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They don't _have_ to, but it's an observed fact that they mostly _did_. There are vanishingly few examples of purely new coinages outside of scientific terms b
by empath75 2y ago
They don't _have_ to, but it's an observed fact that they mostly _did_. There are vanishingly few examples of purely new coinages outside of scientific terms before the modern era.
The reason why is mostly a bootstrapping problem. The purpose of words is communication, and it's a lot easier to adapt an existing word to a new purpose that it is to just invent some new pattern of sounds and convince people to start using it. It's easier now with mass media, but prior to that, nearly impossible.
- Tagbert 2y agoAnother area where words are created is in product names. They can be created purely synthetically but even those often still use existing words as the basis for the creation. For every "Zyrtec" (which still plays on "tech") you have "Claritin" ("clear/clarity") and others.
- empath75 2y agoYeah that's why I qualified it as before the modern era. There's all kinds of brand names that are just nonsense words.
- devilbunny 2y agoEven new words tend to have clear etymologies. Laser was LASER, for example - an acronym became a word in itself. Many scientific terms are just from Latin or Greek, which makes sense in the context of European science - languages that all scientists, regardless of where they were in Europe, would have at least some familiarity with, making it easier to translate and recognize across vernacular languages. I understand very little French, but “50 millimetre” doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out.