In
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
, an archaism (from the grc, ἀρχαϊκός, ''archaïkós'', 'old-fashioned, antiquated', ultimately , ''archaîos'', 'from the beginning, ancient') is a word, a sense of a word, or a style of speech or writing that belongs to a historical epoch long beyond living memory, but that has survived in a few practical settings or affairs.
Lexical
Lexical may refer to:
Linguistics
* Lexical corpus or lexis, a complete set of all words in a language
* Lexical item, a basic unit of lexicographical classification
* Lexicon, the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge
* Lex ...
archaisms are single archaic words or expressions used regularly in an affair (e.g.
religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
or
law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
) or freely;
literary
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
archaism is the survival of archaic language in a traditional literary text such as a
nursery rhyme or the deliberate use of a
style
Style is a manner of doing or presenting things and may refer to:
* Architectural style, the features that make a building or structure historically identifiable
* Design, the process of creating something
* Fashion, a prevailing mode of clothing ...
characteristic of an earlier age—for example, in his 1960 novel ''
The Sot-Weed Factor'', John Barth writes in an 18th-century style.
Archaic words or expressions may have distinctive emotional
connotations—some can be humorous (''forsooth''), some highly formal (''What say you?''), and some solemn (''With thee do I plight my troth'').
A distinction between archaic and obsolete words and
word sense
In linguistics, a word sense is one of the meanings of a word. For example, a dictionary may have over 50 different senses of the word "play", each of these having a different meaning based on the context of the word's usage in a sentence, as ...
s is widely used by dictionaries. An archaic word or sense is one that still has some current use but whose use has dwindled to a few specialized contexts, outside which it
connotes old-fashioned language. In contrast, an obsolete word or sense is one that is no longer used at all. A reader encounters them when reading texts that are centuries old. For example, the works of
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
are old enough that some obsolete words or senses are encountered therein, for which
glosses (annotations) are often provided in the margins.
Archaisms can either be used deliberately (to achieve a specific effect) or as part of a specific
jargon
Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a partic ...
(for example in
law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
) or formula (for example in
religious
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...
contexts). Many
nursery rhymes contain archaisms. Some archaisms called
fossil word
A fossil word is a word that is broadly obsolete but remains in current use due to its presence within an idiom, word sense, or phrase. An example for a word sense is 'navy' in ' merchant navy', which means 'commercial fleet' (although that sense ...
s remain in use within certain fixed expressions despite having faded away in all other contexts (for example, ''
vim'' is not used in normal English outside the
set phrase
Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to:
Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics
*Set (mathematics), a collection of elements
*Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively
Electro ...
''vim and vigor'').
An outdated form of language is called archaic. In contrast, a language or dialect that contains many archaic traits (archaisms) relative to closely related languages or dialects spoken ''at the same time'' is called
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
.
Usage
Archaisms are most frequently encountered in
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
,
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
,
fantasy literature
Fantasy literature is literature set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world. Magic, the supernatural and magical creatures are common in many of these imaginary worlds. Fa ...
,
law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
,
philosophy,
science
Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...
,
technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and Reproducibility, reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in me ...
,
geography
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, an ...
and
ritual
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized ...
writing and speech. Archaisms are kept alive by these ritual and literary uses and by the study of older literature. Should they remain recognised, they can potentially be revived.
Because they are things of continual discovery and re-invention, science and technology have historically generated forms of speech and writing which have dated and fallen into disuse relatively quickly. However, the emotional associations of certain words have kept them alive, for example: 'Wireless' rather than 'Radio' for a generation of British citizens who lived through the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, even though the older word 'wireless' is an archaism, and in recent years the term has gained renewed popularity.
A similar desire to evoke a former age means that archaic place names are frequently used in circumstances where doing so conveys a political or emotional subtext, or when the official new name is not recognised by all (for example: 'Madras' rather than 'Chennai'). So, a restaurant seeking to conjure up historic associations might prefer to call itself ''Old Bombay'' or refer to ''Persian cuisine'' in preference to using the newer place name. A notable contemporary example is the name of the airline
Cathay Pacific, which uses the archaic
Cathay ("
China").
Archaisms are frequently misunderstood, leading to changes in usage. One example is found in the
phrase
In syntax and grammar, a phrase is a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can consi ...
"the odd man out", which originally came from the phrase "to find the odd man out", where the verb "to find out" has been split by its object "the odd man", meaning the item which does not fit. The object + split verb has been reinterpreted as a noun + adjective, such that "out" describes the man rather than any verb.
The
pronominal adverbs found in
the writing of lawyers (e.g. ''heretofore'', ''hereunto'', ''thereof'') are examples of archaisms as a form of jargon. Some
phraseologies, especially in religious contexts, retain archaic elements that are not used in ordinary speech in any other context: "With this ring I thee wed." Archaisms are also used in the
dialogue of
historical novels in order to evoke the flavour of the period. Some may count as
inherently funny word
An inherently funny word is a word that is humorous without context, often more for its phonetic structure than for its meaning.
Vaudeville tradition holds that words with the letter ''k'' are funny. A 2015 study at the University of Alberta sugg ...
s and are used for
humorous
Humour (Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in th ...
effect.
Examples
A type of archaism is the use of ''
thou
The word ''thou'' is a second-person singular pronoun in English. It is now largely archaic, having been replaced in most contexts by the word '' you'', although it remains in use in parts of Northern England and in Scots (). ''Thou'' is the ...
'', the second-person singular pronoun that fell out of general use in the 17th century, while ''you'' or ''ye'', formerly only used to address groups, and then also to respectfully address individuals, is now used to address both individuals and groups. ''Thou'' is the
nominative form; the
oblique
Oblique may refer to:
* an alternative name for the character usually called a slash (punctuation) ( / )
*Oblique angle, in geometry
*Oblique triangle, in geometry
* Oblique lattice, in geometry
* Oblique leaf base, a characteristic shape of the b ...
/
objective
Objective may refer to:
* Objective (optics), an element in a camera or microscope
* ''The Objective'', a 2008 science fiction horror film
* Objective pronoun, a personal pronoun that is used as a grammatical object
* Objective Productions, a Brit ...
form is ''thee'' (functioning as both
accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
and
dative), and the
possessive is ''thy'' or ''thine''.
Though thou hast ever so many counsellors, yet do not forsake the counsel of thy own soul.
:— English proverb
Today me, tomorrow thee.
:— English proverb
The meaning of this proverb is that something that happens to a person, is likely to eventually happen to another who observes it, especially if the two people are similar.
To thine own self be true.
: —William Shakespeare
The meaning of this saying is simply that it is unwise to lie to yourself. In its contemporary context it meant to be true (loyal, faithful, supportive) to one's own interests (the 'self' of person, property, and goals). In other words, put yourself before others.
Archaisms in proverbs are often retained, far longer than in other parts of the language. This is because they make the proverbs "fall easier on the tongue",
and also because of the rhetorical effect they evoke by the use of two of the
four fundamental operations in rhetoric. Namely, permutation (immutatio) and addition (adiectio).
See also
*
Anachronism
*
Fossil word
A fossil word is a word that is broadly obsolete but remains in current use due to its presence within an idiom, word sense, or phrase. An example for a word sense is 'navy' in ' merchant navy', which means 'commercial fleet' (although that sense ...
*
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include:
# to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages
# ...
*
Legal English
Legal English is the type of English as used in legal writing. In general, a legal language is a formalized language based on logic rules which differs from the ordinary natural language in vocabulary, morphology, syntax, and semantics, as well ...
*
Linguistic conservatism
In linguistics, a conservative form, variety, or feature of a language is one that has changed relatively little across the language's history, or which is relatively resistant to change. It is the opposite of innovative, innovating, or advanced ...
*
List of alternative country names
Most sovereign states have alternative names. Some countries have also undergone name changes for political or other reasons. This article attempts to give all known alternative names and initialisms for all nations, countries, and sovereign sta ...
*
List of archaic technological nomenclature
*
Neologism
A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...
*
Thou
The word ''thou'' is a second-person singular pronoun in English. It is now largely archaic, having been replaced in most contexts by the word '' you'', although it remains in use in parts of Northern England and in Scots (). ''Thou'' is the ...
*
Ye olde
References
External links
Archaismentry in the
UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology'
{{Authority control
Lexicology