Language Arts Lesson 1 Instruction, page 1

Language Arts Lesson 1
Word Analysis, Fluency and Vocabulary Development (Grades 9-12)

Instruction 1-1

Discovery Videos:
Samuel Johnson: 1709-1785

ETYMOLOGY OF SIGNIFICANT TERMS

No, etymology is not the study of insects. That’s entomology. Etymology is the study of words and where they come from. It’s history and myth and folklore all rolled up into one. And it can be even more interesting than learning about creepy crawly things!

Words come into our language from everywhere. “Buckaroo” is a corruption of vaquero, the Spanish term for cowboy. Many of the names of our states (like Oklahoma, Minnesota, Utah and Massachusetts) come from American Indian tribes or languages. In fact, only a few states (like Virginia, South Carolina and Pennsylvania) have names that don’t.

Many of our words come from Greek or Latin. Take the months of the year, for example. The original Roman year had 10 months, named for important gods or rulers:

Martius (March), the first month – Mars’ month
Aprilis (April), the second month – Aphrodite’s month
Maius (May), the third month – Maia’s month
Junius (June), the fourth month – Juno’s month
Quintilis or Julius (July), the fifth month – Julius Caesar’s month
Sextilis (August), the sixth month -- Augustus Caesar’s month
September (September), the seventh month
October (October), the eighth month
November (November), the ninth month
December (December), the tenth month

Around 700 BC, Roman King Numa Pompilius added two more months -- Januarius (January) and Februarius (February) -- and moved the beginning of the year from March to January. Thus our tenth month goes by the name of the eighth. Our ninth uses the name of the seventh. Our eleventh uses the name of the ninth. And our twelfth uses the name of the tenth. Go figure.

For an interesting discussion of the history of the months and the meaning of their names, click on http://www.crowl.org/Lawrence/time/months.html

Words come from everywhere. Three days of the week are named after heavenly bodies: Saturn (Saturday), the Sun (Sunday) and the Moon (Monday) -- so these names come from Greek or Roman mythology. But the names for the other days don’t. Tuesday and Wednesday were named for Tiw and Woden, important figures in Anglo-Saxon myths. And Thursday and Friday were named for Thor and Freya, a Norse god and goddess.

We’ll tell you more about Greek, Roman, Norse and Anglo-Saxon mythology in later Instructions, but don’t worry – it won’t be dull. Mythological figures led bigger-than-life lives -- with plenty of sex and violence.

There are a number of fascinating web sites where you can look up the history of words. Here are a few examples of what you’d find:

Assassin	A synonym for “murderer,” especially one who kills a political leader. This word comes from the name of a small Islamic sect which terrorized the Middle East for 200 years by committing secret murders. Literally, the word means “hashshshin,” Arabic for “someone who is addicted to hashish (marijuana)” – which is what these assassins smoked before they went out to kill.
Addict	In ancient Rome, slaves were given to soldiers as a reward for outstanding performance in battle. These slaves were known as “addicts.” Eventually the word came to mean anyone who is a slave to something.
Atom	From the Greek word for “indivisible” -- which is what people used to think the atom was (before the atomic bomb and nuclear energy).
Ballot	An Italian term for “small ball or pebble.” Italian citizens used to vote by casting a small ball or pebble into one of several boxes.
Denim	A fabric originally made in Nimes, France, called Serge di Nimes, which was eventually shortened to “denim” (what would life be without denim blue jeans?).
Escape	A Latin word meaning “out of cape.” Ancient Romans would avoid capture by throwing off their capes while fleeing from bandits, the authorities or, presumably, assassins.
Noon	Derived from the Latin word for ninth. “Noon” originally meant the ninth hour after sunrise, 3 PM – the hottest time of the day and the time when most people in the Roman Empire would break for lunch.
Pay	This word goes back, as so many of our words do, to Latin. “Pax” means peace or “to appease,” so “pay” originally meant a “payoff” to “keep the peace.”
Robot	From the Czech word for “worker.” In 1923, a Czech science fiction writer wrote a thriller about a time when machines had taken over the world and implanted circuitry in humans, turning them into zombies who willingly served as mindless workers -- "robots."
Senator	From the Latin “senex.” meaning old or senile. Wonder how many Senators know where their much-sought-after title comes from?
Slogan	From two Celtic words, “slaugh” and “gheum” which mean “battle” and “cry.” And that’s just what slogans are: battle cries. A good example is Nike’s slogan “Just Do It.”
Third Degree	In an organization called The Masons, The Third Degree (also called Master Mason) is the highest rank you can achieve. To get there, one must undergo a series of tough questions and a difficult initiation ceremony. Thus, someone undergoing tough questioning is spoken of as getting “the third degree.”

There are a number of web sites where you can look up the etymology of specific words or phrases, which can be great fun. You can even find out where your own name came from. Click on:

http://www.westegg.com/etymology/

http://www.behindthename.com/

To really understand where words come from, it helps to know a little about the history of the English language. Don’t worry – we’ll be brief!

English is a member of the Indo-European family of languages. There are many branches of this family, but the most important for us are the Germanic and the Romance languages. And no, calling something a “Romance language” doesn’t mean that it’s all about handsome heroes and heroines. It means that the language comes from Latin, the language of ancient Rome.

English is in the Germanic group of languages, which began about 3000 years ago in Germany’s Elbe River Valley. Around the 2nd Century BC, this language split into 3 different groups: the East Germanic, the North Germanic and the West Germanic. East Germanic essentially disappeared. North Germanic evolved into the modern Scandinavian languages. And West Germanic evolved into modern German, Dutch, Flemish, Frisian – and English. Here’s a rough timeline:

Old English (500-1100 AD)

The Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes -- West Germanic invaders from Jutland and southern Denmark -- began populating the British Isles in the 5th and 6th Centuries AD. They drove the Celtic-speaking inhabitants out and spoke a language that we call Old English. Beginning about 850 AD, the Viking (Norse) invasions added many Norse words to this language. Old English lasted until about 1100 AD and about half of the words we use today come from Old English roots (we’ll be talking about word roots in our next Instruction). The most famous surviving example of Old English is the poem “Beowulf.”

Middle English (1100-1500 AD)

Now came the single most important event in the history of the English Language: the Norman Conquest. In 1066 AD, William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy (France) conquered England and its Anglo-Saxon population. William and his people spoke a dialect of Old French known as Anglo-Norman, which had both Germanic and Latin roots. Up until this invasion, Latin had only been a minor influence on the English language – but now there was a major addition of words with Latin roots. Old English and Anglo-Norman mixed into a language we call Middle English. The most famous example of Middle English is Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales.”

Early Modern English (1500-1800 AD)

The next big change came with the Renaissance. The revival of classical scholarship brought many more Latin and Greek words into the language, since most educated people of the time knew Greek or Latin. Much of what we know about Early Modern English comes from the writings of William Shakespeare (1564-1616), who coined many of the words and phrases we use today. He made these words by combining Latin, Greek or Anglo-Saxon word roots, prefixes and suffixes and added over 2000 words to the English language. Other writers did the same thing – and we’ll be learning more about it in our next instruction (including where some of the words in the Harry Potter books come from).

Another factor was something called “The Great Vowel Shift” – a major change in pronunciation. Although we can read Chaucer’s Middle English today, we couldn’t understand it if we heard it spoken. But although the accent would be different, we could understand the language of Shakespeare’s time.

Another important development was the invention of the printing press. William Caxton brought the printing press to England in 1476. Printing standardized the language. And since the publishing houses and printers were located in London, the dialect of London became standard English. Spelling and grammar became fixed for the first time, and the first English dictionary was published in 1604.

Late Modern English (1800 to the present)

The main difference between Early Modern English and Late Modern English is vocabulary. We have more words. One reason is the rise of technology, which meant that new words had to be invented for new things. Another was the rise of the British Empire. At one time, Britain ruled one-quarter of the world. This not only brought English words to the world, it brought new words to English. Virtually every language has added words to the English language -- from Finnish (sauna) to
Japanese (tycoon).

And finally, Britain’s colonization of America led not only to differences in British and American speech, but to an influx of new words from the New World -- everything from Native American and Spanish words to words from West Africa brought to America by slaves.

Now let's do Practice Exercise 1-1 (top)

Next Page: Greek, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon Roots and Affixes (top)