What is folk (false) etymology? Examples of folk etymology?

ETYMOLOGY: THESE This, MOL start, ABOUT warp, G main thing = this is the initial main base.

How is my top transcript different from the bottom one? Because the MAIN BASIS is called TRUTH?

Or the fact that LOGOS is proudly called science, although it does not smell like science in modern etymology.

Let me give you an example of this so-called science.

In Russian, this word is deciphered very simply. If CAN-CON is the end, outline, boundary, then CANON IS THE END: it is the end, the limitation of something within some strict framework.

You can check if this is true: KANT, KANva, KANava, KANal, SEWER, SHACKLES, CANister, KANOERKA, KANOE, CANYON, OFFICE; CONDUIT, CONVERT, CONDENSER, CONVOIR, CONURA.

What do we see? In all these words we see that something is within a rigid framework.

This example shows how sometimes linguists try to use foreign words in an attempt to interpret Russian words. But often they will not succeed, so it is faster to explain a foreign word from Russian than vice versa. And in general, it’s funny to try to find the meanings of words in an old language from a new one: Greek is older than West Semitic.

So I ask how I, a simple lover of the Russian language, not a professional, was able to find the true root of the word, while professionals guess on the coffee grounds? What the hell kind of science is this?

Etymology(from the Greek etymos- true meaning words) as a branch of linguistics/linguistics studies the history of the emergence/origin of words with scientific point vision. This is a science, so it uses various techniques and principles based on a comparative historical approach. Philology students study a course in comparative historical grammar. Like any science, etymology is characterized by the presence of different opinions, hypotheses/assumptions, sometimes controversial and diametrically opposed, but, in any case, confirmed by linguistic and speech phenomena.

But for people who are far from linguistics, it is typical to try to explain the origin of words themselves and in their own way. At the same time, speech not talking about any scientific method- simple intuition and language/speech associations, simple similarity of words. In this case they talk about folk etymology. It is sometimes called false, although many linguists do not agree with this name, since conclusions in the course of scientific etymological research can also be false. I am not talking now about special cases of children's or visual NE, but I am talking about phenomena in the speech of ordinary people.

One example of folk etymology from her own practice: one lady explained the origin of the name Svetlana from the adjective light and the noun lana (allegedly an ancient Russian word meaning earth), but the origin is somewhat different, with lana in specified value never existed, there is the word lan as a measure of land, used in the western regions of Russia.

A few other examples of NE:

-nerve oz (instead of neurosis) - nerve s,

-nerve opathologist (v. neuropathologist) - nerve s,

-mutually figuratively (vm. borrowed) - on loan s,

-lotto rhea (vm. lottery) - lot O,

-hose baum (vm. barrier) - hose.

There are especially many popular interpretations of the origin of words in toponymy (geographical names). For example, Chermushki is the name of one of the districts of Moscow. NE connects the emergence of the toponym (name) with the abundance of cherry bushes in this place, and etymologists, based on comparative historical analysis, talk about the commonality of the root in the word Chermushki with the ancient root cherm. One of scientific hypotheses leads to the origin of the word from the name Chermnev Stan, a settlement that existed in the 15th-18th centuries on the territory of today's Chermushki.

So, folk/false etymology is an interpretation of the origin of words by amateurs, without scientific justification.

Origin of words and expressions

1. Etymology of words

Etymology is a branch of the science of language that studies the origin of words. Etymology also studies all the changes that occur in the life of words. And changes in language occur constantly: new words appear, new meanings for long-familiar words, and sometimes it even happens that a word suddenly changes its sound. For example, the words “bee”, “bull” and “bug”, it turns out, came from the same word “buchat”. Now this word has left the language, forgotten by everyone, but once it was familiar to everyone and was used in the meaning of “buzz”, “buzz”. And today it would not occur to anyone to call a bull, a bee and a bug as relative words, although etymologically this is so.

Some words changed not their sound, but their meaning. For example, today we use the word guest to call a person who came to visit us, but in ancient times this was the name given to a visiting merchant (it was Tsar Saltan who called such guests to him in A. Pushkin’s fairy tale).

Once upon a time the word dashing meant “bad”, “bad”, but today it is used in almost opposite meaning- “daring”, “brave”.

Another example. Today, the word infection has 2 meanings: it means a curse word, and is also used to mean “the source of an infectious disease.” But in late XVIII centuries, the word infection was used to mean “charm”, “attractiveness”.

Many words are extremely clear to us - both from the point of view of their meaning and from the point of view of their understanding. Other words surround us every day, are used in almost any everyday and professional situations, accompany us on trips, in the workplace, at home, at school, at a disco, etc. But, despite the fact that we are very familiar with these words, their origin remains a mystery to us, which we will try to solve.

The word “thank you” is definitely one of the most frequently used by us. This interjection comes from the exclamation “God save.” Over time, the last consonant of a combination of words ceased to be pronounced, and the phrase turned into one word that expresses gratitude and is a mandatory vocabulary element of a cultured, educated and well-mannered person.

The adverb “totally” brings us problems not so much lexical as spelling: this eternal dilemma - together or separately. Meanwhile, the history of the origin of the word is a very convincing clue for the spelling of the word. The adverb “to the ground” was formed from the combination “to the ground,” i.e. to the bottom, to the base: in the Old Russian language, the floor was called the floor, as well as the bottom and the base. Accordingly, tla is a form genitive case singular noun tlo. With the development of the language, the word “tlo” began to be considered obsolete and soon fell out of use altogether. Hence the rule for writing an adverb: an adverb formed from a combination of a preposition and a word that has fallen out of use is written together.

Another “frequent” adverb is the word “now”. It was formed in the Old Russian language from the combination of the pronoun “to” and the numeral “pirvo”, which had the meaning “first”, i.e. the one that comes first, first, first. As we can see, in the process of language development, the word has significantly changed its sound composition:

then + pirvo > toprvo > now > now > now > now,

but retained continuity of meaning with the original word.

A person who likes to find fault with little things, strives to observe details in any work, an inquisitive, meticulous person is often called meticulous. Previously, this word looked like this: precise, which tells us the origin of the word:

to the point > meticulous > meticulous.

In other words, we call meticulous someone who completes everything “to the point,” i.e. in detail, as responsibly, painstakingly as possible.

Often, having in mind some ambiguous matter, an incomprehensible act, we talk about the background. The background is the hidden basis, the secret reason for something. The word “underlying” previously had a different - direct - meaning: it was the name of the lining of a peasant shirt, which covered half of the back and chest, literally - the underarm (i.e. pleco - shoulder). In ancient times there were expressions: “one’s own background is closer to the heart,” “the chest knows the background.”

The word “day” is now considered by us as a word with a root and an ending, but earlier this word was divided into morphemes differently: day = su - + -tk- + -i. The prefix su (s/so) is also common for modern words: twilight, satellite, comrade-in-arms. The ancient root tak means “to poke, weave, join.”

The word "week" in Russian means 7 days running in in a certain order: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. The origin of the word is better illustrated by the example of the Belarusian word “nyadzelya”, i.e. Sunday. A week from “do not”, i.e. This is a day for rest (which is what Sunday is), a day free from business. Actually, the week in all Slavic languages ​​was called a week (i.e. 7 days).

About two, say, Ivans they say that they are namesakes, i.e. people who have same names. The word “namesake” comes from the ancient combination of the pronoun that, the particle z and the suffix k: namesake = that + z > tez, tyz, toz, i.e. the same, eponymous; that + z + k.

The word “native” also comes from the combination of the pronoun tu, the root zem (earth) and the suffix ec and means “a native of the native land.” Synonyms for this word are the words aborigine and autochthon. They differ in their origins: Aborigine comes from Latin, while Autochthon comes from Greek.

If you say or do something strange, you may hear the expression “he's playing tricks again.” This strange word comes from the word “kuroles”, which in turn comes from the combination “kur + o + forest”. This combination is a shortened and “Russified” form of the Greek expression “kurie eleison,” meaning “Lord, have mercy.” Initially, the word “playing tricks” meant “to be mischievous, rowdy” and only later did it come to its modern meaning.

The word “sinecure” is quite rare, and not everyone can boast of knowing its meaning. Meanwhile, sinecure means “a warm, profitable place.” The word came to us from the Latin language - sine kure, i.e. without worries. This was the name of the church position that was provided for special merits. This position was honorable and profitable, but did not require any work at all. Since then, the opportunity to receive something without much difficulty has come to be called a sinecure.

In a word, this science is very interesting - etymology! And it often happens that the story of the origin of a word turns out to be more fascinating than another detective story. I will give some stories in my work.

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A selection of Russian words with an interesting history of origin.

Pharmacy

According to one version, the word “pharmacy” comes from the Greek word “barn”, “shelter”, “warehouse”, “storage” or “shop”, according to another version - from the word “coffin”, “grave” or “crypt” . Later the word became Latin and acquired the meaning “wine warehouse”. Modern meaning The word “pharmacy” was formed only in medieval Latin.

Orange

Until the 16th century, Russians and Europeans did not know about the existence of this citrus. Portuguese sailors brought these fruits from China and began trading them with their neighbors. Oranges came to Russia from Holland. The Dutch word for apple is appel, and the Chinese word for apple is sien. Borrowed from the Dutch language, the word "appelsien" is a literal translation of the French phrase "Pomme de Chine" - "apple from China."

Bohemia

The word is of French origin. At the end of the 20th century in Paris, representatives creative professions lived in the Latin Quarter. The bourgeoisie called the local inhabitants “gypsies.” Journalist Henri Murger lived on the top floor of one of the houses in the Latin Quarter. One day, in one of the tabloid magazines, he was asked to write a series of stories about the residents of the Latin Quarter. These essays were published in 1945, and they were called "Scenes from the Life of the Gypsies." “Gypsy” in French means “bohemia.” Murger has since been forgotten, but the word “bohemian” still exists today.

Doctor

The word “doctor” is originally Slavic, it is derived from the word “vrati”, which means “to speak”, “to conspire”. From the same word comes “to lie,” which for our ancestors also meant “to speak.” In the Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian languages, the original meaning of the word “doctor” - “sorcerer”, “sorcerer” - has been preserved to this day.

Hooligan

This word has English origin. It is known that the surname Houlihan was once borne by a famous London brawler who caused a lot of trouble for city residents and the police. The surname has become a household word, in all countries characterizing a person who violates public order.

Hard labor

The Greek word katergon meant a large rowing vessel with a triple row of oars. Later, such a vessel began to be called a galley. In the Old Russian language there were many names for ships: “plows”, “boats”, “uchans”, “chelny”. IN Novgorod charter boats, rafts and katargs are mentioned. In the “Russian Chronicle” of Nikon’s list we read: “The boyars took the queen, and noble maidens, and young wives, sending many on ships and catargs to the islands” (“The boyars took the queen, and noble maidens, and young wives, sent many on ships and ships to the islands"). The work of the rowers on these ships was very hard, so they began to put criminals in hard labor. In 1696, creating the Russian fleet, Peter I began to build large convict ships in Russia. These ships were also called galleys. Criminals and fugitives were put on them as oarsmen, chained to the oars. Pushkin’s “History of Peter” contains the decrees of the tsar, where the phrases are often found: “The first time through the gauntlet, the second - the whip and the galleys,” “send to the galleys.” Nordstet's pre-revolutionary German-French dictionary directly states: “Galley is hard labor.” Since then, the word “hard labor” has been preserved in the modern sense, although they were no longer exiled to the galleys, but to Siberia, to hard labor.

Silhouette

In France during the reign of Louis XV royal court lived in unprecedented luxury. Because of this, the treasury quickly became empty, and then the king appointed a new minister of finance, Etienne Silhouette, a conscientious and incorruptible official who reduced pensions and abolished tax privileges. At first everyone liked it very much, but over time the young reformer became the subject of general ridicule. The genre of art that emerged at that time - a one-color profile image on a light background - was named by Parisian wits after the Silhouette and interpreted it as art for the greedy and poor.

Surgeon

The word comes from the vocabulary of ancient Greek doctors. Among the Greeks it simply meant “handicraft”, “craft”, from hir - “hand” - and ergon - “to do”. The word "surgeon" with Greek language translated not only as “doctor”, but also as “hairdresser”. In Russia in the 19th century, barbers not only shaved and cut their clients’ hair, but also pulled teeth, bled, applied leeches and even performed minor surgical operations, that is, they performed the duties of surgeons.

Quickie

Initially, this word was common, and it meant “easy income beyond the usual.” You can read about the origin of the word in the dictionary of Professor D. N. Ushakov: “Haltura, from the Greek “halkos” - copper coin.” Later the word acquires additional meaning. The dictionary of V. I. Dahl gives more precise definition Russian interpretation: “hack job, grabber, bribe taker, khaltyga, flighty, fickle person. Hackwork, grabber (grab), profit, free food, accumulated money.” In our time, derivatives have appeared: “hackwork”, “hackwork”.

In her “Memoirs” about the acting life of the 90s of the century before last, N. Smirnova writes that in Moscow, among actors, Strastnaya Square was called “hack work”, since actors were “caught” there:

“It happened that he was immediately given a role and he read it for the first time on the way to the theater. The word “hackwork” has since come into use and is still in the acting lexicon.”

Tobacco

The word “tobacco” originally entered European languages ​​from Haiti. In the Arawakan language, tabak is a plant of the nightshade family, from which smoking mixture. It would seem that this is the meaning in which the word is still used today. However, for a time, “tobacco” had a completely different meaning. The word acquired additional meaning in French thanks to the expression “to pass through tobacco” - “passer a tabac” - and remained from the time of the persecution of smokers in France. The French still have a verb “tabasser”, which means “to beat”. And among the military, “tabac” means “battle” or “deal” in the same sense as our “deal was near Poltava.”

Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy wrote the story “The Manuscript Found Under the Bed.” The hero of this story, Sashka Epanchin, remembering 1918 in France: “In their police stations, the policemen - azhans - the first thing they do is hit you in the ribs and head with their boots, they call this ‘putting you through tobacco’.”

Rogue

In his transformative activities Peter I had to face the privileged noble class, which did not want to part with its usual way of life, and perceived the tsar’s reforms sharply negatively.

Peter I introduced a law in 1715 according to which nobles for crimes were deprived of their nobility, their “privileges”, one of which was that nobles could not be subjected to corporal punishment, simply put - spanking. According to this law, the nobles were “defamed”, that is, they were deprived of their noble dignity, they were “dishonored”.

In the language of the Normans, “skelmen” (skelmen) meant “worthy of death,” “suicide bomber.” Among the Germans, this word turned into “shelem”, which means “rogue”, “swindler”, and in this meaning it entered the Russian language.

Connections of a certain word with other words of the same language - and “distant etymology” - identifying connections of a word outside the boundaries of the language in question.

Words of any natural language can be - according to their origin - divided into the following groups:

1) original words, i.e. words inherited from the ancestor language (the most numerous group);

2) words formed using existing (or previously existing) word-formation means in the language;

3) words borrowed from other languages;

4) artificially created words (a group not represented in all languages);

5) words that arose as a result of various “language errors.”

Words that are primordial in a given language could belong to any of the above groups in the ancestor language. For any word that is derived in a given language, it is possible to indicate from which word and with the help of what word-formation means it was formed.

So, Russian word comma, literally “closed, closed”, from a historical point of view is a participle of a verb with the prefix for- and the root pin-/Mon-/five- (cf. stumble, falter, let); the alternation at the root here is the same as, for example, at the root min-/pl-/me- (hitch, crumples, crumpled). Word frog, literally “with big feet” – derivative with the suffix - ear- (cf. laughter, pinwheel, wah) from the root lie down- (cf. kick, thigh), etc.

The assumption about the derivative of a word must be justified. Thus, if it is assumed that a word is produced with the help of some affix, it is necessary to confirm with examples that such an affix exists (or existed) in a given language and can (could) form derivative words with such a meaning. For example, put forward in M. Vasmer's hypothesis that the Russian word sledgehammer derived from the verb get out, does not stand up to such a test: in the Russian language there are no verbal nouns with either the prefix ku-, nor with the suffix -d-. Of course, this criterion is not absolute, since in any language that has affixes there can be unique word-forming morphemes (cf. examples such as the prefix ba- in a word boast or suffix - With- in a word crybaby), but they are rare, and their postulation reduces the likelihood that the etymology is correct. For the word sledgehammer a more preferable, although also not without difficulties, seems to be an etymology that considers this word as a borrowing from Polish kowadło"anvil".

Many affixes have restrictions on the type of stems they can attach to. The postulated education must not violate these restrictions. It should also not violate the rules of alternation of sounds existing in the language. So, in modern Russian the words divide And share are recognized as having the same root (cf. order– will). However e in a word divide goes back to, and the alternation ~ *o is impossible in Slavic languages. In reality divide related to German Teil"part" and share– Lithuanian Dalìs"part, share"

If the language under study has accent characteristics that can change during word formation, then the rules for changing them must also be taken into account. Anomalous stress or tone behavior (as well as anomalous alternation) markedly reduces the reliability of the proposed etymology.

Every derived word has a meaning derived from the meaning of the motivating word. If semantic motivation cannot be established on the material of this language, semantic parallels from other languages, primarily those closely related to the given one and/or in contact with it, acquire particular value.

So, for example, the unexpected assumption about the connection of the ancient Turkic “sea” with the ancient Turkic. “sky, god” (alternation z~r in ancient Turkic perhaps, cf. samiz"fat, corpulent" - sämri-“get fat, gain weight”) is reliably confirmed by a semantic parallel from the Mongolian languages, which had intensive contact with the Turkic languages ​​and, possibly, related to them, cf. written Mong. dalai“sea” and “great, universal, supreme.”

It is dangerous to cite chains based on pure speculation as a justification for semantic changes: one can imagine almost any semantic evolution, cf., for example, the following justification for the transition from the meaning of “cook” to the meaning of “year”: “cook” > “make suitable” for food" > "make ripe" > "ripen" > "fruit ripening" > "fruit ripening time" > "autumn" > "year." However, chains of this kind, no matter how plausible they may seem, can in no way serve as an argument in favor of one or another etymological hypothesis.

Any language comes into contact with other languages, and in the process of contacts, borrowings penetrate into it (exceptions such as the Icelandic language, which deliberately prevents the penetration of foreign language elements, are rare). “Terminology” is borrowed with maximum ease - designations of those realities that were not previously known - but borrowing is also possible in any other layers of vocabulary.

It is possible to assume that a certain word is a borrowing if it has a structure that is not characteristic of the original words of a given language (or shows irregular correspondence with words of closely related languages, which makes it impossible to reconstruct the original form), but in order for such an assumption to be strictly to prove, a number of conditions must be met:

1. There must be evidence that the language from which the word in question came was (or could be) in contact with the given one. This evidence can be both historical and geographical (languages ​​are or were widespread in nearby areas, and there were no natural barriers between these areas) and linguistic (during contacts, there are usually quite a lot of borrowings).

If the alleged borrowing is isolated, the hypothesis is doomed to remain unprovable: for example, the Aztec word teotl"god" is very similar to the Greek [theos] with the same meaning, but no evidence of contact between ancient Greece and South America has been obtained to date.

2. The words under consideration must have semantic similarity: at least in some uses, the word of the source language must have the meaning in which it was borrowed into the language under study. Otherwise, the corresponding hypothesis can hardly be convincingly substantiated. Thus, the well-known etymology that builds universal fame should be considered very doubtful. * slonъ"elephant" to Turkic aslan“lion”: such blatant ignorance of the Slavs regarding animals living in the south of Eurasia still seems incredible.

3. In the words under consideration, regular phonetic correspondences should be observed: with intensive contacts, rules for converting from a “foreign” language into the native language always arise, and, thus, the sounds of a “foreign” language receive a regularity in the borrowing language (independent of the meaning of the words, although it is possible , distributed by position) reflection. The lack of regularity of phonetic correspondences is possible either in the case when there are few borrowings (with single objects and the treatment will be individual, not systemic), or in the case when the borrowings belong to different chronological layers (or different dialects). Assumptions about the random “distortion” of words during borrowing are generally incorrect.

4. A word for which a borrowed character is assumed should not violate the rules of grammatical adaptation of borrowings accepted in the language: if, for example, it is known that all undisputed borrowings in a given language are inclined according to class 1, and the word in question - according to class 2, this reduces the credibility etymology. A word that changes according to a non-productive model is most likely not borrowed (although exceptions are possible - mainly when borrowing from closely related languages; for example, some of the Russian “indeclinable” nouns in -me – burden, time, flame– borrowed from Church Slavonic).

A particularly difficult case is represented by borrowings from an extinct unwritten language, since in this case the source of the borrowing is, in principle, inaccessible to observation.

If there are few such words, then it is quite difficult to prove their originality. A strong argument here can be the presence of a word in several languages ​​of the same area that are not close relatives. So, for example, the word “silver” is apparently borrowed from the Proto-Slavic, Proto-Germanic and Proto-Baltic languages: cf. other Russian , n.-luzh. slobro, lit. sidãbras, ltsh. sidrabs, other Prussian (vin. p.) sirablan, goth silubr, English silver, German Silber. This word looks like a borrowing in several ways. Firstly, it has a structure that is uncharacteristic of native non-derived Indo-European words: a disyllabic root with the group “stop + sonorant” at the end. Moreover, neither Germanic, nor Baltic, nor Slavic (nor Proto-Indo-European) have such morphemes from which it could be produced. Secondly, this word reveals irregular phonetic correspondences both between Germanic, Baltic and Slavic, and within each of the groups: the quality of the second consonant and the vocalism of the second syllable are unclear. In other Indo-European (as well as non-Indo-European) languages, a word of similar phonetic structure, meaning “silver” (or similar to it), is unknown. Since the distribution areas of the Germanic, Baltic and Slavic languages are neighbors, it is reasonable to assume that the word “silver” penetrated into them from some language that was widespread in the same area, but has now died out, leaving no descendants. It is possible that it was not even one language, but several closely related ones.

If contacts with an extinct unwritten language were quite intense and many borrowings penetrated into the language under study, one can observe their systemic differences both from the original vocabulary and from other layers of borrowings. Thus, in the Sumerian language there is a so-called “banana substrate”: a group of words, mainly proper names, which have a structure different from the usual Sumerian vocabulary C 1 V 1 C 2 V 2 C 2 V 2 (type banana, hence the name “banana substrate”), cf., for example: Zababa, Bunene(names of gods). It is unknown which family the language from which these words came into Sumerian belonged to: languages ​​in which there would be quite a lot of such words have not yet been discovered.

In some cases, systemic factors make it possible to reconstruct the unattested source of borrowing. So, for example, the word trochee“a sharp pole with which to drive deer” is obviously not native to the Russian language: it is non-derivative, is absent in other Indo-European languages, and names an object from a field of activity that the Russians have never dealt with. In the languages ​​of the northern reindeer-herding peoples with whom the Russians came into contact, there is no word exactly like this (that is, with exactly this phonetic appearance and exactly this meaning). Therefore, for example, in Etymological dictionary of the Russian language Nenets is cited as the source of the Russian word har"edge; knife”, which is unconvincing as phonetically (where does “extra” come from in Russian -to her?), and semantically (why borrow “knife” as a “pole”?). Meanwhile similar words(meaning precisely “a sharp pole with which to drive deer”) is found in other Northern Samoyedic languages ​​– Entets ( korio, tundra dialect) and Nganasan (). These words should correspond to Nenets * xăr"ej. It is very likely that it was from this word (lost in modern Nenets) that Russian was borrowed trochee: Russian contacts with the Nenets are well documented, and many terms associated with reindeer husbandry such as don't vomit“a fawn less than a year old” or Malitsa“a shirt made of deer skin with fur inside,” penetrated into Russian precisely from the Nenets language.

Some words, borrowed from language to language, do quite long way. For example, the folk Latin word potus"pot" got through Germanic languages(cf. northern German Pott) to Baltic-Finnish (cf. Finnish. pata"pot"). From the southeast it reached the Baltic-Finnish languages ​​- almost unchanged! - ancient Indian word Tomara“throwing spear, dart” (cf. Vepsian tomar"blunt arrow") Such words are sometimes called “vagrant” (German). Wanderworter).

Borrowings can penetrate from language to language not only through oral speech, but also from books. Book borrowings in general are characterized by greater semantic and phonetic proximity to the original than oral ones, however, they can also contain errors, including very serious ones: for example, the French word zenith“zenith” (which also found its way into the Russian language) is borrowed from Arabic zemth: m in the manuscript it was taken as ni.

Sometimes, as a result of rethinking, borrowed words acquire a secondary (“erroneous”, from an etymological point of view) morphological division. The most famous Russian example of such a word is umbrella. Borrowed from Dutch zonnedek"upper deck; sun awning on the upper deck", it was reinterpreted as having a diminutive suffix - IR, and subsequently a form without a suffix arose - umbrella. An equally well-known example from English language – hamburger“Hamburg [pie]” (actually, a bun with a cutlet inside). In this word the British saw English ham“ham”, and similar types of buns with different fillings received names such as cheeseburger(with cheese) and fishburger(with fish). Let us note that, as in many other cases of folk etymology, here one can see semantic “inconsistencies”: it is absolutely inexplicable why the name of a bun with CUTLETS should be derived from HAM (in general, this kind of unmotivated semantic deviations is a fairly strong argument in favor of that the word in question has undergone folk etymological transformations).

With reverse word formation, phonemes may appear in borrowings that are abnormally different from those in the source language. For example, the Russian word flask represents a borrowing (via Polish flaszka) from German Flasche"bottle". Unique Russian match G German sch[w] arose as follows: in the word flask the diminutive suffix was allocated - To-, further flask was perceived as flask(how [w] before a voiceless consonant is pronounced not only “primordial” w, but also “primordial” and), i.e. diminutive form of * flask. The phenomenon in which one or another phoneme is perceived - contrary to etymology - as the result of some kind of alternation is called hypercorrection. Another example of such hyper-correction is the Russian word skirt, borrowed (probably through Polish and German mediation) from French jupe: the appearance of a sound at the root of this word b(cf. skirt) is historically illegal.

Artificially created words such as rus pose considerable difficulties for the etymologist. fade away, created by F.M. Dostoevsky, or English lilliputian"Lilliputian, very little man", invented by J. Swift. The proportion of artificially created words in the Hungarian language is especially large: in the late 18th - early 19th centuries. in Hungary there was a period of “language renewal”, when many new words were created - partly through reverse word formation ( pir"blush"< piros“Ruddy”), partly with elements of rethinking. Many of these words have roots of Finno-Ugric origin, but with violations of regular phonetic correspondences (for example, the long vowel in pir shouldn't be). Others, such as the word leg"air", coined as a replacement for "sky", has no prototypes outside the Hungarian language.

Searches in other languages ​​for words related to artificially created lexemes are obviously doomed to failure, but in the absence of accurate data about who and when a particular word was invented, it is not always possible to prove its artificiality: so, both the meaning and form of the Russian word result leave no doubt that it is an artificial formation built on the basis of the expression and that(although the origin of this word is unknown), while the above Hungarian leg“air” gives the impression of a “normal” non-derivative noun.

A special group of derived words, located at the intersection of “normal” intralingual word formation, borrowings and artificial lexemes, consists of the so-called calques - words obtained by morphemic translation of words of another language ( cm. Trace). As a rule, such words belong to the sphere of terminology and are introduced into the language by specialists (cf. Russian. item from lat. ob-jectum letters “thrown forward”, compound words with the first component good-, rendering Greek words with: noble - Greek [eugenes], etc.), but with intense language contacts and developed bilingualism, tracing paper can also arise “naturally”, cf. Finnish names of berries mansikka"strawberry" (cf. maa"Earth"), lunsikka"bone" (cf. luu"bone") and mustikka " blueberry » (cf. musta“black”): in these names the roots were literally translated from the Russian (more precisely, Old Russian) language, the derivational suffix -yan- conveyed by suffix -ns-, and the suffix -ik(A) - simply borrowed as -ikka.

Relatively rare, but play a significant role in changing lexical fund languages, words that arose “by mistake” - due to incorrect morphological division, hyper-corrections, contamination, etc. An almost incredible example of this kind is presented in the history of the French language: the Latin (from Greek) word malacia"quiet, calm" was perceived as related to French mal"bad"; since the very concept of “calm” has a rather positive connotation, the “contradiction” that has arisen was eliminated by replacing mal on bon“good”, which resulted in modern French bonace"dead calm" English dormouse“garden dormouse” originates from the French. dormeuse“sleep lover” influenced by the word mouse"mouse". In Russian the word convergence Christian with the word cross gave birth to the form peasant, which violates both the rules of phonetic adaptation of borrowings ( To in place of the expected X, e in place of the expected And), and the rules of suffixal word formation in the Russian language and, moreover, acquired a specific meaning not related to the religious sphere.

The etymological study of the original vocabulary of a language, according to the traditional point of view, comes down to proving its originality. Such evidence is the presentation of words corresponding to the given one from languages ​​going back to the same ancestor language, and the establishment of a reconstruction of the proto-linguistic word, the direct continuation of which is the word in question. So, the etymology of the Russian noun Brother is an indication that it goes back to common glory. * bratrъ(cf. Czech. bratr, Polish brother, senior , etc.), in turn going back to Indo-European * bhrātēr, Wed other ind. bhrātar-, lat. frāter, Irish brathir, goth brōþar, tox. A pracar etc. However, the prevailing tendency in recent works seems to be more justified to understand etymology more broadly - as the history of words, which necessarily includes information about any non-standard (= not determined by diachronic patterns common to a given language) changes in their sound appearance, word-formation connections and meaning.

The main source of this kind of unique changes is the same “language errors” - rethinking the morphemic structure of words, hyper-corrections, contamination, folk etymologies, etc. – in this case, leading not to the emergence of new lexical units, but only to various kinds of modifications of lexemes that existed before. So, the plural form honey mushrooms, which has now practically replaced the older form honey agaric, – a consequence of the weakening of the word-formation connection of the word honey fungus with the word stump and including it in a number of nouns with the suffix -enok(cf. calf– calves, cook– cooks etc.). Old Russian, originally associated with know, V modern language correlates with the verb see(which is reflected in its current spelling - St. And detel). Old Russian word Morovia and the name of the kingdom Moravia under the influence of the same word ant(grass-ant) took on the form ant, Ant(cf. the expression “ant’s country” in folk tales). Vernacular form syroega is the result of understanding a noun Russula not like compound word with roots cheese- “raw” and units- “is” and the suffix - To-, but as a diminutive form (with the suffix - To- and standard alternation G/and, Wed road – track) from a word with a root raw food-. Of the lexemes fixed in literary language, let's note another word background(originally “the lining of a peasant’s shirt”) – historically derived from shoulder. Sound h in a word shoulder does not go back to * k, and to , cf. old man , Polish please; perhaps this word is related to Irish leithe"scapula" ().

It should be noted, however, that almost the majority of irregular sound transformations do not have any satisfactory explanation (frequent references to taboo motifs, as a rule, can neither be proven nor disproved and in any case do not allow us to determine why the change turned out to be this way and not another) - cf. examples such as obsesslav. "nest" (based on data from others Indo-European languages- Wed lat. nídum, English nest etc. – would be expected form * nьzdo), Polish pchla"flea" from common slavs. * blъxa, Russian saliva from general slavs. * slina(cf. Bulgarian slina, Czech slina etc.), French. fromage"cheese" (instead of * format) from folk Latin * formaticus, Russian well from Old Russian well(cf. adj. well), palm from Old Russian dolon and many more etc. - and although for some of them such explanations may yet be found, the role of all kinds of random “failures” should in no case be underestimated.

The consequence of such processes is violations of regular phonetic correspondences between related languages. So, in the Serbo-Croatian language the correspondence to the Russian verb decide is drijèshiti"decide; untie" with the anomalous d- at the beginning. This is probably d- appeared as a result of rethinking the structure of the prefixed verb once-d-rijèshiti (< *re-decide), in which * sp(in full accordance with phonetic laws) gave hello. Sound s in Russian word wing corresponds And other Slavic languages ​​(cf. Old Slavic, Czech. kridlo etc.); it is possible that this irregularity arose as a result of the convergence of the word wing with verb cover, however, for example, the same irregular - fish- from -ri- in a word self-interest(cf. Old Slav., Czech. koríst"prey") does not allow such an explanation.

In the absence of numerous and reliable written sources, it is in most cases very difficult to prove contamination or other similar “language errors”.

Examples of significant (and often quite unexpected) shifts in meaning experienced by certain words are also very numerous, cf. examples such as Polish. cma“Night butterfly” in common slav. * darkness"darkness", Russian. vulgar"banal; indecent" in Old Russian. "antique, ordinary" severe"special, special" (cf. extreme caution) under Old Russian "folded in half"; let's mention one more funny case, like Polish zapomniec"forget" - zapamietac“remember” in Russian remember"remember" - forget"forget". A widely known example is a complete change in the meaning and use of a verb dominate: Old Russian to suffice for smth.“to be sufficient” (one root with pleased) – modern dominate smth."gravitate" (cf. the fear of making mistakes dominates him).

In etymological analysis, it often turns out that several approximately equally probable etymologies can be proposed for the same word. If one of the available etymologies is near, and the other is distant, then - with other equal conditions! – preference should be given to nearby etymology: the likelihood that a word will be associated with other words of the same language is higher than the likelihood of its complete isolation.

Thus, for example, the etymology connecting the above-mentioned ancient Turkic “sky, god” with the word “sea” seems more successful than the hypothesis according to which this word is a borrowing - through a number of unidentified intermediary languages ​​- from Sumerian dingir"sky".

There are even more complex cases. So, according to one of the hypotheses, Slavic word *axel"axe" is derived from the verb * teti(1 liter singular) “to beat” (lost in modern Russian, but preserved in most other Slavic languages), according to another - borrowed from some Iranian language (cf. New-Persian. teber"axe"). Both etymologies have advantages and disadvantages. The first of them, although close and quite successful from a formal and semantic point of view (alternating e/O in the root is usually for verbal nouns), but requires highlighting an extremely rare suffix in the word in question - op. The second assumes the normal development of both meaning and form, but the specific source of borrowing remains unclear. Thus, it is difficult to prefer any one of these etymologies.

Etymological research requires not only individual words, but also stable combinations of words - in many cases their origin is by no means obvious. So, for example, the expression build chickens has no relation to the corresponding poultry (as it might seem at first glance): it is an incomplete translation of the French idiom faire la cour“to look after, to drag after someone.”

Expression butcher under nut came from jargon cabinetmakers, in which it meant “to give furniture an external resemblance to that made from noble walnut wood,” and in modern Russian, under the influence of a different meaning of the verb butcher(cf. butcher meat) has acquired the meaning of “causing significant (physical or moral) damage.”

Much more often than individual lexemes, set expressions arise as a result of (deliberate or accidental) contamination: cf., for example, to me deep spit on sth. from to me deep indifferent sth. And to me spit on sth.

Many phraseological units do not yet have reliable etymologies. This is, for example, the expression lies How gray gelding. Among the hypotheses about its origin, it is worth mentioning two that suggest a restructuring from: (1) rushing, How gray gelding and (2) lies, How Sievers-Mering(where Sivers-Mehring is supposedly the surname of a Russian officer known for his love of lies). However, both of these hypotheses are poorly consistent with the fact of the existence of at least famous expression rave gray mares. The etymology of the phrase is no clearer take on zugunder. It has been hypothesized that zugunder goes back to German (1) zu Hunden"to the dogs", (2) zu hundert“to a hundred (stick blows)”, (3) zugrunde (zugrunde gehen"perish" zugrunde richten“destroy, destroy”), but none of them explains the structure of the Russian expression.

Despite some shortcomings (due to both the colossal volume of material and the fact that we are talking about a book published half a century ago), the most complete, detailed and authoritative source on the etymology of Russian (and Old Russian) words is M. Vasmer, published in 1950–1958 in Heidelberg in German and subsequently translated into Russian.

Literature:

Pisani V. Etymology. History – problems – method. M., 1956
Etymological studies on the Russian language, vol. 1. M., 1960 (publication ongoing)
Martynov V.V. Slavic-Germanic lexical interaction of the most ancient times (to the problem of the ancestral home of the Slavs). Minsk, 1963
Etymology 1963–. M., 1963 (publication ongoing)
Etymological Dictionary of Slavic Languages(edited by O.N. Trubachev), vol. 1–15. M., 1974–1988
Vasmer M. Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language, vol. 1–4. M., 1986
Dybo A.V. Semantic reconstruction in Altai etymology. Somatic terms (shoulder girdle). M., 1996
Anikin A.E. Etymological dictionary of Russian dialects of Siberia. Borrowings from the Uralic, Altai and Paleo-Asian languages. Novosibirsk, 1997
Khelimsky E.A. Comparative studies. Uralistics: Lectures and articles. M., 2000
Burlak S.A., Starostin S.A. Introduction to linguistic comparative studies. M., 2001

Zakharov Vladimir

The Russian language is the soul of Russia, its shrine. Our destiny is in the words we speak. This is why it is necessary to focus on historical processes, occurring in it; based on the similarities between the Old Church Slavonic and Russian languages, using historical grammar material for illustration linguistic phenomena. Enrichment spiritual world students are facilitated by both comprehensive text analysis, which includes key concepts Orthodox culture: home, temple, family, duty, honor, love, humility, beauty, and work on the etymology of a single word.

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Fascinating etymology or secrets of Russian words

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GBPOU RO PU No. 36 Zakharov Vladimir

Introduction

The Russian language is the soul of Russia, its shrine. Our destiny is in the words we speak. That is why it is necessary to emphasize the historical processes taking place in it; based on the similarities between the Old Church Slavonic and Russian languages, using material from historical grammar to illustrate linguistic phenomena. The enrichment of the spiritual world of students is facilitated by both a comprehensive analysis of the text, which includes key concepts of Orthodox culture: home, temple, family, duty, honor, love, humility, beauty, and work on the etymology of a single word.

1.Science etymology

Etymology - (Greek ἐ τ ῠ μολογ ί α "true meaning of the word")

The subject of etymology as a branch of linguistics is the study of sources and the process of formation vocabulary language andreconstruction vocabulary of the language ancient period(usually pre-written).

Semantics, as a branch of linguistics, answers the question of how a person, knowing words and grammar rules any natural language, turns out to be able to convey with their help a wide variety of information about the world (including about one’s own inner world), even if he is faced with such a task for the first time, and to understand what information about the world contains any statement addressed to him, even if he hears it for the first time.

IN vocabulary Each language has a significant fund of words, the connection of which form with meaning is incomprehensible to native speakers, since the structure of the word cannot be explained on the basis of the word formation models existing in the language. Historical changes in words obscure the original form and meaning of a word, andiconic the nature of the word determines the difficulty of reconstructing the primary motivation, i.e. connection between the primary form and meaning of a word. The purpose of the etymological analysis of a word is to determine when, in what language, in whatword-formation models on the basis of what linguistic material, in what form and with what meaning the word arose, as well as what historical changes in its primary form and meaning determined the form and meaning known to the researcher.

Semantics emerged as an independent linguistic discipline relatively recently, at the end of the 19th century; the term “semantics” itself to denote a branch of science was first introduced in 1883 by the French linguist M. Breal, who was interested in historical development linguistic meanings. Until the end of the 1950s, the term “semasiology” was also widely used along with it, now preserved only as a not very common name for one of the branches of semantics. However, questions related to the management of semantics were raised and, one way or another, resolved in the oldest linguistic traditions known to us. After all, one of the main reasons that forces us to pay attention to language is a lack of understanding of what the oral or written statement (text) addressed to us or some part of it means. Therefore, in the study of language, the interpretation of individual signs or entire texts - one of the most important activities in the field of semantics - has long had an important place. Thus, in China, even in ancient times, dictionaries were created that contained interpretations of hieroglyphs. In Europe, ancient and medieval philologists compiled glosses, i.e. interpretations unclear words in written monuments. The truly rapid development of linguistic semantics began in the 1960s; Currently, it is one of the central sections of the science of language.

In the European scientific tradition, the question of the relationship between words and “things”, the objects to which they belonged, was first posed by ancient Greek philosophers, but to this day various aspects this relationship continues to be clarified. Let us consider the relationship of the word to the “thing” more carefully.

2.Origin of words

Asphalt. I wonder what this Greek word meant before there were paved sidewalks and highways. Let's open the ancient Greek dictionary. First syllable A – denial. Noun sfalma - fall, misfortune, failure. So the underlying meaning is bad. The prefix A turns the word into its opposite, giving it a good quality. Asfaleya means: confidence, reliability, safety. Exactly with that word asphaltos was named in Ancient Greece resin of coniferous plants. The name comes from the resin asphalt - tarred road.

Birch. From the word white in ancient times the words “birch”, “linen”, “squirrel” originated. Birch is a tree with white bark; white squirrel - a type of squirrel of a very rare and expensive breed, named after the color of its fur; “linen from white” of the type “junk from old” originally meant undyed white linen, then linen made from this linen, then linen in general.

Nonsense. When the first shipbuilders arrived in Russia under Peter I, they spoke mainly in German, accompanying their words with intense gestures, they explained the structure of the masts, their installation, purpose, while saying hier und da, which in German means here and there . In Russian pronunciation and awareness this has turned into nonsense , which means something obscure and unnecessary.

Shabby dress.Everyday, homely, everyday. After a meal in the last century, cheap fabric was called - after the name of Zatrapeznov, in whose factory it was produced.

Clumsy . In some Russian writers you can find the word clumsy

Okay, neat: “Okay, clumsy words come by themselves” (A. Kuprin). Writers use it from popular vernacular. It comes from the ancient word man - order, beauty.

Hence the sticky and clumsy – handsome, stately; clumsy - awkward, ungraceful.

It is forbidden. What is not – it’s clear, it’s important to establish what it is lzya . It once sounded lz and was dative case from a noun lie – freedom. Traces of the word's existence lie we see in our modern benefit, benefit ; it no longer occurs separately.

Education. They believe that this word is a copy of the German - a picture, an image, and the whole word means enlightenment. Word education can be found in Russian church books already in the 17th century, and German influences could hardly have penetrated into them. More likely, a direct connection with Old Church Slavonicto form - to create,compose, from Slavicimage - likeness.

Forgive. The etymology of this word may seem surprising. Old Russian simple, corresponding to our simple, it meant straight, unbent. I'm sorry therefore, it mattered to straighten, and then to allow the guilty person, who had bent in an apologetic bow, to straighten up. The cry of “Forgive me!” therefore meant: “Let me raise my guilty head, get up from my knees...”. To forgive means to liberate, to make free.

Rainbow. Word rainbow recorded in Russian language dictionaries only starting from the 18th century. This word is East Slavic in origin, derived from the adjective glad meaning cheerful. First the word rainbow referred to something cheerful, and later to something shiny, sparkling. Word meaning connection rainbow meaning cheerful is also confirmed by the fact that in some regional dialects rainbow called veselka, veselukha.

River. One of the most archaic, ancient words of our language. It is related to the ancient Indian rayas - stream, current, with the Celtic renos - river, from which the geographical name Rhine arose. Probably in the mists of time river it meant a stormy stream, rapids.

Child. So good nice word, and in origin is associated with disgusting slave . In Old Russian timidly meant little slave, child of a slave. But a slave, or rob, then meant an orphan. Gradually, the robe acquired the meaning of just a child, and it turned into a child under the influence of assimilation.

Day. Once existed days – collision. This is precisely how this word was originally understood, as the meeting of day and night, their totality.

Drawing. This word refers to the number of native Russians. It is an old derivative of the verb draw, which in the Proto-Slavic language had the meaning of cutting, chopping something. That is, initially drawing - this is cutting through, slicing, notching, as well as a forest clearing.

In the familiar sense: “an image of some objects on paper, a plan of something” the word drawing has been used in Russian for a long time. At least since the 16th century.

Conclusion

Etymological analysis allows you to instill interest in the Russian language through entertaining exercises, developing your linguistic sense, expanding your horizons and vocabulary. Mechanical memorization of words and text without understanding and comprehension is the most difficult and uninteresting form of acquiring knowledge.

The formation of coherent speech begins with work on the word; etymological analysis has an impact on spelling literacy.