Folk etymology

This article is about word change through popular usage. For popular theories of word origins, see false etymology.

Folk etymology – also known as (generative) popular etymology,[1] analogical reformation, (morphological) reanalysis and etymological reinterpretation[2] – is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more familiar one through popular usage.[3][4][5] The form or the meaning of an archaic, foreign, or otherwise unfamiliar word is reinterpreted as resembling more familiar words or morphemes.

The term folk etymology is a loan translation from German Volksetymologie, coined by Ernst Förstemann in 1852.[6] Folk etymology is a productive process in historical linguistics, language change, and social interaction.[7] Reanalysis of a word's history or original form can affect its spelling, pronunciation, or meaning. This is frequently seen in relation to loanwords or words that have become archaic or obsolete.

Folk/popular etymology may also refer to a popular false belief about the etymology of a word or phrase that does not lead to a change in the form or meaning. To disambiguate the usage of the term "folk/popular etymology", Ghil'ad Zuckermann proposes a clear-cut distinction between the derivational-only popular etymology (DOPE) and the generative popular etymology (GPE): the DOPE refers to a popular false etymology involving no neologization, and the GPE refers to neologization generated by a popular false etymology.[1]

Examples of words created or changed through folk etymology include the English dialectal form sparrowgrass, originally from Greek ἀσπάραγος ("asparagus") remade by analogy to the more familiar words sparrow and grass.[8] When the alteration of an unfamiliar word is limited to a single person, it is known as an eggcorn.

  1. ^ a b Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2003). Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1403917232.
  2. ^ Cienkowski, Witold (January 1969). "The initial stimuli in the processes of etymological reinterpretation(so-called folk etymology)". Scando-Slavica. 15 (1): 237–245. doi:10.1080/00806766908600524. ISSN 0080-6765.
  3. ^ "folk-etymology". Oxford English Dictionary (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. 1933.
  4. ^ Sihler, Andrew (2000). Language History: An introduction. John Benjamins. ISBN 90-272-8546-2.
  5. ^ Trask, Robert Lawrence (2000). The Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-1-57958-218-0.
  6. ^ Förstemann, Ernst (1852). "Ueber Deutsche volksetymologie". In Adalbert Kuhn (ed.). Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete des Deutschen, Griechischen und Lateinischen. F. Dümmler.
  7. ^ See, e.g. Ghil'ad Zuckermann, "'Etymythological Othering' and the Power of 'Lexical Engineering' in Judaism, Islam and Christianity. A Socio-Philo(sopho)logical Perspective", in Explorations in the Sociology of Language and Religion (2006), ed. by Tope Omoniyi & Joshua A. Fishman, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 237–258.
  8. ^ Anttila, Raimo (1989). Historical and Comparative Linguistics. John Benjamins. ISBN 90-272-3556-2.