Thursday, May 16, 2024

Language Of Confusion: Ne-, Part I

Yet another small Proto Indo European word that shows up in a bunch of stuff, most of which you can kind of see. But of course there are some weirdos in there.
 
The word that started me down this particular rabbit hole is negative. It showed up in the late fourteenth century, so three hundred years before negate in 1795. It comes from the Anglo French negatif, Old French negatif, and classical Latin negativus, all with roughly the same meaning we use. It’s from the verb negare, to deny, and that is from the Proto Indo European root ne-, which means not. Negative is not.
 
How about a bunch of other words that look similar but have completely different meanings? Take neglect for example. It showed up in the sixteenth century from the classical Latin neglectus, (neglect), from its verb form neglegere (to ignore). The first part is from ne-, so it means not, and legere I looked at not too long ago as the origin of -lect/-log/-leg words and means to collect or gather. To neglect is to not collect or gather. Because you’re ignoring it. Fun fact, somehow negligee is from neglegere, too. We have French to thank for that one, as a negligee was called that because in the eighteenth century it was considered the opposite of the full outfit women wore.
 
Next, negotiate, which showed up in the late sixteenth century from negotiation, which showed up in the early fifteenth century. It’s from the Old French negociacion and classical Latin negotiationem, business. The -otium part literally means ease or leisure, so with ne- meaning not, business is not leisure. I guess that’s why you negotiate it.
 
Then there’s renege, which showed up in the mid sixteenth century, though back then it meant to deny, not meaning to go back on your word until the late eighteenth century. It’s from the Medieval Latin renegare, with the re- prefix thought to just be intensive here, and negare of course meaning to deny. So to renege initially meant when you were really denying something. Renegade is actually from the same word. It showed up in the late sixteenth century actually from the Spanish renegado, which originally referred to a Christian who became a Muslim. The word is from the Medieval Latin renegatus, which is the noun version of renegare. A renegade was originally just someone who started following a different faith. Which of course was a big issue back in the fifteen hundreds.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
Dictionary of Medieval Latin
Fordham University

4 comments:

  1. Negotiate's meaning is a real stretch.

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  2. I like that meaning of renegade. Changing faiths.

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  3. The origin of 'neglect' is quite interesting!

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  4. interesting... I would never have thought all those words were related, but it actually makes a kind of sense.

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