Reading material on English language origins

January 1, 2007 8:59 PM

I want to learn more about the origins of the English language and about the roots of English words.

When I was in high school, we spent a quarter learning about the history of the English language. I still think it was the most interesting learning experience I ever had. I am always interested in the origins of words, especially Latin roots and words that have common meanings that share portions of Latin. What I would really like is some reading recommendations that would help me learn more about the language I speak, both origins of words and their history. Had anyone else found some material on this subject that is a little more interesting that Mirriam-Webster?

posted by Foam Pants to writing & language (25 comments total)

If you want to know about Latin roots, learn Latin. To learn about the history of English, learn to read Middle English (Chaucer) and some Anglo-Saxon.

Sign up for the Word of the Day at OUP. You can pick up a book such as _The Story of English_ by McCrum, Cram and MacNeill, or something like it.

Oh, and be sure to look up the word "nice" in a good etymological dictionary.
posted by QIbHom at 9:27 PM on January 1, 2007

The Oxford English Dictionary, of course. The Story of English from Bill Moyers, if you haven't already gone through it - I believe there were printed materials for that. John Ciardi's Browser's Dictionary, maybe. HL Mencken's The American Language - many of the things he described as current at the time are historical now, which is in itself interesting. It feels like I'm forgetting something very important, too.
posted by dilettante at 9:28 PM on January 1, 2007

Subscribe to Dictionary.com's word of the day, via email. With each definition, you will also get the etymology. Bonus points if you can use the word in a sentence each day. I have started writing down the words that I find interesting.
posted by Brittanie at 9:31 PM on January 1, 2007

Despite the lame title, Instant Vocabulary, is a book that systematically teaches root words in such a way that you can figure out what almost any word means. This works great with latin-based foreign languages as well. Most of the roots tend to be Latin or Greek; it's not much help with Old English or French variations.

Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue is probably the most entertaining read on English origins.

PBS did a good documentary series a few years ago called The Story of English, which is available at many public libraries.

The Teaching Company has an extremely thorough series on the history of English. It's pricey, but widely available from other sources...
posted by Telf at 9:37 PM on January 1, 2007

I highly recommend Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way. The description from Amazon:

With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson--the acclaimed author of The Lost Continent--brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest growth industries.

posted by Robot Johnny at 9:39 PM on January 1, 2007

Melvyn Bragg's The Adventure of English is worth a look, as are his Routes of English programmes for Radio 4. (Or rather, in the latter case, a listen.) The book is better on the origins of the language and British dialectal traditions than on the worldwide spread of the language, but that's to be expected, and the radio programmes fill in many of the gaps.
posted by holgate at 10:09 PM on January 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

slightly related english-language tidbit that might interest you:
a scriptwriting mentor once told me to be careful when i chose a latinate or germanic word, as the choice a character makes between one or the other is very informative re: their upbringing, mental state, and sincerity.

she said latinate words are generally the long, convoluted ones with lots of syllables. they're intellectual, and removed from the guts of the emotion or phenomenon they describe. the characters most likely to communicate using latinate words are intellectual, prudish, deliberately detached, theoretical. they can seem insincere and cold.

on the other hand, germanic words are almost onomatopoeic- short, evocative, blunt, crude. they convey a more earthy, sensual feeling, and can seem more sincere. when an intellectual character can't hide from the truth any more, they'll shift into germanic-speak. it's the difference between "i apologize" and "i'm sorry", or "they copulated until they glistened with perspiration", versus "they f**ked til they dripped with sweat." (sorry to be crude, but that's the most evocative example she gave me).

i might not have gotten some of the details right with my explanation of her theory- but i found it really interesting, and it certainly agrees with some real-life experiences-- it explains why "i apologize" never feels quite as genuine as "i'm sorry".
posted by twistofrhyme at 10:38 PM on January 1, 2007 [5 favorites]

Thirding The Mother Tongue.
posted by nicwolff at 11:03 PM on January 1, 2007

My favorite is The Origins and Development of the English Language, by Thomas Pyles. Well written, detailed, and approachable.
posted by Brian James at 11:18 PM on January 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

Another thumbs up for Bragg's The Adventure Of English, I'd recommend listening to Robert Powell's excellent reading.
posted by mtonks at 12:03 AM on January 2, 2007

Online etymological dictionary
posted by zadcat at 12:06 AM on January 2, 2007

If you're interested in Latin, I suggest Harry Mount's Amo, Amas, Amat and All That: How to Become a Latin Lover. I got it for Christmas, and so far it's fascinating. It's both a description of the Latin language and the many ways in which it shaped the English we use today, and also a tutorial of sorts in how to master basic Latin.
I've never learnt any Latin at all, but am interested in it as my degree is in English. Already it's taught me loads about the English language I didn't know previously. As a bonus it's also quite funny too!
posted by schmoo at 12:54 AM on January 2, 2007

TwistOfRhyme, it has to do with how it all happened. English is a Germanic language with a thick layer of Romance vocabulary pasted on top. But at it's core it is definitely Germanic, and the most obvious way to tell is that there are three distinct third-person singular pronouns in English: "he", "she", and "it". Romance languages only have two, corresponding to "he" and "she. (It is impossible to translate the word "it" into French.)

It all goes back to 1066. Saxon England was conquered by Norman invaders. Saxon was a Germanic tongue related to Dutch and Frisian; the Norman language was Romance, related to old French.

The reason that words with Latin roots sound high-falutin' is that those words came from the nobility. The reason that words tracing back to old German sound base and crude is that those were the words used by the peasants.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 1:13 AM on January 2, 2007

...(second thoughts, damn it) and the reason why Norman didn't replace Saxon was that there were a hell of a lot more peasants than there were nobles, and the peasants were uneducated. If the nobles wanted to speak to the peasants, they had to learn Saxon to do it since the peasants surely were not going to learn Norman.

Within three hundred years after the invasion of 1066, Norman as a language had disappeared in England, and the English of Chaucer appears as basically the Saxon language with a lot of Norman words grafted onto it and with considerable pronunciation drift.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 1:20 AM on January 2, 2007

Some useful pages online:

Borrowed words in English
Language families
The history and lineage of English

Here's an interesting factoid:

"Because the English underclass cooked for the Norman upper class, the words for most domestic animals are English (ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, deer) while the words for the meats derived from them are French (beef, veal, mutton, pork, bacon, venison)."
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 1:34 AM on January 2, 2007

If springing for an Oxford English is a little out-of-budget, let me recommend the American Heritage dictionary (any edition). I haven't spent much time with any Merriam-Webster, but the thing I love about the American Heritage is that the etymologies often go right back to Proto-Indo-European. Because of the Saxon/French/Latin/Greek hybridization, English often has a fistful of reflexes of any one PIE root, which you can find through the appendix in the back of the American Heritage. It's available online through bartleby.com, but the online interface is only suited to hunting, whereas printed, bound paper is better for gathering.

On the other hand, if you do have bundles of money to throw around, you might also get a rise out of the Dictionary of American Regional English (last volume due to be published in a couple years). All manner of gems from the old world hide in the dialects of the new. (No, that does not mean that Appalachian people speak perfect Elizabethan English.) But it will set you back many a hundred dollars.

Second the vote for John Ciardi's A Browser's Dictionary, which does much the same thing, but with an international base, on a smaller scale, with no claims to balanced coverage, and with really, really entertaining exposition. It has taught me quite a lot about diachronic semantics, vernacular eloquence, and the enormous inventiveness that can go into talking dirty.

Second also what's been said about Latin. An educated vocabulary includes a whole lot of etymological knowledge, but it's in latent form. Studying a little bit of Latin will break that knowledge out into your consciousness.

Another recommendation: Read poetry. The history of a word creates its habitual usage, and habitual usage creates connotation. A poet with a good ear uses words, in and out of the habitual patterns, to paint with connotation. Watch for the lines that hit you in the guts and the lines that spin your head. Read, find something striking, and check out the vocabulary. Again, the Norman/Saxon divide plays a huge role here. Gutsy poetry is more often Germanic (a good counterweight to that Latin you'll be studying).
posted by eritain at 2:08 AM on January 2, 2007

For my degree course in English Language, we were required to read A History of the English Language by Baugh and Cable (isbn 0415280990). It's written very entertainingly. I still re-read it today.
posted by Pericles at 2:37 AM on January 2, 2007

Not sure where you're located, but membership in my local public library (San Francisco), includes free access to the OED Online. Might be worth a check at your local public library.
posted by trip and a half at 2:52 AM on January 2, 2007

Think of it this way: the creative and mobile and dynamic elements of a society play a big role in shaping its language. In the 1300s, that was the clerical and mercantile class, people like Chaucer who dealt with the francophone court and travelled widely and read the cream of European literature.

Something as late as Sir Gawain still looks like another language, not least because it adopts the alliterative form of much earlier poetry; but the opening lines of Chaucer's General Prologue look like English, even unmodernised. It's not just a grafting of vocabulary; it's the synthesis of Romance language and culture. (The first few minutes of this In Our Time discussion is good on this.)

So, where does Latin drip into English? Early, it's clerical; medieval, it's through Romance influences; later, it's through the humanists; later still, it's through the first true scientists and the Augustan classicists.

Oh, do cryptic crosswords. People who love the organic flexibility of English do crosswords.
posted by holgate at 4:16 AM on January 2, 2007

If this sort of stuff interests you, I highly suggest you find a used Intro to Linguistics textbook. I'm sure you'll find it fascinating.
posted by milarepa at 5:04 AM on January 2, 2007

I took a History of English course back in college; among other things, we did watch tapes of "The Story of English," which was pretty interesting. It was also interesting learning how to pronounce Chaucer's English (we had to memorize the first couple stanzas of Canterbury Tales, and I still remember most of that), which gave some insights into why modern English spelling is so screwed up, among other things. FWIW, the textbook we used in that course was "A History of the English Language," by Baugh & Cable.
posted by adamrice at 7:50 AM on January 2, 2007

Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue is probably the most entertaining read on English origins.

Entertaining, but not accurate. Do not read Bryson until you've already gotten a good grasp of the subject, and then only for fun, if it's fun for you. (I find my enjoyment of Bryson varies inversely with how much I already know about the subject he's writing about.)

I heartily second eritain's recommendation for the American Heritage; get the latest (fourth) edition, which in addition to the wonderful appendix of PIE roots has added one for Semitic, and the introductions to the appendices will give you a basic grasp of those particular heritages.

Baugh (recommended by Pericles) is good, as are Charles Barber's The English Language: A Historical introduction and Barbara M. H. Strang's A History of English (ISBN 0415042828; apparently the 1991 reprint I have is no longer available, but check around for other editions).

I haven't read A History of English: A Sociolinguistic Approach by Barbara A. Fennell, but it looks good. In general, make sure the author of a book you're interested in is a specialist in language history rather than a journalist or pop writer rehashing the usual generalizations, misunderstandings, and just plain falsehoods. And feel free to e-mail me with any questions; fascination with "the origins of words" is exactly what got me into linguistics!
posted by languagehat at 8:00 AM on January 2, 2007

One of the best things I did when I was learning English was investing in a copy of Robert Banhart's "The Barnhart Concise Dictionary Of Etymology." It's fascinating, despite its title's conceit (it's limited to *English* etymology!) and full of funny facts:

1) "Testimony" comes from the Latin word "testis" which means "witness." "Testicles" comes from the same roots, presumably because they bear witness to male virility!

2) "Marsupial" comes from a Latin word meaning "pouch" or "purse."

3) "Fat" comes from an Old English word meaning "cram" or "stuff."

There's also the out-of-print (but cheap on Amazon) "Story Of Language" by Mario Pei. It's a pretty good overview (for the layman) of language in general - weird connections, strange grammatical formations and how different languages use different means of expressing the same things. I think if you find the history of English to interest you, you'll really love the history of Indo-European too (that's the big language family which English is in) - as well as languages and language groups outside it.

For instance, one of the things I loved learning about the Indo-European language family was that it was tough to find out where the "original" mother tongue of its languages was spoken. (These languages include English, Russian, French, Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, Greek, Welsh, Polish and many others, just to give you an idea of its vastness.) Eventually, linguists discovered that certain "place specific" root words could be found in all these languages, even if the thing described was not found in the region where the language was spoken. "Birch" and "beech" are two of these words. Another is a word "loks," which survives in one form or another in most IE languages. In the English language it's "lox," the creamy salmon spread for bagels. From clues like these, many linguists can make an educated guess about the physical location from which proto-Indo-European came. (It should be noted that many other linguists dispute this for various reasons.)

Check out this site for some info:

http://nick.frejol.org/writings/proto-indo-european.live

I also found this site by stumbling around:

http://vernondent.blogspot.com/2005/06/carnival-of-etymologies_30.html

Here's an interesting selection from it:

The root of set is Old English settan (the causative of sittan "to sit"). It goes back to Proto-Indo-European *sed- "to sit," which has descendants all over the map. Among them are Sanskrit sidati "sits;" Old Persian hadis "abode;" Greek ezesthai "to sit" and hedra "seat, chair," also "face of a geometric solid;" Old Irish suide "seat, sitting;" Welsh sedd "seat," eistedd "sitting;" Old Church Slavonic sezda, sedeti "to sit;" and Lithuanian sedmi "to sit."

In some Balto-Slavic languages, this word has come to be associated with gardening, for instance Russian sad "garden," Lithuanian soditi "to plant." English bed shows a similar development from "place where one lies down" to "place where plants are set."
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 11:25 AM on January 2, 2007

http://www.etymonline.com/

Hey, it's free.

holgate: I adore the complexity and subtlety of the English language, but I cannot for the life of me get into crossword puzzles. Ugh.
posted by Coda at 3:00 AM on January 3, 2007

Great link, zadcat and Coda. Thanks.

Small correction: The first, third, and fourth editions of American Heritage have the lovely PIE appendix; the second does not. It's also printed and bound separately under Calvert Watkins's name and a descriptive title.

I can't get into crosswords, either. Sometimes they depend upon the 'complexity and subtlety of the English language', but I find that too often they depend on crossword-specific domain knowledge and pop-culture ephemera, and I turn a hearty 'meh' to them.
posted by eritain at 8:49 PM on April 1, 2007