Why is Anything Called Anything?

[Canadamus Prime]

Well it obviously arouse out of a need to communicate. When the earliest proto-humans needed to get across to his commrades that a particular set of grunting noises he was making indicated that hot burning yellowish thing he'd just made by rubbing two sticks together.

 

[Nudu]

I'm pretty sure Noam Chomsky is the guy you want for this...

 

[Aphroditty]

I have a question for ye Escapist members... Why is water called water? Why is fire called fire?

As others have said, the vast majority of words in a language which refer to an object, idea or action have no relation to the objects that they refer to, beyond the fact that they refer to it. So water is called what it is because we have to refer to it by something, and saying or writing the word "water" is how it evolved to be referred to (in the English language). Words are semantically arbitrary, in other words.

Coincidentally, Scientists have yet to pin down the origin of human Grammar.

Do you mean the neurological basis for grammar and language, or the historical basis for it? I'm going to assume you mean the former, but it is quite incredible to read about the scanty progress that has been made.

The gradual and complex evolution of the syllables for concrete items into abstract ideas and back, influenced by the evolution of writing systems.

As I'm sure you know, syllables are neither the basic unit of meaning in a language (morphemes) nor the basic unit of sound in a language (phonemes). So while syllables obviously evolved over time, it was rarely because of their capacity as syllables.

 

[Lilani]

I have a question for ye Escapist members... Why is water called water? Why is fire called fire?

I've just been wondering in my crazy little mind why anything is called anything. Doesn't it strike anyone odd we have a meaning for anything?

Yeah, I understand the meaning of the word is usually Latin blah, blah and blah. But -WHY-? Where did the Latins get the word? When did people start calling fire? When did the Latins start calling whatever they called fire?

Has our language gotten a reboot ever? When did we start changing Latin words into other words?

Also, a question to the "English is our second language Escapists."

When you speak/say "Fire" in your native tongue. Does it translate into "fire" to you? Or does your native tongue mean something else? Like... "Fire" could be called "Quatel"

I don't mean "spoken" in your native tongue. What the word "means" in that native tongue.

You seem to think this is some unexplained miracle, like "where did we come from?" As romantic as that sounds, I'm afraid it is nothing that grand. This isn't some indefinite, infinite, or even hugely mysterious thing. It's etymology. Language. It helps us communicate, allowing us to work together or communicate an elaborate concept with a degree of clarity.

So how did all that start? Why the most primitive humans, of course. They saw something, like fire, and chose some sound to assign to it. It could have been a lone effort, or a collaboration involving their whole tribe. In any case, they developed their own words and word systems, and as they needed to communicate more elaborate things, they came up with more elaborate words and ways of saying them.

Was there something before Latin? Of course. But, to be perfectly honest, I do not know what it is or how it came to be. What I can tell you is a simple search on Google or Wikipedia regarding it or etymology in general will answer many of your questions.

 

[Ladette]

Because the Rock said so, and are you going to argue with him?

 

[Grygor]

What something is called is entirely arbitrary - there is nothing about an object or concept that can be discovered that reveals what it should be called.

In other words, what something is called is a social fact, like what side of the street you drive on - it doesn't matter what you call something (or what side of the street you drive on), but it's very important that everyone in a social group agrees about it.

 

[I.N.producer]

You would probably need a time machine to find out where every name comes from.

Related question, How do we know that the colors we see are the same colors everyone else sees? The color you have been told is orange could be blue to another person's eyes, but both of you would call it orange because that is what you were taught.

 

[thylasos]

As I'm sure you know, syllables are neither the basic unit of meaning in a language (morphemes) nor the basic unit of sound in a language (phonemes). So while syllables obviously evolved over time, it was rarely because of their capacity as syllables.

Certainly. But I used it for intelligibility by non-linguists, which the OP seems to be, and I would suppose the majority of the forum is.

 

[Aphroditty]

As I'm sure you know, syllables are neither the basic unit of meaning in a language (morphemes) nor the basic unit of sound in a language (phonemes). So while syllables obviously evolved over time, it was rarely because of their capacity as syllables.

Certainly. But I used it for intelligibility by non-linguist, which the OP seems to be, and I would suppose the majority of the forum is.

What use is intelligibility, if it intelligibly communicates misinformation?

 

[thylasos]

As I'm sure you know, syllables are neither the basic unit of meaning in a language (morphemes) nor the basic unit of sound in a language (phonemes). So while syllables obviously evolved over time, it was rarely because of their capacity as syllables.

Certainly. But I used it for intelligibility by non-linguist, which the OP seems to be, and I would suppose the majority of the forum is.

What use is intelligibility, if it intelligibly communicates misinformation?

Well, I'm trying to get across a basic point, rather than teaching a course in linguistics here, especially to a seemingly obtuse OP.

I entirely appreciate your point.

The fact I've already had three strong ales may also be a contributing factor to my linguistic imprecision.

 

[Aphroditty]

As I'm sure you know, syllables are neither the basic unit of meaning in a language (morphemes) nor the basic unit of sound in a language (phonemes). So while syllables obviously evolved over time, it was rarely because of their capacity as syllables.

Certainly. But I used it for intelligibility by non-linguist, which the OP seems to be, and I would suppose the majority of the forum is.

What use is intelligibility, if it intelligibly communicates misinformation?

Well, I'm trying to get across a basic point, rather than teaching a course in linguistics here, especially to a seemingly obtuse OP.

I entirely appreciate your point.

The fact I've already had three strong ales may also be a contributing factor.

Fair enough. And cheers!

 

[thylasos]

Fair enough. And cheers!

На здоровье, indeed. And with that, the minor threadjack ends. My apologies.

 

[RaNDM G]

Because the Rock said so, and are you going to argue with him?

I know someone who would.


OT: That's just the way the human mind works. Let's say you're a four-year old and you see a tree for the first time. You have no clue what to call it, but you know what it is. In the end you have to call it something, so you give it a name and remember it for future reference.

Eventually, people began to group together and the words they had for different things began to meld. As these groups became more tight-knit, language became more sophisticated, and thus words became standardized into what we know today.

 

[ShamusEricks]

This question is easily answered. for any general, nonspecific word, it is simply a name we have given to it, and the name we recognize it by. It has already been stated that this is arbitrary.

In another sense, a word in most modern languages is formed because of it's relation to an ancestor language, and so forth back to originating language. So by this argument, A is called A because someone else called it A and it is most recognizable by the name "A."

I am much aware that this has been answered in different words many times before, while the same concept, in this very thread.

 

[Xanadu84]

The short answer is because the word you are using grew out of other words. Which grew out of other words. Which...yada yada yada. Go back far enough and you will reach a point the, "Words" were so basic and primitive, you don't really have to question where they came from. Perhaps the first words were a grunt of approval that was understood on an instinctual level, a scream of anger, and a happy moan of sex. And in much the same way that the relatively simple first move of a chess game turns into something vastly more complicated, those psuedo-words become modern day language.

The long answer is 20 lifetimes of studying linguistics along with inventing a time machine so you can observe that early language first hand

 

[spartan231490]

I have a question for ye Escapist members... Why is water called water? Why is fire called fire?

I've just been wondering in my crazy little mind why anything is called anything. Doesn't it strike anyone odd we have a meaning for anything?

Yeah, I understand the meaning of the word is usually Latin blah, blah and blah. But -WHY-? Where did the Latins get the word? When did people start calling fire? When did the Latins start calling whatever they called fire?

Has our language gotten a reboot ever? When did we start changing Latin words into other words?

Also, a question to the "English is our second language Escapists."

When you speak/say "Fire" in your native tongue. Does it translate into "fire" to you? Or does your native tongue mean something else? Like... "Fire" could be called "Quatel"

I don't mean "spoken" in your native tongue. What the word "means" in that native tongue.

We need language to converse. Originally, words probably just sounded descriptive of their meaning, but as they have changed and become more complicated with time, now we have the words we have.

 

[rokkolpo]

Why is an Orange called orange?

We may never know.

In Dutch it's Sinaasappel.
Yeah...just putting that out there.

OT: Fire in phonetic sense means nothing in Dutch
We call it vuur. Which I guess is pronounced ''Fhuur''

 

[Icaray]

You would probably need a time machine to find out where every name comes from.

Related question, How do we know that the colors we see are the same colors everyone else sees? The color you have been told is orange could be blue to another person's eyes, but both of you would call it orange because that is what you were taught.

I've always wondered that. I tried explaining it to a friend but he didn't get what I was saying. After an hour of explaining he finally got it but he said it's not possible because of the light spectrum or something.

I still think it could be true. Or is there a way to actually disprove it?

Oh and on topic, in Urdu, we call it aag, which literally translates to fire.

 

[Dalek Caan]

Its trying to find out how were family name came about, something we won't now unless we travel back in time and find out who gave the names to each thing.

 

[thylasos]

You would probably need a time machine to find out where every name comes from.

Related question, How do we know that the colors we see are the same colors everyone else sees? The color you have been told is orange could be blue to another person's eyes, but both of you would call it orange because that is what you were taught.

I've always wondered that. I tried explaining it to a friend but he didn't get what I was saying. After an hour of explaining he finally got it but he said it's not possible because of the light spectrum or something.

I still think it could be true. Or is there a way to actually disprove it?

Oh and on topic, in Urdu, we call it aag, which literally translates to fire.

It's true. It depends upon the eyes of the person. In theory, someone could be experiencing the colour orange differently in absolute terms, but it would still be "orange" due to the consensus basis of language. In terms of normal human eyes, the colour you perceive will be the same, possibly barring very serious colour blindness.

The colours are still the same colour, as related to their position as forms of radiation on the electromagnetic spectrum, though.

The better argument is explaining right and left to someone without any point of reference. That's the impossible task.