reconstruct it with considerable accuracy from the various languages we know evolved from it.
For example, we know from English bear ("carry"), and Latin fero "carry", and Greek pherein "bear, carry", and Russian brat' "take", that PIE contained some word *bher- that meant "bear" or "carry". English brother derived from the same PIE stem and Latin frater. The change of "b" to "f" in Latin is a regular change that occurred in many PIE words as they developed from PIE to Latin, e.g.
Latin fornio "oven" (from which we get furnace) but not as PIE developed into Germanic languages. The same stem that turns up in Latin as forn-, appears in German as bren-nen English burn, both meaning the same thing.
This is the way historical linguists trace the history of language change, by plotting the rules of sound and meaning change from one era to the next.
Some dictionaries carry etymological information about words. This information is not necessary for using the word but many people find it interesting. For example, did you know that ink came from words that originally meant "to burn"? Click "ink" and see how. Where does the word dinosaur come from? Check the etymology in the dictionary.
Not too hard to get it huh? Right now we know that words are transfered anf transformed from other languages...so if we can recognize its root it helps a lot.
Get ready to turn back time then we'll understand more about ENGLISH words.
languages change into different languages over time. In fact, the various dialects of a single language may change into different languages. Over the past 2,000 years, Latin has turned into French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. English has developed from the same original language as German, Dutch, Danish, and Swedish.
They all originated from a language for which no written record has survived, a language called "Proto-Indo-European" (PIE), spoken 5,000-6,000 yeas ago. We don't know exactly what kind of language it was, but we can reconstruct it with considerable accuracy from the various languages we know evolved from it.
For example, we know from English bear ("carry"), and Latin fero "carry", and Greek pherein "bear, carry", and Russian brat' "take", that PIE contained some word *bher- that meant "bear" or "carry". English brother derived from the same PIE stem and Latin frater. The change of "b" to "f" in Latin is a regular change that occurred in many PIE words as they developed from PIE to Latin, e.g.
Latin fornio "oven" (from which we get furnace) but not as PIE developed into Germanic languages. The same stem that turns up in Latin as forn-, appears in German as bren-nen English burn, both meaning the same thing.
This is the way historical linguists trace the history of language change, by plotting the rules of sound and meaning change from one era to the next.
Some dictionaries carry etymological information about words. This information is not necessary for using the word but many people find it interesting. For example, did you know that ink came from words that originally meant "to burn"? Click "ink" and see how. Where does the word dinosaur come from? Check the etymology in the dictionary.
Not too hard to get it huh? Right now we know that words are transfered anf transformed from other languages...so if we can recognize its root it helps a lot.
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น