So Where Did Our Words Come From? L/O: to discover from where English words derived, and how derivation affects meaning What can you remember from last lesson? What is morphology? What is an affix? Write down three words with prefixes. For each word explain what the prefix means Name the two types of suffix Give two inflections of the word ‘run’ Give two examples of the other type of suffix

Morphology and Coining words Coining is the general term for creating words. Many new words are created through derivational affixation (adding a prefix or suffix that changes the class and meaning of the word). 1. Clipping – suffixes or prefixes are dropped. Eg: gymnasium = gym, telephone = phone 2. Compounds – created by combining two free morphemes. Eg: mankind, blackbird, sleepwalk. 3. Back-formation – a free morpheme that looks like it has a suffix which is then adapted to create a word. Eg: editor (free morpheme) = edit (verb) 4. Blends – created by fusing two words into one. Eg: alcoholic + chocolate = chocoholic

So where did our language come from? Recorded History of English begins in the 5 th century – the arrival of the Germanic tribes in Britain This was later assimilated with the Norse languages of the Viking invaders = the ancestor of modern English and is a major source of many of our most commonly used words. The, knee, I you, and father, bread, for, of, shirt, in, daughter, sister, to, hat, heart, on - all originated in the Old English period (wayyyyyyyy before Shakespeare – that dude is modern!) Look at the word classes and the lexical (or semantic = meaning) fields in the list. Why do you think these groups of words have remained from such an early period? Lexical/semantic field of family Lexical/semantic field of body Lexical/semantic field of food

Is English really that pure? Hells no! James Nicoll ( ) said: “The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that the English language is as pure as a crib-house whore. It not only borrows words from other languages; it has on occasion chased other languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary. Loan words: words/phrases borrowed from other languages. Can you think of any that you use regularly? Sushi, wok, karaoke, tobacco, bonanza, jazz, tattoo are just a few. Look up their origins and see where they actually came from!

Where does English come from? Origins = Old English Middle English borrowed from everyone! French and Latin were associated with Church, law and chivalry Latin and Greek were – and still are! – associated with formality, knowledge and learning French words are often associated with sophistication

Speeches: a King vs a President. Read Ronald Regan’s and Marin Luther King’s speeches. Using the internet ( look up the origins of the underlined words. Which text uses frequent, everyday words? Which text uses more Latin or Greek words? What is the overall effect? Which, in your opinion, is the most effective speech?

Can you think of any words that contain the following: Prefixes Bio- (Gk) Chrono- (Gk) Peri- (Gk) Gen- (Gk) Mono- (Gk) Thermo- (Gk) Suffixes -gon (Gk) -itis (Gk) -phobia (Gk) -cide (Ltn) -ology (Gk)

Some Latin(ate) words and phrases Incantation Admonish Premonition Excursion Dominion Decapitate Vivacious De jure De facto Non sequitur A priori