SEMANTICS CHANGES IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE
- LIAN HANGLUAH

Semantics, in simple term, is the study of meaning. In English, the study of semantics needs careful analysis, perhaps the cultural or sentence context demand special consideration. For example, the word “bank” may refer to financial institution, river bank and to cause an effect. In this regard, the sentential context will define the true meaning of the word. For example, ‘He withdraws money from the bank’ will definitely point to the financial institution. One of the interesting topics in the study of semantics is “Semantic changes”. Semantic change is the change in the meaning of the word throughout the history. In fact, some of the change is triggered by the advancement of modern science and technology, and enlightenment through education. This paper deals with the semantic change in English language throughout history, and highlights how it affects the perception of the hearers.

Initially, the term “Christian” is misunderstood and taken wrongly even by the native English speakers. The Middle English language first use “Cretin” which is borrowed from French “Cretin” which means “stupid”. This comes as a surprise to those who search the root meaning of the word (etymologists). The word “Cretin” is borrowed from Latin, with its root word “Christianum” which means Christian. Even in Romance language, the term for “Christian” was used to distinguish people from beasts. As time progress, there is a change in the meaning of “Christian” from “Stupid or idiot” to the “one who follows the teaching of Jesus Christ”. This change in semantic is evident in Modern English and is in use till today.

Informatively, some of the semantics in English is used specifically in the Old and Middle English, the era spanning from 10th century till 15th century. However, in modern English that specific word is changed, and its use is even generalized. For example, The English word “Dog” first appeared with a specific meaning of a ‘specific powerful breed of dog’. Today, it is generalized to include all breeds or races of dogs. Another example may also be taken to elucidate our points. The English word “salary” is derived from the Latin word “salarium” which means soldier’s allotment of salt. Later it was generalized to mean a soldier’s wages in general. But today, it means wages in general, not just a soldier’s pay.

In contrast to the above discussion, some of the English words which was generalized formally were narrowed down resulting to denote specific meaning. For example, formally the word “meat’ means food in general as evident in King James Version of the Bible. (17th Century) Later on, in modern English, it is narrowed it down to mean “food of flesh”. Besides this, the word “wife” meant “woman” in Old English times. Then, it is narrowed it down to mean “women of humble rank or of low employment, especially one selling commodities of various sorts”. Later on, in modern English the word is confined to married woman, spouse etc.

Semantics changes also take place due to taboo replacement and avoidance of obscenity. The English word “ass” refers to ‘long-pierced animal related to horse’ in the Middle English and Early New English spanning from the 10th century till the early 21st century, But in Modern English, spanning from the mid 20th century, it was changed to “donkey” because “ass” is perceived as too close for comfort to obscene ass. To refresh my memory let me recount my childhood learning. The word “cock’ is very much prevalent in our Preparatory class. We used to recite with our classmate pointed at a picture of “adult male chicken”. Back then, teachers did not feel awkward or any sort of obscenity in pronouncing those words. Even the NCERT were pleased to inculcate the word to children back then. But today, even in our school curriculum, the word “cock” is replaced by “rooster” due to discomfort from the obscene associations of cock with the male sexual body parts.

Finally, Semantics changes occurred due to one’s language contact with another language. This language contact brings forth language borrowing and language shifting. The first language contact takes place in the “Tower of Babel” as found in Genesis chapter 11 of the Scripture. Unfortunately, we are not going to stress the Babel story here, but we are just highlighting the origin of language contact in history. In modern history, the changes in technology, society, politics, religion and in fact all spheres of human life can lead to semantic shift (changes). The word “Pen” is derived from the French word “Penne” which means ‘feather, writing quill”. As time changes and other developmental instruments for writing came into existence, the word “pen” is not remotely connected to “feather” anymore. It specifically refers to the writing instrument which can be written on a sheet of paper. Correspondingly, with the advancement of science and technology, gun replaces older hunting weapons precisely, bow and arrow. Today, people posed a mental picture of ‘gun’ when it comes into hunting weapons.

To conclude, it is inevitable that the semantics of English language undergoes changes with the development of time, science, and technology. Acknowledging these semantics changes, one must also update which word is relevant to use in this contemporary world. One’s knowledge of English back in 20 or 30 years back maybe naive in the contemporary context. Besides this, those words may poise obscure words in today’s world. Thus, English language learners in particular, and students in general must update with the ongoing vocabulary along with its semantics significance.

(The writer is currently pursuing his MA (Linguistics) under North Eastern Hill University, Shillong)

References:
Campbell, Lyle. 1998. Historical Linguistics: An Introduction. Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Hock, Hans Henrich. 1991.Principles of Historical Linguistics: Second revised and updated edition. New York: Monte De Gruijter.
Joshi, Vidya. 2019. Lecture notes on semantics. Shillong: NEHU.
Kharlukhi, Christina. 2020. Handout notes on Language contact. Shillong, NEHU.