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How English develops

         It is important to understand how languages are in a constant state of change. Different words come in and out of usage in as little as 30 years, and as they do so they adopt different meanings. Even old, well established English words fall into disuse or gain a specialized meaning. Grammar and spelling is also changing, for example, people are beginning to spell the word until, as till, because that is how it is pronounced.

         Words come into existence in a variety of different ways:

         Some words appear from nothing: byte, dog (replacing the earlier hund), donkey, jam, kick, log, quasar, google, and yuppie.

         Some words are coined by famous people: Shakespeare coined over 1600 words including: countless, critical, excellent, lonely, majestic, obscene. From Ben Johnson we got, damp, from Isaac Newton, centrifugal and from Thomas More: explain and exact.

         Some words were created in error: The vegetable pease was thought to be a plural so that the individual item in the pod was given the name pea. The verb laze was erroneously created from the adjective lazy. The word buttonhole was a mis-hearing of button-hold.

         Some words were borrowed and adopted:

         Orange

The name of the fruit was NARANJE in Sanskrit. This language was spoken in ancient India. Indians traded with Arabs, so the word passed into Arabic as NARANJAH. The Spaniards were ruled by north African Arabs who passed the fruit and word into Spanish as NARANJA (pronounced as NARANHA).
This came into English where the fruit was a NARANJ. Words ending in J are not common in English so the spelling quickly changed to a NARANGE. The initial N moved to the a because of mis-hearing to give an ARANGE (this is called metanalysis).
Over time, the initial A became an O to give an ORANGE.

         Chocolate

When the Spanish arrived in Mexico they came across the Aztecs. The Aztec language is called Nahuatl. The Aztecs had a drink which they made from a bean they called CHOCO (bitter). They would put this bean into water (ATL) to produce CHOCO-ATL (bitter water).

The TL sound is common in the Aztec language but not in Spanish. The Spaniards inserted an A between the T and L and pronounced the drink CHOCOLATO. This drink was brought to Europe (with sugar added) where the pronunciation and spelling in English became CHOCOLATE.

         Checkmate

This is a term in chess. It is from the Farsi language spoken in Iran and Afghanistan. The original phrase is SHAH-K-MATE (every syllable pronounced) which means "The King is Dead".
The word SHAH means a "king" as in the last monarch (or SHAH) of Iran. MATE has the same root as the English "murder" and the Spanish "matador" (killer). The word came via French (where the SH became a CH) and into English where the MA-TE (two syllables) became MATE (one syllable) to give CHECKMATE.

Words are also constantly changing in meaning:

1) The word silly meant blessed or happy in the 11th century going through pious, innocent, harmless, pitiable, feeble, feeble minded before finally ending up as foolish or stupid.

2) Pretty began as crafty then changed via clever, skillfully made, fine to beautiful.

3) Buxom began with the meaning obedient and changed via compliant, lively, plump
to large breasted.

4) The word nice meant stupid and foolish in the late 13th Century. It went through a number of changes including wanton, extravagant, elegant, strange, modest, thin, and shy. By the middle of the 18th Century it had gained its current meaning of pleasant and agreeable.

Words are changing meaning now. The word bad used to be exclusively used as the opposite of good until just a few years ago; now it is used as a synonym for good by a lot of people. The word gay meant happy 30 years ago, now it means homosexual.

Some words are Created By Subtraction Or Addition of suffixes: Words can be created by adding suffixes: -able, -ness, -ment. They can also be created by adding prefixes: dis-, anti-. Examples include: sellable, brightness, pavement, disestablish, antideluvian.

Some words are combined to form new words: air and port gave airport; land and mark to give landmark.

Sometimes the combination can go in more than one way: houseboat, boathouse; bookcase, casebook.

Some words are made shorter: bra brassier bus omnibus (Latin: for everyone) exam examination gym gymnasium knickers knickerbockers lab laboratory mob mobile petrol petroleum (Greek: rock oil) pram parambulat

Word ---------------------------------------------- Original meaning

awful ------------------------------------------------ serving of awe
brave ------------------------------------- cowardice (as in bravado)
counterfeit ------------------------------------------- legitimate copy
girl -------------------------------------- young person of either sex
guess -------------------------------------------------------- take aim
knight ------------------------------------------------------------- boy
luxury ------------------------------------------ sinful self indulgence
neck ----------------------- parcel of land (as in neck of the woods)
notorious ------------------------------------------------------ famous
nuisance ------------------------------------------------- injury, harm
quick ----------------------------------------- alive (as in quicksilver)
sophisticated ----------------------------------------------- corrupted
tell --------------------------------------- to count (as in bank teller)
truant ---------------------------------------------------------- beggar

SOME WORDS change from starting with a consonant to starting with a vowel

Modern word ------------------------------------------ Original word

a nickname ---------------------------------------------- an ekename
a newt ---------------------------------------------------------- an ewt
an adder ---------------------------------------------------- a nadder
an apron ---------------------------------------------------- a napron
an orange ------------------------------------------------- a narange
an umpire --------------------------------------------------- a nonper

Some words have been around for ever, and allow us to see the similarities of the
Indo-European languages, and how words change through time:

Sanskrit	Avestan	Greek	Latin	Gothic	English
pita		pater	pater	fadar	father
padam		poda	pedem	fotu	foot
bhratar		phrater	frater	brothar	brother
bharam	ibarami	phero	fero	baira	bear
jivah	jivow	iwos	qius		quick
sanah	hano	henee	senex	sinista	senile
virah	viro	wir	wair	were	wolf

Some words, like month, allow us to see how all Indo-European languages are similar:         

English	month
Dutch	maand
German	Monat
Swedish	månad
Welsh	mis
Gaelic	mí
French	mois
Spanish	mes
Portuguese	mês
Italian	mese
Polish	miesiac
Russian	myesyats
Lithuanian	menuo
Albanian	muaj
Greek	minas
Farsi	mâh
Hindi	mahina