A "Word" About Some English Words

You might want to check out these related, previous blogs:

http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2007/12/how-do-you-say-that-in-english.html

http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-do-you-say-that-in-english-part-two.html

http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-do-you-say-that-in-english-part-3.html

English is a West Germanic language akin to Frisian, German, Dutch, Flemish, Yiddish and Afrikaans. Here are some common modern English words and a bit of their history. Keep in mind, while we still have these words, they were not always pronounced the same as we pronounce them today, nor did they always have the same meaning.

Bird-Certainly a common word today, but originally, English had "fogol" (also spelled fugol) for our feathered friends, which eventually morphed into "fowl." German has the related "Vogel," pronounced foe-gel. Why we have "bird" is something of a mystery, especially for such a common word. It overtook "fowl" as the main word for a flying animal, but that wasn't until the Middle Ages. There is a theory by many linguists, but not all agree, that "bird," which was originally spelled "bridd," was merely a form from "breed" or "brood," and that the "r" and "i" were transposed at some point. Without this theory, it is tough to come up with an explanation for the word, as the other Germanic languages do NOT have it, and in fact, no other Indo European language has a similar word for a flying animal. (By the way, in case you didn't notice, "breed" and "brood" are related words, and German has "bruet(en)" for breed (the "ue" vowels are represented in standard written German by an "umlaut," that is, the two little dots over the "u," and then the "e" is omitted. It is something of a combined sound of u and e being pronounced together.) The related "brood" has German "Brut," for a relative, and it is pronounced pretty much like our word "brut," as in "Don't hit me, you brut!"

Girl-Here is another tough one. No one is quite certain why we say "girl." Originally in Old English, it meant simply a child, but not specifically a female child, as that came along much later. Low German has "goer" (again an umlaut is typically used, and so the word is spelled gor, with the two little dots over the "o."), and it indeed means "child" in Low German. Since the Angles and Saxons came from the area where Low German is spoken, that's likely the source of our word. Norwegian dialect (another Germanic language) has "gurre," which means lamb, so we stay with the idea of "young," or "child sheep." Later, in some English dialects, the "r" sound in "girl" died out, leaving "gal," which we still use today.

Take-Originally, English used "niman" for "take," and German still uses the related "nehmen." English got "take" from Old Norse/North Germanic at some point after 1100 A.D. Then often spelled "tacan," it really meant "seize," in the Norse meaning, but English adapted it to be less forceful and it replaced "niman." So what happened to "niman?" The base, "nim," became our modern word "numb," the sense being that feeling is "taken" from a body part.

Go-This traces back to Indo European, but it seems that only the original Germanic carried forth with the word. Originally it was "gan," in English, with the "a" being a long sound. German has "geh(en)," Dutch has "gaan," Danish has "gaa." Interestingly, the modern past tense, "went," was not the original past form, which was "yode," also earlier spelled "eode." (Okay, no "I yode to the store a little while ago.") It wasn't until around Shakespeare's time (1500s) that "went," which is actually the past of "wend," began to be used more often for the past tense of "go."

Word-While I'm at it, I should give this...ah...word. It traces back to Indo European, and the original base gave Latin "verb," which originally meant just "word," which is why we say "verbal" and "verbose." (No snickers, please.) In the Germanic languages, the Indo European base, or root word, gave English "word," German "Wort," and Dutch "woord," for example.

Well, I guess I'll go for now and rest, since I yode to work last night.