The article talks about what is etymology, what does this science do, and what uses methods in its work.
Tongue
Any living language that people actively speak gradually changes. The extent of this depends on many different factors. For example, the amount of elapsed time since its inception, the level of political or cultural self-isolation of the country, and the official position regarding borrowed words. In France, for all foreign words, a domestic analogue is selected or created. And some languages of the Scandinavian group practically did not change over the millennium.
But not all languages can boast of this, moreover, it is not always an indicator of quality or uniqueness. The Russian language is one of the most diverse, and over the centuries it has changed greatly. And from the colloquial speech of our ancestor, say, from the XV century, we would understand only single words.
It was precisely in order to determine the origin of words or morphemes that such a section of linguistics as etymology was created. So what is etymology and what methods does it use in its activity? This we will understand.
Definition
Etymology is a branch of linguistics that studies the origin of words. It is also a research technique used to identify the history of the appearance of a word in the language and the very result of such a study. This term originated in ancient Greece, and until the XIX century it could be used as the meaning of the word "grammar".
When answering the question of what is the etymology of a word, it is worth mentioning that this concept very often means the very origin of the morpheme. For example: "In this case, you need to find a more convincing etymology," or: "The word copybook has Greek etymology."
Now briefly consider the formation of this science and what methods for research it uses.
History
Even in ancient Greece, before the etymology as such, many scientists were interested in the origin of various words. If we consider the later ancient times, then etymology was considered one of the parts of grammar, respectively, exclusively grammarians were engaged in it. So now we know what etymology is.
In the Middle Ages, no significant changes were made to the methods of studying etymology. And before the advent of a method such as comparative-historical, most of the etymologies were very doubtful. Moreover, this was observed both in European and Slavic languages. For example, philologist Trediakovsky believed that the etymology of the word "Italy" comes from the word "udalia" because this country is far removed from Russia. Naturally, because of such methods for determining the origin, many considered the etymology to be an absolutely frivolous science.
Comparative historical method
Thanks to this method, the etymology was able to very accurately explain the origin of many words. Use it in our time. Its essence lies in a combination of techniques that prove the affinity of some languages, the origin of words and reveal various facts from their history. It is also based on a comparison of phonetics and grammar.
Etymology of the Russian language
If we talk about the origin and history of the Russian language, then there are three main periods: the Old Russian, Old Russian and the period of the Russian national language, which began in the XVII century. And from the ancient Russian form, by the way, almost all the languages of the East Slavic group originated.
As in any other language, in Russian there are words that have roots both in its ancient forms and borrowed.
For example, the word "nonsense" came from the name of the French doctor Gali Mathieu, who did not differ in doctor's skills and "treated" his patients with jokes. True, he soon gained popularity, and even healthy people began to invite him to enjoy his humor.
And the well-known word "fraudster" comes from the word "moshna" - the name of the wallet in which money was previously worn. And the thieves that succumbed to him were called scammers.
Now we know what etymology is. As you can see, this is a rather interesting discipline that sheds light on the origin of many words.