Thursday 13 November 2008

Work, worker and wright

Sorry for my lateness but I have had problems with my computer.
Indoeuropean Root, Germanic, Old English and Modern English.

If we research about these three words we can find that "work", "worker" and "wright" are related with the word " werg"according to the Indoeuropean Roots Index of the American Heritage Dictionary of English Language.

WORK
In "work" it is necessary to differenciate work as a noun, and work as a verb because each one of them have changed through the history in different ways.

"Work" as a noun comes from the Indouropean root "werg" as I said before it means "to do". In Germanic, "werg" changed to "werc" because of the Grimm´s law " where voiced plosives change to voiceless plosives (g >k)
Thus, "werc" changed to "weorc" in Old English because of an assimilation whereby the epenthetic vowel adjust to the imputted vowel in height and change to dipthong "eo"; and finally this word changed to "work" in Modern English.
This word has had a lot of meaning for example some of them: at the beginning it means "physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something; then " a job, an employment", "the part of a day devoted to an occupation or undetaking", "the manner, style or quality of working or treatment", etc.

Work as a verb it comes from "werg" but it becomes in Old English in "wyrcan" and then it changes to "worch" and finally it becomes "work" because of the substitution of k for ch.
Thank to "work" a a noun we can see the following word "wright".

WRIGHT
It comes from the same root "werg" , then "wurhtjo" in Germanic and later in Old English is "wryhta". It means " a workman, one who does or performs something, a doer or worker". Finally it becomes "wright"in modern English.
This type of work is use in compouns like " playwright"("worker in plays)
Another word is related with "work" and "wright" and this is "worker".

WORKER
It comes from "werg" that changed into werker in germanic "werk + suffix -er".This is because of the Grimm´s Law 2 where voiced plosives changed into voiceless plosives (g > k).
It means " one who makes, creates, produces something"; it is also applied to God as maker or creator but it is also used to refer to an author, producer or doer (similar to wright)

Note
It is curious but this word has not any root in latin to express "work" because this in latin is "tripaliare" and nowadays we can not find any word with this root.

Finally, we can conclude that these three words are related with the Indoeuropean Root "werg".

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