Nevertheless, the Latinate invasion did leave genuine peculiarities in our language. For instance, it was here that the idea that ‘big words’ are more sophisticated got started. In most languages of the world, there is less of a sense that longer words are ‘higher’ or more specific. In Swahili, ‹Tumtazame mbwa atakavyofanya› simply means ‘Let’s see what the dog will do’. If formal concepts required even longer words, then speaking Swahili would require superhuman feats of breath control. The English notion that big words are fancier is due to the fact that French and especially Latin words tend to be longer than Old English ones – ‹end› versus ‹conclusion›, ‹walk› versus ‹ambulate›.
The multiple influxes of foreign vocabulary also partly explain the striking fact that English words can trace to so many different sources – often several within the same sentence. The very idea of etymology being a polyglot smorgasbord, each word a fascinating story of migration and exchange, seems everyday to us. But the roots of a great many languages are much duller. The typical word comes from, well, an earlier version of that same word and there it is. The study of etymology holds little interest for, say, Arabic speakers.
_____________◊ authp_J_o_h_n_M_c_W_h_o_r_t_e_r
K E Y W O R D S
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
◊ authp_J_M_c_W_h_o_r_t_e_r
◊ authp_M_c_W_h_o_r_t_e_r
◊ web_art, webhdr_a_e_o_n
◊ yauth_2_0_1_5, yedit_2_0_1_5
◊ lantxt_en, hdr_v3
• keywords_da_inserire
_____
¯¯¯¯¯
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento