Understanding the different methods of etymology
Etymological research deals with understanding the history of a word’s origin. An etymologist will apply a number of methods in his research on the origins of word of a particular language. One method of etymology is philological research. Philology deals with the process of understanding the origins of a language by studying it’s ancient texts. Through such study, a researcher can gain knowledge on how a word has changed in form and meaning over time. Philological study is the study of a language’s rhetoric and history. It includes study of how different authors have interpreted various texts in the language, and understanding the critical traditions associated with a given language. Thus, philology brings out an understanding of a language’s origin through research on it’s literature, history and cultural roots. Another method of etymological research is the use of dialectological data. When a words form in different dialects is compared, variations in its form and meaning can be discovered and this will pave the way to find more about its history. Dialectology studies the variation that occurs in a language based on its geographical distribution. Etymologists use the comparative method to understand the origin of words, by comparing words of related languages. This helps them to detect the words which were derived from the language, that is the common ancestor to both related languages and which were later borrowed from other languages. The comparative method thus demonstrates the genetic relationship between languages. The study of semantic change is yet another method of etymological research. Semantic change is the change in the meaning of words. If you look at a word you will find, it to have a number of senses and connotations attached to it. This, of course, can get altered over time, such that, the word could mean one thing in a particular time period and but it meant quite another in the previous time period. Study of semantic change is used by etymologists in instances, where they have to make a hypothesis of how the meanings of a word or group of words have changed. The hypothesis can be tested against the general knowledge of semantic shifts to trace the change in the meaning of a word and understand it’s origin through the change.
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