MYTH AND FALLACY IN THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY A...

42 Zaidan Ali Jassem

VEDA’S JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE (JOELL)

An International Peer Reviewed Journal http://www.joell.in

Vol.4 Issue 1

2017

RESEARCH ARTICLE

MYTH AND FALLACY IN THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY:

A CRITIQUE WITH REFERENCE TO THAT GIRL MARRIES THE VILLAIN

Zaidan Ali Jassem

(Department of English Language and Translation,Qassim University, KSA)

Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to provide a radical, critical evaluation or review

of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) (1989), which is wrongly claimed to be a

'definitive, complete, and accepted authority' on English, which turns out to be

merely a myth and fallacy as shall be seen below. It is myth because it invokes

mythical and superstitious origins like PIE; it is fallacy because the analysis is

theoretically wrong. The critique draws on my research experience in using the

dictionary as a reference in my investigations on establishing the Arabic origins

of English and Indo-European languages as well as its use as the main

etymological reference in Campbell (2013: xviii) which I use in teaching

Historical Linguistics (ENG 358). The data consists of That Girl Marries the

Villain, which is, OED asserts, a full sentence in English on all levels: phonetic,

morphological, syntactic, semantic, and lexical. The analysis shows that this

sentence is totally Arabic, all the components of which can be traced back to

true and identical Arabic cognates very easily. As OED makes no links to Arabic

for these words, it thus turns out to be deficient, incomplete, and

unauthoritative. It further demonstrates that, because every single lexical and

grammatical morpheme in the above example sentence has Arabic source

cognates, English, together with all Indo-European languages, is/are (a)

dialect(s) of Arabic which developed alongst different routes, having undergone

different natural and plausible changes over the ages.

Keywords: Oxford English Dictionary, Lexicography, Historical Linguistics, English,

German, French, Latin, Greek, Arabic, Lexical Root (Radical Linguistic)Theory

Citation:

APA Jassem,Z.A. (2017) Myth and Fallacy in The Oxford English Dictionary:A Critique With Reference to

That Girl Marries The Villain.Veda’s Journal of English Language and Literature- JOELL, 4(1), 42-55.

MLA Jassem,Zaidan Ali “Myth and Fallacy in The Oxford English Dictionary:A Critique With Reference to

That Girl Marries The Villain.”Veda’s Journal of English Language and Literature- JOELL 4.1(2017):

42-55.

© Copyright VEDA Publication

mailto:[email protected]




Vol.4 Issue 1

2017

1. INTRODUCTION

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is the

'definitive, complete, and accepted authority' on the

English language which underwent many stages of

development over the years from its inception until

today, its writers assert. It contains 600, 000 English

words, providing information on their linguistic and

non-linguistic properties from spelling and

pronunciation through origin, grammar, meaning,

and use, to spread or diffusion. It first began in 1857

when the members of The Philological Society of

London called for a new English Dictionary from

Anglo-Saxon times onward, as the existing ones were

'incomplete and deficient'. In 1879, the Society

entered into an agreement with the Oxford

University Press to begin work as the then known

New English Dictionary. The project, a four-volume

work of 6400 pages, moved slowly and took longer

than the 10 years they envisaged, during which they

reached the word ant only. An editorial team was

formed, directed by James A. H. Murray with Henry

Bradley, W. A. Craigie, and C. T. Onions as members.

In April 1928, the last volume was published after

Murray's death in 1915 under the new name A New

English Dictionary on Historical Principles, containing

400, 000 words and phrases in 10 (not 4) volumes. It

is continuously updated with Supplement published

in 1933 at which the original Dictionary was also

reprinted in 12 volumes under the new title the

Oxford English Dictionary. Both the 12-volume OED

and 1-volume Supplement were the definitive

statement about the English language for many years

later. A new Supplement was published in four

volumes between 1972 and 1986 which includes

more vocabulary of all types from North America,

Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the

Caribbean. The electronic age brought about new

updates, with the formation of the New Oxford

English Dictionary Project in 1984, whose aim was to

publish a print and electronic edition in 1989 as well

as revise and extend the Dictionary in the future. In

1992 the Oxford English Dictionary made history with

the publication of a CD-ROM edition, encapsulating

20 volumes in a single, shiny disk. Finally, the

Dictionary became available online in 2000 but,

beware, 'you have to pay to play'.

Thus, OED has several advantages. First, it is

said to be a definitive and complete dictionary of

English. Secondly, it is available in print, CD-ROM,

and online versions, which is not for free, though.

Thirdly, it is comprehensive in the sense that it

summarizes most earlier works in the field. Fourthly,

it is interestingly informative about words, peoples,

cultures, and histories. As public.oed.com.history-of-

the-oed puts it,

The Oxford English Dictionary is a living

document that has been growing and changing

for 140 years. Far more than a convenient

place to look up words and their origins, the

Oxford English Dictionary is an irreplaceable

part of English culture. It not only provides an

important record of our language, but also

documents the continuing development of our

society. It is certain to continue in its role as

we enter the new century.

Finally, it is an etymological dictionary which lists the

origins and histories of the meanings of English words

and their relationships to Indo-European languages in

general and European languages in particular such as

German, French, Latin, and Greek. This makes it, in

my view, very helpful in tracing the Arabic origins of

English, German, French, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and

Indo-European words which cannot actually be

carried out without consulting their etymologies and

origins in such works (see below).

However, it is, like all its predecessors and

successors, replete with countless, fundamental

setbacks of different types. In particular, OED is

flawed in such areas like (i) the notion and nature of

cognates, (ii) lengthy derivation, (iii) uncertain,

unknown, and possible derivation, (iv) the nature of

Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and Proto-Germanic, (v)

the status of multiple meanings of lexical items or

words (polysemy), (vi) the status of formally similar

but semantically different words, and (vii) the

restriction of Arabic to a few loans here and there. All

these issues, which exhibit the OED's myth and

fallacies, will be briefly touched upon in the analysis

of the exemplary sentence below.




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2. RESEARCH METHODS

2.1 THE DATA

The data is deliberately restricted and

carefully selected, which consists of That girl marries

the villain, which has almost all the essential and

most or highly frequent elements of language: (i) a

demonstrative pronoun that, (ii) a definite article the,

(iii) three words girl marries villain, and (iv) a

grammatical morpheme or inflection -s. All these

words and their parts have true Arabic cognates,

making English a real Arabic dialect, which is totally

ignored in OED, unfortunately. The same applies to

German and French as well as the so-called Indo-

European languages.

The etymology of the data is based entirely on

OED and Campbell's (2013) Historical Linguistics, in

which, except for marry, all these words were dealt

with and referred to in the semantics, morphology,

and syntax chapters (Chs. 9-11).

Concerning Arabic data, the meanings are

based on classical Arabic dictionaries like Ibn

Manzoor (2013) in the main, Ibn Seedah (1996),

Altha3alibi (2011), and Albabidi (2011), and modern

e-dictionaries like mu3jam alama3ani (2017), as well

as the author's knowledge and use of (Shami (Syrian))

Arabic as a native speaker. The establishment of all

the genetic bonds between Arabic, English, German,

French, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and so on is exclusively

mine, unless otherwise stated.

In transcribing the data, normal Romanized

spelling is used for all languages for practical

purposes. Nonetheless, certain symbols were used

for unique Arabic sounds: namely, /2 (ح) & 3 ( ع) / for

the voiceless and voiced pharyngeal fricatives

respectively, /kh ( خ) & gh ( غ) / for the voiceless and

voiced velar fricatives each, /q (ق)/ for the voiceless

uvular stop, /' ء) )/ for the glottal stop, and capital

letters for the emphatic or, more precisely,

pharyngealized counterparts of plain consonants /T, t

(ت ط،، ); D, d ،د ض) ); Dh, dh ( ذ ظ،) ; & S, s (،س ص) /

(Jassem 2013c, 1987, 1993). Long vowels in Arabic

are usually doubled- i.e., /aa (ا), ee (ي) , & oo و) )/;

short vowels have single letters.

2.2 DATA ANALYSIS

2.2.1 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:

RADICAL LINGUISTIC THEORY

The data will be analyzed by using Radical

Linguistic Theory (Jassem 2014h-l, 2015a-j, 2016a-h),

a slightly revised and more generalized version of the

original Lexical Root Theory (Jassem 2012a-f, 2013a-

q, 2014a-g). Both were so called for employing the

lexical (consonantal) roots or radicals in examining

genetic relationships between words such as the

derivation of observation from serve (or simply srv)

(see Jassem 2013o) and description (inscription,

prescription, subscription, script, scripture, scribe)

from scribe (scrb) (see Jassem 2013i, 2014e). The

main reason for that is because the consonantal root

carries and determines the basic meaning of the

word irrespective of its affixation and vowels such as

observation (srv). Historically speaking, classical and

modern Arabic dictionaries (e.g., Ibn Manzoor 1974,

2013) used consonantal roots in listing lexical entries,

a practice first founded by Alkhaleel, the most

eminent

8th

century Arabic linguist, lexicographer,

musician, and mathematician (Jassem 2012e).

The lexical root theory is simple in structure,

which consists of a theoretical principle and five

practical procedures of analysis. The principle states

that:

Arabic and English as well as the so-called

Indo-European languages are not only

genetically related but also are directly

descended from one language, which may be

Arabic in the end. In fact, it claims in its

strongest version that they are all dialects of

the same language, whose differences are due

to natural and plausible causes and different

courses of linguistic change.

In the radical linguistic theory, the above

principle has been slightly revised to read:

All human languages are genetically related,

which eventually emanated from a single,

perfect, suddenly-emerged language which

developed over time into countless human

dialects and languages, that continue to

become simpler and simpler. That original first

language, which may be called Radical or Root

Language, has not died out at all but has

instead survived uninterruptedly into modern




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day languages to various degrees where some

languages have preserved words and forms

more than others. Perhaps Arabic, on spatial

and temporal grounds, has preserved almost

all of its features phonetically,

morphologically, syntactically or

grammatically, and semantically or lexically.

As to the five applied procedures in data

collection and analysis, they remain the same in both

versions. These are (a) methodological, (b)

lexicological, (c) linguistic, (d) relational, and (e)

comparative/historical. To save on space and time

and avoid redundancy, the inquisitive reader is

referred to Jassem (2012a-f, 2013a-q, 2014a-g,

2016g-h) for further details.

In short, however, the main principle of the

theory states that Arabic is not only related to Indo-

European languages but also is their immediate

ancestor or origin all. In practice, the most

appropriate procedure for genetically relating English

and Arabic words to each other can be summed up as

follows:

(i) Select a word (in any semantic field), e.g.,

air; ear; area; diet;

(ii) Identify the source, daughter, or sister

language meaning (e.g., English or Latin) on

the basis of especially word history or

etymology. It is essential to start with

meanings, not sounds or sound laws as the

former are more stable and change a lot less

than the latter which do so extensively and

drastically;

(iii) Search for the word with the equivalent

meaning and form in the target, parent, or

reference language (e.g., Arabic), looking for

cognates: i.e., sister words with the same or

similar forms and meanings;

(iv) Explain the differences, if any, in both form

and meaning between the cognates

lexicologically,phonetically, morphologically,

and semantically as indicated. As a matter of

fact, finding the right cognate on the basis of

its meaning first often leads one to the

resultant changes automatically;

(v) Finally, formulate phonological,

morphological, grammatical, and semantic

rules after sufficient data has been amassed

and analyzed.

That is the whole story simply, briefly, and

truly without any fuss or mess. For example, air

(aerial, aerodrome) all come from Latin and Greek

aer 'air', which eventually derives from Arabic air (iar,

uiar) 'air, hot wind' أير. As to aerial, it comes from

Arabic al'air 'the air' األير via reordering where the

English adjectival suffix –al and the Arabic definite

article al- are cognates to which morphological shift

applied (Jassem 2016d). The second part –drome is

from Greek dromos, dramein (v) 'of camels, running;

to run', which is from Arabic darama 'of animals like

rabbits and hedgehogs, to run; to walk'. Arriving at

cognates is not always that simple but is certainly

real and possible, though.

The theory was applied to fifty two studies

so far (see Jassem 2016g for a summary). While

nearly all handled phonological, morphological,

grammatical and lexical origins or relationships

between Arabic and English and Indo-European

languages (Jassem 2012-2016), three dealt with

translation (Jassem 2014d, 2015b, 2016i) and one

with language learning and teaching (Jassem 2016g).

In addition, another two were book reviews: The first

is about Campbell's (2013) Historical Linguistics

(Jassem 2016h) and the second is about Harper's

(2016) Etymology Dictionary Online (Jassem 2017a).

This paper is the third in the critical review or

appraisal and evaluation series.

3. RESULTS

The results will primarily focus on the Arabic

lexical roots or consonantal radicals or letters of

English, German, French, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit

words and the changes that occurred to them in the

example sentence at hand. As to the exact quality of

the vowels, these are of generally secondary

importance and so they will be overlooked for having

little or no semantic impact on the final output

whatsoever (Jassem 2012-2016).

3.1 THAT AND THE

The and, to a lesser extent, that are the

most frequent words in English, both of which are

related semantically, grammatically, and historically,

which are demonstrative pronouns in origin. Old

English that 'this, so that, after that' came from

Proto-Germanic *that with cognates like Old Saxon




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that, Old Frisian thet, Dutch dat 'that', and German

der, die, das 'the; this', from PIE *tod-, the extended

form of the demonstrative pronominal *-to-. All

eventually stemmed directly from Arabic that 'that

(f); whose; identical, same' ذات, which may also be

used as a relative pronoun.

As to the, the most frequent word in English,

it is the definite article in English, which means 'this'

and from which many words stemmed, including this,

that, these, those, they, them (Old English hem), then,

there, she, it (Old English hit), though, although (Old

English teah) (Jassem 2012d, 2015h). It came via late

Old English the, the nominative masculine form of

the demonstrative pronoun and adjective se. After

around 950, the replaced se (m), seo (f), and that (n)

(Harper 2016). Etymologically or historically speaking,

Old English se is from PIE root *so- 'this, that' with

cognates in Sanskrit sa, Avestan ha, Greek ho, he

'the', Irish and Gaelic so 'this', German der, die, das,

and French ce, all of which have similar forms, which

have been discussed in detail in Jassem (2015h).

The Arabic source cognate for the is tha 'this

(m)' ذا to which grammatical shift applied as well as

different sound changes in the other languages (see

Jassem 2015h). Thus it can be clearly seen that

English the and that and PIE *-to- and tod- are all

related which descended directly from two or three

related identical Arabic demonstrative cognates in

the end: i.e., tha 'this; whose (m)' ذا, that 'this (f);

whose (f); identical, same' ذات, and ti (tih, tihi) 'this

(f)' (( تهي ته،) تي) . Different courses of phonetic change

resulted in the different forms that involved such

forms in Indo-European languages.

3.2 GIRL

Girl (girly, girlish, girlie, girlhood, girlfriend,

gal) has a very controversial history in English. It

consists of two parts, the second of which is –l, a

diminutive suffix. It came from Old English gyrle 'child

of either sex; young person', which is of unknown or

objectionable origin, or perhaps from an unrecorded

Old English *gyrele, from Proto-Germanic *gurwilon-,

diminutive of *gurwjoz (Low German gare 'boy, girl',

Norwegian dialectal gorre, Swedish dialectal gurre

'small child', from PIE *ghwrgh-, also found in Greek

parthenos 'virgin'). Harper (2017) cited other

disputable views such as Old English gierela

'garment, dress', which is a very false cognate,

indeed. Girl can't be garment at all!

However, upon close examination, Arabic

settles the dispute for good easily, logically, and

directly. The first part gir- ultimately derives straight

from Arabic ghirr (m.) 'young boy; inexperienced

person', ghirra(t) (f.) 'young, inexperienced girl',

passing /gh/ into /g/ (cf. Arabic ghirl 'uncircumcised

child' via lexical shift.). The second part, the

diminutive suffix –l(e) in girl, gyrle, is also obtained

direct from Arabic al 'the' via morphological shift.

That is, girl is Arabic alghirr(a) via reordering. Thus,

the Arabic origins of the word and its parts thus

resolve all the guesswork and uncertainty in English

and Indo-European languages (for detail, see Jassem

2016d).

As to its Greek equivalent, but not cognate,

parthenos 'virgin' as Harper (2017) mentions, it has

two or three parts:

(i) parthe(n)- is taken straight from Arabic bikr(in)

(also bakrat(in)) 'a virgin; the first, young, or

early of everything' via reordering and

changing /k/ into /th/ and

(ii) –os 'masculine marker', from Arabic –at

'masc./fem. marker' by turning /t/ into /s/ and

morphological shift (see Jassem 2016a, 2016f-

g) (see 3.3 below).

Thus Arabic can be clearly seen to be the source of all

such words, especially English and Greek. In other

words, PIE is rendered useless, futile, and debilitative

in light of that.

The matter does not stop here but extends to

all the affixes in English and Indo-European

languages. In particular, the adjectival suffixes –y/-ie

in girly, girlie above came straight from Arabic –i/-ee

'a derivational and inflectional suffix' as in 3arab v.

3arabi 'Arab, Arabian, Arabic', adab 'literature;

politeness' v. adabi 'literary'.

Similarly, the adjectival suffix –ish, which came

from Old English -isc 'of the country of', from Proto-

Germanic *-iska (with cognates in Swedish and

Danish –sk, German -isch, Greek -iskos, borrowed

into French –esque and Spanish –esco), is ultimately

derived from a combination of Arabic –i/-ee to which

-j was added and turned into /sh/ as in 3arabi v.

3arabij 'Arabic', adabi v. adabij 'literary' (see –age in

3.3 marriage below).




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What about gray, gore, and gar- (garland)

which are formally similar to but semantically

different from girl, all with the same sequence g-r?

Again Arabic can provide cognates for all words with

the same Arabic root for girl where /gh/ became /g/.

The former derives from either Arabic 'aghar, ghurra

'of hair, white; victorious' or aqra2 'of horses, gray;

white', turning /q/ into /g/ and deleting /2/, a

voiceless pharyngeal fricative. The second is from

Arabic ghawr 'a depression', ghaar 'a cave', or joora

'a hole of any size in the ground; dip, depression' via

lexical shift and turning /gh (j)/ into /g/. The last is

from Arabic ghaar 'a plant; laurel'.

3.3 MARRIES

Marry (marriage, marital, matrimony, matron;

mother) came from Latin maritus 'husband', mari

'woman', maritare (v) 'to marry', from PIE *mari

'woman'. Its Arabic source cognate is mar'a(t)

(pronounced mara in the vernacular) 'woman, wife'

via lexical shift (Jassem 2013k). The same applies to

English mother, German Mutter, Latin mater, Italian

matre, Spanish madre, French mère, Greek meter,

Sanskrit matar, to which semantic shift, reordering,

and turning /t/ into /dh (d, Ø)/ applied.

In European languages, similar forms or words

are used which suffered different sound and

semantic changes or shifts. German Frau 'woman;

wife', French mère 'mother', and Spanish mujera

'woman' all descended directly from Arabic mar'a(t)

by substituting /f/ for /m/ in German. Furthermore,

French mari 'husband', like mère above, is from

Arabic mar', imri' 'man' via lexical shift, which is

similarly related to mar'a(t) (see Jassem 2016d). Even

the definite articles in all these languages which

usually accompany nouns have identical Arabic

parent cognates (see Jassem 2016d).

As in girl in 3.2 above, all the suffixes have

Arabic cognates as follows.

(i) As to –s in marries 'third person singular

present tense marker; also plural and genitive

marker', it developed from –t with which it

varies in certain contexts in English, German,

and French, as well as Indo-European

languages such as democrat, democracy;

princess, Henrietta; married, marries, marital,

maritus; learns, learnt/learned (German

lehrnt) (see Jassem 2012f, 2013a, 2016a). In

light of this, it evolved from Arabic –t

'inflectional and derivational affix' with which

it varies in certain contexts in Arabic as well

(Jassem 2012f, 2012a, 2015d, 2016a). So one

can say in general that every English and Indo-

European inflectional and derivational

morpheme –s (and/or its variants –d/-t) is

originally –t, eventually from Arabic –t.

(ii) As for the suffixes of the derived forms or

words, they all have identical Arabic cognates

as follows:

a) In marital, the first –t is from Arabic –t 'fem.

suf.' while the second –al from Arabic al 'the'

via morphological shift (Jassem 2016d). That is,

marital is Arabic almar'at to which reordering

and morphological and semantic shift applied.

b) In marriage, the suffix –age is from Arabic –ee

'a derivational and inflectional suffix' to which

-j was added as was common in some olden

Arabic dialects in which –ee-final words

attached –j as in 3arabi v. 3arabij 'Arab', adabi

v. adabij 'literary'. In some modern Arabic

accents like Kuwaiti and UAE Arabic, /j/ is

replaced by /ee (y)/ such as jamal v. yamal

'camel' and faraj v. farai 'free, happy; a proper

name'.

c) The suffixes in matrimony and matron can be

considered variants, both of which came

directly from Arabic –un 'inflectional and

derivational suffix' which split into /m & n/ in –

mony coupled with morphological shift

(Jassem 2012f, 2013b, 2016a). That is, matron

is Arabic mar'atun 'a woman (nom. indef.)' via

reordering and lexical shift.

Now what about mare, mere, merry, more,

mar, marine, mayor (emperor), mirror, merry, myrrh,

moor, admire which share /m & r/ with marry? All

have identical Arabic cognates, which are the same

or similar in form and meaning. More precisely,

marry obtains from Arabic mar'a 'woman' as

indicated above;

mare comes from Arabic muhra(t) 'mare' via /h/-loss;

mayor & emperor (empire, imperial, imperative) are

from Arabic 'ameer 'emir, prince, ruler' via /b/-

insertion;

mar & myrrh are from Arabic murr 'bitter; embitter';

marine is from Arabic marr(in) 'sea, rain';




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merry is from Arabic mari2 'happy' via /2/-loss;

mirror & admire are from Arabic mir'a(t) 'mirror' for

the former and related derivative tamarra (v) 'to look

in a mirror; to admire' for the latter, from the root

ra'a (v) 'to see', where /t/ became /d/ besides

reordering;

mere & more are from Arabic marra(t) 'once' and its

irregular plural miraar 'many times';

moor is from Arabic mar3a 'grazing ground' or

maraa2 'animals' den; water area; washing' via /3

(2)/-loss (Jassem 2016f).

Thus, it can be clearly seen that the above English

and Arabic words all share m---r with different

meanings, though. This certainly shows that English is

an Arabic dialect which has undergone natural and

plausible linguistic changes.

3.4 VILLAIN (VILLAINY, VILLAINOUS, VILLAGE,

VILLA)

It came via Old French vilain 'farmer,

commoner', from Latin villanus 'farmhand', from villa

'country house, farm', direct from Arabic falla2(in)

'farmer', fala2 (v) 'to farm' via /2/-loss and lexical

shift (Jassem 2015i). That is, villain is two parts, both

of which come straight from Arabic (i) falla2 'farmer'

and (ii) –in (-un, -an) 'derivational and inflectional

suffix': in this case, 'a farmer (sing. indef.)' (Jassem

2012f, 2016a). The same applies to villa, village, &

Ville (see Jassem 2015i).

Its current meaning 'criminal' involves lexical

shift. Again, criminal (crime, criminology,

discrimination) itself, which came via Middle French,

from Latin criminalis 'pertaining to crime', from

crimen (genitive criminis) 'crime; charge', perhaps

from cernere 'to decide, sift', derives straight from

Arabic jurm, jarima(t) 'crime', jaarim(in), mujrim(in)

(adj.) 'criminal', aljaarimin 'the criminal' via

reordering and turning /j/ into /k/. (Jassem 2015g).

Like all affixes, the suffixes –y, -ous, -age, -a, -in in

all derivatives have true Arabic cognates. That is,

(i) The suffixes –y and -age have already been

settled in 3.2 (girly/girlie) and in 3.3 (marriage)

above.

(ii) The adjectival suffix –ous is related to –s above

(3.3) to which it can be considered a

morphologically conditioned variant, which is

consequently a changed form of Arabic –at

'fem. suff.; inflectional and derivational affix'.

(iii) The feminine suffix –a in villa has an identical

Arabic source cognate as in salim 'safe (man);

masculine proper name' v. salma 'safe

(woman); feminine proper name' (for detail,

see Jassem 2012f, 2013a-c, 2015d, 2016a).

4. DISCUSSION

The results indicate that all the words and

their parts in the above example sentence That girl

marries the villain have true and identical Arabic

cognates, turning the OED into being non-definitive,

incomplete, deficient, unreliable, and unauthoritative

as far as word origins and histories are concerned. It

is both misguiding and misguided. It has been found

to be based on myth and fallacy. A few points merit

further comment in this respect.

4.1 THE OED AS MYTH

4.1.1 THE NOTION OF PROTO-LANGUAGE: PIE

AND PROTO-GERMANIC

A proto-language is the ancestral language

from which languages of a family descended such as,

in the case of Indo-European languages, proto-

Germanic or proto-Indo-European (PIE), marked * in

text. These are hypothetical, fictitious, mythical, or

superstitious languages; they simply could have

never existed; they have no solid or real linguistic

foundation, whose aim is to set up a spurious barrier

between such languages and their immediate

neighbours, especially Arabic. All the words in the

example sentence are wrongly attributed to such

flimsy origins like PIE and Proto-Germanic. Linking

them to Arabic is not only a natural, geographical

choice but also a linguistically logical, valid, and

substantive necessity. Tracing the above full sentence

that girl marries the villain to Arabic easily and

successfully attests to that, speaking better than

words.

Now what came before Arabic? Nothing,

nothing. Arabic is the end language before which

there was no prototype; it is the language that

inherited and preserved the first human language

almost intact for several reasons, which do not

concern us here (see Jassem 2016h, 2017a).

4.2 THE OED AS FALLACY

This relates to the faulty or erroneous

lexicographical analysis and its consequences, which

can be summed up in a number of points as follows.




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4.2.1 THE NATURE OF COGNATES

Cognates are amongst the most noticeable and

serious shortcomings not only in OED but also in all

other Western historical dictionaries. Since a cognate

is defined as a word in two or more languages with

the same or similar form and meaning such as English

mother, German Mutter, and Arabic mar'a 'woman'

via lexical shift or German sein 'to be', Latin esse 'to

be', and Arabic kaan 'to be; (he) was' (yaku(n) '(he)

is') via /k/-mutation into /s/, countless cognates do

not stand the test at all in either form or meaning or

both (Jassem (2016b-f, 2-17a). In the present case,

a. English girl and Greek parthenos 'virgin' and

b. English and French villain (villa, village, Ville)

and Latin vicus 'place, office, stead; group of

houses, village' and English –wich/-wick 'place

name suffix; house, abode' as in Warwick,

Norwich

can't be cognates by form and meaning at all.

Instead, they are obviously semantic or lexical

equivalents just like any other words in different

languages like English pen and Arabic qalam(un) 'pen'

or its Latin cognate calam(um) 'pen'. While girl and

its Germanic sisters are real cognates, Greek

parthenos 'virgin' is certainly not (see 3.2 above). All

the above words have true Arabic cognates as has

already been stated in 3.2.

As to Latin vicus and English –wich/-wick,

both come straight from Arabic fa2S (fa2Sia(t) in my

dialect) 'any inhabitable place, abode; (Western)

place name' in which /2 & S/ merged into /k (ch)/ and

so they are not cognates to villain. Another likely

option is Arabic waq3 (also wiqaa3a(t), waqee3a(t),

mawqi3) '(high or solid, inhabitable) place', from

waqa3 (v), in which /w/ became /v/ while /q & 3/

passed into /k & Ø/. Thus only Arabic accounts for all;

no other language does (see 4.2.8 below).

4.2.2 LENGTHY DERIVATION AND SUB-

DERIVATION

Unnecessarily lengthy derivation and sub-

derivation besets OED cognates, which recurs in

other dictionaries as well (Jassem 2916e-f, 2017a). In

all such cases in the present study, Arabic cognate(s)

are not only direct but are also shorter, clearer,

easier, and more sensible. For instance, while the and

that are derived via a very long and tedious process,

involving many Germanic and Indo-European

languages, up to PIE, Arabic provides a very short and

more direct route, accounting for all and leading to

identical cognates (see 3.1 below). The same applies

to girl, marry, and villain.

4.2.3 OBJECTIONABLE, UNCERTAIN,

UNKNOWN, OR POSSIBLE ORIGINS

Countless words have objectionable,

uncertain, unknown, or possible origins in OED.

According to some estimates, a quarter of English

and Indo-European words are of unknown origins. In

the present case, girl is a very illustrative candidate

(Jassem 2016f), for which up to four objectionable

origins are provided. As Harper (2016) puts it, it

(girl) is of 'unknown or objectionable origin, or

perhaps from an unrecorded Old English *gyrele,

from Proto-Germanic *gurwilon-, diminutive of

*gurwjoz (Low German gare 'boy, girl', Norwegian

dialectal gorre, Swedish dialectal gurre 'small child',

from PIE *ghwrgh-, also found in Greek parthenos

'virgin'). (*Underlines mine)

Alternatively, deriving it straight from a

reordered Arabic alghirr 'the young person', from

ghirra(t) 'young girl', ghirr (m.) 'young boy', passing

/gh/ into /g/ is the right choice, thus retaining both

its form and meaning (see 3.2 above). Therefore, in

such a case, a direct derivation from Arabic is not

only shorter but also more logical. Thus Arabic

abolishes such uncertainties of all types.

4.2.4 FORMALLY SIMILAR BUT SEMANTICALLY

DIFFERENT WORDS: HOMOPHONES

The matter does not stop there. In addition,

Arabic can successfully and meaningfully provide

cognates for words with the same or similar sound

sequences but different meanings. More precisely,

English and the so-called Indo-European languages

abound with formally similar but semantically

different words like English gist, ghost, august,

aghast and German Geschichte 'story, history', which

have similar forms (i.e., g-s-t) but different meanings

which can't be related either way in European

dictionaries (for details, see Jassem 2016f-g, 2017a).

In the current and some previous studies

(e.g., Jassem 2016f-g), the words marry, mare, mere,

merry, more, mar, marine, mayor (emperor, imperial,

empire), mirror, merry, myrrh, moor, admire are all

similar in form with the sound sequence m—r but

different in meaning. Again all these words have




Vol.4 Issue 1

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similar Arabic cognates, which all share /m & r/ but,

likewise, differ in meaning (see 3.3 above). Similarly,

girl, gray, gore, gar(land) are another case in point,

to all of which Arabic provides related cognates (see

3.2 above). Similarly, Western dictionaries fail to

show that bondage; Arabic ones do.

4.2.5 FORMALLY DIFFERENT BUT

SEMANTICALLY SIMILAR WORDS

On the contrary, there are formally different

but semantically similar words such as write, quarter

(quart, carat, square), and grind (ground), all of

which share the meaning 'to cut'. Again all these

words come from Arabic qaraTa, qaraTan (n) 'to cut'

which split into different words in English, Latin, and

French in which /q/ passed into /w (k, q, g)/

according to language, of course, while /T/ turned

into /t (d)/ plus reordering in grind. Only Arabic can

relate such words to one another.

4.2.6 POLYSEMY: SEMANTIC MULTIPLICITY OR

MULTIPLE MEANINGS

Polysemy, the multiple senses a word has, is a

characteristic feature and major problem of English

and European vocabulary such as villain in the

present study which has two meanings: 'farmhand,

farmer; criminal' (see 3.4 above). These two senses

are related as villagers and farmers are often

associated with savagery, vulgarity, robbery, and

crime by city-dwellers, which is not true in all cases,

of course. In return, countrysiders criticize them for

being selfish, arrogant, inhospitable, and miserly.

Not all polysemous examples can be handled

that way as in free, dwell, bachelor, mean, rock, write

(quarter, grind), which seem to be quite unrelated to

one another, for which several semantic theories

have been proposed (see Jassem 2016g, 2017a for a

survey). However, one plausible and realistic account

is that, according to lexical root (or radical linguistic)

theory (Jassem 2012-2016), such meanings

developed as the result of sound or lexical mergers,

affecting formally similar but semantically different

Arabic cognates (see Jassem 2016h, 2017a). For

example, the two senses of rock 'stone; shake,

tumble' are not related to each other as in the case

of villain above; rather they resulted from the lexical

or sound mergers of two Arabic words which are

similar in form but different in meaning, which are

raqq '(thin, flat) stone; beating something thin' and

rajj 'shaking' in which /q & j/ merged into /k/ (Jassem

2013f). Likewise, the two meanings of write 'cut;

write' came from the lexical merger of Arabic qaraTa

'to cut' and qira'at 'to read' in which /q & T/ passed

into /w & t/ in the former besides lexical shift in the

latter (see 2.4.5 above).

4.2.7 EXPANSION AND SUBSTITUTION

One can still expand the model sentence

That girl marries the villain further and further by

adding adjectives like free good merry noble girl or

substitute words for others of the same class such as

wed, engage, love, live, leave, hate, adore, elope,

cohabit with for marry or criminal, president,

bridegroom for villain or queen, woman, bride, maid,

mermaid, spouse, virgin for girl. Or you can have a

longer sentence by adding more words like adverbs

and prepositional phrases like Free Good Lovely

Comely Merry Beautiful Girls Marry Noble Villains in

Engagement and Wedding Rings Ceremoniously

(Jassem 2016e). In all such cases, every single word

and morpheme can be truly and successfully traced

back to Arabic, which shows that English is really an

Arabic dialect.

4.2.8 ARABIC NEGLIGENCE AND ITS

RESTRICTION TO LOANS

Arabic certainly played a major and key role

in modern European civilization, culture, and

modernity without which the Renaissance would

have been impossible or 'unthinkable' indeed

because Europe inherited Arabic science and culture

in full through contact in Western Europe, especially

Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy. As the Institute of

Islamic Studies of the University of Zaragoza (2013:

xi-ii) rightly put it,

For obvious reasons, the study of AA

(Andalusi Arabic) … is also a subject of

paramount importance to those who seek a

deeper insight into the medieval literatures

and cultures of Western Europe, especially

of Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Southern

France, which could not be and were not

impervious to the powerful and multifarious

impact of Medieval Islamic civilization on

language, literature, science, politics, trade,

etc. Without it, the Renaissance as it

occurred would simply have been

unthinkable. Whether or not some in the




Vol.4 Issue 1

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West are currently ready to acknowledge

this fact and live with its implications, no

trustworthy assessment of that impact is

attainable without something more than a

superficial acquaintance with Arabic and

Islamic culture, and with AA in particular.

(Italic mine)

Other well-known European scholars concur

with that assertion. Le Bon (1974), an eminent French

scholar and orientalist, reiterated similar views in his

The world of Islamic civilization and La Civilization des

Arabes, according to which European universities and

academic institutions depended on Islamic and Arabic

academic resources for five centuries. Hunke (2009), a

very famous and respectable German orientalist,

showed in her Allahs Sonne über dem Abendland:

Unser Arabishes Erbe the profound impact of Arabic

and Islamic sciences on European culture and science.

For instance, Belgian medical institutions had been

using Avicenna's medical works until 1909.

Despite all of that and besides the very

obvious linguistic, geographical, and physical

relationships between Arabic and English and the so-

called Indo-European languages, Arabic, one instantly

notices, is inexplicably relegated to a marginal place

in being totally neglected as to the size of its loan

words in English and Indo-European languages, let

alone being their immediate progenitor and ancestor.

The attested total number of Arabic loans in English

dictionaries varies, ranging between 400-1000

although some studies put it at 3000 or 10000. For

instance, the number of such loans in Jassem's

(2016c) study of the Arabic origins of 'fashion and

modeling terms' was only 3/130 = 0.23%- viz.,

cotton, jacket, and mattress. As has already been

seen in Jassem's (2012-2016) 52 earlier works, all the

words of English, e.g., have true Arabic cognates, in

fact. The same applies to German, French, and Indo-

European words as well. Why this neglect has been

so certainly needs a separate paper, indeed.

In a nutshell, English, German, French,

Spanish, Italian, and all the so-called Indo-European

languages can neither be properly understood nor

adequately and logically accounted for without

Arabic as their ultimate end. The above exemplary

sentence shows that very clearly, without a single

shred of doubt.

4.2.9 FAULTY THEORY: COMPARATIVE

METHOD AND INDO-EUROPEAN

FAMILY-TREE MODEL

All the above evils and/or shortcomings

besetting the OED are due to the theory upon which

its analysis has been based, which is the Comparative

Method and the (Indo-European) Family-tree Model

(Campbell 2013: Chs. 5-7) according to which (i) Indo-

European languages have no links whatsoever to

Arabic and related languages on the other side of the

Mediterranean, (ii) language change is regular, and

(iii) priority to sound-and-meaning over meaning-

and-sound correspondence. All principles are totally

wrong (Jassem 2013c; Jassem 2012-2017). More

precisely, all my previous research over the past five

years clearly show that English, German, French,

Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and all Indo-European

languages are not related to Arabic in 100 or 200

words only as used by comparative historical linguists

(see Campbell 2013: 448-451) but in all words to such

an extent that they can be really considered dialects

of Arabic on all phonetic, morphological, syntactic,

semantic, and lexical levels, which developed alongst

different routes and underwent different natural

and/or plausible linguistic changes. All their words

and their parts or morphemes, both lexical and

grammatical, can be traced back to Arabic easily and

successfully. The above example sentence is just a

contemporary or modern live illustration.

Furthermore, language change is not regular but

rather irregular; it is not unidirectional but

multidirectional (Jassem 2013c, 1987).

5. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The main findings of this short, though

representative, study can be summarized as follows:

i) The Oxford English Dictionary (1989) is

deficient, incomplete, unreliable, and

unauthoritative as far as word origins and

histories in particular are concerned. The

same applies to other etymological

dictionaries in general like Harper's (2002-

2017) Online Etymology Dictionary and

historical linguistics textbooks and theories

like Campbell (2013) that depend on them in

this area. Nevertheless, they remain overall

indispensable tools and guides for tracing

especially the origins of English words to




Vol.4 Issue 1

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German, French, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit

words after which linking them to Arabic

becomes a lot simpler and easier as shown

above.

ii) The OED is based entirely on myth as to the

ultimate origin of English words- or PIE in

particular- which did not exist at all. It is also

based on fallacy, the erroneous analysis of

words in such areas like cognate nature,

lengthy derivation, uncertain origins,

ploysemy, homophony, homonymy,

overlooking Arabic, theoretical framework,

and so on.

iii) That girl marries the villain, the exemplary

sentence, is totally Arabic word by word,

morpheme by morpheme, and sound by

sound, taking linguistic changes into

account, of course. More precisely,

a) That & the derive from identical

Arabic cognates;

b) girl comes from Arabic alghir via

reordering;

c) marries is from Arabic mar'at; and

d) villain obtains straight from Arabic

falla2in via /2/-loss.

Thus, if one were to say its Arabic cognate

dhat alghirra(t) mar'a(t) dha falla2in (=That

girl is the wife/woman of that farmer) ذات

فالح امرأة الغرة , one would be completely

understood today anywhere in the Arabic-

speaking world. In fact, if English used

current Arabic script, no further explanation

would be needed.

iv) The OED needs to be revised accordingly as

do all similar dictionaries of European

languages.

v) No proper understanding and adequate

account of English and Indo-European

language can be made without Arabic- their

ultimate origin, which resolves uncertainties

and complexities of all types.

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