People sometimes explore their familial ancestry for personal reasons. Likewise, it is interesting to seek the origin and evolution of words. The specialized discipline which is engaged in this is known as etymology. It originates from the Greek etymos, meaning true or real.
Sanskrit scholars are reckoned as the first thinkers to formalize the study of language through its grammatical structure. In his classic treatise on the subject, Panini introduced the key idea that there are certain root sounds from which the words of a language are formed. It is somewhat like the discovery that there are some fundamental atoms from which all substances are made.
Over the centuries, languages have influenced one another. In this matter, English is particularly interesting. Structurally and at the core, it is Anglo-Saxon: a heavy mixture of the original language of the Britain and the Saxon (Germanic) language of invaders, more than 70% of its current words are of alien vintage: Latin from the Roman conquest of 55 BCE, French from the Normal conquest of 1066, more Latin from the Christian influx of the 6th century, and many other languages of the world from which it has absorbed words.
Etymology can reveal aspects of history. For example, belief in planetary influences on human life is reflected in words like venereal (Venus), martial (Mars), lunatic (Moon), jovial (Jupiter), and saturnine (Saturn).
English has two words for some animals, one for their live state and another for when they are at the table: goat and mutton, calf and veal, chicken and poultry, ox and beef, pig and pork. This is because of the Norman Conquest (1066) as a result of which the French-speaking nobles referred to mouton, vaux, poulet, boeuf and porc because at the dining table the animals were no longer alive. Many English nouns have more than one adjective, one of them being Latin/French derived. They have slightly different connotations. For example, Brother: brotherly, fraternal; Father: fatherly, paternal; Star: starry, stellar; Night: nightly, nocturnal; Hand: handy, manual. King: kingly, royal.
There are two different words for many things in Tamil because at one time Sanskrit-speaking people from the North of India introduced their language (Sanskrit) and culture (Vedic) in the South. Hindustani has words of both Sanskrit and Persian/Arabic vintage.
Languages have loanwords: words from other languages, used with the same meanings: Words like angst from German, ballet from French, cookie from Dutch, jungle from Hindi, tycoon from Japanese, macho from Spanish, hoi polloi from Greek, orangutan from Malay, catamaran from Tamil, and quid pro quo from Latin are some examples.
Consider the following sentence in which I give the root language from which the words come: The good (old Saxon) sheik (Arabic) and his gang (Norse) were playing (West-Saxon) the banjo (Bantu); they were gung-ho (Chinese) on consuming lots (Proto-Germanic) of chocolates (Nahuatl) and candy (Sanskrit) which they preferred to ginger (Tamil) or paprika (Hungarian), while listening to karaoke (Japanese) music (Greek) and enjoying (Latin) the sweet (old Frisian) smell (Dutch) of jasmine (Persian).
In some cases, the meaning of the word in the original language is slightly altered. The words guru and mantra mean more than an expert/teacher or formula in Sanskrit.
Calque (from a French word meaning to copy) refers to another kind of word transfer. Here, the original word or phrase is simply translated. For example, the words flea market, brainwashing, worldview, masterpiece, and commonplace are literal translations from French, Chinese, German, Dutch, and Latin.
Some words have unexpectedly interesting roots. For example, the word merit is derived from the Latin merere which means to earn, acquire, deserve. Meritorious meant serving to earn money. Many retiring professors are flattered to be called Emeritus Professors. Emeritus is simply Ex-meritus, out of the earning phase, i.e. no more salary. The word salary itself comes from the Latin salarium which used to be an allowance that soldiers got to buy salt. The words salad and salami are also derived from this Latin word for salt.
Once it was believed that very unhappy occurrences were caused by a bad star. Greek for bad or difficult is dys, and for star is astron, giving us the word disaster.
The etymologies of some names are also interesting. Thus, David means beloved in Hebrew, Christopher means one who carries Christ in Greek, Theodor means Gift of God in Greek, Devadatta means the same in Sanskrit, and Dieudonné in French. Abdullah means God’s servant/slave in Arabic, exactly like the name Bhagavan Das in Sanskrit.
There are pseudo etymologies too. The word isle is not an abbreviation of island but is from the Latin insula. Nor is coma an acronym for Cessation Of Motor Activity: the word is derived from the Greek komatos (deep sleep). And computer is certainly not an acronym for Common Operating Machine Purposely Used for Technological and Educational Research.
Spurts of Thought 