Telephone - v - Fernsprecher

tac foley

Although I'm a native English speaker, among other languages that I grew up with, I'm never bored with the so-calle 'mother-tongue'. We were discussing my g'daughter's homework the other day [she is dipping a toe into German], and the subject of the originss of the English language came up - again.

Since there are much cleverer folks here who DO know the ins and outs of the formation of languages, here is my question.

Bearing in mind the strong connection between root English and other Germanic languages, why is the English language, AFAIK, the only one that uses Greek and/or Latin terminology for the study of the sciences, and items of commonplace technology?

You don't have to go far to see the my conundrum, with just four examples -

Erdwissenschaft [earth-knowledge] - geology.

Fernsprecher [far-talker] - telephone.

Hirnwissenschaft [brain-knowledge] - psychology.

Fernglaeser [far-glasses] - binoculars.

.....the list is not endless, but it's pretty long.

So, why?

tac

odds_on

The English Language has experienced several great changes in its history to bring it to today’s modern language. The original inhabitants of Britain, the Picts and the Celts spoke various forms of Celtic or Gaelic, which is remnants are even found in Brittany, France.

Then the Romans invaded Britain and brought with them the Latin language, which became the dominant language and words emerged using a combination of both Celtic and Latin. Things brought with the Romans, and their constructions often retained the basic Latin name, for many of these things were unknown by the natives of the land and they had no name for them.

In the third century A.D., the Romans left Britain and there followed incursions and the settling of the Angles, Saxons (who became known as Anglo-Saxons) and Vikings from countries such as Denmark, Norway and Northern Germany who brought with them their own Germanic based languages. Combining the new Germanic language with the Latin and Old Celtic languages eventually produced Old English (or Anglo-Saxon).

This Germanic based language developed and was spoken in most of Britain until about the year 1066. An example of an old English word is found in words that end in “wright”, such as shipwright, cartwright and even playwright. The word “wright” comes from old English wyrhta, which means “maker of”.
In 1066, a French Norman, William the Conqueror, invaded Britain and with his army and settlers, they brought the Norman French language, which itself was partly based on Latin. This new language was the language of the law, the church and the upper class (who were generally the Normans or their descendants). The local inhabitants mixed it with their own language, which was being used at the time and thus created a new strain of English. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there was a slow change in the pronunciation of many words. Up until this period, all letters in a word were pronounced.
However, there was a change in pronunciation, especially with vocal sounds, as well as the silencing of some letters, although these letters were retained in the written language – partly due to the invention of printing that preserved the older spelling forms.

Several centuries later, there was a revival in the interest of Latin and Greek, as well as modern French, which was used when trading with France. In this way, the vocabulary increased with new words coming into the language. The result was that this gave rise to the possibility of expressing oneself by using a word that came from one or other of the languages.

Thus, modern English is a mixture of Celtic (though very little of this now exists in English), Latin, Germanic based languages, Anglo-Saxon, French and Greek. To this, may be added words and phrases that have come into the language which were brought back by sailors and merchants from far afield. This occurred when England was a great sea-faring nation and conquered many countries around the world, making them British colonies. Consequently new words were introduced which have come from India, China, and Africa etc.

tac foley

Thank you for this, I think that I mentioned once that I have a degree in modern languages, so the basic structure and history of English is well-known to me.

Perhaps I mis-phrased the question, so let's try again.

Why do ALL of the Germanic languages, EXCEPT English, use literal translations for technical and scientific terminology, and English uses Latin and or Greek - or sometimes a mix of the two in the same word.

In other words, why do we say 'aerodynamics' and the Germans say 'flugwissenschaft'? Submarine and unterseeboot? Telescopic sight and Zielfernrohr?

Why don't WE say flight-knowledge-craft, under-sea-boat, and target-distance-tube?

tac

odds_on

tac foley wrote: »

Thank you for this, I think that I mentioned once that I have a degree in modern languages, so the basic structure and history of English is well-known to me.

Perhaps I mis-phrased the question, so let's try again.

Why do ALL of the Germanic languages, EXCEPT English, use literal translations for technical and scientific terminology, and English uses Latin and or Greek - or sometimes a mix of the two in the same word.

In other words, why do we say 'aerodynamics' and the Germans say 'flugwissenschaft'? Submarine and unterseeboot? Telescopic sight and Zielfernrohr?

Why don't WE say flight-knowledge-craft, under-sea-boat, and target-distance-tube?

tac

You have one up on me although I have taught English as a foreign language for some 40 years.

When I was a school, I was taught that English was a Latin language - there was never a mention of it being related to German. As mentioned in my above post, Several centuries later, there was a revival in the interest of Latin and Greek. This revival would have be more for the "well-educated" people, thus keeping the Latin and Greek influence in English for the subjects that interested the "educated", notably the sciences, medicine, law etc.

It was only in later years that I realized while teaching German speaking students, that there is much in common with the two languages.

German has the advantage of being able to tag two, three or more nouns together to make one word, which, if done in English, would make it cumbersome - your examples prove the fact:flight-knowledge-craft, under-sea-boat, and target-distance-tube.

That is my non-degreed person's take on it.

pickarooney

?
All of the Germanic languages, German included, use forms of the Greek 'psychology/Psychologie/psykologi..' and 'geology/Geologie/geologi'

'Hirnwissenschaft' - if that word even exists - would be more likely to refer to neuroscience, surely?

Same with telephone. Fernsprecher exists, certainly, but Telefon is at least as common in German and Dutch, Swedish etc. use forms of 'telephone'.

Alun

tac foley wrote: »

Why do ALL of the Germanic languages, EXCEPT English, use literal translations for technical and scientific terminology, and English uses Latin and or Greek - or sometimes a mix of the two in the same word.

If you count Dutch as a Germanic language, and I would, then they don't (always) ...

Television - televisie
Telephone - telefoon
Binoculars - veldkijker (field watcher) or verrekijker (far watcher) <-- only one that matches your observation, but then to confound things ... Telescope - telescoop !
Geology - geologie
Psychology - psychologie

etc.

tac foley

I take your points, but it still doens't explain why the English language doesn't have these anomalies. Why don't WE, as English speakers, ever refer to underseaboats, earthknowledge, distantwriting [telegraphy] and so on...

tac

pickarooney

If you'd taken our points would you not be asking why German does have compound Germanic nouns while other Germanic languages don't?

And why ignore field-glasses and looking glasses just because binoculars and mirrors are preferred?