What does it take to write a new English etymological dictionary today?

English etymological lexicography had English words, but he, too, left his mark two peaks: the 4th edition of Skeat’s only in a handful of entries. The dilemma dictionary (Skeat 1910) and etymological that Scott and Wyld faced is familiar: comments in those fascicles of the OED both were imaginative scholars, but they that James A. H. Murray and Henry dealt with thousands of words about Bradley edited. Of the other authors, which they had nothing new to say; Ernest Weekley (1921) deserves a hence mistakes, gaps in the presentation, Anatoly Liberman was born mention, though his forte was borrowings and absurdities, as Weekley, himself an (1937) and educated in Russia, inhabitant of a glass house, called them. received his PhD (1965) at proper names. The rest is based on Skeat The time has come to stop producing and the OED. Weekley’s failure is typical: commercial etymological dictionaries Leningrad University, and is of English. Those who need some Doctor of Philological Sciences new treatment of several hundred words, basic information on the origin of (French-German Habilitation, but a full-scale etymological dictionary 1972) from the Academy of requires a superhuman effort, for who “shorter” Oxford dictionaries, Webster, Sciences of the USSR. In 1975 can delve into and re-evaluate the history the Heritage, and The Random House he moved to the USA, and has of the entire vocabulary of English? Dictionary, to mention a few. Specialists since been teaching Germanic All the post-Weekley dictionaries are will continue using the OED, Skeat, Wyld, Philology at the University of derivative: published only to be sold, the dictionaries of other languages (to the they recycle the same hypotheses and extent that, while examining cognates, Minnesota. His main areas of add nothing to what can be found they feature English vocabulary), and specialization are general and elsewhere. The Oxford Dictionary of occasional publications. The main historical phonology (with English ([ODEE], 1965; difference between the fourth edition of strong emphasis on Germanic), numerous reprints) presents the material Skeat and the dictionaries of Sanskrit, etymology, medieval literature, from the OED in a condensed form Latin, etc, referred to in the opening folklore, history of linguistics, but shows almost no traces of original paragraph of this essay is obvious: those poetic translation, and research. As a result, contemporary discuss the scholarly literature on every poetry. Professor Liberman English etymological dictionaries are at word, whereas Skeat cited the opinions of the level reached a hundred years ago; his predecessors rarely, only when he saw has published extensively they cannot even be compared with (nearly 500 articles), his the best samples of Sanskrit, Classical he took to be the best solutions, rather main books on language Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, issues include Islandskaia Gothic, German, Dutch, Old Icelandic, how closely he followed the philological Prosodika [Icelandic Prosody] Lithuanian, and Slavic lexicography. journals published abroad (his German (Leningrad, 1971, in Russian), Students of Ossetic and Sorbian [sic] are and Scandinavian colleagues constantly Germanic Accentology, Vol. better off in this respect than those who pointed to his lack of familiarity with 1 (Minneapolis, 1982), Word study English, despite the fact that no their work) and whether in his old age other Indo-European language has been he was as avid a reader of linguistic Heath (Rome, 1994), and Word investigated so thoroughly, one may say literature as in his youth. The editors Origins… And How We Know with such excessive zeal. of the OED made every effort to keep Them (Oxford, 2005). He is Detailed comments on etymology abreast of the times, but etymology the editor of Stefán Einarsson’s also occur in our “thick” dictionaries, constituted a small (though important) selected writings, and editor two of which are outstanding in this part of their work. Murray’s policy and translator into English of respect: The Century Dictionary and was to say “origin unknown” when no the works by N.S. Trubetzkoy Wyld (1932). Charles P. G. Scott, the reasonable etymology of a word existed. and Vladimir Propp. author of the in The Century And quite naturally, “thick” dictionaries, Dictionary, summarized everything that with the sole exception of Wyld, never [email protected] had been known about the origin of give references to the literature (Wyld’s English words and added the Germanic references are also sporadic and vague: and the Indo-European perspective to “As Kluge suggests” and the like). his explanations. He relied on the third By contrast, the authors of the Greek, edition of Skeat (which was no more than Latin, Gothic, and other etymological dictionaries list numerous hypotheses and consider their merits and demerits. in several “concise” versions of his opus When they say “origin unknown,” we magnum and in the fourth edition) and the early fascicles of the OED. Wyld, the efforts of so many researchers and an outstanding language historian, had what data are missing for formulating many non-trivial ideas on the origin of we are told that the word has attracted no one’s attention (consequently, if we German comparativists. In England and want to discover its history, we must the United States, such names will not begin the work from scratch). But, and th century this is an especially important point, we etymology remained a German discipline. come away with a full bibliography of Later de Saussure and Meillet contributed the question and can pick up where our to its glory, but Germanic was not at the predecessors left off. Such dictionaries center of their interests (a mere dialect can be called encyclopedic, or analytic, within Indo-European). Benveniste in contradistinction to the dogmatic continued the same tradition. format Skeat and his successors chose. It is thus not fortuitous that the ODEE English etymological dictionaries have appeared only in 1965 and did not go not always been dogmatic. 17th and 18th beyond the partly outdated information century authors listed (and accepted or amassed by its model. While English Dizionario PASSPORT refuted) the ideas of their predecessors etymological lexicography remained Junior because what at that time passed for dormant (popularization can be ignored), etymological research did not rely on articles and books on the origin of Inglese-Italiano • Italiano- strict procedures. Students of antiquities English words kept appearing in a steady Inglese sought for look-alikes in Hebrew, Greek, stream. Dictionary makers sometimes including CD-ROM Latin, Old English, Irish, or Dutch, reproduced the latest proposals with ELI depending on their predilections, and undue deference (a classic case is the Loreto, Italy derived English words from the words treatment of boy in the post-OED era: September 2005 of those languages. Occasionally their the word was said to be of French 644 pages, 215 x 155 mm. derivations proved to be right, but in origin), but, as a rule, such proposals did ISBN 88-536-0283-X the absence of method everybody’s not make a stir, for authorities of Skeat’s suggestion seemed to be worthy of at and Murray’s caliber were no longer in Price: 19.90 EUR least some respect. A modern user of view. The golden age of etymology had http://elionline.com our oldest etymological dictionaries receded into the past. At the same time http://kdictionaries.com/ historical linguistics lost its prestige. products/junior/ppit.html invaluable surveys of the oldest views The epoch of set in, fewer and forms an idea of how knowledge and fewer students were trained in the From the series developed. For a historian of science, old periods of the Germanic languages, KERNERMAN SEMI- the way to the truth is no less interesting and those who were soon realized BILINGUAL DICTIONARIES than the truth itself. Then comparative that departments of English, let alone linguistics came into its own, and sound linguistics, did not vie for the honor laws were discovered. Guesswork gave of hiring them. The shrinking demand way to the science of etymology. The nearly killed the source of supply. limitations of this science became clear Fortunately, the public knew nothing much later, but the core of comparative of those developments and kept asking linguistics withstood all attacks, even where words come from. An army of though nowadays it is more customary well-meaning journalists catered to their to refer to sound correspondences rather curiosity, but they had neither the time nor than sound laws. Polemic continued the expertise for independent research. to rage in journals, while dictionaries They, too, recycled the OED. Most included what was certain and left out “thick” dictionaries keep an etymologist the controversial parts. on their staff or hire consultants. Their The pendulum swung in the opposite contribution to “revised and enlarged” direction only in the 20th century. By editions cannot make up for the absence of a full-scale analytic dictionary of relevant literature. Even in Germany English etymology. However much the one could not be sure that a proposed press may pay its consultants, they won’t etymology had not been offered earlier. be able to explain the origin of bird, Scholars realized a need for digests, and Cockney, dwarf, god, man, wife, etc, by analytic dictionaries appeared. I can think the deadline. Whether they will be able to do so later is beyond the scope of the on English studies. First, the OED was present discussion. such an incomparable achievement that About twenty years ago, I embarked further work in etymology did not seem on writing an analytic etymological to be necessary. Oxford University Press dictionary of English. At the moment, we launched several successful abridgments do not have even the smallest clearing of the OED and became the capital of house of suggestions on the origin of English lexicography, with a perennial English words. I will cite one example classic as its cornerstone. Second, that deals with a relatively exotic borrowed word, namely, osprey. Here in the English speaking world as it did is what the ODEE says: “…sea-eagle, in Germany. A whole encyclopedia can in the 15th century]; egret plume XIX. information, for interesting ideas on –O[ld] F[rench] ospres, repr[esenting]. the origin of English words turn up in obscurely L[atin] OSSIFRAGE. In modF works on Latin numismatics, Old Indian orfraie, [obsolete] offraie (XVI), which demonology, Armenian syntax, Slavic is also unexplained.” This is a summary morphology, and so on. The reasons for of the etymology in the OED. Skeat says that are obvious. Language history and the same, and so do all the old and current the history of culture are inseparable French and English dictionaries except from etymology. Also, numerous English one. In the Heritage, the entry osprey words have cognates in other Indo- contains the following explanation: European languages (a study of German “ ospray, probably from gleiten or of Swedish dverg is as valuable Old French ospreit (unattested), from for the etymology of glide and dwarf as a Vulgar Latin avispreda (unattested), study of those English words). Titles like from Latin avis praedae, “bird of prey”: “The Origin of the Verb glide” are rare, avis, bird, (see awi - in Appendix*) + and there was no substitute for opening PASSWORD Dictionary praeda, prey (see ghend - in Appendix*). one book after another. At present, for Learners of English The Old French form and denotation are Part 1 of my database contains slightly English-English-Turkish • osfraie, from over 18,500 titles. Every article (paper, Turkish-English Latin ossifraga, OSSIFRAGE.” As review, report) has been marked for the including CD-ROM we can see, Latin ossifraga, although words whose origins are discussed there. NKILÂP KITABEVI still present, has been demoted to an Part 2 is a word list: next to each word Istanbul, Turkey (there are over 14,000 of them) the page numbers referring to the titles in Part 1 September 2005 appear. 1250 pages, 195 x 135 mm. both stated dogmatically and without As Corneille said: “The tragedy is ISBN 975-10-2216-9 references. An analytic dictionary ready; I must now only write the verses.” Price: 15 TRY would have discussed the value of both With such a database at my disposal, http://www.inkilap.com reconstructions and said that both are all that remains is to sit down and http://kdictionaries.com/ debatable. The Heritage does not state write an analytic dictionary of English products/medium/pwtr.html that the traditional derivation of osprey etymology. However, there are at least is wrong (incidentally, I have not been two handicaps. The main of them has From the series able to discover the source of the avis been mentioned above: every language praedae hypothesis), and the ODEE contains too many words! For this KERNERMAN SEMI- fails to inform us whether the etymology reason, I have divided the presumably BILINGUAL DICTIONARIES it gives is putative or certain. The native vocabulary of English into several phrase “representing obscurely” will groups: words without established puzzle even a seasoned linguist, and the cognates outside English, words with statement that Modern French orfraie is one or more established cognates only also unexplained adds a note of despair within Germanic, words with cognates to the rest of the entry. The plot thickens in Germanic and elsewhere in Indo- without a promise of a denouement. European, borrowings from the Romance Below I will give a brief account of languages, and borrowings from other what has been done toward the production of an analytic dictionary of English breaks down, for a word believed not to etymology. Over the years, I have been have cognates anywhere may be shown operating on a shoestring budget, but the to have some, a presumably native word money I have had allowed me to hire may turn out to be a borrowing, and so graduate and undergraduate assistants. forth, but in principle, it serves me well. Fortunately, many volunteers have My immediate aim is to write entries offered their services. My team examined all the sets of all the philological journals in more than twenty languages, popular these worried bones of etymology, as magazines like Notes and Queries, a reviewer of Skeat’s dictionary once and endless rows of miscellaneous called them. I emphasize the phrase the publications and Festschriften. The most common words (boy, girl, lad, lass, assistants were told to copy the articles and their likes) because volatile slang, and reviews that dealt with the origin of dialectal words, and the rare words that English words and their cognates. They are featured in dictionaries can wait. read some works in English, German, and Germanic words without established the continental Scandinavian languages, Indo-European cognates (such as dwarf, but I had no help for Icelandic, Faroese, shilling, and wife) will be the next group Dutch, Frisian, Romance, Slavic, and to deal with. Baltic and did all the screening in those A second handicap is that writing an languages myself. Bibliographies were of entry is not a mechanical process. I must course useful, but, while looking through lists of titles, it is hard to judge whether articles that have made their way into an article contains any etymological the database and are now located in my RAGAMUFFIN (1344) in about two hundred dictionaries and the library), evaluate all the proposals (there may be as many as 21 of them: this happened to yet; however, the usual six), defend the most reasonable one, advance my own, or concede defeat (“the origin is still unknown”). I have been able to offer many good solutions, but it would be rash to expect that I will break the spell laid on every intractable word. No analytic dictionary has done so. Emma Micawber, the wife of David declared: “Talent Mr. Micawber has, money Mr. Micawber has not.” This is a familiar problem. If I succeed in getting a renewable grant from NEH (the National Endowment for the Humanities, (http:// neh.gov), I will hire assistants and with a bit of luck complete my project. Or perhaps some reader of this newsletter will realize what a wonderful enterprise my dictionary is and give me several hundred thousand dollars (my project did not die years ago only because of the interest in it by two philanthropists). single-spaced pages in two columns) and published most of them as articles. A volume of those entries, thoroughly reworked for the dictionary, along with the database, will be brought out by the Press. I submitted both manuscripts in February 2005.

References Heritage = The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. William Morris, ed. Boston, etc.: American Heritage Publishing Co.,

1969. Skeat, Walter W. An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1882. 2nd ed., 1884; 3rd ed., 1897; 4th ed., 1910. Weekley, Ernst. An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English. 1921. London: John Murray. Wyld = The Universal Dictionary of the English Language. Henry C. Wyld, ed. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, 1932.

The following is a sample entry from the new etymological dictionary by Anatoly Liberman.

2es Journées allemandes des dictionnaires

Following the Journées allemandes itself – its codes, its abbreviations, and International symposium of des dictionnaires, held in June 2004 its structure. What does lexicography do lexicography, in memory of in Klingenberg am Main, the Institute in order to facilitate this learning? What Josette Rey-Debove of Applied Linguistics at Erlangen should it do? (cf. P. Bogaards’ paper). Le Dictionnnaire maître University (Institut für Angewandte Monolingual dictionaries for children de langue : lexicographie Sprachwissenschaft) is organizing an et didactique international lexicography conference French as their mother tongue. This for the second time. The “Second raises the importance of adapting the [The Dictionary, Master of German Days of Dictionaries” will have Language: Lexicography as its central theme lexicography and of the children’s audience (cf. M. and Didactics] didactics. Michaela Heinz is responsible Rossi). 7-9 July 2006 for the conference, and Franz-Josef The didactic aspects of different types Klingenberg am Main, of bilingual dictionaries Germany It is sponsored by, among others, the A dictionary is an archetypal didactic http://www.ias.uni-erlangen. German National Research Fund and the piece of work. Its “didacticity” may be Embassy of France. The language of the de/jad.php more or less premeditated, more or less conference is French. evident, or more or less hidden. We can always reveal in it some didactic aspect, in relation to its size, its status, Josette Rey-Debove was a highly and the targeted audience and age group respected linguist who devoted her (French as a foreign language or French professional life to the study of words as a native language, professionals or and the making of dictionaries. Her language learners, adults, students or incisive and impassioned approach to children, etc). The wide category of linguistic issues earned her a reputation bilingual dictionaries serves to uncover the didactic features of various types as both a scholar and a provocateur. of dictionaries (cf. R. Brockmeier, V. She wrote books on lexical semantics Schnorr, M. Back, I. Kernerman, M.-Cl. and semiotics, and advised official Jadin, S. Schneider, A. Farina). bodies on spelling reform and the Dictionary and electronic medium feminization of French nouns. Her Josette Rey-Debove A dictionary in book form does not help main contribution to semiotic theory, vocabulary acquisition in the same way entitled Le Métalangage, deals with Josette Rey-Debove was at the heart as the same dictionary in electronic a central topic in lexicographic of the 2004 conference, and the idea form. A traditional printed dictionary studies. Josette Rey-Debove made a for organizing another such event that has been computerized does not fundamental contribution to several was inspired by her. Her work, both have the same qualities as one conceived metalexicographic and lexicographic, a priori for electronic usage. A dictionary prestigious dictionaries, including the again serves as a thematic basis of the in book form, but produced on computer, Grand Robert and Petit Robert. She conference, in particular her learners looks different than a dictionary in book also created the Robert méthodique/ dictionaries for different audiences: form that was not created by electronic Brio, an innovative dictionary that le Petit Robert des Enfants, le Robert means. Similarly, a learners dictionary analyses the lexical morphology of the méthodique/Brio, le Robert quotidien, on CD has different constraints than an French language, and a dictionary for and le Dictionnaire du français. online dictionary. What are the merits, learners of French, the Dictionnaire Josette Rey-Debove passed away du français (Le Robert/CLE). suddenly on 22 February 2005. The concerning these different forms, and conference Le Dictionnnaire maître de electronic media in particular? (cf. U. langue is dedicated to her memory. Alain Heid, J. Binon / S. Verlinde, I. Kernerman, Rey will deliver the opening memorial M. Back). address. Monolingual dictionaries – some The program contains the following particular lexicographic information themes: Learning to learn: learning from the who are familiar with how to use a dictionary for purposes other than word A dictionary, whether bilingual or search. Yet good dictionaries offer monolingual, always plays an important many more kinds of information, often role in vocabulary acquisition, especially unsuspected. These include details about in electronic applications. But prior to grammar, morphologic relations, etc. (cf. that, one must “learn” the dictionary B. Gaillard, F. Martin-Berthet).