Doublet (linguistics)

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In etymology, two or more words in the same language are called doublets or etymological twins (or possibly triplets, etc.) when they have the same etymological root but have entered the language through different routes. Because the relationship between words that have the same root and the same meaning is fairly obvious, the term is mostly used to characterize pairs of words that have diverged in meaning, at times making their shared root a point of irony.

For example English pyre and fire are doublets. Subtle differences in the resulting modern words contribute to the richness of the English language, as indicated by the doublets frail and fragile (which share the Latin root, fragilis): one might refer to a fragile tea cup and a frail old woman, but a frail tea cup and fragile old woman are subtly different and possibly confusing descriptions.

Another example of nearly synonymous doublets is aperture and overture (the commonality behind the meanings is "opening"), but doublets may develop divergent meanings, such as the opposite words, host and guest, which occur as a doublet in Old French hospes, before having been borrowed into English. Doublets also vary with respect to how far their forms have diverged. For example, the resemblance between levy and levee is obvious, whereas the connection between sovereign and soprano is harder to guess synchronically from the forms of the words alone.

Etymological twins are usually a result of chronologically separate borrowing from a source language. In the case of English, this usually means once from French during the Norman invasion, and again later, after the word had evolved. An example of this is warranty and guarantee. Another possibility is borrowing from both a language and its daughter language (usually Latin and some other Romance language). In many cases involving Indo-European languages, words such as beef and cow, the one Germanic the other Romance, actually do share the same proto-Indo-European root. The forward linguistic path also reflects cultural and historical transactions; often the name of an animal comes from Germanic while the name of its cooked meat comes from Romance. Since English is unusual in that it borrowed heavily from two distinct branches of the same linguistic family tree, it has a relatively high number of this latter type of etymological twin.

A linguistic triplet is an etymological extrapolation with three results rather than the doublet's two. Consider a welcome from the heart, in English: a hearty welcome, a cordial welcome, or a sincere welcome. The Indo-European ker or the proto-Indo-European kerd is the common root, from which the Latin cor, modern Italian cuore, French coeur, Spanish corazón -- and German Herz came into English. The differences may even seem to reflect an "ethnic variation" of a welcome "from the heart"--all are positive, yet, similar to the shades of meaning in frail and fragile, there is an appropriate place for a hearty welcome, a cordial welcome, and a sincere welcome.

[edit] Examples in English

Examples in English include:

shirt and skirt (both Germanic, the latter from Old Norse)
chief and chef (both from French at different times)
secure and sure (from Latin, the latter via French)
plant and clan (from Latin, the latter via Old Irish)
right, rich, raj, regalia, reign and real (from Germanic, Celtic, Sanskrit, Latin, French and Portuguese cognates respectively)
carton and cartoon, both ultimately the augmentative of Latin carta
ward and guard (from Germanic, the latter via French); also warden and guardian.

[edit] Examples in Polish

triplets: magister [1], majster [2], mistr^z [3]—from German Meister, Dutch meester, and from Latin magister; cognate to Italian maestro, English master, mister
(o-) pierdolić (fuck, babble, condemn, vulgar language), (o-) pierd^zielić (babble, condemn, informal language)—cognate to Russian определять (determine)
triplets: szczać (piss, gross wording), sikać (spout, plain, informal wording), siusiać (pee, childish, polite euphemism; however one could argue the latter being simply an irregular diminutive derivation from the former)
Bogdan, Bohdan^{search, pl} (first names)
triplets: upiór [4], wąpier^z [5], wampir [6] (English vampire; detailed out in Polish Wikipedia entry on etymology of wampir)