Secrets of the Words You Know
Blog 34: The Last Word
Well, here we are at the end of our journey back some 6,000 years based on comparisons of words that English has either inherited or borrowed from other languages also descended from Proto Indo European.
In this final blog post, we will remind you of how to make your own comparisons of possibly related words, summarise key changes from PIE to English and to other related languages from which English has borrowed, and give you some additional sources of information if you wish to learn more.
How to identify Word-groups in English, combining words inherited by English and borrowed from related languages
First, focus on consonants, as vowels are prone to more complex rules and more extensive changes over time.
Second, remembering that PIE words are typically built on monosyllabic roots, many of which are in the form consonant – vowel – consonant, pay particular attention to the first two consonants of words you are looking at. We have seen many examples, back to *men-, the source of ‘mind’, ‘mental’ and ‘mania’. This also means discarding prefixes, so the first two relevant consonants of ‘suffer’ and the like are ‘f-r’, not ‘s-f’, taking one back to the underlying root *bher-. Technical Note 4 gives you a list of the main prefixes in Latin and Greek as examples.
It is of course true that roots may have more than one consonant either before the vowel (eg *dhwer-, the source of ‘door’, ‘forum’ and ‘thyroid’) or after (eg *k̂erd, source of ‘heart, ‘cardio-‘ etc), and that there may be a mobile ‘s’ at the start (so *(s)ker- at the origin of both inherited ‘short’ and borrowed ‘curt’) or an infixed ‘n’ as in borrowed ‘junction’ in contrast to ‘jugular’, yoga’ and inherited ‘yoke’, all from the root *yeug-.
Remember too that the rules with the fewest exceptions are for consonants in initial position before a vowel (Grimm’s Law being an excellent example). It’s true that some initial consonant clusters, such as *st-, have proved extremely resilient as they stand, but others (see below) can evolve in ways that are quite misleading.
In the same vein, non-initial consonants are open to other ‘happenings’ – for example the loss in Greek of *w between vowels, so ‘neo-’ in contrast to ‘novel’ and other borrowings from Latin, which did not lose the *w but eventually changed its sound to a ‘v’, or the evolution of unvoiced PIE stop consonants into voiced rather than fricative equivalents in Proto Germanic under Verner’s Law, discussed in Blog post 33.
Summary of the main evolutions of the consonants of PIE
Here for convenience are the main evolutions we have discussed, focussing on initial consonants followed by a vowel.
First, the sonorant consonants of PIE:
The general rule is that the sonorant consonants (*m, *n, *l, *r, *w and *y) have shown considerable stability in this position in most (sometimes in all) descendant languages.
PIE *m is the best example, yielding an ‘m’ in almost every successor language, so English has many words where both inherited words (eg ‘mother’, ‘mere’, ‘much’) and borrowed words (eg ‘maternal’, ‘maritime’, ‘mega-’ from the same three roots) still start identically.
*n is similarly a safe bet in what was originally initial position before a vowel. Here, though, there are important cases where *n was the second element of a consonant cluster, and the first element has disappeared, as in Latin-based ‘native’ (contrast ‘pregnant’) and ‘noble’ (contrast ‘ignoble’) from the roots *ĝenH- (zero grade *ĝn̥H) and *ĝneH- respectively. English inherited words experience a similar evolution in speech (‘knee’ in contrast to ‘genuflection’), but at least the spelling is there to remind us of the history of this cluster.
*l and *r have likewise shown a good deal of stability in initial position before vowels, other than in Iranian languages, where *l typically yields ‘r’, and Indic languages, where either sound may be maintained or swapped (you may remember the contrast between Alexander and the Gurkhas, as am example of *l becoming *r from *Hlek-, a root about ‘protecting’).
However, there are many cases where English and other Germanic languages have lost ‘h’, from PIE *k̂ or *k, before an *l (so ‘lean’ in contrast to ‘recline’, from the root *k̂lei-) or an *r (so ‘reindeer’ for the ‘horned’ deer, from the root *ker-). So some initial ‘l’ or ‘r’ sounds in English inherited words reflect the second, not the first consonant of the original root, and typically match borrowed words starting with ‘cl-’ or cr-’, sometimes with an intervening vowel, as with ‘uni-corn’ from the same root as ‘horn’.
*w has changed to the sound ‘v’ in almost every language descended from PIE except English and, in slightly different ways, Dutch and its close siblings. It is often stable as a ‘v’ (borrowed ‘vermin’ matching inherited ‘worm’) but remember that it is routinely lost in Greek (‘ergonomics’ for the study of ‘work’) and before *l and *r in Latin (‘Lanolin’ in contrast to inherited ’wool’; ‘radical’ similarly versus inherited ’wort’).
*y is rare but mostly conserved in initial position. The main exceptions are its evolution in Greek into either ‘z’ as in ‘zeugma’ (cousin of ‘yoke’) or an ‘h’, leading via Latin to our word ‘hour; and its loss in Celtic (so ‘Evan’ for a young man).
Second, the Fricative *s
This sound is usually conserved as such in initial position before a vowel, except in Greek, Iranian and Welsh/Breton, where it changes to an ‘h’. Greek examples, as you may recall, include the salt-based ‘halogen’, ‘helium’ as opposed to Latin-based ‘solar’, ‘homo-’ as a prefix meaning the same as inherited ‘same’ and – maybe – ‘hero’ as opposed to ‘servant’, both being types of ‘preserver’.
Before a consonant, s is usually indeed preserved in all languages, so Greek-derived ‘stasis’ shows its link to Latin-derived ‘state, Iranian-based place names in ‘-stan’ and English inherited ‘stand’. However, a significant number of word families show that sometimes two words with similar meanings start with ‘sC’ (where C stands for any of PIE *k, *l, *m, *n, *p, *t and *w) in one case and just ‘C’ in the other. This is known as the ’mobile s’.
Examples in the Blog post for *s include slime/lime; slop/lubricate; stegosaurus/toga; spume/foam. A nice additional one is provided by the root *(s)twer-, meaning making a rapid circular motion. This lies behind inherited ‘storm’ and ‘stir’, with the mobile ‘s’, and ‘turbine’, ‘dis-turb’, ‘perturb’ and ‘trouble’, all borrowings from similar words in Greek and Latin without the ‘s’.
Third, the Stop Consonants
I am sure that I don’t need to remind you of the significance of the sound shift described by Jacob Grimm: PIE initial voiceless stops become fricatives in Proto Germanic; PIE voiced aspirates lose their aspiration; and PIE voiced stops lose their voice. English has faithfully kept the stop consonants of Proto Germanic, except where the guttural sounds are concerned: here, before front vowels in the relevant period, all initial hard ‘c’s became the affricate ‘ch’, and ‘g’s became ‘y’.
Most other PIE languages have kept the original voiced and voiceless PIE labial and dental stop consonants, though the aspirated stops have lost their aspiration everywhere except in the Indic languages, usually merging with the voiced stops (as in Germanic), but in Greek and Latin eventually becoming fricative sounds.
Labials
So for the labials, roots beginning with *p give all those ‘f/p’ matches that we first explored with ‘footpedal’. Initial *p is well-preserved outside Germanic, except that it vanishes in Celtic. Roots beginning with *bh provide many cases where English inherits an initial ‘b’ with borrowings starting with an ‘f’ from Latin, a ‘ph’ from Greek, a ‘b’ in most other languages, with only Sanskrit and its descendants conserving the original sound. The root *bher- is a good example: ‘bear’ (inherited), ‘fertile’ (from Latin), ‘Christopher’ (from Greek), ‘Aberdeen’ (from a Celtic language related to Welsh) and ‘Bharat’ (from Hindi). The main oddity of this group is the near-absence of roots starting with a *b.
Dentals
For the dentals, the unvoiced and voiced consonants are mostly straightforward, once we recall the Grimm’s Law shifts. So the root *ten-, ‘to stretch’, gives us ‘tension’ from Latin, ‘tonic’ from Greek, ‘tantra’ from Sanskrit, ‘sitar’ from Persian, and inherited ‘thin’. The root *deru-/*dreu-, meaning ‘tree’ gives us not just that inherited word, but also Greek ‘dryads’ Celtic ‘druids’, and Indian ‘deodars’. The main unexpected shifts come from Latin, where two key words related to English ‘tongue’ and ‘tear’ (as in crying) start with an ‘l’ rather than the usual ‘d’, giving us ‘language’ and ‘lachrymose’; and the combination *dw in initial position is responsible for our many words about duality like ‘binocular’ which start with that odd ‘b’. Latin also shows an ‘f’ for an initial *dh, as in ‘firm’ in contrast to ‘throne’ from Greek, King Darius from Iranian and the concept of ‘dharma’ from Sanskrit, all from a root*dher-, which means to hold firmly, or to support.
Gutturals
The gutturals are somewhat more complex, as there is fronting (‘palatalization’) across the Indic, Iranian, and Balto-Slavic families (and Armenian and Albanian). This has affected both the palatals (*k̂, *ĝ, *ĝh), which become sibilants (‘s’; ‘z’ etc, but ‘sh’ in Sanskrit); and the velars (*k, *g, *gh), which become affricates before what were at the time front vowels, while otherwise maintaining the original sound. More recently, fronting is a key feature of many Romance languages, and of course English (so ‘cold’/’chill’ and ‘gold/yellow’).
As examples from roots starting with the palatals, we have:
- For voicless *k̂: descendants of the root *k̂er-, meaning ‘animal horn’. Apart from inherited ‘horn’ itself, we have Latin-derived ‘cornucopia’, the Greek nose-horned ‘rhinoceros’, the Celtic ‘cairn’ and, though an unusually long chain, ‘ginger’, ultimately from Sanskrit ‘śŗngaveram’, showing the expected evolution of the palatal to a ‘sh’ sound, normally transcribed ‘ś’.
- For voiced *ĝ: descendants of the root *ĝenH- meaning ‘to give birth’ or to ‘beget’. Inherited ‘kin’ matches Latin-derived ‘Genus’, Greek-based ‘Genetics’, and Hindi ‘Janata’ showing the expected evolution to a voiced fricative.
- For voiced aspirate *ĝh: descendants of the root *ĝhel-,‘to shine’. We have the expected unaspirated *g in Proto-Germanic, reflected in ‘gold’, but also in fronted ‘yellow’ before a front vowel, and also in Celtic ‘Glasgow’ and Polish ‘zloty’; maintenance of the aspirate (though here unvoiced) in Sanskrit ‘Hari’; and what in Greek would be a similar unvoiced aspirate in ‘chlorophyll’, the English pronunciation being caused by the transition of Greek ‘ch’ through Latin, which had no such sound.
For roots staring with velars, we have, for example:
- Unvoiced *k: descendants of the PIE root *keH-, meaning ‘love’, which include words like ‘charity’ and ‘caress’ from Latin ‘caritas’ with a hard ‘c’; Old Irish ‘caraid’ and Welsh ‘cariad’, both meaning ‘love’, and for Sanskrit the Kama Sutra, which conserves the velar ‘*k’ before a back vowel.
- Voiced *g: descendants of the PIE root *gel-, from which English has inherited ‘cold’ and fronted ‘chill’ and borrowed from Latin and French words like ‘glacier’, ‘gelatine’ and ‘jelly’.
- Voiced aspirate *gh: descendants of the PIE root *gher-, roughly ‘to bind, enclose’. Again, this gives a Proto Germanic *g, the origin of both English ‘yard’ (fronted) and Norse-derived ‘garth’, Latin-based ‘horticulture’ and, showing the maintenance of the velar before a back vowel in Slavic, the ‘grad’ or ‘gorod’ of so many cities of Slav-speaking countries. (One wrinkle to look out for: Latin adapts *gh (or *ĝh) to ‘f’ rather than ‘h’ before a ‘u’, as in our borrowing of Latin-based ‘infuse’ from a PIE root *gheu-, which has to do with pouring liquid, including as a religious libation.)
Labio-Velars
Labio-velars in the Indic, Iranian, and Balto-Slavic families lose their labial element and so become indistinguishable from velars, so we see affricates like Sanskrit ‘chakra’ (from *kʷel-) before what were front vowels, and maintenance of the velar sound *g in the words for ‘cow’ that we find in the first part of the ‘cow-protecting’ Gurkhas (from*gʷou-).
In the ‘centum’ group (Greek, Latin, Germanic, Celtic) they also regularly lose the labial element before a ‘u’ sound, but also follow quite individual trajectories, which explain such oddities as ‘p/k’ clashes like ‘optician/binoculars’, and ‘p/t’ clashes like ‘paleo-’ for remote time and ‘tele-’ for remote place, and some even weirder ones like ‘biology/zoology’.
In English itself, inherited labio-velars as expected lose their labial element before or after a ‘u’ sound, as in ‘come’ and ‘cow’; in other cases, PIE *kʷ (and *kw, with which it merges) gives Proto Germanic *hw, rendered in English by ‘wh’ as in the ‘question words’; PIE *gʷ gives Proto Germanic *kʷ, surviving in English in, for example, ‘quick’ (Latin-based ‘vital’) and ‘quern’ (Sanskrit-based ‘guru’) ; and PIE *kʷ h, more surprisingly, ‘b’, as in ‘bane’ and ‘burn’ (Greek-based ‘thermos’ Latin-based ‘furnace’. Sanskrit ‘gharam’).
For more details on all that, consult the individual Blog posts on the wordsecrets.org website.
Sources of More Information
In general, the simplest way of checking how words relate is the online app Etymonline. This has wide coverage, and very often will link a word back to a PIE root, and show both inherited words and those borrowed from other related languages. It is well-researched, and if there is a question about a specific etymology, there will some cautionary language. What it does not do (and where this set of blogs will I hope be of real use) is to explain how individual sounds can be expected to have changed in different language groups over the past 6,000 years.
If you would like to go a step further, the American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, edited by Calvert Watkins, and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is a remarkably concise summary of all the PIE roots that have given rise to all Indo-European linked words in English, whether inherited or borrowed. It carefully analyses which form of the root (eg e-grade or zero grade; use of particular suffixes) gives rise to what word. And it has an excellent brief introduction to features of Indo-European, along with short insightful notes about what some words show us about their society, for example the concept of reciprocal hospitality that underlies words like ‘host’, ‘guest’ and ‘hospitality’ itself (and, to be more complete, ‘hostile’!).
As already mentioned, Danny Bate’s recent book, ‘Why Q needs U’, though focused on the fascinating story of how our alphabet evolved, does also shed a lot of useful light not least on relevant changes in English, such as the Great Vowel Shift. And if you have an archaeological as well as a linguistic bent, try ‘Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global’ by Laura Spinney, published by William Collins. If you enjoy podcasts about words, you may find ‘RobWords’ (readily accessible on You Tube) a very enjoyable way to learn more about etymology, often using Indo European word families. There are also many sites which cater for a wider linguistic interest, such as ‘Lingthusiasm’.
That’s that!
1.
For previous blogs, please click the following link
2.
For answers to questions from Blog 12 onwards, click
3.
To comment or add relevant examples, click
