书名 Word Origins,The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z(2nd Edition) 作者：John Ayto 出版社：A&C Black,London （档案下载）大陆爱问网站： http://ishare.iask.sina.com.cn/f/9721243.html 本书是一本好用的英文字源学的书，推荐给大家下载使用。 另外一本则是　JOSEPH T. SHIPLEY 所写的 (Dictionary of Word Origins) http://0rz.tw/GyU6y　　（此为该书为线上全文网址，可直接用检索查阅） 　　　　　　　　　　　 （本书的好处是会把相关意义的字放在一起， 　　　　　　　　　　　　 就这一点来说，free与slave之间的关连在本书更明显） 以下我以friend与free为例来说明使用上述查字源的有趣之处。 首先我们先以 John Ayto的书为例： 譬如friend [OE] Etymologically, friend means ‘loving’. It and its Germanic relatives (German freund, Dutch vriend, Swedish frände, etc) go back to the present participle of the prehistoric Germanic verb *frijōjan ‘love’　　　　　　　　 (historically, the German present participle ends in -nd, as in FRIDAY, FRIENDmodern German -end; English -ng is an alteration of this). *Frijōjan itself was a derivative of the adjective *frijaz, from which modern English gets free, but which originally meant ‘dear, beloved’. 相关的字汇为free，我们再查查free free free [OE] The prehistoric ancestor of free was a term of affection uniting the members of a family in a common bond, and implicitly excluding their servants or slaves – those who (free是指免於奴役） were not ‘free’. It comes ultimately from Indo- FREEEuropean *prijos, whose signification ‘dear, beloved’ is revealed in such collateral descendants as Sanskrit priyás ‘dear’, Russian prijatel’ ‘friend’, and indeed English friend. Its Germanic offspring, *frijaz, displays the shift from ‘affection’ to ‘liberty’, as shown in German frei, Dutch vrij, Swedish and Danish fri, and English free. Welsh rhydd ‘free’ comes from the same Indo-European source. 相关的字为friday与friend，我们再查查friday。 Friday [OE] Friday was named for Frigg, in Scandinavian mythology the wife of Odin and goddess of married love and of the hearth (Frigg, or in Old English Frīg, is thought to have come from prehistoric Germanic *frijaz ‘noble’, source of English free). ‘Frigg’s day’ was a direct adaptation of Latin Veneris dies ‘Venus’s COGNITION, IGNOBLE, KNOW, NOTORIOUS, RECOGNIZEday’ (whence French vendredi ‘Friday’), which in turn was based on Greek Aphrodítēs hēméra ‘Aphrodite’s day’. 这里引起我注意是love和noble两个字。 上述的friend提到beloved。 noble和社会阶层有关，也和知识有关。 我们来看看字源。 noble [13] Etymologically, to be noble is simply to be ‘well known’. The word reached English 博学之人。 via Old French noble from Latin nōbilis. But this was only a later form of an original gnōbilis (preserved in the negative form ignoble [16]), which was derived from the base *gnō- ‘know’,　　　　　　 知 source also of English notorious. It thus originally meant ‘knowable’, hence ‘known’, and only subsequently broadened out via ‘well known’ to ‘noble’ (which in ancient Rome　　　　　　　　在古罗马指属於 denoted ‘belonging to a family of which many　　　　　　　state之中位居高 members had held high office in the state’).　　　　　　　位之成员。 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 或者就是指贵族(?) 这边就让我们看到了自由人与贵族之间的关系。 只有自由人能够免於奴役，能够「知」（有知识）。 朋友之间则是自由的、高贵的， 自由是指免於奴役，免於工具性的目的，即把人当人，不是当成实现一己目的的手段。 高贵的。我则比较从阶层的角度来看，只有免於互相奴役的人才能当朋友， 在罗马时代的条件底下，只有贵族，或高贵身份的人有这种可能性。 以上大概是我透过friend, free, 以及friday所作的示范。 另外相关的字源的讨论，最好可以配合Oxford English Dictionary 或者其他字源学字典，因为每位学者的书写方式与表达方式会有些微差异 譬如JOSEPH T. SHIPLEY 所写的 (Dictionary of Word Origins) （本书的好处是会把相关意义的字放在一起，因此，free与slave的比较在本书更明显） 譬如说，该书对於free与friend的讨论如下： free. The man that calls himself heart- free is not talking in terms of origins. Free (OF..freon, to love, cognate with Sansk. priya, dear : thus OE. freond, whence Eng. friend) meant beloved. In the early home were those one loved, and the slaves — hence free came to mean, not enslaved. Note that slave (Fr. esclave. 这里顺便解释了slave from LL. Sclavus) is the name of the central European race, the Slav or Slavic, which in their own tongue means "glory ;" but they had been con- 　　　　　　指出slave与征服的荣耀有关 quered, and from them the Romans and even the Franks drew their ser- vants. Hence frank, from the tribe 　　　　　　　　再释frank，是France名之源 that in tiie 0th c. conquered Gaul and 　　　　　　为free, open。 gave its name to France: free, open. 　　　　　　　加上en，成为「使自由」 From this come franchise and en- franchise (Fr. affranchir, to set free) ; also the application of frank as the privilege of jree mailing. Frankincense (OFr. jranc encens: noble incense . . .) from incendere, incensus, to blaze, to set afire, from in, intensive + ^aw^^''^* to glow. The inceptive of this, incan- descere, gives us incandescent. To in- cense is to set one's temper blazing. 分享给大家罗！ ※ 编辑: godsound 来自: 140.112.156.65 (11/06 17:23) ※ 编辑: godsound 来自: 140.112.156.65 (11/06 19:52)