Amuse-bouche:

Underground is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with “und.”

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Today’s Wonderful Word: “etymology.”

Definition: the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history.

Etymology of “etymology”: Late Middle English, from Old French « ethimologie, » via Latin from Greek “etumologia.” From Greek “etymos,” meaning “true,” “real,” or “actual” and “-logia” meaning “study of” or “a speaking of.”

Etymology is the study of truth. Origins and histories are foundations and bridges to all that we call language. Etymology is where words come from and what they have meant in the past in relation to what they mean in the present.

Much like humans, language evolves and expands daily. Language and humanity also regularly contract and devolve. There are ups and downs in all long-term trends. There are ebbs and flows in all progressions and digressions. The English language as we know it today is a result of millions of ebbs and flows in lexical, phonetic, and cultural changes.

Take a close look at the Proto-Indo-European language tree above. The English language has Germanic roots, with relatively recent influences from Old East Norse and Old French.

Proto-Indo-European is believed to be the ancestor of most European languages, including the languages that became ancient Latin, Greek, and German. Latin eventually disappeared as a spoken language, yet it left behind three languages that eventually became modern Spanish, French, and Italian. Ancient German became Dutch, Danish, German, Norwegian, Swedish, and one of the languages that developed into English.

English is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated from Anglia, a peninsula on the Baltic Sea, to the area of Great Britain later named after them: England. Speakers of English are called Anglophones. While English is genealogically West Germanic, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of French (about 29% of modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), as well as by Old Norse (a North Germanic language).

The English language grows, expands, and adapts daily. Let’s try to imitate these positive attributes in our own daily lives. 

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Before closing, I’d like to give a shout-out to a special reader. Happy birthday!

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Answer to Saturday’s riddle:

Footsteps

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A+