THE MAKING OF LATIN
I. THE KEY OF THE RIDDLE
§ 1. Etymology means literally ‘telling the truth’; the name was invented by the Greeks to describe the study of what they called the ‘true,’ that is the original, meaning of words. Tor words are continually changing their meaning; and the form, that is the sound, of words is often changed too. For example, the English word quick now means ‘active, speedy’; but in Queen Elizabeth’s time it meant ‘living,’ as in the Biblical phrase the quick and the dead; and in far earlier times, as we shall see, its form was something like gwīgwos (§ 60 (4)). Now people once used to suppose that such changes came quite by haphazard; but we know now that in each language at any given time the different sounds were being changed in certain definite ways, and in no others. By finding out these ways of change we can often discover the earlier form of a word, and its earlier meaning also; and when we have done this, we say we have found its Derivation.
§ 2. School-boys and others often wonder what means there are of finding out the derivations of words.
