Linguistics

The chart below and the JavaScript-based translator shows some death-related words in a variety of languages. Which of course prompts the question: who cares? But besides providing a glimpse into how the other half speaks, it also is an opportunity to observe the phenomenon of linguistics, and specifically the evolution of words known as etymology. This in turn offers insights into cultures and similarities and differences amongst them. For example, the tendency of the word for suicide to be a combination of a prefix meaning "self" and a word for the negatively-connoted "murder," as in German, reflects a more opposed attitude than to the euphemized euthanasia. Another interesting reflection of culture in language is the presence of a word for the specific idea of a death anniversary in Japanese. While this is a great starting point, we suggest you spend some time with a translating dictionary and see what you can discover. This is also is a valuable experience in vocabulary acquisition in native and foreign languages, since understanding word origins is key to graping unfamiliar words. Many of the words are cognates - that is, they are related in origin and thus sound similar. In English, some important vocabulary notes related to death include the fact that necro- is a prefix meaning death, as in necropolis (city of the dead), necromancy (communicating with the dead to predict the future, black magic) or necrophilia (attraction to the dead). Also, thanatology is the study of death and dying, with a focus on social and psychological aspects.

English	Dutch	German	French	Spanish	Italian
death	de dood	die Tot	mort	muerte	morte
mortality	mortaliteit	die Mortalität	mortalité	mortalidad	mortalità
dying	sterven	sterben	dépérissement	marchitamiento	deperimento
killing	doden	toten	mise à mort	matanza	abbattimento
murder	moord	der Mord	meurtre	crímen	omicidio
suicide	zelfmoord	der Selbstmord	suicide	suicida	suicida
euthanasia	euthenasie	die Euthanasie	euthenasie	eutanasia	eutanasia

Case Study

The origin of the word "cancer," explained by Sherwin B. Nuland in How we Die, provides an example of the evolution of words. Initially, Greeks referred to the hard swellings and ulcers of cancer as karkinos, as opposed to the regular swellings which they called oncos. Their word came from an Indo-European root meaning hard. The oma suffix meant tumor, so that karkinoma was a malignant tumorous growth. Eventually, oncos was used to refer to any tumors, and cancer, the Latin word for crab, replaced its predecessor.

causing | coping | following

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