Johnson's Erstwhile "Aches" and Pains of Etymology: Second Week

 

I was introduced this week to the world of XML. The Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary Project Online database uses XML. This is not in the least foreign to the database and website environment, but it was a foreign environment to me. I have not dipped my toe in the waters of the “programming” world since junior high school – about thirty-five years ago. That was before Windows 95 and even before Windows 3.1! Though the UI (user-interface) looks quite different than the screens I used last semester the input protocol is not so different as might be imagined. I am still proofing, correcting, and recording the corrections – just as before. I just got started in the database this week, so I hope next week will see me up and humming. 

A Greek etymology close to the top of my list is for the word “ache.” Johnson writes that this English noun comes from the Greek root ἄχος (akos). The English spelling is not so removed from the Greek. The meaning is the same. In Greek it means “pain.” In English it means “pain.” 

However, The Oxford English Dictionary argues that the proper older spelling is ake and has no connection to the Greek ἄχος at all. The Greek connection and the change in spelling they think was reinforced and perpetuated by Johnson’s entry which states that “ache” is the better spelling and it has its history in ἄχος. The OED says the word is Old English and may come from German and Dutch roots. Comparing “ache” and ἄχος in spelling and meaning, the confusion is rather easy to see. Linguistic studies since the time of Johnson have added considerable information about word histories. A quick perusal of the Latin lexicon seems to show that “ache” did not come through Latin into the beginnings of English (neither does the OED mention a Latin etymology). This is rather telling from my experience because many English words travel backward to Greek through Latin. The relationship between Greek and Latin is easily comprehended when one understands that they were contemporary languages. Greek was the normal language of the Greek or Hellenistic world. As the Roman Empire expanded so did Latin. But that expansion was across a land already Hellenized centuries before, especially by Alexander and his army. Latin was laid over the top of a Greek lingua franca (universally adopted language). 

The first century A.D. language environment in the Mediterranean region is highlighted by this passage from the New Testament: “And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS” (Luke 23:38; cf. John 19:20). An inscription was put on the cross of Jesus in three languages. Why? Because Hebrew (or Aramaic) was the native language of the Jews, but they lived in a Roman suzerainty (I will let you look that one up yourself) that was part of the greater Greek speaking world. 

I hope that I am making it sufficiently clear that studying language is studying the history of the world. Sometimes its in broad strokes, sometimes its in tiny details. However it comes – it’s always fascinating. 

Until next week.

John