42 Zaidan Ali Jassem
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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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