Mechanics of Etymology; Greek and Latin Roots; Phoneme Shifts

ETYMOLOGICAL THEORY

By imitation of sounds (onomatopoeia)
	Meow, bang, crackle, zip, ring
Through extended meanings
	The verb fly becomes: the name of an insect, a baseball that is hit high, the space over a theater stage
As derivations
	From study comes student, from moon comes month
Through compound words
	Notebook, bedroom and mailbox are some obvious examples but also note elbow (ell + bow) and lackadaisical (from the expression 'lackaday' which itself derives from 'alack the day').
From root + affix
	Prefix + root
		Pro- (forward or forth) + duce (lead) = produce ("bring forth")
	Root + suffix
		Wonder + -full = wonderful
Through changing pronunciation
	Breakfast, cupboard, extraordinary
Through changing spelling
	Alone is from 'all one'. Felt was once used to strain liquid, so the piece of felt used as the strainer became known as a felter, which later changed to filter. "God be with you" was once a valediction which, over the centuries, came to be pronounced and spelled as good-bye.
From names (eponyms)
	People's names:
		The Teddy Bear is named after Teddy Roosevelt and the electrical volt after Alessandro Volta.
	Place names:
		Frankfurters after named after Frankfurt, Germany, and jeans after Genoa, Italy.
	Trade names:
		Kleenex, Band-aid, Jello, Xerox, Hoover
From the shortening or truncating of words
	Telephone becomes phone, photograph becomes photo, megabyte becomes meg
From acronyms
	Sonar = SOund NAvigation Ranging, laser = Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation
Portmanteau words
	Motor + hotel = motel
From foreign words
	Influenza (Italian), rendezvous (French), chow (Chinese), opal (Sanskrit)
Invented words
	Quiz, quark

Latin Root	English Meaning	English Example Word
act	act, do	actual
ami	like, love	amiable
cad	fall	cadence
ced	go	intercede
cept	take, hold	intercept
cid	kill, cut	genocide
clud	shut, close	occlude
cred	believe	incredulous
cur	run	incur
dict	tell	edict
duct	lead	induct
fact	make, do	benefactor
fer	bear, carry	confer
flect	flex, bend	genuflect
gress	step, go forward	egress
here	stick, adhere	inherent
ject	throw	eject
junct	join	conjunction
leg	read, choose	illegible
loqu	talk, speak	loquacity
mit	send	transmit
mov	move	immovable
ped	foot	centipede
pel	drive	impel
pend	hang	pendulum
pon	put	respond
port	carry	transport
press	press, hold	impress
rupt	break	disrupt
scrib	write	describe
sect	cut	intersect
sent	feel	sentient
sequ	follow	sequence
spect	look	introspection
sta	stand	station
tact	touch	tactile
termin	end	determine
tract	draw, pull	tractor
vent	come	invent
vert	turn	convert
vict	conquer	evict
vid	see	video
voc	call	vocalize
volv	roll, turn	evolve

Latin Prefix	English Meaning	English Example Word
ab	away	abduct
ad	to, toward	admit
ante	before, in front of	antecedent
bene	well, good	benediction
bi	two	bifocal
circum	around	circumvent
co	together	cooperate
contra	against, opposite	contrary
de	from, down	deprecate
dis	apart, differently	disgrace
e	out	elect
extgra	outside	extraordinary
in	in	inject
in	not	involuntary
inter	between	intercept
intra	within, in	intraocular
mal	badly, evil	maltreat
ob	in the way	obstruct
per	through	percolate
post	after	postmortem
pre	before	preside
pro	forward, forth	promote
re	again, back	relent
retro	backward	retroactive
se	apart	secret
semi	half	semi-circle
sub	under	submarine
super	above	supernatural
trans	across	transcontinental
ultra	exceedingly	ultralight

Greek Affix	English Meaning	English Example Word
anthropo	man	anthropologist
anti	against	antihistamine
astro	star	astrology
auto	self	automobile
biblio	book	bibliography
bio	life	biosphere
chrom	color	monochromatic
chron	time	chronology
cosmo	world	microcosm
cracy	government	autocracy
dem	people	demographic
eu	well, good	euphemism
geo	earth	geography
graph	write	autograph
hydro	water	hydrophobia
hyper	over	hyperactive
hypo	under	hypodermic
log	speech, word	syllogism
logy	science, study	meteorology
meta	beyond	metaphysics
meter	measure	hygrometer
micro	small	microorganism
mis	hate, wrong	misogyny
mono	one	monosyllable
onym	name	synonym
pan	all	pantheism
path	feeling	sympathy
peri	around	peripatetic
phil	love	Anglophile
phob	fear	agoraphobia
phon	sound	megaphone
poly	many	polyphony
pseudo	false	pseudonym
psych	mind	psychology
scop	see	oscilloscope
soph	wisdom	sophomore
syn	together	synchronize
tele	at a distance	telemetry
theo	God or god	theology
therm	heat	thermometer

Indo-European consonants

The table below shows the major Indo-European languages with some of their consonants. As you can see, the consonants are not arranged alphabetically but, rather, in groups of similar sounds. For instance, the 'stops' are all sounds which are produced with a little explosion of air, such as p, t and k. If the vocal chords vibrate when a 'stop' is articulated then it is said to be 'voiced' (e.g. b, d and g). If a 'stop' is followed by an extra puff of air it is said to be 'aspirate' (as the th in pot-hook and the dh in mud-hole).

We may here discern the evolution of this family of languages over time from the (theoretical) prehistoric Indo-European through ancient Greek and Latin to modern German. Modern English is not included as it is actually a mixture of Old English (also known as Anglo-Saxon) and Old French which makes it, technically, a creole.

To illustrate one way in which this table may be used, let us consider septa, the Latin word for seven. It uses the continuant: s, an unvoiced stop: p and a voiced stop: t. If we check the same columns for Greek we find that the only difference is that the s changes to an h and, hepta is indeed the Greek word for seven. Again, the Latin word pater becomes the English father and the Latin frater becomes brother. Note that differences in vowels (such as the o in brother) are not predicted by this table.

CONSONANTS

Stops

Cont.

Sonorants

unvoiced

voiced

voiced aspirate

nasal

liquid

glide

Sanskrit

k/c

g/j

gh/h

r/l

l/r

*Indo-European

k^w

g^w

g^wh

i/y

w/u

Hittite

Tocharian

t(c)

Old Persian

g/d

g/j

g/d

g/j

Avestan

k/c

z/g

g/z

Old Church Slavonic

k/c'/c

g/z'/z

Lithuanian

Greek

p/t/k

b/d/g

ph/th/kh

h/z

Latin

v/gu

f(b)

f(d)

Old Irish

Armenian

z(j)

g/v

Gothic

h(j)

hw/w

b/g

Common Germanic

kw/k

Old English

cw/k

g(y)

Old Norse

Old High German

hw/w

p/pf

t/d

Middle Dutch

th/d

ETYMOLOGICAL THEORY

How words are created

Latin Roots

Latin Prefixes

Greek Affixes

Indo-European consonants