Do native speakers of English study word origins?

[Hotteok]

There are so many weird words in English with funny roots..

like rev, unscathed, smolder, embroil...

Many are ancient or mediaval times’ borrowed words.

All these borrowed words of English make English sound exotic..

 

Korean and Japanese use old Chinese characters.

We all use different sounds for each Chinese character and a different grammar set but it makes learning Japanese and Chinese so easy.

 

Don’t you folks get confused which word is which?

English has been borrowing too many words from other foreign languages.

Please stop borrowing.

 

http://blog.cambridgecoaching.com/why-does-english-borrow-so-many-words-from-other-languages

 

[Dustparticle]

47 minutes ago, VisualizeUrParadise said:

There are so many weird words in English with funny roots..

like rev, unscathed, smolder, embroil...

Many are ancient or mediaval times’ borrowed words.

All these borrowed words of English make English sound exotic..

 

Korean and Japanese use old Chinese characters.

We all use different sounds for each Chinese character and a different grammar set but it makes learning Japanese and Chinese so easy.

 

Don’t you folks get confused which word is which?

English has been borrowing too many words from other foreign languages.

Please stop borrowing.

 

http://blog.cambridgecoaching.com/why-does-english-borrow-so-many-words-from-other-languages

 

English is a crazy language, yet it is used worldwide. 

[Tortuga]

I think it's funny how Americans don't use the letter 'U' in a lot of English words. Colour is Color, Favourite is Favorite.

 

I realized that Americans have discovered that it's not all about 'U'....

[EccentricM]

3 hours ago, Tortuga said:

I think it's funny how Americans don't use the letter 'U' in a lot of English words. Colour is Color, Favourite is Favorite.

 

I realized that Americans have discovered that it's not all about 'U'....

Funny enough, that's the original way, the British later added those letters, and also changed Zs to S' in many words. Of all the English varients, the US has actually changed the least from the older form, in both accent and spelling.

[EccentricM]

4 hours ago, VisualizeUrParadise said:

There are so many weird words in English with funny roots..

 

 

Don’t you folks get confused which word is which?

 

 

Don't even think about it. Most people don't even know they are borrowed words and think they are "English of origin". I'm unsure why we would be confused by the words we use, could you cite an example? A word is just a word with a specfic meaning, though certain words can have multiple meanings according to context as well as tone of voice, accent and emotion.

 

For example;

 

I could show you where to wear the right clothes and the right place to be (which happens to be from here on the right side of the road, there is a warehouse where they sell many wares, including things to wear), however when you wear them, be careful not to wear them as they are expensive. 

 

Many of the words there have different spellings, but sound exactly the same verbally, and other words here not only sound the same, but also have different meanings in the sentence despite having the same spelling, but it's the structure of the sentence/language which reveals the meaning of the word I'm using.

Edited May 13, 2021 by EccentricM

[Hotteok]

9 hours ago, EccentricM said:

Don't even think about it. Most people don't even know they are borrowed words and think they are "English of origin". I'm unsure why we would be confused by the words we use, could you cite an example? A word is just a word with a specfic meaning, though certain words can have multiple meanings according to context as well as tone of voice, accent and emotion.

 

For example;

 

I could show you where to wear the right clothes and the right place to be (which happens to be from here on the right side of the road, there is a warehouse where they sell many wares, including things to wear), however when you wear them, be careful not to wear them as they are expensive. 

 

Many of the words there have different spellings, but sound exactly the same verbally, and other words here not only sound the same, but also have different meanings in the sentence despite having the same spelling, but it's the structure of the sentence/language which reveals the meaning of the word I'm using.

Thanks for your comment.

I think it’s one of the merits coming from speaking English as a mother tongue.. You get the feel of a word so well that you don’t need to know its root..whereas for someone like me, studying the roots helps me get the gist of the target word otherwise each word has so many different definitions in English that it’s very hard to know them by heart.

[boodles]

There's a radio program that answers people's questions about English language usage and is fun to listen to. 

 

A Way with Words | Radio show and podcast about language and linguistics, with callers from all over (waywordradio.org)

 

 

[Katty]

So I probably touched on this before, but nearly 2/3's of English words apparently derive from Latin, about half those, indirectly derived from Old French and the other half derived straight from Latin, and the majority of the rest of the words derive from Anglo-Saxon.  Britain, or as it was then, Brittannia, was once a colony of the Romans, until I believe around 400C.E. when the Roman Empire was in rapid decline and they had to pull out of Brittannia. I believe around that time, the Angles and Saxons (or Anglo-Saxons as we now often call them) as well as the often forgotted Jutes sailed to Britain and settled here, from what would now be Germany and Denmark. There were so many Anglo-Saxons they called this place Angle-land, or Ang-land...which was the origin of 'England'.  I probably mentioned 1066, as well, the year that William of Normany (northern france) conquered England and French became the official language of the elite:
Words that end in ite, tion, age, and other word endings generally are French in origin; some are the same spelling as the current French word. Generally words that derive from French and Latin sound more 'proper' or formal, whereas words that derive from Anglo-saxon sound more warm, and informal. Words like Feminine (Latin derlviative) vs womanly (anglo saxon derivative).

 

But, eventually Britain became a world conqueror, and according to Wikipedia, has at some point in history colonized roughly 24% of the Earth's surface. There was once a saying that the sun never set on the British Empire. From these colonies, came more words like bandana and guru, from India, words like banjo, marimba or zebra from various African languages, or tattoo and tiki from the Polynesian region. Also, other European cultures influences specific the parlance of specific topics such as music being flooded with Italian words, dance with French words, and psychology terms with German words.

 

I guess, historically this was true of a lot of languages that derive from world traders and conquerers. It's inevitable that they might borrow words from

other cultures and languages.

 

But yeah that's why our language is so strange...probably...

 

Edited May 20, 2021 by Katty

[Tortuga]

4 minutes ago, Katty said:

But yeah that's why our language is so strange...probably...

For sure dude...., Totally...

Edited May 20, 2021 by Tortuga

[minister159]

Only if we're in a spelling bee.

 

 

[EccentricM]

I think this sketch is suitable for this thread.

 

 

[friendlyone]

On 5/21/2021 at 5:53 AM, EccentricM said:

I think this sketch is suitable for this thread.

 

 

Classic sketch, I'm not sure anyone but Brits can fully get it.  Sadly, both the 'Ronnies' have now died.

[Hotteok]

As a Korean who knows English as a foreign language, this doesn't even sound like English for me. 

[EccentricM]

8 hours ago, VisualizeUrParadise said:

As a Korean who knows English as a foreign language, this doesn't even sound like English for me. 

Local accents for you. The "proper posh" English you've most likely heard is only found in certain parts of the South of England, such as the "RP" accent, often used on the BBC news, or by royalty, those are upper class London accents, and most Brits don't speak like that, but that's the form of English most non-English speakers learn. The accents you hear in that video you can't understand is also a Southern accent, known as "Cockney", which is often considered a "lower class London" accent.

 

I'm curious if you'd understand me, though I've been told I sound quite "articulate" for the area I live in.

 

This video I made a few years back.

 

 

Edited May 25, 2021 by EccentricM

[Hotteok]

2 hours ago, EccentricM said:

Local accents for you. The "proper posh" English you've most likely heard is only found in certain parts of the South of England, such as the "RP" accent, often used on the BBC news, or by royalty, those are upper class London accents, and most Brits don't speak like that, but that's the form of English most non-English speakers learn. The accents you hear in that video you can't understand is also a Southern accent, known as "Cockney", which is often considered a "lower class London" accent.

 

I'm curious if you'd understand me, though I've been told I sound quite "articulate" for the area I live in.

 

This video I made a few years back.

 

 

Thanks for sharing! 🙂

I have no problem with understanding your accent. I think your accent is relatively easy to understand and good to listen to.