Etymological respellings
mpl...@my-deja.com
In the newsgroup alt.english.usage, the subject of etymological
respellings came up, that is, the phenomenon that the spellings of
several English words were changed under the influence of their etyma.
For example, the _b_ in _debt_ came about when the word _dette_ was
altered because the Latin _debitum_ is an etymon of _debt._
Other examples I have found include _doubt_ (from _douten_) and
_receipt_ (from _receite_). There were also cases where the
pronunciation of the English word was actually changed as a result of
the respelling, as was the case with _adventure_ (from _aventure_) and
_perfect_ (from _perfit_ [according to AHD4] or _parfit_ [according to
Merriam-Webster]).
What I wish to know is the motives of the scholars who brought about
these changes. Just about all I can find on the Internet are vague
claims that these scholars "wanted to make English more like Latin."
Not very helpful.
The closest I have come to an answer was at the Web page located at
http://members.tripod.com/~Duermueller/spellingreform.html
in which one can read that the etymological respellers were just one
faction among the spelling reform advocates of their time. The
following is taken from that page:
[quote]
Etymological Spellings
The sound advice of Mulcaster and Coote did not deter scholars from
remodeling some English words to make them conform to the spelling of
their etyma, or earlier forms.
For example the etymological remodelers, as they may be called,
succeeded in adding
b to debt (ME det - dette)
in order to make it conform to Latin "debitum", from which the English
word was derived through Old French "dette ~ debte".
These are some other examples of scholarly additions of graphemes:
p in "receitp" (ME "receite" from OFr "recete"), to conform to Middle
Latin "recepta", fem. past. part. of "recipere".
s in "island" (ME "ilond - eilond"),
to conform by analogy with unrelated "isle" (ME "yle", OFr "isle~ile")
from Late Latin "iscle" < Latin "insula".
c in "indict" (ME. "endyten - indite - indght", O Fr "enditer"),
to conform with Latin "in+dictäre".
[end quote]
Now to me, such a reform is worse than no reform at all. The other
reformers of the time, it seems, were trying to make English spelling
more phonetic. Do any of you have a clearer understanding of what
motivated the etymological respellers?
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Tom Deveson
>Other examples I have found include _doubt_ (from _douten_) and
>_receipt_ (from _receite_). There were also cases where the
>pronunciation of the English word was actually changed as a result of
>the respelling, as was the case with _adventure_ (from _aventure_) and
>_perfect_ (from _perfit_ [according to AHD4] or _parfit_ [according to
>Merriam-Webster]).
>
>What I wish to know is the motives of the scholars who brought about
>these changes. Just about all I can find on the Internet are vague
>claims that these scholars "wanted to make English more like Latin."
There's a satirical treatment of this controversy in the discussion
between Holofernes the pedant and Nathaniel the curate in *Love's
Labour's Lost* 5.1.
"...I abhor such fanatical phantasimes, such rackers of orthography, as
to speak 'dout' *sine* 'b', when he should say 'doubt', 'det' when he
should pronounce 'debt' -- d, e, b, t, not d, e, t. He clepeth a calf
'cauf', half 'hauf'..." etc. etc.
Holofernes goes on to speak of "abhonimable , which he would call
'abominable' " which might either be Shakespeare mocking Holofernes for
fussily insisting that all spelled letters should be spoken [the
spelling with h was common in English for several centuries] or, more
subtly, for his pedantic but erroneous implication that the word derived
from *ab homine* and not from *abominare*.
Either way, the idea of contemporary scholars following Latin rather
than English usage seems to have been part of the satirical fun, though
their motives aren't really illuminated.
Tom
--
Tom Deveson
Alan Jones
"Tom Deveson" <a...@devesons.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:EDWoVEAh...@devesons.demon.co.uk...
Milton, who was a better classical scholar (or so I guess) than any
Elizabethan, tried to reverse the process by using "det", "dout" and so on.
He wrote "amiral" for "admiral" (meaning the flagship of a navy), knowing
that it was Arabic in origin (related to "emir", prince) and had nothing to
do with the Latin "admirabilis". Evidently he was a century or more too late,
and the fake spellings have become entrenched.
Alan Jones
John Cartmell
<a...@cableinet.co.uk> wrote:
> Milton, who was a better classical scholar (or so I guess) than any
> Elizabethan, tried to reverse the process by using "det", "dout" and so
> on. He wrote "amiral" for "admiral" (meaning the flagship of a navy),
> knowing that it was Arabic in origin (related to "emir", prince) and had
> nothing to do with the Latin "admirabilis". Evidently he was a century
> or more too late, and the fake spellings have become entrenched.
What is the status of these spellings today? If, in ignorance, I write det
then I may be rightly castigated (?) - but what if I do it in knowledge of
its history?
What chance of completing an examination paper with such spelling [maybe
with a note appended saying "I use the word det knowing that 'debt' is
historically incorrect"] and without deductions for SPG? ;-)
--
John Cartmell - Manchester, UK
The next meeting of MAUG on Wednesday 17th January...
..will be... [still embargoed]
Dr Robin Bignall
<jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <XcJ56.10878$0x5.8...@news3.cableinet.net>, Alan Jones
><a...@cableinet.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Milton, who was a better classical scholar (or so I guess) than any
>> Elizabethan, tried to reverse the process by using "det", "dout" and so
>> on. He wrote "amiral" for "admiral" (meaning the flagship of a navy),
>> knowing that it was Arabic in origin (related to "emir", prince) and had
>> nothing to do with the Latin "admirabilis". Evidently he was a century
>> or more too late, and the fake spellings have become entrenched.
>
>What is the status of these spellings today? If, in ignorance, I write det
>then I may be rightly castigated (?) - but what if I do it in knowledge of
>its history?
>What chance of completing an examination paper with such spelling [maybe
>with a note appended saying "I use the word det knowing that 'debt' is
>historically incorrect"] and without deductions for SPG? ;-)
I'd guess that if the subject was history, you might gain points:
otherwise you're in the soup, matey! Examiners have no sense of
humour.
--
wrmst rgds
RB...(docr...@cwcom.net)
Don Aitken
ones tend to be based on false etymologies. Waistcoat (instead of
weskit) is nineteenth century I think. Can anyone come up with a more
recent one?
--
Don Aitken
mpl...@my-deja.com
When I first brought up the subject of etymological respelling in
alt.english.usage, I stated that this phenomenon had occurred in both
French and English. This was based upon my vague recollection of
etymologies I had read in French in which the spelling of a word was
changed to reflect its etymology. However, it now seems that what
happened in French is quite different from what happened in English.
Today I took a look at Larousse's _Dictionnaire historique de
l'orthographe française,_ edited by Nina Catach, (C) 1995. The only
etymological respelling that I found that was similar to what happened
in English was the French _admiral_ for the word previously and
currently spelled _amiral_ ("admiral"). This word comes ultimately from
Arabic _amir al-ali,_ "very big chief, sovereign." It was confused with
the Latin _ad-_ in such words as _admirabilis,_ whence the _d._ The _d_
in _admiral_ was not pronounced, however (according to Larousse),
whereas in English _admiral_ it is pronounced.
However, the _d_ was originally added in the Late Latin word
_admiralius._ The French word later was sometimes spelled _amiral,_
sometimes _admiral,_ and is currently spelled _amiral._
Most of the examples I could find of spellings altered to reflect their
etymology were done either by replacing a silent letter with a
circumflex accent, as in the spelling _nôtre,_ "ours," from _nostre_ or
reflected a difference in pronunciation. I could find no examples
besides the possible example of _amiral/admiral_ where a letter was
inserted which had long before disappeared or been inserted based upon
an incorrect etymology.
There was another sort of etymological respelling, but it seems to have
served a function: The word _crois_ was once used both for the verb
_believe_ (_je crois,_ "I believe") and the noun "cross." The noun was
changed to _croix,_ where the _x_ comes from its Latin etymon _crux._
This change served to distinguish the two homonyms. The authors made
the point at the beginning of the book that written French is to some
extent ideographic (though they are not quite satisfied with that word
to describe the state of affairs). I have read elsewhere that this
ideographic aspect plays a large part in the fact that the spelling
reform of French that was started a decade ago had so far failed.
Stephen Toogood
>In article <936o28$9k6$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> mpl...@my-deja.com wrote:
>>
>>
>> In the newsgroup alt.english.usage, the subject of etymological
>> respellings came up, that is, the phenomenon that the spellings of
>> several English words were changed under the influence of their etyma.
>> For example, the _b_ in _debt_ came about when the word _dette_ was
>> altered because the Latin _debitum_ is an etymon of _debt._
>>
>> Other examples I have found include _doubt_ (from _douten_) and
>> _receipt_ (from _receite_). There were also cases where the
>> pronunciation of the English word was actually changed as a result of
>> the respelling, as was the case with _adventure_ (from _aventure_) and
>> _perfect_ (from _perfit_ [according to AHD4] or _parfit_ [according to
>> Merriam-Webster]).
>>
>> What I wish to know is the motives of the scholars who brought about
>> these changes. Just about all I can find on the Internet are vague
>> claims that these scholars "wanted to make English more like Latin."
>> Not very helpful.
>>
>> The closest I have come to an answer was at the Web page located at
>>
>> http://members.tripod.com/~Duermueller/spellingreform.html
>>
>> in which one can read that the etymological respellers were just one
>> faction among the spelling reform advocates of their time. The
>> following is taken from that page:
>>
>>
>> Now to me, such a reform is worse than no reform at all. The other
>> reformers of the time, it seems, were trying to make English spelling
>> more phonetic. Do any of you have a clearer understanding of what
>> motivated the etymological respellers?
>>
>
>
>When I first brought up the subject of etymological respelling in
>alt.english.usage, I stated that this phenomenon had occurred in both
>French and English. This was based upon my vague recollection of
>etymologies I had read in French in which the spelling of a word was
>changed to reflect its etymology. However, it now seems that what
>happened in French is quite different from what happened in English.
>
I believe there are some assumptions behind what has been written in
this thread that are, shall we say. questionable.
The first is that there was at the times we are discussing an accepted
standard of spelling.
The second is that there was a group of men who deliberately set out to
reform that standard.
The third is that words of Latin origin were acquired direct from Latin.
There are maybe other assumptions we could test, but those will do for
now.
In examining issues like these we need to look at the social context in
which linguistic development took place, and I must be careful here ,
since there are many of you much more knowledgeable about linguistic
change; history too, for that matter.
Let me over-generalise and suggest that in the early middle ages Latin
was the language of scholarship, Norman French of the court, and English
of the ordinary citizen. There wasn't a huge amount of writing by modern
standards, and most of what there was was not written in English, which
may even have been regarded as inherently informal.
It seems quite plausible to suggest that any pressure at this period for
any sort of codified spelling would come from those (church, law and
later university) who worked in Latin. Words like 'debt' are of interest
here, because they would have been established as technical terms in
Latin before the trend began that gradually replaced Latin with English.
It seems natural that clerks would draw on their own experience when
working out how to spell them.
It is also true that the majority of words we were absorbing from Latin
came via French. Words like 'honour' and 'colour', which others have
mentioned, got their spelling change in transit, but partly because of
their route into English, these spellings did indeed reflect the way
they were pronounced at the time.
'Island' is perhaps a special case. Chambers suggests that the intrusive
's' is due to confusion with 'isle', whose etymology is Latin via
French. If this is so, one can imagine how easy it would have been to
conflate the two.
So all in all, I can't buy the idea that there was a conscious process
of laitinization of spellings. There were no dictionaries after all, and
variant spellings, if one can call them that, were quite acceptable. I
reckon it's more that the majority of spelling was done on an ad hoc
basis by people who didn't give two hoots for etymology, and only had
their own experience, and some little education in Latin grammar, to
draw on.
--
Stephen Toogood
Mark Brader
> Today I took a look at Larousse's _Dictionnaire historique de
> l'orthographe française,_ edited by Nina Catach, (C) 1995. The only
> etymological respelling that I found that was similar to what happened
What does this dictionary say about "vingt"?
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "'Run me,' Alice?"
m...@vex.net -- Tom Neff
mpl...@my-deja.com
m...@vex.net (Mark Brader) wrote:
> Raymond Wise writes:
> > Today I took a look at Larousse's _Dictionnaire historique de
> > l'orthographe française,_ edited by Nina Catach, (C) 1995. The only
> > etymological respelling that I found that was similar to what
happened
> > in English was ...
>
> What does this dictionary say about "vingt"?
> --
> Mark Brader, Toronto
I didn't have access to that particular dictionary, but I found the
following in the _Dictionnaire étymologique et historique de la langue
française_ by Emmanuèle Baumgartner and Philippe Ménard (C) 1996 by
Librairie Générale Française:
[quote (my translation)]
*vingt* (11th century, originally under the form _vint_), from Late
Latin _vinti,_ contraction of the Classical Latin _viginti._ [...] ||
*vingtième* (12th century), originally _vintisme._ [...]
[end quote]
_Vingt_ means "twenty." Since its older form _vint_ was spelled exactly
like the third person singular of the literary past of the verb _venir_
("to come"), I presume that the _g_ was added to the word _vint_ to
make _vingt_ no longer a homonym with the verb form _vint._
In that sense, it was a functional change in the same way that _crois_
("cross") was changed to _croix,_ with the mute _x_ from its Latin
etymon _crux_ replacing the mute _s,_ to make the word no longer a
homonym with _crois,_ the first person singular of the verb
_croire,_ "to believe."
Compared to the etymological respellings which were done in English,
the French etymological respellings continue to seem to have been more
logical.
Roberta Davies
"Hiccough" for "hiccup" is Victorian, as they thought the word
must be related to "cough". I dare say they thought the spelling
was more genteel-looking as well.
Robbie
Hen Hanna
>>>
There was also a period when the spelling of a small number of words was altered in what is now regarded as a misguided attempt to make them conform to what were perceived to be the etymological origins of the words.
For example, the letter b was added to debt (originally dette) in an attempt to link it to the Latin debitum, and the letter s in island is a misplaced attempt to link it to Latin insula instead of the Old English word īġland, which is the true origin of the English word.
The letter p in ptarmigan has no etymological justification whatsoever, only seeking to invoke Greek despite being a Gaelic word.
<<<
--------- re: debt (originally dette)
were they also widely using the word "debit" at the time?
debit > Restored spelling after c. 1400. In Middle English,
[debt of the body] (mid-14c.) was "that which spouses owe to each other, sexual intercourse."
HH
Mr. Man-wai Chang
Out of curiosity, why are you studying about Etymology?
Are you looking for some artifacts? May you list them?
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