Danger, Will Robinson!
May. 17th, 2012 06:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowMany years ago, during my first trip to Britain, I encountered a warning sign in Wales. It was, naturally, bilingual. I don't recall the English, but I do remember that the Welsh version contained the word "perygl", which (comparing to the English) clearly meant "danger". Since I was just coming off two years of college Latin, I naturally conjectured that it was derived from "periculum".
The other day, for some reason, I was reminded of that sign. The obvious connection to the English word "peril" leaped out at me, and (after dawdling for a few days) I finally got around to looking it up. Yup, "peril" is also derived from "periculum", via French (which I could have guessed, given the disappearance of the third consonant). The dictionary article suggested looking at the entry for "fear" - yep, a cognate, another of those p->f things that are rampant in Germanic. (Thank you, Messrs. Grimm!) That entry suggested a further link to "fare", which I did not pursue, because something else struck me.
If "peril" is borrowed from French, there ought to be a Germanic-derived word with the same or similar meaning. The dictionary entry for "danger" lists and distinguishes among several near-synonyms: "peril", "danger", "hazard", "risk", "jeopardy". And you know what? Every damn one of them is French-derived. Wotthehell?
("Danger" and "hazard" didn't surprise me; they have an ex-French feel to them. "Risk" came into French from Italian; the root begins "risch-". "Jeopardy", being - I'd guess - in origin a legal term, also didn't surprise me; lots of legal/governmental terms are Norman-derived.)
(Langenscheidt informs me that the German word for "danger" is "Gefahr", which fits the dictionary reference to "fare".)
(As a side note: "danger" traces back ultimately to Latin "dominium", which, I suppose, is reasonable; someone with power over you is at least potentially dangerous.)
The other day, for some reason, I was reminded of that sign. The obvious connection to the English word "peril" leaped out at me, and (after dawdling for a few days) I finally got around to looking it up. Yup, "peril" is also derived from "periculum", via French (which I could have guessed, given the disappearance of the third consonant). The dictionary article suggested looking at the entry for "fear" - yep, a cognate, another of those p->f things that are rampant in Germanic. (Thank you, Messrs. Grimm!) That entry suggested a further link to "fare", which I did not pursue, because something else struck me.
If "peril" is borrowed from French, there ought to be a Germanic-derived word with the same or similar meaning. The dictionary entry for "danger" lists and distinguishes among several near-synonyms: "peril", "danger", "hazard", "risk", "jeopardy". And you know what? Every damn one of them is French-derived. Wotthehell?
("Danger" and "hazard" didn't surprise me; they have an ex-French feel to them. "Risk" came into French from Italian; the root begins "risch-". "Jeopardy", being - I'd guess - in origin a legal term, also didn't surprise me; lots of legal/governmental terms are Norman-derived.)
(Langenscheidt informs me that the German word for "danger" is "Gefahr", which fits the dictionary reference to "fare".)
(As a side note: "danger" traces back ultimately to Latin "dominium", which, I suppose, is reasonable; someone with power over you is at least potentially dangerous.)
