When we speak a language, we rarely think about how the words we use came to be and how their meanings may have changed over time. Etymology is the name given to the science of the history of vocabulary and the origin of words.
New words appear literally every day. Some do not linger in the language, while others remain. Words, like people, have their own history, their own destiny. They may have relatives, a rich pedigree, and, on the contrary, be orphans. A word can tell us about its nationality, its parents, its origin.
Railway station
The word comes from the name of the place "Vauxhall" - a small park and entertainment center near London. The Russian Tsar, who visited this place, fell in love with it - especially the railway. Subsequently, he commissioned British engineers to build a small railway from St. Petersburg to his country residence. One of the stations on this section of the railway was called "Vokzal", and this name later became the Russian word for any railway station.
Hooligan
The word hooligan is English origin. It is believed 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 common noun, and the word is international, characterizing a person who grossly violates public order.
Shit
The word “shit” comes from the Proto-Slavic “govno”, which means “cow” and was originally associated only with cow “patties”. “Beef” means “cattle”, hence “beef”, “beef”. By the way, from the same Indo-European root is the English name for a cow - cow, as well as for the shepherd of these cows - cowboy. That is, the expression “fucking cowboy” is not accidental, it contains a deep family connection.
Orange
Until the 16th century, Europeans had no idea about oranges at all. Russians - even more so. Oranges don't grow here! And then Portuguese sailors brought these tasty orange balls from eastern countries. And they began to trade them with their neighbors. They, of course, asked: “Where do the apples come from?” - because we haven’t heard of oranges, but the shape of this fruit is similar to an apple. The traders answered honestly: “The apples are from China, Chinese!” The Dutch word for apple is appel and the Chinese word is sien.
Doctor
In the old days they treated with incantations, spells, and various whisperings. An ancient doctor, a healer, told the patient something like this: “Go away, disease, into the quicksand, into the dense forests...” And muttered over the sick person different words. Do you know what muttering or chatter was called until the beginning of the 19th century? Muttering and chatter were then called lies. To mumble meant “to lie.” He who trumpets is a trumpeter, who weaves is a weaver, and who lies is a doctor.
Scammer
In Rus', swindlers were not called deceivers or thieves. This was the name of the craftsmen who made the purse, i.e. wallets.
Restaurant
The word "restaurant" means "strengthening" in French. This name was given to one of the Parisian taverns by its visitors in the 18th century after the owner of the establishment, Boulanger, introduced nutritious meat broth into the number of dishes offered.
Heaven
One theory is that the Russian word "heaven" comes from "ne, no" and "besa, demons" - literally a place free of evil/demons. However, another interpretation is probably closer to the truth. Most Slavic languages have words similar to "sky", and they most likely originate from the Latin word for "cloud" (nebula).
Slates
In the Soviet Union, a famous manufacturer of rubber slippers was the Polymer plant in the city of Slantsy. Leningrad region. Many buyers believed that the word “Shales” embossed on the soles was the name of the shoes. Then the word entered the active vocabulary and became a synonym for the word “slippers.”
Nonsense
At the end of the last century, the French doctor Gali Mathieu treated his patients with jokes.
He gained such popularity that he did not have time for all the visits and sent his healing puns by mail.
This is how the word “nonsense” arose, which at that time meant a healing joke, a pun.
The doctor immortalized his name, but nowadays this concept has a completely different meaning.
Reports and messages on the Russian language
On topic: ETYMOLOGY
Words, like people, have their own history, their own destiny. They may have relatives, a rich pedigree, and, on the contrary, be orphans. A word can tell us about its nationality, its parents, its origin.
Etymology- 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, come 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 call a guest 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”, “evil”, but today it is used in almost the opposite meaning - “daring”, “brave”.
One more 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”.
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.
About the origin of some words, as well as stable phrases(they are called phraseological units) in our language you will learn by reading the following pages.
Palm
Our ancestors once sounded the word palm completely differently: dolon. And the meaning of the word was this: the side of the hand facing the valley (that is, down, towards the ground). Over time, a rearrangement of sounds occurred in the word dolon, and it began to sound differently: lodon. And then (under the influence of the dominant Akanya in the literary language) the unstressed vowel o in the word turned into a: palm. This is how the modern spelling and pronunciation of this familiar word came about.
However, related words still live in the language in their original form: dolina (lowland), podol (bottom of clothing), Podolsk (city in the lowland of the river).
Umbrella
Everyone knows and understands this word - it would seem that it is the most ordinary. But it also has an interesting story.
It came to us from Holland, having traveled across 2 seas, along with the umbrella itself, which in Dutch is called “zonnedek”, which means “tire” or “cover from the sun”. But the word “zonnedek” turned out to be extremely inconvenient and unusual for our pronunciation. Therefore, they began to remake it in the Russian way: they began to pronounce it according to the model of the words bow and kantik that already existed in the language.
So from the zonnedecks we got an umbrella. The resulting word even began to lead its own independent life. When they want to talk about an umbrella big size, then it is changed again according to the pattern: bow - bow, edging - edging, umbrella - umbrella. The result was the word umbrella, as you can see, even less similar to the word zonnedek, borrowed from the Dutch.
Carousel
Of course, you have ridden on wooden horses or in carousel boats more than once, but you probably haven’t wondered why, in addition to ordinary seats, there are wooden horses and boats on the carousel? And it was not by chance that the boats and horses got on the carousel.
Several centuries ago, during the Middle Ages, there were magnificent knightly festivals - tournaments. Armed knights, clad in iron, riding on powerful horses, entered into single combat with each other. Often such knightly fights ended in death, but they did not see anything special in this, and did not even consider such an outcome a crime. The French king Henry II once also decided to take part in a knightly tournament and compete with the famous knight Montgomery in strength and dexterity. This tournament took place in 1559, and King Henry II was mortally wounded. Since then, knightly tournaments have been banned. Instead, they began to organize ceremonial races in a circle. Such races were called "carousel" (from the Italian words carola - round dance and sella - saddle), which literally means "round dance in the saddle."
The most brilliant carousels were staged in Paris during the reign of King Louis XIV. In front of the royal palace of the Tuileries, magnificently dressed horsemen rode with their luxurious ladies. They divided into parties, came together and left, forming beautiful figures.
During the French Revolution of 1789, carousels were invented that were more accessible to the common people - revolving structures with horses and boats. The carousel has survived in this form to this day.
Pull the gimp
When we do something very slowly, they say about us: “It’s a drag.” This expression comes from the recent past, when in Rus' metal thread was used for embroidery in needlework. It took a lot of work for the craftsmen to pull such a thread from a hot wire. This thread was called "gimp". Embroidering with it was also very difficult, slow and painstaking work. It was then that the expression “pull the gimp” was born. Now no one knows what the gimp looked like, and needlewomen have not embroidered this way for a long time, but the expression in the language has been preserved.
Easier than steamed turnips
Turnip- the most ancient vegetable in Rus'. Our ancestors loved raw, boiled and steamed turnips. The turnip dish was quick and very easy to prepare. Since then, the expression simpler than steamed turnips has come into being. This is what they say about something that is easy to do.
Register Izhitsa
Izhitsa- the ancient name of the last letter of the ancient Slavic alphabet.
How is this letter connected with the threat of punishment? After all, registering an Izhitsa means “to teach a lesson, to punish,” and also “to make a reprimand to someone.”
This expression arose in the old school environment, in Bursak everyday life. But the thing is that in the ancient Slavic alphabet there were 3 very insidious letters: fita, yat and izhitsa - they became symbols of the difficulty of writing. These letters were written in several words (or several dozen words), which had to be remembered, memorized, memorized. “Fita makes our stomachs ache,” said students in the old days who were mastering the intricacies of literacy. At that time, Fita was the name given to a school literate person, a nerd who through incredible efforts had mastered complex skills. And about lazy people they said this: “Fita and Izhitsa - the whip is approaching the lazy one.” To register Izhitsa literally meant “to flog with rods for not learning.”
It is curious that in its external image the Izhitsa resembled an inverted whip or a bunch of rods. This is, in all likelihood, where the humorous and ironic spelling of Izhitsa arose.
Over time, this expression went beyond school jargon and acquired more general meaning: “to severely punish someone, to teach someone a lesson.” Now it is usually used as an expression of threat and is synonymous with phraseological units: show where crayfish spend the winter; show Kuzka's mother.
There is no truth in my feet
“Sit down, there is no truth at your feet,” this is what the Russian people have long said.
Exist different versions origin of this expression. An expert in the folk language and an interpreter of Russian catchphrases, S. Maksimov connects the phrase truth in feet with the medieval Russian judicial custom, which was called pravezh. Pravezh is not even a trial, but rather a reprisal against the debtor, in which he was beaten on his bare feet and heels or forced to stand in the snow without boots or bast shoes. At that time, such sayings as looking for the truth in one’s feet appeared; the soul has sinned, but the feet are to blame; give time, don't knock me down and some others.
Over time, the truth became a thing of the past, but the memory of it remained in popular speech, in its living use, and the expression in the feet of no truth even became humorous. Indeed, in the old days, a man who came into the house and stood, shifting from foot to foot, did not know where to start, resembled a debtor on the right. That’s when a humorous saying came to the rescue, inviting the guest to sit down and start a leisurely conversation: sit down, there is no truth in your legs, that is, “there is no need to stand on ceremony, let’s sit side by side and talk smoothly.” Many expressions familiar to us are actually associated with ancient and long-forgotten customs, beliefs and rituals.
Cow and loaf
In ancient times, a word for people was not just a designation of objects and concepts - it was a symbol. People were sure that the word had magical powers, that they could prevent evil and summon good luck. Do you want to know why, for example, we don’t call cow meat by the word Korovina? Where did the word beef even come from? And what does the word beef have in common with the word loaf?
In the language of the ancient Indo-Europeans, there was one word to designate any livestock - beef. And the word cow had the meaning of “horned beef.” And in those ancient times, people raised cows not for meat and milk, but for sacrifices to their gods. And only when people began to consume cow's milk, they replaced the real animal in the rituals of sacrifice with a horned figure baked from dough - a cow. It was believed that such a sacrifice should bring happiness and prosperity, so they sentenced it like this:
Like on our name days
We baked a loaf!
That's how tall it is!
That's how tall it is!
Loaf, loaf,
Choose whoever you want!
Now it’s hard to believe that the words cow and loaf are somehow connected with each other. But in fact, the word loaf was formed from the word cow.
Mittens, gloves, mittens
It is believed that of all the words listed, the most ancient is mittens. The antiquity of this word is indicated by its distribution in all or almost all Slavic languages - in Polish, Slovak, Czech, Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian.
The word mitten is made up of 2 roots: the first root is easy to define - this is hand, the second is known in our verb vit. It turns out that a mitten means “wrapping a hand.” It is interesting that in many Slavic languages there is a word nogavitsa - the name for special clothing on the leg, that is, “wrapping the leg.” In the Slovak language, nogavics are “trousers, trousers”; Poles and Czechs call nogavics “pants legs”, in Slovenian language leggings are “stockings or socks.” And in monuments Old Russian writing Both words - leggings and mittens - are often found.
But with the word gloves the story is different. At first, the language used the phrase ring or finger mittens (this name can be found in the Smolensk charter of 1229). Over time, the phrase was replaced by the single word gloves, but the old root finger, that is, “finger,” is clearly visible everywhere. Gloves are mittens with fingers (with fingers).
But there is even more than one version regarding the origin of the word mittens. For example, M. Vasmer believed that the word mittens and the word varega, known in Russian dialects, were formed from the combination Varangian mittens. Another version (enshrined in the Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language edited by N. Shansky) says that the words varega and mittens are derived from the Old Russian verbs variti and varovati, used in the meaning of “guard, protect.” But there is also an even simpler explanation for the origin of these words. If we look at the wide range of names of mittens known in regional Russian dialects, then among these names, it turns out, there are many words associated with the processes of processing wool and making mittens. These are the names: faggots, braids, felted mittens, katanki (rolled mittens). This also includes varegs, mittens, formed by the name of the process - to cook (that is, to boil). The fact is that finished knitted wool products were brewed in boiling water to make them stronger and warmer. It turns out that mittens are “boiled mittens.” In Dahl's dictionary the following saying is given: “Need has made the mitten akin to the warga.” What does it mean? It turns out that special names for upper mittens and lower mittens were once widespread in the Russian language. Of course, most often such names are found in the North, the Urals and Siberia - where 2 pairs of mittens are often worn at once. There are such local names: tops, tops, bottoms. And in some areas, mittens are called upper leather or cloth mittens, and vargas, mittens, are lower, knitted ones. Hence, apparently, the expression recorded by Dahl.
Red
In the famous saying, the hut is not red in its corners, but red in its pies; the adjective red means “good, pleasant.” And such outdated expressions, like red bird, red beast mean “best bird” or “best beast,” that is, “the best and most expensive bird or beast preferred by hunters.” Dahl wrote in his dictionary: “Red game, tall, all types of snipe, also roe deer, swan, capercaillie and others; red game is a bear, wolf, fox, lynx and others.”
In modern Russian, much evidence has been preserved about the ancient meaning of the word red. First of all, this is, of course, a constant epithet in folk poetic speech: the maiden is beautiful, the songs are red. Red here means "beautiful, lovely, pleasant." In N. Nekrasov's poem "Peasant Children" there are lines in which the word red is used in this meaning:
Play, children, grow up in freedom,
That's why you were given a wonderful childhood.
In the ancient names, red gate, red corner, the adjective red means “decorated” and “honorary, ceremonial.” The same meaning is contained in the proper names Krasnoye Selo and Red Square.
The meanings “best, pleasant”, “beautiful, decorated” were the very first meanings of the adjective red.
A completely different word was used to denote color - red. This was the case in Old Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian. And only from the 18th century a new, color meaning of the adjective red appeared in Russian dictionaries. It became its main meaning. The ancient, primary meaning is preserved only in stable expressions and phrases.
In the 19th century, the adjective red acquired another meaning - “revolutionary”. The name Red Banner spread into European languages during the 1848 revolution. Soon the word became firmly established in this meaning in the Russian language.
Now, in modern Russian, the adjective red is not only a very expressive, but also a polysemantic word.
Pigalitsa
What does the word pigalitsa mean? This word has 2 meanings. Pigalitsa is the name given to a small bird, lapwing. But a small, inconspicuous person is also often called a pigalite. Scientists believe that this is an onomatopoeic word - that is, it arose in the language as an onomatopoeia to the cry of a lapwing. And the lapwing screams like this: pi-gi, ki-gi!
"Reports and messages on the Russian language" V.A. Krutetskaya. Additional materials, useful information, Interesting Facts. Elementary School.
E The tymology of words often fascinates people who have a rather vague understanding of linguistics. And the less prepared this or that amateur is linguistically, the more categorically he usually expresses his judgments about the most complex etymological problems.
If, for example, you have difficulty distinguishing a ruff from a pike, then, you have to think, you will never risk putting forward any new hypothesis concerning the problems of ichthyology. Without possessing the appropriate knowledge, no one will dare to express their opinions on the most complex issues of nuclear physics, mathematics, and chemistry. In fact, everyone expresses their opinions about the origin of words.
About folk etymology. Usually people begin their etymological “studies” already in early childhood. Such childish formations as buzzer (alarm clock), planer (plane), kopatka (shovel), kopotok (hammer), mazelin (vaseline) and others, caused by the natural desire to somehow comprehend every incomprehensible word, are typical not only of childhood. Take such examples of reinterpretation of words in folk dialects as spinzhak (jacket), semi-clinic (polyclinic), semi-garden (front garden) and so on. In all these cases, incomprehensible words foreign origin“corrected” and “adjusted” to some well-known Russian words and roots: word jacket → spinzhak was connected to the back, polyclinic → semi-clinic- it’s ‘half clinic’, a front garden → semi-garden- ‘half kindergarten’.
The ancient Romans called such etymological comparisons “bull” or “cow” etymology. Since “etymologies” of this kind often arose among the people, these false interpretations were later called “folk etymology” (as opposed to scientific etymology). The very term folk etymology not entirely successful. Firstly, it shows a somewhat disdainful attitude towards the people, who for many centuries were cut off from the development of science. Secondly (and this is the most important thing), a significant part of the “folk etymologies” did not arise in the folk environment at all.
For example, back in the 18th century, academician and philologist V.K. Trediakovsky wrote that the name of the ancient inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula Iberians- this is a distorted word upers, since they are geographically located on all sides stubborn seas. Britannia, according to Trediakovsky, this is a distorted Fraternization(from the word Brother), Scythians- This hermitages(from wander), Turks- from brisk(compare nimble‘fast, agile’), etc. Consequently, here we are faced with “folk etymology” at the highest (academic!) level. And the people have nothing to do with it. It’s just that at the time of Trediakovsky, etymology had not yet been formed as a science, and this provided wide scope for all kinds of unbridled fantasies.
Thus, folk etymology- this is not necessarily “etymology that arose among the people,” but an etymology that is based not on scientific principles of analysis, but on random comparisons caused by simple consonance of words. Sometimes such a comparison can hit the mark. Compare, for example, the words of Luke in the play by A.M. Gorky “At the Bottom”: “They crushed a lot, that’s why it’s soft.” Words soft And crumpled, really, common origin, but an essentially correct comparison does not yet transform it into a scientific etymology.
Instead of the term folk etymology some scientists prefer to use the expression false etomo logic or naive etymology. But these terms are even less successful. Firstly, scientific etymology may be false. For example, at least one of the two etymologies of the word we considered bride is definitely false. But both of them, undoubtedly, belong to the category of scientific etymology and do not contain anything naive in themselves. Secondly, a naive etymology need not be false (take the example of soft And crumpled). In addition, naivety is a quality that can sometimes also distinguish scientific etymology. Of course, “folk etymology” is usually false, but not every false etymology is “folk” at the same time. This is why one of these terms cannot be replaced by another.
De-etymologization and folk etymology. The essence of folk etymology can only be understood if we remember what was discussed in the previous chapters.
Words in their development gradually lose ancient etymological connections, or, in other words, become de-etymologized. Thus, they become etymologically incomprehensible. Scientific etymology establishes the true origin of the word being analyzed, relying on those methods of comparative historical research with which we are now familiar. Typically, scientists restore the most ancient stages available to them in the history of words, simultaneously drawing on material from related languages.
In contrast, folk etymology does not reconstruct lost etymological connections, but tries to explain the origin of the word based on the current state of the language for the author of the etymology. As a rule, such “etymologies” do not contain any scientific argumentation. They rely only on random coincidence or even a very distant similarity in the sound of words.
The discrepancy between scientific and folk etymology clearly appears in the case of the origin of the Russian word otter(as you remember, our acquaintance with the science of etymology began with a story about this word). Scientists have restored its ancient form *ūdrā[ý:dra:], found a large number of matches in related languages and explained the original meaning of the word otter, associated with the meaning ‘watery, watery’.
Folk etymological interpretation of the origin of the word otter(from tear out) fundamentally contradicts the facts of the history of language; it is in no way connected with ideas about the kinship of languages and related correspondences. This explanation relies only on the consonance of words otter And tear out, supported by a witty, but absolutely fantastic argument of a semantic nature. In addition, a comparative historical analysis of the word otter shows that its appearance dates back to the era when prefixed formations like you-tear have not yet been productive in Indo-European languages.
Etymology and archaeology. In many places, and especially in the steppe zone of our Motherland, ancient mounds of impressive size rise. There is such a mound near the village, but no one knows who built it and when. And a legend arises around such a mound.
They say that in ancient times - a hundred, or maybe two hundred years ago - a lady’s beloved dog died. From morning to night the lady shed bitter tears.
And in that village there were soldiers standing there at that time. They felt sorry for the lady, they dug a grave near the village, buried the dog according to Christian custom, and began to carry earth in their hats to the place where the grave was. They carried it for a long time - until a huge mound grew in that place...
This legend has its own continuation, albeit taken from real life. One day, archaeological scientists arrived at the mound and began conducting archaeological excavations. And what they discovered under the mound was not a dog at all, but a rich burial of a Scythian leader, buried here not a hundred or even two hundred, but two and a half thousand years ago...
We see the same picture in the history of many words. Folk etymology is the same legend, trying to explain the incomprehensible facts of the distant past with close and understandable phenomena of our modern language. And etymological scientists, as a result of a kind of “archaeological excavation”, establish that the origins of a word we do not understand go far into the depths of centuries and in many cases, in the place of the etymological “dog”, they find traces of such ancient times, from which not even legends and tales have survived.
Folk and children's etymology.“Stop telling you secrets! What a secretary!”, “We go for a walk - we are truants!”
These and other examples below, taken from the book by K.I. Chukovsky’s “From Two to Five” are indicative in many respects. First of all, in children's comparisons the main features of folk etymology emerge most clearly, although, of course, children's etymology cannot be completely identified with folk etymology. Secondly, the fallacy of children's etymologies does not raise any doubts, and revealing the error, as a rule, does not require detailed and complex explanations. Finally, it is easier here than in other cases to distinguish different types of folk etymology.
In examples with words secretary And truant etymological connection with secret And walk was installed generally correctly. Only in the first case is this connection not direct, and it can only be determined based on the material ultimately of the Latin language, from which these words were borrowed through Western languages.
Compare, for example, French. secret[secret] ‘mystery, secret’ and ‘secret, hidden’, secretaire[secretary] ‘desk, bureau (with secret compartments)’ and ‘scribe, secretary’. Thus, the error in this case was that the words secret And secretary (secretary), actually connected by a long chain of intermediate etymological links, were placed in a direct etymological connection, which these words do not have.
A different picture is observed in the case of words walk And truant. The main mistake here is of a semantic nature. Relationship between words walk, truant, truant And walk around no one doubts it. According to the words truant And absenteeism have a special semantic connotation: they do not apply to those who walk or stroll, but only to people who, for unjustified reasons, do not show up for work or school.
If a truant sleeps, sits at the cinema or reads a detective novel during working hours, he does not cease to be a truant (this word, as we see, has undergone partial de-etymologization).
Of a different order etymological errors observed in cases quitter- ‘a man who makes boats’ or specialist- ‘a person who likes to sleep’. In all these cases, the words between which an etymological connection is supposed, in fact, in terms of their origin, have nothing in common with each other. No matter how convincing the word formation looks:
write - scribe
lie - liar
sleep - special
The last case clearly does not belong to this series. Word specialist is an abbreviation for specialist. And the last word ultimately goes back to Latin specialis[in medieval pronunciation: spetsialis] ‘special, special’ in turn associated with Latin words species[spékie:s] ‘type, variety’ and specie[spekio:] ‘I see, I look’. So the words sleep And specialist etymologically they are not related to each other.
Folk etymology and distortion of words. In all the examples from children's etymology just considered, one or another explanation of the origin of the word did not, however, lead to its distortion. But not in all cases the word lends itself to folk etymological interpretation in the form in which it exists in the language. And since you still want to explain an incomprehensible word, distortions like digger or mazelin, which are not typical only of children's language.
Examples with words spinzhak, semi-clinic, popusadik belong to the same type. But these and similar illiterate dialectal and vernacular forms do not exhaust all examples of this kind. Moreover, folk etymological changes in words can be observed even in the literary language, and such cases are not at all rare.
Old Russian word witness was formed from the verb lead‘to know’ and it meant a person who knows something. Currently, we do not say “informant”, but witness and connect this word not with the verb know, and with a verb see, perceiving it in the meaning of ‘eyewitness’ (one who saw something). Old connection with the verb know have still been preserved, for example, Belarusian summary and Serbian report'witness'.
In Russian diplomatic documents of the end XVII-early XVIII centuries you can find the word seclusion, which was the result of a folk etymological reinterpretation of the word of Latin origin audience(influenced seclusion, solitude). IN Belarusian language the word was marked sekutsyya. etymologically much more expressive than Latinism execution.
Latin verb vagari[vagá:ri:] ‘to wander’ had a suffixal derivative vagabundus[vaga:býndus] ‘stray’, which in Italian gave vagabondo [vagabondo], and in Spanish - vagabundo[vagabundo] ‘tramp’. Rare suffix - bundo in Spanish was "corrected" to - mundo, and the word vagamundo began to be perceived as complex, formed from vagar[vagar] ‘to wander’ and mundo[mundo] ‘peace, light’. So, as a result of folk etymological changes, the Spanish word vagamundo acquired the meaning ‘wandering around the world’.
When considering the etymology of various words, scientists constantly have to keep in mind the possibilities of this kind of folk etymological rethinking, which often greatly complicates the study, because they replace real ancient etymological connections with secondary, contrived connections.
But folk etymology has an impact not only on people’s ideas about the origin of the word. Erroneous etymologization is also closely related to practice, in particular to the practice of spelling. Well known typical school mistakes, caused by the fact that a word of doubtful spelling is compared with another word that is not etymologically related to it. But foreign words that are generally devoid of etymological support within the native language usually turn out to be especially difficult. That is why when writing such words they often rely on other “similar” words foreign language origin. This is how errors arise, which are to a certain extent akin to folk etymological distortions of words: “incident” and “precedent” instead of the correct one: incident, precedent(under the influence of words like challenger), “compromise”, “establish” instead of compromise, ascertain(the influence of words like regulate, Konstantin).
“I am Ra myself!” Nowhere, perhaps, has folk etymology become as widespread as in the interpretation of proper names. For example, a university student begins to study Latin. In one of his first lessons he learns that the word ira[ú:ra] means 'anger' in Latin. And immediately tries to connect this word with a Russian name Ira, Irina, “explaining” the latter with the meaning of the Latin word. In fact, the name Irina was borrowed from the Greek language, where the word eirēnē[eirene:] means ‘peace’ (in modern Greek pronunciation: [irúni]). This word was used as a proper name by the ancient Greeks: Eirene- This Irina, goddess of peace.
At every step, such “etymologies” are encountered when explaining geographical names. Many toponyms are distinguished by their exceptional antiquity. Some of them have long lost etymological connections in the language, others never had these connections, since they were borrowed from other languages. But the desire to somehow explain these incomprehensible names often led to the emergence of the most ridiculous “etymologies” and even entire legends, often “supported” by references to actual historical events.
Where did the name of the city come from? Kolomna? They say that Father Sergius once blessed Prince Dmitry Donskoy not far from this city. After the blessing, Father Sergius headed into the city, but for some reason the residents drove him away and even threatened him with stakes. “I treat them kindly, but they stake me (me),” Sergius later complained. From this stake me and the city was given a name Kolomna.
Another equally fantastic example of this type is the “etymology” of the name of the river and city Samara.
According to legend, a small river ran from east to west, and from the north a mighty river rushed its waves across it. Ra(ancient name of the Volga River).
“Move aside! - the big river shouts to the small river, - make way for me - after all, I am Ra!
“And I myself am Ra,” the river answers calmly and continues its run to the west.
Two streams collided with each other - and the majestic river Ra gave way to its small rival: it, too, was forced to turn its flow to the west. From words Ra herself and the river was named Samara, and at the site of the collision it formed the Volga-Pa Samara bow (bend).
In a similar way, folk etymology tried to explain, for example, the names of rivers Yakhroma And Vorskla. The first name was allegedly obtained from the exclamation of the wife of Prince Yuri Dolgoruky, who, while crossing this river, twisted her leg and exclaimed: “I am lame!” The legend associates the second name with the name of Peter I. Looking through a telescope, the king dropped the lens into the water. Attempts to find "glass" (sklo) were not successful. Since then, the river began to be called Warehouse thief(‘glass thief’).
Of course, all these legends have nothing to do with the actual origin of the corresponding toponyms. But they are important in another way. The considered examples show how closely folk etymology is connected with oral folk art - folklore. Many tales and legends arose in a similar way - as a result of an attempt at etymological understanding of incomprehensible words and names.
We have already encountered this kind of phenomena in the example of the origin of the name of the ancient Greek “foam-born” goddess Aphrodite and Athena Tritogeia. Similar examples can be found in the oral folk art of any country. Research by etymologists, aimed at studying the features of folk etymology, allows us to shed new light on the most difficult problems, associated with the ancient origins of oral folk art.
Anger and fire. In all the examples considered so far, the difference between folk and scientific etymology has always appeared with sufficient clarity. Unfortunately, however, there are many such cases when it is not at all possible to draw a more or less clear line between these two seemingly different types of etymological explanations.
Some of the etymologies proposed by the Roman grammarian Varro, for a long time belonged to the folk category. More careful research has shown, however, that these explanations of Varro are supported by scientific analysis.
In the reasoning of one of M. Gorky's heroes - Matvey Kozhemyakin - one encounters the idea that the word anger associated in origin with the word fire. As an example confirming this etymology, Matvey Kozhemyakin refers to the verb be on fire in which he prefixed O- considered as part of the root in a word fire (fire). The folk etymological-logical nature of this explanation is completely indisputable.
But relatively recently, the famous Russian etymologist V.V. Martynov put forward the same idea as a scientific hypothesis. One of the author’s main arguments is also the word be on fire- only in its more ancient form. V.V. Martynov presented interesting arguments in favor of his point of view, and, despite its controversy, this etymology must now be taken into account as a scientific hypothesis. Example with the word anger shows how arbitrary the boundaries between folk and scientific etymology can be. In some cases, an etymology that has long been considered folk may eventually become universal. scientific recognition. And, conversely, etymology that appears as scientific may be on the same level as folk etymology.
Thus, folk etymology is not just a set of ridiculous and naive explanations of the origin of various words, but a complex phenomenon that often puts a researcher involved in the history of words in a difficult position. The influence of folk etymology has left numerous traces in the language. Moreover, these traces in some cases turned out to be so imperceptibly “disguised” that scientists are not always able to distinguish folk etymology from the true one. All this creates certain difficulties in the work of etymologists, forcing language researchers to attract more and more new material, allowing them to penetrate into the most intimate secrets of ancient word creation.
Chapter twenty-five
ETYMOLOGICAL MYTHS
R In the final chapter of our book we will not talk about those legends and myths (without quotes!) that arise on the basis of folk etymological interpretations of the origin of the word (compare the myths and legends about Aphrodite, Athena, the Samara River, etc.). We will not be interested in “mythical” (already in quotation marks), that is, fictitious etymologies like otter from tear out or audience from retire. The authors of these “etymologies” did not publish their explanations in etymological dictionaries, limiting themselves to the fact that they themselves “reached” the supposed true meaning of the word. And if, for example, a bear is depicted on the coats of arms of the cities of Berlin and Bern (in German Väg [ber]), then here too the folk etymology that has penetrated into the field of heraldry also remains limited to this narrow area.
It’s a different matter when writers, linguists and even authors of etymological dictionaries offer explanations, embellishing them various kinds“myths” that should give the reader the impression of plausibility of the etymology presented. Below are several examples of this kind of etymological “myths”.
How do elephants sleep? Oddly enough, this question is directly related to the etymology of the word elephant. In the monuments of ancient Russian writing (XV century) you can find a fable according to which elephant supposedly cannot bend its tracks, and therefore whenever you want to sleep, go to sleep(‘when he wants to sleep, he sleeps leaning against an oak tree’). It is on the basis of this folk etymological comparison ( elephant from the slonity) a number of serious etymologists (for example, A.G. Preobrazhensky) explain the origin of the Russian word elephant. A common “myth” has arisen around the etymology of this word, which should confirm the correctness of the proposed explanation. Actually, not a word elephant was formed from the verb lean against, based on the belief that elephants supposedly sleep without bending their legs, but, on the contrary, this belief itself arose as a result of folk etymological comparison of words elephant And (at) elephant.
Our word elephant, as we already know, apparently was the result of rethinking in the process of borrowing from Turkic aslan[aslan] ‘lion’. Such reinterpretations of the names of animals known only by hearsay are not so rare in the language (above we came across an example where ‘elephant’ turned into ‘camel’).
Was a plow carried across a ford? In Latin there were two groups of words that were similar in sound: 1) porta[porta] ‘gate’, portus[portus] ‘harbour’ (as if ‘the sea gate of the city’) and 2) portare[portá:re] ‘to wear’. Latin word portus came to us through French media in the form of a noun port, and the root of the verb portare‘to carry, carry, transport’ we find in Russian words import'import', export‘export’, transport(literally: ‘transport’), etc.
Even in the 19th century, scientists tried to somehow etymologically connect with each other similar words porta‘gate’ and portare'wear'. And they found an ingenious solution to this issue, seemingly based on historical facts. To the author of the “Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language” G.P. Tsyganenko (Kyiv, 1970) found this solution so convincing that she included it in her dictionary:
"Latin words porta‘gate’ and portus‘harbour’ are formed from the verb portare‘to carry, to carry’. Etymologically, the connection between the concepts of ‘to wear’ (portare) and ‘gate, harbor’ (porta, portus) is explained historically as follows: the ancient Romans had a custom, when founding a city, to first plow it, that is, use a plow to furrow the line along which it was supposed to pass city wall. In those places where gates should have been erected, the plow was carried by hand. From here porta literally ‘a place where one carries (a plow)’, then – ‘a place for entry, exit, etc.’” (pp. 360-361).
The most interesting thing here is that such a custom actually existed among the ancient Romans. And yet, the explanation given is just a fiction at the level of folk etymology. How can this be seen? First of all, the Latin words porta And portus(with the original meaning ‘passage, entrance’) there are reliable Indo-European correspondences: German. Furt[furt], English ford[fo:d] ‘ford’, literally ‘passage (across the river)’. In Icelandic the corresponding word is the same as in Latin portus, means ‘harbour’ (it entered the Russian language in the form fiord). What to do in all these cases with carrying a plow (through a ford!)? It is clear that we have before us a word that is more ancient than the above Roman custom.
Finally, we find the general meaning of ‘passage’ in ancient Greek word poros[poros] ‘crossing’, ‘strait’, ‘path’, which could not be formed from either portare, nor from a similar Greek verb, because it does not have a suffix - t- and it reflects a more ancient word-formation model than the Latin verb. By the way, it should also be noted that the Greek poros meaning ‘passage, hole (in the skin)’ through Western European languages also found its way into the Russian language: it's time, time‘openings of the sweat glands on the surface of the skin’. Here, apparently, a reference to the plow would hardly be appropriate.
This example shows that the most beautiful etymological “myth”, based, it would seem, on firmly established historical facts, crumbles like a house of cards when seriously verified using the linguistic comparative-historical method.
ABOUT Baba Yaga and about nonsense. It would be possible to write a voluminous book with the most diverse etymologies that have been proposed by writers of different countries and eras, from Homer to the present day. But since Homer did not write anything about the etymology of Russian words, we will limit ourselves to examples from a slightly later time.
V. Berestov says in his memoirs that S.Ya. Marshak was keenly interested in questions of etymology. Here is one of his impromptu etymologies:
« Baba Yaga- this is perhaps the Tatar “babai-aga” (old uncle). This is how in Rus' during the time of Batu they frightened children: Sleep, otherwise the babay-aga will take you.”
It should be emphasized that S. Ya. Marshak proposed his etymology in a cautious form (“perhaps”), communicated it in a friendly conversation (and not in print), without imposing his assumption on his interlocutors. Unfortunately, no matter how witty the explanation of S.Ya. Marshak, before us is an ordinary etymological “myth”. Word Yaga and its etymological “relatives” are widely represented in West Slavic languages. Consequently, our word appeared long before Batu.
In other cases, writers are more categorical in their judgments. So, for example, A.M. Argo, in an interesting article “A Little Textual Criticism” (“Science and Life”, 1968, No. 6, pp. 120-122) writes too confidently about the origin of the word nonsense:
"Word nonsense along the line least resistance others derive from Latin grammatical forms: gerund And gerundive.
The root is actually different.
When the first shipbuilders arrived in Russia under Peter the Great, they spoke mainly in German.
Accompanying their words with intense gestures, they showed the structure of the masts, their installation and purpose, and at the same time they said ‘hier und da’, which in German means ‘here and there’; in Russian pronunciation this has become ‘nonsense’, which means something obscure and unnecessary.”
In this passage, first of all, attention is drawn to complete absence arguments refuting the first etymology. She is simply declared unfaithful. Meanwhile, book words of seminary origin gerund, nonsense, nonsense With a large share probabilities are traced by etymologists to the above Latin words. The fact is that the topic of “replacing a gerund with a gerundive” is one of the most complex and confusing topics in Latin grammar. In the eyes of the seminarian this was truly gerund.
In its positive part, the author of the new etymology also does not provide a single argument other than a typical etymological “myth” - a reference to German shipbuilders who actually worked in Russia in the Peter the Great era. Here, too, a reference to a historical fact, as in the case of the plow with which the ancient Romans plowed the territory of the future city, should create the impression of plausibility of the etymology presented.
President Jackson creates a new word. Anyone who has had to learn English knows how difficult it is to master its spelling.
In English, there are cases where words written differently are pronounced the same. For example, right‘correct’ and rite‘rite’ have the same pronunciation: [right]. Conversely, two exactly identically written words can be pronounced differently: read‘reading’ is pronounced [ri:d], a read‘read’ [ed]. Often the phonetic appearance undergoes such significant changes that almost nothing remains of the real “literal” content of the written word in its pronunciation. Yes, word nature‘nature’ in English is pronounced [neyche]. Same letter A in English, very different sounds can be designated (depending on its position in the word): [a], [o], [hey] and others. All this creates serious difficulties in mastering English spelling. The discrepancies between the spelling and pronunciation of English words are often so significant that they even jokingly say: “If it is written in English Manchester, then you should read Liverpool».
President Jackson of the United States of America, who lived more than a hundred years ago, preferred to write English words as they were heard. This can be judged by the following story, which is usually passed off as true. One day they brought a paper to the president to sign. After reviewing the document, he approved it, saying: “All correct!” [ol correct] ‘everything is in order!’ or ‘everything is correct’. The President wrote these words on the document as his resolution, but he wrote them in an abbreviated form. According to the rules of English spelling, this abbreviation should have the form A.S.(all correct). But President Jackson did not write the letters required by spelling standards, but those that corresponded to the pronunciation of the words: O.K. Because the last letter (To) called in english alphabet kay[kay], the president's resolution was read: okay [óy kay]. So, with the help of President Jackson, a new, currently very popular word arose in the English language: okay ‘everything is all right!’.
Alas, this interesting story is also just an etymological “myth”. For those interested in the origin of the word OK, it will be useful to get acquainted with the article by Zh.Zh. Warbot “OK”, published in the magazine “Russian Speech” (1983, No. 5).
A few more etymological “myths”. S.S. Narovchatov, who wrote an excellent article “Language” in the journal Science and Life (1969, No. 10), is also not always careful enough when touching on etymological issues. For example, he confidently states that the word bear etymologically means ‘knower of honey’ (actually: ‘honey badger’) or what spring“easily explained by a single-root word” clear(in fact, these words have different origins). But here we have an already familiar type of etymological “myth”: “Daughter” is a ‘milker’: in the old days, the younger members of the female half of the family were entrusted with the responsibility of milking cattle” (p. 104). The error here is not in the matching of words itself. daughter And milk, and in the explanation of this connection and in the unsuccessful reference to the customs of the “old times”. In fact, the word daughter etymologically it does not mean ‘milking, milking woman’, but ‘sucking’ or ‘breastfed’. This very widespread semantic model of naming children can be illustrated using the example of the same verb milk- illustrated using material Slovak language: dojčit"[doychit] ‘breastfeed’ - dojča[deutsch] ‘ infant’ (compare also: dojka[milking] ‘nurse’).
Outside the Russian language, Slavic and Indo-European “relatives” of the verb milk usually mean ‘to breastfeed’ and ‘to suck’ (breast). Word daughter, Genitive daughters, has reliable correspondences in a number of Indo-European languages: Lithuanian. duktė[ducté:], genitive case dukters[duktyars], ancient Indian duhitā[duhita:], ancient Greek. thygater[thyugate:r], Gothic. dauhtar[dokhtar] and others.
Consequently, the expression “in the old days” used by S.S. Narovchatov, you need to understand not in the sense of 200-300 or even 1000, but at least 5-6 thousand years ago. And transfer it to this ancient era modern meaning of the Russian word milk to explain the Indo-European origin of the word is hardly appropriate.
In the same article we find another example of mixing different chronological eras. Noting that in the Latin word ursus[ýpcyc] ‘bear’, also in French ours, Italian orso[opco], Persian arsa[ársa] and others. There is a combination rs S.S. Narovchatov makes an assumption (which, however, he himself admits to be “too bold”) that in the ancient Slavic language “the name of this beast sounded something like ‘ros’.” And from here already - Ros‘bear river’ and ‘bear tribe’ - grow up. And then the author of the article continues:
“What if my guess is not so arbitrary, and it turns out that the ‘bears’ are Russians (?! - Yu. O. ) was once called not only good-naturedly and ironically, but also according to the original meaning of the word. This ‘once upon a time’ refers, however, to the times of Askold and Dir, and perhaps God, but the guess from such a circumstance does not become less interesting” (p. 109).
Here, first of all, the presence of the same chronological “scissors” is striking: the involvement of material from Indo-European languages, reflecting prehistoric era five or six thousand years ago - on the one hand, a reference to a relatively late historical era (Askold and Dir - Kyiv princes 9th century AD), which, by the way, seems to the author to be very ancient, on the other.
It should be noted that already in the pre-Slavic era, the Slavs had a taboo name for the bear - ‘honey badger’. No traces of the ancient Indo-European name for this beast have been preserved in any Slavic language. Since there are no traces of it in the Baltic languages that are closest to the Slavic languages, one must think that this ancient name for the bear was lost by our ancestors even before the separation of the Slavic languages into independent group. Thus, the assumption that in the times of Askold and Dir “Russians” were called “bears” hangs in the air.
Finally, it is necessary to note the phonetic inconsistency of the etymological “myth” presented. The given French and Italian names for the bear are completely unnecessary, since they historically go back to the Latin ursus. Sound s in Persian word arsa- the result of a later change from š [š]. Greek word arktos[árktos] ‘bear, she-bear’ (by the way, this is where our word originates from Arctic) and other Indo-European correspondences indicate that there is no original combination - rs- the Indo-European name for the bear did not exist. And the insertion of a letter is completely arbitrary O, essentially, into the Latin or Persian combination - rs-(ursus, arsa) in order to form an “Old Slavic word” grew up.
What's happened bark? Now let’s briefly look at the example of the etymology of the word bark - a word that we can find in N.A. Nekrasov, M. Gorky and other Russian writers. Take at least a line from Nekrasov’s poem “On the Volga”:
| The bark moves like a river. |
| N. A. Nekrasov. |
The barks are big sailing ships on the Volga, later replaced by steamships. Etymologically the word bark associated with the verb sew, embroider, embroider. The famous Slavist academician N.S. spoke out against this etymological connection. Derzhavin. According to N.S. Derzhavina, word connection bark with verb sew is the result of folk etymological rethinking, but in fact bark- this is a borrowing from German Reiseschiff[raizeshif] ‘vessel for travel’.
However, before us, apparently, is nothing more than an etymological “myth” about borrowing. Firstly, bark- This is a typical cargo ship, not a ‘travel vessel’. Secondly, the originality of this word is confirmed by reliable etymological connections in the Russian language itself.
You and I usually nail or nail the board. An experienced carpenter does not nail, but sews on board (of course, not with threads, but also with nails). This is where it starts dialect word Shitik, which V.I. Dahl in his dictionary explains it this way: ‘small river vessel’ (Volga word) or ‘boat with stripes, ripples, with sewn sides’ (Siberian word). In Dahl we find the word shiva‘shitik boat, not dugout’ (vol. IV, p. 635).
Therefore, from an etymological point of view, bark- this is a ship embroidered, that is, covered with boards. The Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus (10th century AD) reported that the ancient Russians made “printed boats” covered with boards. By the way, the Russians sewed boards to their ships not only with wooden nails, but also with willow twigs and juniper roots.
It is possible that this is where we should look for a connecting link between the meanings of ‘to sew’ and ‘to nail, to nail down’ in Russian verbs sew, sew on.
"Goodbye meat!" How difficult it can sometimes be to decide whether a particular etymology is true or fictitious can be judged by the example of the origin of the word carnival. This word came into the Russian language (through French mediation) from the Italian language.
Initially carnival was an Italian spring holiday similar to Russian Maslenitsa. This holiday was accompanied by various street processions, masquerades, mass dances, and funny theatrical games. Since this holiday took place before the beginning of Lent, during which the Christian religion forbade eating meat, the origin of the Italian carnevale[carnevale] ‘carnival’ has long been associated with words carne[carne] ‘meat’ and vale[vale] ‘farewell’. It is interesting to note that this etymology of the word carnival(English) carnival[ká:nivel]) can be found in the poem of the great English poet J. Byron "Beppo". However, here, perhaps, even “ naked eye“it is clear that we have a typical folk etymology. This explanation is very similar to, for example, the etymology Montevideo- from montem video‘I see a mountain’. A number of highly respected scientists have announced the etymology carne vale‘farewell meat!’ by erroneous folk etymology. Instead, another explanation of the origin of this word was proposed.
For a long time, even at festivals dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Isis and the Greek god Dionysus, a prominent place during the solemn procession was given to a cart in the shape of a ship or boat. Latin words carrus navalis[karrus nava:lis] literally means: ‘ship (or sea) cart’. Ancient tradition remained in Italy until the 18th century, when noble Italian women still went to the carnival in similar “sea carts”. Consequently, according to this explanation, which, in particular, was adhered to by the famous linguist V. Pisani, the Italian word carnevale derived from carrus navalis(or, more precisely, from a later form of these words: carro navale).
However, no matter how tempting the latter interpretation may be, it is apparently just another etymological “myth.” Firstly, numerous monuments of Latin writing do not give us a single example with a combination of words carrus navalis. The Italians, too, as far as we know, never called their carnival “sea floats” with the words carro navale. All these are just assumptions of scientists. Secondly, the connection of words carnival or Maslenitsa with the meaning ‘meat’ is found not only in Italian. Greek apokreōs[apókreo:s] ‘Maslenitsa, carnival’ has a completely clear etymology: aro- - a prefix meaning removal, separation or termination, and kreōs(or kreas) 'meat'. Word meat-eater‘Maslenitsa’ is well known in various Slavic languages, and its etymology is again related to ‘meat’.
True, the matter here was apparently not without cripples. But if we accept the etymology of the Italian carnevale, raising this word to carrus navalis, then you have to recognize the Greek apokreōs and Slavic meat-eater tracings from a reinterpreted Latin (or Italian) word. And this already looks extremely implausible.
The first edition of this book contains a story about the origin of the word carnival ended with a statement of the fact that the etymology of ‘goodbye meat!’ looks like a typical folk etymology, and the carnival ← carrus navalis- this is a far-fetched hypothesis of scientists (an etymological “myth” in fact high level). Readers have repeatedly asked the author a question about the true origin of the word carnival. Of the proposed etymologies of this word, the most plausible is the following.
In late Latin there were religious terms carnelevamen[carnelian] and carnelevarium[carnelevarium] ‘abstinence, from meat’, associated with Christian fasting. These words consist of carne(m)‘meat’ (accusative case) and verb derivatives levare[leváre] ‘to deprive’. In a word carne-levar-ium assimilation occurred, giving rise to the word attested in one of the monuments of the 12th century car-nelevale[carnelevale]. And here, under the influence of folk etymology, a haplological (see above) loss of one of two identical syllables occurs - le-. As a result of this deletion, the word began to be perceived as carne vale‘goodbye meat!’
The purpose of the chapter you just read is to show the harmfulness of etymological “myths”, which create a misconception about etymology as a science, where what is needed is not objective evidence, but only witty comparisons and confident references to various kinds of historical facts (even if these facts have no relationship to the etymology of the word we are interested in).
In fact, it is a relatively easy matter to create such “myths”. It is usually more difficult to prove their inconsistency, because these “myths” are most often created around those words that do not have a sufficiently reliable etymology.
But the most difficult thing is, based on a scrupulous study of linguistic facts, without being carried away by frivolous, albeit tempting comparisons, to find the only way that allows the researcher to find a solution to the riddle called the etymology of a word.
Conclusion
So, our presentation has come to an end. Having examined various methods and specific features of etymological analysis, we are convinced that etymology is a complex and multifaceted science. She always demands creative approach. Here you cannot, having “learned” a few specific rules, wait for ready-made answers to all questions. In many cases, these answers simply do not exist; they have yet to be obtained by future researchers, future historians of words. In this regard, the work of an etymologist opens up broad prospects for those who decide to devote their work to research in the field of the history of their native language.
However, the creative nature of etymological science does not at all mean that its methods are at least to some extent arbitrary. On the contrary, in previous chapters it was shown that any serious etymological analysis is based on those strict patterns that appear in various aspects history of the word.
Among the methods used by etymological scientists, the first place rightfully belongs to the comparative historical method. That is why our acquaintance with the science of etymology began with a story about the kinship of languages, about sound correspondences in related languages, as well as about the phonetic, word-formation and semantic history of the word.
Of course, in a small book it was impossible to exhaustively cover all issues related to etymology in one way or another. Anyone who wants to become more familiar with both etymology and the science of language in general can refer to the list of references given at the end of the book. This list includes both popular science books and works intended for readers with some minimum linguistic training. It is possible that at first not everything in these works will be in to the same degree It's clear. But this will not diminish the educational value of reading such books. On the contrary, the reader will want to understand what is not yet clear to him, to find out what he does not yet know. The path to knowledge, as a rule, begins with a misunderstanding of something. Having realized the very fact of misunderstanding, a person usually seeks to expand his knowledge in the relevant area. And in this case, it is always very important to decide to take the first step, without reconciling with your ignorance.
In most cases, we use the words of our native language almost as naturally as we walk, breathe, and look. The word for us is the most important means of communication, a means of perceiving works fiction. But the word is also of interest in itself: each word has its own origin, its own history, its own phonetic and morphological appearance, its own meaning.
If the stories about the science of etymology and the given examples from the history of words at least to some extent aroused the reader’s interest in his native language, if they made him think about the words that we use every day, the author will consider his task completed.
Bibliography
Ashukin N. S., Ashukina M. G.. Winged words. M., 1998.
Budagov R. A. Introduction to the science of language. M., 1965.
Vartanyan E. Journey into the word. M., 1987.
Vartanyan E. The birth of a word. M., 1970.
Vetvitsky V. G. Entertaining linguistics. M., 1966.
Dal V. Dictionary living Great Russian language. T. I-IV. M., 1998.
Zemskaya E. A. How words are made. M., 1963.
Ilyin M. Black and white. L., Detgiz. 1935.
Kazansky B. V world of words. L., 1958.
Maksimov S. Winged words. M., 1995.
Mokienko V. M. Into the depth of the proverb. M., 1975.
Norman B. Yu. Language: familiar stranger. Minsk, 1987.
Otkupshikov Yu. V.. Essays on etymology. St. Petersburg, 2001.
Urazov I. Why do we say this? M., Pravda, 1956.
Uspensky L. A word about words. M., 1997.
Vasmer M. Etymological dictionary Russian language. T. I-IV. M., 1996.
Chukovsky K. From two to five. M., 1990.
Chukovsky K. Alive as life. M., 1982.
Shansky N. M. In the world of words. M., 1985.
Shansky N. M. Entertaining Russian language. M., 1996.
Shansky N. M., Bobrova T. A. School etymological dictionary of the Russian language. M., 1997.
The relationship of languages will be discussed in more detail below in Chapter III.
The Russian transcription of foreign words given here and below only approximately conveys their sound. So, for example, [h] in the ancient Greek word hydra is a sound intermediate between [h] [x] and [g] (compare Ukrainian [g]), and y in the same word it sounded approximately like German [ü] (the sound is intermediate between Russian [i] and [u]). The spelling of Lithuanian, ancient Indian and some other words is also given in a somewhat simplified form. By the way, in the Russian transcription of ancient Indian words the accent is not always noted, because its place is not known to us in all cases. Finally, the colon after a vowel in the transcription adopted here means the length of the preceding vowel.
Compare Russian words borrowed (eventually) from Greek hydra‘water snake’ and hydro(station).
Compare Pushkin’s “Poltava”: Execution tomorrow morning...
Semantics is the semantic side of a language or word. The term “semantics” also denotes a department of the science of language that studies its semantic side, considering changes in the meaning of a word. This branch of linguistics is also called semasiology.
In the Old Russian language with letters b(“er”) and ъ(“er”) denoted very short (so-called “reduced”) vowels. In their sound they resembled the pronunciation of modern Russians e And O in an unstressed position: eight pronounced roughly like [eight], ear like [cols]. Later, these sounds either disappeared (Old Russian take turned into take, window- V window), or turned into full vowels e And O (glass -glass, D'ska - board and so on.)
In the Latin language of the times of Cicero and Caesar With in all cases it was pronounced as k. Later - in the Middle Ages - With before vowels e, i, y,ae, oe began to be pronounced like Russian ts. Latin words entered the Russian language, as a rule, in medieval pronunciation (circus, center, Cicero, Caesar). But in Ancient Rome in all these cases in place ts sound was made To. Here and below in the transcription the so-called classical pronunciation is usually given. The only exceptions are examples taken from medieval Latin.
Serbian is one of the South Slavic languages.
The complex question of the origin of language will not be considered here. Those who are interested in this issue can refer to the fascinating book by L. V. Uspensky “A Word about Words”, where the author in the second chapter examines various theories of the origin of language.
Compare Russian words formed on the basis of the Latin word aqua: aquarium, scuba, watercolor, aqueduct.
In one of the churches in Florence (Italy) there is a fresco where the Dominicans are depicted as dogs chasing pagan wolves.
It would be more correct to talk about changes in sounds rather than letters. However, scientists of the 17th century practically did not distinguish between sounds and letters.
Final ancient Indian weakened s, also denoted by h (visarga), is rendered here as – s.
Old Prussian is one of the Baltic languages that became extinct several centuries ago.
In the works of German scientists, these languages are often called Indo-Germanic. Later, new Indo-European languages were discovered (Tocharian, Hittite), which are not territorially connected with either India or Europe, but the term “Indo-European” remained unchanged.
Gothic is one of the ancient Germanic languages.
It is customary to use an asterisk (*) to denote forms that are not attested in written records, but have been reconstructed by scientists based on comparisons of related languages. A straight line above a vowel (ā) indicates its length.
The nasal consonant at the end of the accusative case varies across Indo-European languages ( m or n). The Lithuanian example is given with a dialect ending. In Gothic the final nasal has been lost.
In the genitive and dative cases, the Old Indian endings are not directly attached to the root ( sut‑), and to a stem consisting of a root and a suffix - āy- [-a:th-].
As we will see in the next chapter, the Indo-European long *ā is reflected in Gothic and Lithuanian as O.
Origin of the Old Church Slavonic ending – s in the genitive case the singular is not clear. It does not match the endings in other languages.
Old Slavonic h (“yat”) was formed from ancient *ai (see next chapter).
Old Church Slavonic @ (“yus big”) is a nasalized (nasal) vowel developed from * an. In Russian this nasal vowel has changed to at.
Ukrainian ill health means ‘to be sick’ (compare the Russian word illness), A nivroku- ‘I wouldn’t jinx it’. In general, the line can be translated into words: “Thank God, I am not sick.”
At least in writing. As for pronunciation, then R in a word tiger– solid – and in the word tigress– soft.
Sy.: “Russian speech”, 1969. No. 2, p. 103. It should be noted that in general the article in which this example is given is written in a very interesting way.
Compare also the Bulgarian verb torments‘moo’ and Ukrainian mukati‘moo’, where the real “pronunciation” of the cow made its own adjustments to the phonetic development of words.
From here in Russian hundredweight‘one hundred kilograms’.
Compare the word centimeter‘one hundredth of a metre’.
The genitive singular form, where the stem of the noun appears in full.
With a diminutive suffix -(b)tse, compare for example window – window.
The Aztecs are an Indian tribe indigenous to Mexico.
This is reflected in many languages, including Russian. So, have represents an effective verb in relation to Lithuanian imti[ūmti] ‘take’. In Russian, the root of the corresponding verb (* im-) through “us small” (see Table II) naturally gives I. Lithuanian imti will correspond to Old Russian yati‘take’ (compare Russian verbs heed, from(n)-yat, accept and etc.).
Here and further this most ancient form of the word is given. By the way, quite recently - in the dictionaries of the 30s of the XX century - the spelling Korowai corresponded to the usual spelling norm.
So. for example, T. A. Ivanova does in a review of the first edition of this book (see “Russian Language at School,” 1969. No. 2, p. 119).
The complex relationship of this word to Russian stomach are not reflected in the table of phonetic correspondences.
Compare Russian word controversial'fast'.
For brevity, we leave aside such meanings of the word drummer, as in ‘a musician playing a percussion instrument’ and ‘a part of the bolt for breaking the primer of a cartridge when fired’.
See below about tracing paper (Chapter XVIII).
Using the table of phonetic correspondences, you can make sure that Indo-European * gerbh- naturally gives the Germanic * kerb- and Proto-Slavic * gerb- (→ Old Slav. zhrb-, Russian stallion).
Low Sorbian is one of the West Slavic languages.
The possibility of individual cripples does not change the overall picture.
Initial iso- comes from the Greek i sos[úsos] ‘equal, identical’". Isosemantic series are series of words with the same semantic changes or connections.
The discrepancy between the initial k And š in the given Lithuanian foundations is explained by fluctuations in the reflection of Indo-European *k And *k’(see table of phonetic correspondences). We find similar fluctuations, for example, in cases like Russian. bow down And lean against, color And light, Lithuanian pirkti[púkti] ‘buy’ and piršti[púrshti] ‘to match’ (actually: ‘to buy a bride’), etc.
In the word hare we find a vowel A instead of expected O. However, Lithuanian zuikis[zyikis] ‘hare’, borrowed from Slavic bunny may reflect an older Slavic basis *zoyk-.
Compare a similar example: Russian. ( space And side, a country, where the final - on is also suffixal. The same can be said about words wave, string, harrow, price, etc. Strictly speaking, in all these cases the only suffix is - n-, and the final one - A refers to the ending (compare wave, But waves): However, in works on etymology this point is usually not significant.
Etymological connection of words about And pound was also noted by V.I. Dahl. According to this comparison, about represents an area in which the sound of the beater of one watchman guarding this area can be heard.
Explains the origin of the word differently sirloin M. Vasmer in his “Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language”. He sees in this word a re-arrangement of a late Germanic borrowing.
L. Hilferding. Collection cit., vol. II. St. Petersburg, 1868. p. 367.
Indo-European *O in the Lithuanian language, naturally, is reflected in the form A.
In fact, who would have thought, for example, that - n- in a word moon historically refers not to the root, but to the suffix?
Goit in dialects of the Russian language it means ‘to let live, to heal.’” The word Yugai in the Old Russian language it meant a prince who did not have the right to inherit the throne; outcast literally: as if ‘survived (from the family)’.
A word related to Old Indian. šasati[shasati] ‘cuts’.
Analogy in language is a broader phenomenon, relating not only to the formation of new words. But what interests us here is precisely the word-formation aspect of analogies.
Here chiti-, from *-kiti– as a result of mitigation To before And(see above).
K. Paustovsky. Third date. " New world", 1963, no. 6, pp. 96-97.
We will not be talking about German borrowing here. marriage‘izyan’, but about the original Slavic word marriage‘marriage’.
Compare also Russian attract and Lithuanian velku[vyalky] ‘I’m dragging, dragging’.
The reader has probably noticed that those Proto-Slavic words that are given under an asterisk in etymological reconstructions are quite often found in modern Lithuanian. The structure of this language is so archaic that the Bulgarian academician V. Georgiev expressed a seemingly completely paradoxical thought about this: since we do not have direct data Proto-Slavic language, their place in research, in some cases, can be replaced by data... of the Lithuanian language. Some of the examples we examined confirm this idea of the Bulgarian scientist.
In various Slavic languages, this word has “relatives” with different meanings: ‘grass’, ‘greens’, ‘cereal’, ‘cabbage’, ‘sorrel’.
In Latin, the endings of the dative and instrumental cases in the plural always coincide.
By the way, in this dictionary the words are translated incorrectly (‘from the city’ instead of the correct ‘to the city’).
Old Frisian is one of the ancient Germanic languages.
From Greek words topos[topos] ‘place’ and onyma[ónima] ‘name’.
Sometimes this general meaning is presented as “diffuse”, “undifferentiated”, potentially containing all subsequent specific meanings (the point of view of academician N.Ya. Marr).
Wed. in modern Russian poke And poke.
Compare, for example, Old Church Slavonic scum, Russian freezing And scum, vile, chilly'cold' and chilly‘hateful’, Russian dialect squeeze‘to get cold’ and ancient Greek stygnos[styugnos] ‘hateful’, etc.
Compare Old Russian damn‘slicing’ and damn, Lithuanian kertu[kyartý] ‘I rub, I cut’.
These three meanings in modern Russian differ in their plural forms. ‘Baked bread’ will have the shape here breads, ‘standing bread’ - of bread, and ‘grain bread’ is generally used only in the singular.
Suffix - un Both words are of relatively late origin. But alternating suffixes - V- And - T- are quite ancient. Compare Old Slavic. pѣ-t-ъ ‘rooster’, Russian. dialect . pe-v-ate And pe-t-ate‘rooster’, as well as Ukrainian. pi-v-en‘rooster’, where the marked suffixes constantly appear - V- And - T-.
Purist – from Latin purus[pýrus] ‘pure’ – a supporter of cleansing the native language from unnecessary foreign words.
comme il faut– (lit. ‘as it should, as it should’) - ‘decently, decent’.
The Greeks called all non-Greeks barbarians. Consequently, barbarism is a word from a non-native language.
Ironic allusion to A.S. Shishkov, who opposed the use of foreign words in the Russian language.
In its modern meaning, this word was used in Russian at the end of the 19th century.
This sound is pronounced like Russian T aspirated, something like tx.
This is where the word in Russian originates Oh yeah.
“Science and Life”, 1969, No. 10, p. 108. See also: S. S. Narovchatov. Unusual literary criticism. M., 1970, p. 80.
Attempts at folk etymological interpretation of incomprehensible foreign words will be discussed below (see Chapter XXIV).
Compare in Russian: Pfenning(Germanic borrowing).
The reader can find brief information about the etymology of foreign words that are not specifically discussed in the book in the “Dictionary of Foreign Words.”
The above transcription does not note the softness of the Lithuanian consonants included in this combination.
The Dutch language is closely related to German. Compare the German words in this regard Sonne[zone] ‘sun’ and decken[deken] ‘to cover’.
Related information.
E The tymology of words often fascinates people who have a rather vague understanding of linguistics. And the less prepared this or that amateur is linguistically, the more categorically he usually expresses his judgments about the most complex etymological problems.
If, for example, you have difficulty distinguishing a ruff from a pike, then, you have to think, you will never risk putting forward any new hypothesis concerning the problems of ichthyology. Without possessing the appropriate knowledge, no one will dare to express their opinions on the most complex issues of nuclear physics, mathematics, and chemistry. In fact, everyone expresses their opinions about the origin of words.
About folk etymology. Usually people begin their etymological “studies” already in early childhood. Such childish formations as buzzer (alarm clock), planer (plane), kopatka (shovel), kopotok (hammer), mazelin (vaseline) and others, caused by the natural desire to somehow comprehend every incomprehensible word, are typical not only of childhood. Take such examples of reinterpretation of words in folk dialects as spinzhak (jacket), semi-clinic (polyclinic), semi-garden (front garden) and so on. In all these cases, incomprehensible words of foreign origin were “corrected” and “adjusted” to some well-known Russian words and roots: word jacket → spinzhak was connected to the back, polyclinic → semi-clinic- it’s ‘half clinic’, a front garden → semi-garden- ‘half kindergarten’.
The ancient Romans called such etymological comparisons “bull” or “cow” etymology. Since “etymologies” of this kind often arose among the people, these false interpretations were later called “folk etymology” (as opposed to scientific etymology). The very term folk etymology not entirely successful. Firstly, it shows a somewhat disdainful attitude towards the people, who for many centuries were cut off from the development of science. Secondly (and this is the most important thing), a significant part of the “folk etymologies” did not arise in the folk environment at all.
For example, back in the 18th century, academician and philologist V.K. Trediakovsky wrote that the name of the ancient inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula Iberians- this is a distorted word upers, since they are geographically located on all sides stubborn seas. Britannia, according to Trediakovsky, this is a distorted Fraternization(from the word Brother), Scythians- This hermitages(from wander), Turks- from brisk(compare nimble‘fast, agile’), etc. Consequently, here we are faced with “folk etymology” at the highest (academic!) level. And the people have nothing to do with it. It’s just that at the time of Trediakovsky, etymology had not yet been formed as a science, and this provided wide scope for all kinds of unbridled fantasies.
Thus, folk etymology- this is not necessarily “etymology that arose among the people,” but an etymology that is based not on scientific principles of analysis, but on random comparisons caused by simple consonance of words. Sometimes such a comparison can hit the mark. Compare, for example, the words of Luke in the play by A.M. Gorky “At the Bottom”: “They crushed a lot, that’s why it’s soft.” Words soft And crumpled, indeed, of common origin, but an essentially correct comparison does not yet transform it into a scientific etymology.
Instead of the term folk etymology some scientists prefer to use the expression false etomo logic or naive etymology. But these terms are even less successful. Firstly, scientific etymology may be false. For example, at least one of the two etymologies of the word we considered bride is definitely false. But both of them, undoubtedly, belong to the category of scientific etymology and do not contain anything naive in themselves. Secondly, a naive etymology need not be false (take the example of soft And crumpled). In addition, naivety is a quality that can sometimes also distinguish scientific etymology. Of course, “folk etymology” is usually false, but not every false etymology is “folk” at the same time. This is why one of these terms cannot be replaced by another.
De-etymologization and folk etymology. The essence of folk etymology can only be understood if we remember what was discussed in the previous chapters.
Words in their development gradually lose ancient etymological connections, or, in other words, become de-etymologized. Thus, they become etymologically incomprehensible. Scientific etymology establishes the true origin of the word being analyzed, relying on those methods of comparative historical research with which we are now familiar. Typically, scientists restore the most ancient stages available to them in the history of words, simultaneously drawing on material from related languages.
In contrast, folk etymology does not reconstruct lost etymological connections, but tries to explain the origin of the word based on the current state of the language for the author of the etymology. As a rule, such “etymologies” do not contain any scientific argumentation. They rely only on random coincidence or even on very distant similarities in the sound of words.
The discrepancy between scientific and folk etymology clearly appears in the case of the origin of the Russian word otter(as you remember, our acquaintance with the science of etymology began with a story about this word). Scientists have restored its ancient form *ūdrā[ý:dra:], found a large number of matches in related languages and explained the original meaning of the word otter, associated with the meaning ‘watery, watery’.
Folk etymological interpretation of the origin of the word otter(from tear out) fundamentally contradicts the facts of the history of language; it is in no way connected with ideas about the kinship of languages and related correspondences. This explanation relies only on the consonance of words otter And tear out, supported by a witty, but absolutely fantastic argument of a semantic nature. In addition, a comparative historical analysis of the word otter shows that its appearance dates back to the era when prefixed formations like you-tear have not yet been productive in Indo-European languages.
Etymology and archaeology. In many places, and especially in the steppe zone of our Motherland, ancient mounds of impressive size rise. There is such a mound near the village, but no one knows who built it and when. And a legend arises around such a mound.
They say that in ancient times - a hundred, or maybe two hundred years ago - a lady’s beloved dog died. From morning to night the lady shed bitter tears.
And in that village there were soldiers standing there at that time. They felt sorry for the lady, they dug a grave near the village, buried the dog according to Christian custom, and began to carry earth in their hats to the place where the grave was. They carried it for a long time - until a huge mound grew in that place...
This legend has its own continuation, albeit taken from real life. One day, archaeological scientists arrived at the mound and began conducting archaeological excavations. And what they discovered under the mound was not a dog at all, but a rich burial of a Scythian leader, buried here not a hundred or even two hundred, but two and a half thousand years ago...
We see the same picture in the history of many words. Folk etymology is the same legend, trying to explain the incomprehensible facts of the distant past with close and understandable phenomena of our modern language. And etymological scientists, as a result of a kind of “archaeological excavation,” establish that the origins of a word we do not understand go far into the depths of centuries, and in many cases, in the place of the etymological “dog,” they discover traces of such deep antiquity, from which not even legends and tales have survived.
Folk and children's etymology.“Stop telling you secrets! What a secretary!”, “We go for a walk - we are truants!”
These and other examples below, taken from the book by K.I. Chukovsky’s “From Two to Five” are indicative in many respects. First of all, in children's comparisons the main features of folk etymology emerge most clearly, although, of course, children's etymology cannot be completely identified with folk etymology. Secondly, the fallacy of children's etymologies does not raise any doubts, and revealing the error, as a rule, does not require detailed and complex explanations. Finally, it is easier here than in other cases to distinguish different types of folk etymology.
In examples with words secretary And truant etymological connection with secret And walk was installed generally correctly. Only in the first case is this connection not direct, and it can only be determined based on the material ultimately of the Latin language, from which these words were borrowed through Western languages.
Compare, for example, French. secret[secret] ‘mystery, secret’ and ‘secret, hidden’, secretaire[secretary] ‘desk, bureau (with secret compartments)’ and ‘scribe, secretary’. Thus, the error in this case was that the words secret And secretary (secretary), actually connected by a long chain of intermediate etymological links, were placed in a direct etymological connection, which these words do not have.
A different picture is observed in the case of words walk And truant. The main mistake here is of a semantic nature. Relationship between words walk, truant, truant And walk around no one doubts it. According to the words truant And absenteeism have a special semantic connotation: they do not apply to those who walk or stroll, but only to people who, for unjustified reasons, do not show up for work or school.
If a truant sleeps, sits at the cinema or reads a detective novel during working hours, he does not cease to be a truant (this word, as we see, has undergone partial de-etymologization).
Etymological errors of a different order are observed in cases quitter- ‘a man who makes boats’ or specialist- ‘a person who likes to sleep’. In all these cases, the words between which an etymological connection is supposed, in fact, in terms of their origin, have nothing in common with each other. No matter how convincing the word formation looks:
write - scribe
lie - liar
sleep - special
The last case clearly does not belong to this series. Word specialist is an abbreviation for specialist. And the last word ultimately goes back to Latin specialis[in medieval pronunciation: spetsialis] ‘special, special’ in turn associated with Latin words species[spékie:s] ‘type, variety’ and specie[spekio:] ‘I see, I look’. So the words sleep And specialist etymologically they are not related to each other.
Folk etymology and distortion of words. In all the examples from children's etymology just considered, one or another explanation of the origin of the word did not, however, lead to its distortion. But not in all cases the word lends itself to folk etymological interpretation in the form in which it exists in the language. And since you still want to explain an incomprehensible word, distortions like digger or mazelin, which are not typical only of children's language.
Examples with words spinzhak, semi-clinic, popusadik belong to the same type. But these and similar illiterate dialectal and vernacular forms do not exhaust all examples of this kind. Moreover, folk etymological changes in words can be observed even in the literary language, and such cases are not at all rare.
Old Russian word witness was formed from the verb lead‘to know’ and it meant a person who knows something. Currently, we do not say “informant”, but witness and connect this word not with the verb know, and with a verb see, perceiving it in the meaning of ‘eyewitness’ (one who saw something). Old connection with the verb know have still been preserved, for example, Belarusian summary and Serbian report'witness'.
In Russian diplomatic documents of the late 17th and early 18th centuries you can find the word seclusion, which was the result of a folk etymological reinterpretation of the word of Latin origin audience(influenced seclusion, solitude). In the Belarusian language the word was noted sekutsyya. etymologically much more expressive than Latinism execution.
Latin verb vagari[vagá:ri:] ‘to wander’ had a suffixal derivative vagabundus[vaga:býndus] ‘stray’, which in Italian gave vagabondo [vagabondo], and in Spanish - vagabundo[vagabundo] ‘tramp’. Rare suffix - bundo in Spanish was "corrected" to - mundo, and the word vagamundo began to be perceived as complex, formed from vagar[vagar] ‘to wander’ and mundo[mundo] ‘peace, light’. So, as a result of folk etymological changes, the Spanish word vagamundo acquired the meaning ‘wandering around the world’.
When considering the etymology of various words, scientists constantly have to keep in mind the possibilities of this kind of folk etymological rethinking, which often greatly complicates the study, because they replace real ancient etymological connections with secondary, contrived connections.
But folk etymology has an impact not only on people’s ideas about the origin of the word. Erroneous etymologization is also closely related to practice, in particular to the practice of spelling. Typical school errors are well known, caused by the fact that a word that is orthographically questionable is compared with another word that is not etymologically related to it. But foreign words that are generally devoid of etymological support within the native language usually turn out to be especially difficult. That is why when writing such words they often rely on other “similar” words of foreign origin. This is how errors arise, which are to a certain extent akin to folk etymological distortions of words: “incident” and “precedent” instead of the correct one: incident, precedent(under the influence of words like challenger), “compromise”, “establish” instead of compromise, ascertain(the influence of words like regulate, Konstantin).
“I am Ra myself!” Nowhere, perhaps, has folk etymology become as widespread as in the interpretation of proper names. For example, a university student begins to study Latin. In one of his first lessons he learns that the word ira[ú:ra] means 'anger' in Latin. And immediately tries to connect this word with a Russian name Ira, Irina, “explaining” the latter with the meaning of the Latin word. In fact, the name Irina was borrowed from the Greek language, where the word eirēnē[eirene:] means ‘peace’ (in modern Greek pronunciation: [irúni]). This word was used as a proper name by the ancient Greeks: Eirene- This Irina, goddess of peace.
At every step, such “etymologies” are encountered when explaining geographical names. Many toponyms are distinguished by their exceptional antiquity. Some of them have long lost etymological connections in the language, others never had these connections, since they were borrowed from other languages. But the desire to somehow explain these incomprehensible names often led to the emergence of the most ridiculous “etymologies” and even entire legends, often “supported” by references to actual historical events.
Where did the name of the city come from? Kolomna? They say that Father Sergius once blessed Prince Dmitry Donskoy not far from this city. After the blessing, Father Sergius headed into the city, but for some reason the residents drove him away and even threatened him with stakes. “I treat them kindly, but they stake me (me),” Sergius later complained. From this stake me and the city was given a name Kolomna.
Another equally fantastic example of this type is the “etymology” of the name of the river and city Samara.
According to legend, a small river ran from east to west, and from the north a mighty river rushed its waves across it. Ra(ancient name of the Volga River).
“Move aside! - the big river shouts to the small river, - make way for me - after all, I am Ra!
“And I myself am Ra,” the river answers calmly and continues its run to the west.
Two streams collided with each other - and the majestic river Ra gave way to its small rival: it, too, was forced to turn its flow to the west. From words Ra herself and the river was named Samara, and at the site of the collision it formed the Volga-Pa Samara bow (bend).
In a similar way, folk etymology tried to explain, for example, the names of rivers Yakhroma And Vorskla. The first name was allegedly obtained from the exclamation of the wife of Prince Yuri Dolgoruky, who, while crossing this river, twisted her leg and exclaimed: “I am lame!” The legend associates the second name with the name of Peter I. Looking through a telescope, the king dropped the lens into the water. Attempts to find "glass" (sklo) were not successful. Since then, the river began to be called Warehouse thief(‘glass thief’).
Of course, all these legends have nothing to do with the actual origin of the corresponding toponyms. But they are important in another way. The considered examples show how closely folk etymology is connected with oral folk art - folklore. Many tales and legends arose in a similar way - as a result of an attempt at etymological understanding of incomprehensible words and names.
We have already encountered this kind of phenomena in the example of the origin of the name of the ancient Greek “foam-born” goddess Aphrodite and Athena Tritogeia. Similar examples can be found in the oral folk art of any country. The research of etymologists, aimed at studying the features of folk etymology, allows us to shed new light on the most complex problems associated with the ancient origins of oral folk art.
Anger and fire. In all the examples considered so far, the difference between folk and scientific etymology has always appeared with sufficient clarity. Unfortunately, however, there are many such cases when it is not at all possible to draw a more or less clear line between these two seemingly different types of etymological explanations.
Some of the etymologies proposed by the Roman grammarian Varro have long been classified as folk. More careful research has shown, however, that these explanations of Varro are supported by scientific analysis.
In the reasoning of one of M. Gorky's heroes - Matvey Kozhemyakin - one encounters the idea that the word anger associated in origin with the word fire. As an example confirming this etymology, Matvey Kozhemyakin refers to the verb be on fire in which he prefixed O- considered as part of the root in a word fire (fire). The folk etymological-logical nature of this explanation is completely indisputable.
But relatively recently, the famous Russian etymologist V.V. Martynov put forward the same idea as a scientific hypothesis. One of the author’s main arguments is also the word be on fire- only in its more ancient form. V.V. Martynov presented interesting arguments in favor of his point of view, and, despite its controversy, this etymology must now be taken into account as a scientific hypothesis. Example with the word anger shows how arbitrary the boundaries between folk and scientific etymology can be. In some cases, an etymology that has long been considered folk may eventually receive universal scientific recognition. And, conversely, etymology that appears as scientific may be on the same level as folk etymology.
Thus, folk etymology is not just a set of ridiculous and naive explanations of the origin of various words, but a complex phenomenon that often puts a researcher involved in the history of words in a difficult position. The influence of folk etymology has left numerous traces in the language. Moreover, these traces in some cases turned out to be so imperceptibly “disguised” that scientists are not always able to distinguish folk etymology from the true one. All this creates certain difficulties in the work of etymologists, forcing language researchers to attract more and more new material, allowing them to penetrate into the most intimate secrets of ancient word creation.
Chapter twenty-five
ETYMOLOGICAL MYTHS
R In the final chapter of our book we will not talk about those legends and myths (without quotes!) that arise on the basis of folk etymological interpretations of the origin of the word (compare the myths and legends about Aphrodite, Athena, the Samara River, etc.). We will not be interested in “mythical” (already in quotation marks), that is, fictitious etymologies like otter from tear out or audience from retire. The authors of these “etymologies” did not publish their explanations in etymological dictionaries, limiting themselves to the fact that they themselves “reached” the supposed true meaning of the word. And if, for example, a bear is depicted on the coats of arms of the cities of Berlin and Bern (in German Väg [ber]), then here too the folk etymology that has penetrated into the field of heraldry also remains limited to this narrow area.
It’s a different matter when writers, linguists and even authors of etymological dictionaries offer explanations, decorating them with various kinds of “myths”, which should give the reader the impression of the plausibility of the etymology being presented. Below are several examples of this kind of etymological “myths”.
How do elephants sleep? Oddly enough, this question is directly related to the etymology of the word elephant. In the monuments of ancient Russian writing (XV century) you can find a fable according to which elephant supposedly cannot bend its tracks, and therefore whenever you want to sleep, go to sleep(‘when he wants to sleep, he sleeps leaning against an oak tree’). It is on the basis of this folk etymological comparison ( elephant from the slonity) a number of serious etymologists (for example, A.G. Preobrazhensky) explain the origin of the Russian word elephant. A common “myth” has arisen around the etymology of this word, which should confirm the correctness of the proposed explanation. Actually, not a word elephant was formed from the verb lean against, based on the belief that elephants supposedly sleep without bending their legs, but, on the contrary, this belief itself arose as a result of folk etymological comparison of words elephant And (at) elephant.
Our word elephant, as we already know, apparently was the result of rethinking in the process of borrowing from Turkic aslan[aslan] ‘lion’. Such reinterpretations of the names of animals known only by hearsay are not so rare in the language (above we came across an example where ‘elephant’ turned into ‘camel’).
Was a plow carried across a ford? In Latin there were two groups of words that were similar in sound: 1) porta[porta] ‘gate’, portus[portus] ‘harbour’ (as if ‘the sea gate of the city’) and 2) portare[portá:re] ‘to wear’. Latin word portus came to us through French media in the form of a noun port, and the root of the verb portare‘to carry, carry, transport’ we find in Russian words import'import', export‘export’, transport(literally: ‘transport’), etc.
Even in the 19th century, scientists tried to somehow etymologically connect similar words with each other. porta‘gate’ and portare'wear'. And they found an ingenious solution to this issue, seemingly based on historical facts. To the author of the “Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language” G.P. Tsyganenko (Kyiv, 1970) found this solution so convincing that she included it in her dictionary:
"Latin words porta‘gate’ and portus‘harbour’ are formed from the verb portare‘to carry, to carry’. Etymologically, the connection between the concepts of ‘to wear’ (portare) and ‘gate, harbor’ (porta, portus) is explained historically as follows: the ancient Romans had a custom, when founding a city, to first plow it, that is, to plow the line along which the city wall was supposed to run with a plow. In those places where gates should have been erected, the plow was carried by hand. From here porta literally ‘a place where one carries (a plow)’, then – ‘a place for entry, exit, etc.’” (pp. 360-361).
The most interesting thing here is that such a custom actually existed among the ancient Romans. And yet, the explanation given is just a fiction at the level of folk etymology. How can this be seen? First of all, the Latin words porta And portus(with the original meaning ‘passage, entrance’) there are reliable Indo-European correspondences: German. Furt[furt], English ford[fo:d] ‘ford’, literally ‘passage (across the river)’. In Icelandic the corresponding word is the same as in Latin portus, means ‘harbour’ (it entered the Russian language in the form fiord). What to do in all these cases with carrying a plow (through a ford!)? It is clear that we have before us a word that is more ancient than the above Roman custom.
Finally, we find the general meaning of ‘passage’ in the ancient Greek word poros[poros] ‘crossing’, ‘strait’, ‘path’, which could not be formed from either portare, nor from a similar Greek verb, because it does not have a suffix - t- and it reflects a more ancient word-formation model than the Latin verb. By the way, it should also be noted that the Greek poros in the meaning of ‘passage, hole (in the skin)’ came into the Russian language through Western European languages: it's time, time‘openings of the sweat glands on the surface of the skin’. Here, apparently, a reference to the plow would hardly be appropriate.
This example shows that the most beautiful etymological “myth”, based, it would seem, on firmly established historical facts, crumbles like a house of cards when seriously verified using the linguistic comparative-historical method.
ABOUT Baba Yaga and about nonsense. It would be possible to write a voluminous book with the most diverse etymologies that have been proposed by writers of different countries and eras, from Homer to the present day. But since Homer did not write anything about the etymology of Russian words, we will limit ourselves to examples from a slightly later time.
V. Berestov says in his memoirs that S.Ya. Marshak was keenly interested in questions of etymology. Here is one of his impromptu etymologies:
« Baba Yaga- this is perhaps the Tatar “babai-aga” (old uncle). This is how in Rus' during the time of Batu they frightened children: Sleep, otherwise the babay-aga will take you.”
It should be emphasized that S. Ya. Marshak proposed his etymology in a cautious form (“perhaps”), communicated it in a friendly conversation (and not in print), without imposing his assumption on his interlocutors. Unfortunately, no matter how witty the explanation of S.Ya. Marshak, before us is an ordinary etymological “myth”. Word Yaga and its etymological “relatives” are widely represented in West Slavic languages. Consequently, our word appeared long before Batu.
In other cases, writers are more categorical in their judgments. So, for example, A.M. Argo, in an interesting article “A Little Textual Criticism” (“Science and Life”, 1968, No. 6, pp. 120-122) writes too confidently about the origin of the word nonsense:
"Word nonsense along the line of least resistance, others derive from Latin grammatical forms: gerund And gerundive.
The root is actually different.
When the first shipbuilders arrived in Russia under Peter the Great, they spoke mainly in German.
Accompanying their words with intense gestures, they showed the structure of the masts, their installation and purpose, and at the same time they said ‘hier und da’, which in German means ‘here and there’; in Russian pronunciation this has become ‘nonsense’, which means something obscure and unnecessary.”
In this passage, first of all, attention is drawn to the complete absence of arguments refuting the first etymology. She is simply declared unfaithful. Meanwhile, book words of seminary origin gerund, nonsense, nonsense with a high degree of probability are traced by etymologists to the above Latin words. The fact is that the topic of “replacing a gerund with a gerundive” is one of the most complex and confusing topics in Latin grammar. In the eyes of the seminarian this was truly gerund.
In its positive part, the author of the new etymology also does not provide a single argument other than a typical etymological “myth” - a reference to German shipbuilders who actually worked in Russia in the Peter the Great era. Here, too, a reference to a historical fact, as in the case of the plow with which the ancient Romans plowed the territory of the future city, should create the impression of plausibility of the etymology presented.
President Jackson creates a new word. Anyone who has had to learn English knows how difficult it is to master its spelling.
In English, there are cases where words written differently are pronounced the same. For example, right‘correct’ and rite‘rite’ have the same pronunciation: [right]. Conversely, two exactly identically written words can be pronounced differently: read‘reading’ is pronounced [ri:d], a read‘read’ [ed]. Often the phonetic appearance undergoes such significant changes that almost nothing remains of the real “literal” content of the written word in its pronunciation. Yes, word nature‘nature’ in English is pronounced [neyche]. Same letter A in English, very different sounds can be designated (depending on its position in the word): [a], [o], [hey] and others. All this creates serious difficulties in mastering English spelling. The discrepancies between the spelling and pronunciation of English words are often so significant that they even jokingly say: “If it is written in English Manchester, then you should read Liverpool».
President Jackson of the United States of America, who lived more than a hundred years ago, preferred to write English words as they were heard. This can be judged by the following story, which is usually passed off as true. One day they brought a paper to the president to sign. After reviewing the document, he approved it, saying: “All correct!” [ol correct] ‘everything is in order!’ or ‘everything is correct’. The President wrote these words on the document as his resolution, but he wrote them in an abbreviated form. According to the rules of English spelling, this abbreviation should have the form A.S.(all correct). But President Jackson did not write the letters required by spelling standards, but those that corresponded to the pronunciation of the words: O.K. Because the last letter (To) called in the English alphabet kay[kay], the president's resolution was read: okay [óy kay]. So, with the help of President Jackson, a new, currently very popular word arose in the English language: okay ‘everything is all right!’.
Alas, this curious story is also just an etymological “myth”. For those interested in the origin of the word OK, it will be useful to get acquainted with the article by Zh.Zh. Warbot “OK”, published in the magazine “Russian Speech” (1983, No. 5).
A few more etymological “myths”. S.S. Narovchatov, who wrote an excellent article “Language” in the journal Science and Life (1969, No. 10), is also not always careful enough when touching on etymological issues. For example, he confidently states that the word bear etymologically means ‘knower of honey’ (actually: ‘honey badger’) or what spring“easily explained by a single-root word” clear(in fact, these words have different origins). But here we have an already familiar type of etymological “myth”: “Daughter” is a ‘milker’: in the old days, the younger members of the female half of the family were entrusted with the responsibility of milking cattle” (p. 104). The error here is not in the matching of words itself. daughter And milk, and in the explanation of this connection and in the unsuccessful reference to the customs of the “old times”. In fact, the word daughter etymologically it does not mean ‘milking, milking woman’, but ‘sucking’ or ‘breastfed’. This very widespread semantic model of naming children can be illustrated using the example of the same verb milk- illustrated using Slovak language material: dojčit"[doychit] ‘breastfeed’ - dojča[deutscha] ‘baby’ (compare also: dojka[milking] ‘nurse’).
Outside the Russian language, Slavic and Indo-European “relatives” of the verb milk usually mean ‘to breastfeed’ and ‘to suck’ (breast). Word daughter, Genitive daughters, has reliable correspondences in a number of Indo-European languages: Lithuanian. duktė[ducté:], genitive case dukters[duktyars], ancient Indian duhitā[duhita:], ancient Greek. thygater[thyugate:r], Gothic. dauhtar[dokhtar] and others.
Consequently, the expression “in the old days” used by S.S. Narovchatov, you need to understand not in the sense of 200-300 or even 1000, but at least 5-6 thousand years ago. And transfer into this ancient era the modern meaning of the Russian word milk to explain the Indo-European origin of the word is hardly appropriate.
In the same article we find another example of mixing different chronological eras. Noting that in the Latin word ursus[ýpcyc] ‘bear’, also in French ours, Italian orso[opco], Persian arsa[ársa] and others. There is a combination rs S.S. Narovchatov makes an assumption (which, however, he himself admits to be “too bold”) that in the ancient Slavic language “the name of this beast sounded something like ‘ros’.” And from here already - Ros‘bear river’ and ‘bear tribe’ - grow up. And then the author of the article continues:
“What if my guess is not so arbitrary, and it turns out that the ‘bears’ are Russians (?! - Yu. O. ) was once called not only good-naturedly and ironically, but also according to the original meaning of the word. This ‘once upon a time’ refers, however, to the times of Askold and Dir, and perhaps God, but the guess from such a circumstance does not become less interesting” (p. 109).
Here, first of all, the presence of the same chronological “scissors” is striking: the use of material from Indo-European languages, reflecting the prehistoric era of five or six thousand years ago - on the one hand, a reference to a relatively late historical era (Askold and Dir - Kyiv princes of the 9th century AD). BC), which, by the way, seems to the author to be very ancient, on the other.
It should be noted that already in the pre-Slavic era, the Slavs had a taboo name for the bear - ‘honey badger’. No traces of the ancient Indo-European name for this beast have been preserved in any Slavic language. Since there are no traces of it in the Baltic languages that are closest to the Slavic ones, one must think that this ancient name for the bear was lost by our ancestors even before the Slavic languages were separated into an independent group. Thus, the assumption that in the times of Askold and Dir “Russians” were called “bears” hangs in the air.
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.
Anyone's words 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.
Yes, Russian word comma, literally “closed, closed”, from a historical point of view is a participle of a verb with the prefix behind- 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 fact divide akin 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 the semantic motivation cannot be established on the material of a given language, semantic parallels from other languages, primarily those closely related to the given one and/or in contact with it, become especially valuable.
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 like Icelandic language, deliberately preventing 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 there is no evidence of contact between ancient Greece and South America not received 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 one 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 when borrowing into general case are 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. side bras, 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 adjacent, 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 without leaving 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 - Entsy ( 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 deerskin with fur inside,” penetrated into Russian precisely from the Nenets language.
Some words, borrowed from language to language, travel quite a long way. For example, the folk Latin word potus“pot” came through the Germanic languages (cf. North 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-pointed 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. No less famous example from English - 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).
During 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 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-, transmitting greek words With : noble - Greek [eugenes], etc.), but with intensive 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- suffixed -ns-, and the suffix -ik(A) - simply borrowed as -ikka.
Relatively rare, but they play a significant role in changing the lexical fund of 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 convergence of words 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, necessarily including 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, in 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-. Among the lexemes that have become established in the literary language, we 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 other Indo-European languages - cf. 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 disruption 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 first. This is probably d- appeared as a result of rethinking the structure of the prefixed verb once-d-rijèshiti (< *re-solve), 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 very 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 probability that a word will be associated with other words of the same language is higher than the probability 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 hypothesis, the 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 (conscious or accidental) contaminations: 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 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
