Why is Anything Called Anything?

[YuheJi]

Words are arbitrary. There is no inherent power behind a word. But they do let us think abstractly, and communicate more clearly with other people.

 

[Mr. 47]

Oog came out of the cave one day and pointed at a rock and said "Awoog." Thus language was born. There is no reason why any words are what they are, someone just called X object Y and it caught on. Later languages, such as English which has Latin roots, was based on someone calling something whatever came into his/her head.

And I take your Rock and raise you a Chuck Norris.

*Help a noob and tell him if he can crop images onsite? The above is kinda big.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Because of etymology.

Spoiler: Reason!

The original problem was "How do I convey a concept to someone else?", way back in ye olden days. Eventually, someone just made a noise and pointed at a rock, so everyone then agreed that that noise would represent the concept of "rock". This continued for a while and over the course of several generations, they developed a basic language.

As time progressed, that language was tweaked, both intentionally and not, until it eventually reached the modern forms we speak today.

Our language (I assume you mean English, but this applies to most every language) has never had a "reboot". They have changed dramatically from their original forms, but there's never been an actual reboot.

And Latin words changed because of a variety of factors. Most of them changed simply by an accident of mispronunciation. People would stumble over a word, or their accents would alter how the word was heard, and eventually it mutated the language itself. That's how dialects form. If you give a dialect enough time, it will become a completely distinct language.


And for your final question: Fire means fire, that's about it. It doesn't matter what is actually said, the concept is still intact. Most people will translate it in their minds to their native tongue, and will think in their native language. The problem with that is that sometimes there are concepts that simply do not exist in the native tongue. When that happens, one is forced to think in the new language.

The whole point of language is to convey concepts. Fire, fuego, feuer, etc are all only representations of the idea of "fire".

If the word fire is translated into another language and means something other than fire, it wasn't translated correctly in the first place. Translation requires that one convert the concept for one language to some other language. If the word means something different afterwards, it's not a proper translation.

Give the man a fish. He's earned it.

But in terms of how those sounds originate, that's much less philosophical. It's foundational of clusters of individuals--and not just specific to human. As a collective group, there must be a way to convey danger, safety, food sources, water, need, and want between the members of that group. As these necessities to convey things become more complex, such as when members of a different group try to interact with the first group, the back and forth of determining what things are for simplicity conveys the word as the thing itself. This collection of thoughts coalesce, and compound, becoming more and more refined over time. As a group starts thinking and acting in different ways, a structure forms to these sounds, indicating a change in whether one has it or wants it, whether it's here, there, or nowhere, whether it's something that was done, something that is being done, or something that needs to be done, among many other aspects. The more this collection of agreed expressions compounds and expands, the more structure is required for that group. Language develops as this structure is established. The word 'fire' isn't just a word--it's the conveyance that there is a fire, which is a source of heat, light, and danger. This is millenia of progress and expression, which stems from extremely primitive forms of society--small clusters banding together for safety, food, and shelter.

 

[rabidmidget]

Because it is easier than communicating via shadow puppets?

It's not exactly a complex answer, the need for communication arose, specific things needed a way to be referred to, things were given names, done.

 

[Spade Lead]

And for your final question: Fire means fire, that's about it. It doesn't matter what is actually said, the concept is still intact. Most people will translate it in their minds to their native tongue, and will think in their native language. The problem with that is that sometimes there are concepts that simply do not exist in the native tongue. When that happens, one is forced to think in the new language.

Schadenfreude is one such term. It is German, and typically translates as "Taking pleasure in someone else's pain" in English. We don't have a term for that, so we use the term Schadenfreude even though we are speaking English and not German.

 

[Trull]

"A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet" -David Tennant.... Quoting Shakespeare.

 

[Cheesus333]

I guess the basic words are just sounds. If you think about it, things like 'water', 'sky' and 'dirt' are all very simple noises. You could grunt them. That's probably how they came about. As for why, that's obvious: communication is the basis of society, so without communication we'd be stuck. Obviously, language is a prominent form of communication. People at some stage discovered they could make various noises, so they strung them together and became words, which became sentences.

However, with more complex words like "consumerism", "ergonomics" or "gastronomy", I really don't know. Words with prefixes and suffixes, I'm with you - I don't get where that idea came from. I guess the important thing is that they did, so we can effectively communicate anything we want or need to say with no difficulty. And should we encounter something that we literally have no words for... well, that's where some of the ones we haven't used yet come in.

 

[Ambi]

God did it, Tower of Babel.
Can't argue with that ;P

Just kidding, that doesn't answer anything, all it does is fill the gaps with a myth.

Language strikes me as being just as absurd as the existence of anything else. Mutations gave rise to parts of the body and brain which could detect, interpret, or and produce sound, and if it didn't hinder their survival, they'd pass it on to offspring. If they could scream for help, imitate the sound of a dangerous animal to alert their family of the animals approach, etc. they have a better chance of surviving. Words would have had to become more complex as the need for differentiation between similar sounds arose, and also the need for more convenient/less awkward communication (for example, needing to imitate loud sounds quietly, people feeling like it's pointless to screech like a bat every time they want to convey one), and throw in everyone's little idiosyncrasies, and there you have some different words.

As for the way languages evolve, you can imagine how new languages emerge when you think of how short of a timespan it takes for new words and different styles of speaking to emerge. Just expand that over thousands of years.

However, with more complex words like "consumerism", "ergonomics" or "gastronomy", I really don't know. Words with prefixes and suffixes, I'm with you - I don't get where that idea came from.

They're just like little words put together to create a convenient word.