On 20/08/2022 10:21, Apostolos Syropoulos via XeTeX wrote:
Someone claimed that English people (I say more generally English language speakers) learn at school why you write history and not istory. Since I do not know I'd this holds, I am asking: Is this true? Does someone who has graduated from high-school know the reason why this happens?
No, the matter was never raised during the period that I was at school (1952–1963). We were told that the subject was called "history" and that was that. The OED <https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/87324?rskey=cuajcV&result=1#eid>has this to say —
*Etymology: *In Old English < classical Latin /historia/ (in post-classical Latin also /istoria/(7th or 8th cent.)) (see below);
subsequently reborrowed < (i) Anglo-Norman and Old French /istorie/, /estoire/, /historie/, Anglo-Norman and Old French, Middle French /estorie/, Anglo-Norman and Middle French, French /histoire/, Old French, Middle French /hystoire/, Middle French /histore/ account of the events of a person's life (beginning of the 12th cent.), chronicle, account of events as relevant to a group of people or people in general (1155), dramatic or pictorial representation of historical events (/c/1240), body of knowledge relative to human evolution, science (/c/1265), narrative of real or imaginary events, story (/c/1462), and its etymon (ii) classical Latin /historia/ (in post-classical Latin also /istoria/ (7th or 8th cent.)) investigation, inquiry, research, account, description, written account of past events, writing of history, historical narrative, recorded knowledge of past events, story, narrative, in post-classical Latin also narrative illustration (from 12th cent. in British sources) < ancient Greek /ἱστορία/ inquiry, knowledge obtained by inquiry, account of such inquiries, narrative, in Hellenistic Greek also story, account < /ἵστορ-/ , /ἵστωρ/ or /ἴστορ-/ , /ἴστωρ/ (ancient Greek (Boeotian) /ϝίστωρ/ ) (noun) judge, witness, (adjective) knowing, learned ( < an ablaut variant (zero-grade) of the stem of /οἶδα/ to know (see wit v.^1 <https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/229569#eid14146062>) + /-τωρ/ , suffix forming agent nouns) + /-ία/ -y suffix^3 <https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/231080#eid14065428>. Old French forms in /e-/ arise as alterations of earlier forms in /i-/ , which was unusual in this position in Old French; Middle French forms in /h-/ show remodelling after classical Latin /historia/ . Compare Old Occitan /estoria/ , Catalan /història/ (14th cent.), Spanish /historia/ (1220–50; also as †/estoria/ ), Portuguese /história/ (14th cent.), Italian /storia/ (1690; /a/1374 as †/istoria/ ). Compare story n. <https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/190981#eid20448430> The Latin word was earlier borrowed into Old English as /stær/ (also /ster/ , /steor/ ) history, narrative, story (perhaps via Celtic; compare Early Irish /stoir/ , Middle Breton /ster/ ); the length of the stem vowel of the Old English word is uncertain, and the phonology is difficult to explain (see further A. Campbell /Old Eng. Gram./ (1959) §§507, 516, 545, 565, and (for a summary of views) A. H. Feulner /Die griechischen Lehnwörter im Altenglischen/ (2000) 248–51):
Philip Taylor
