In
etymology, a root comprises the core form of a word, often in a
primitive attestation or even in a reconstruction. Root forms have
importance in deducing the structure of language families.
Do you know that alcool, amiral, azure, coffee, paradise
are loanwords of semitic origin? The Appendix of Semitic Roots below
is designed to allow the readers to trace English words derived
from Semitic languages back to their fundamental components in Proto-Semitic,
the parent language of all ancient and modern Semitic languages.
A distinctive characteristic of the Semitic languages
is the formation of words by the combination of a “root”
of consonants in a fixed order, usually three, and a “pattern”
of vowels and, sometimes, affixes before and after the root. The
root indicates a semantic field, while the pattern both narrows
meaning and provides grammatical information. |
