Page:The Making of Latin.djvu/20

6 re-introduced) into English from Scotch many centuries alter the change of k to ch in English, which produced the English word church from the same original word, which in Latin was cyriaca (Gr.  ‘the house of the Lord’), Anglo-Saxon cirice.

§ . In that case in modern English we have what is called a —two words of different form, derived from the same original and existing side by side, often with a slight difference of meaning which gives the key to their history. And it is generally the borrowed word, in this case kirk, which has the narrower and more precise meaning. Now in Latin a great many words were borrowed from the neighbouring dialects, especially Oscan and Sabine, and many from Greek: and many of them have a shape which is different from what they would have had if they had existed in Latin all along. For example, rufus ‘red-haired’ is a borrowed word (§ 177) and shows a narrower meaning than the pure Latin ruber ‘red’ which is closely related to it. We saw in § 11 another type of Doublet (Fr. moi and me) due to different conditions of Accent.

§ . But there is another kind of change which is, generally at least, partly conscious, that is to say, present to the minds of many speakers when the change is made. ‘This is due to the influence of Analogy, which is the great constructive and reconstructive force in human speech. How it operates can best be shown by a few examples. We know from kindred words that the Latin numeral corresponding to Eng. nine was to start with *noven (hence nōnus ‘ninth’ from