Archaic Words

The word-stock of a language is in an increasing state of change. Words change their meaning and sometimes drop out of the language altogether. New words spring up and replace the old ones. Some words stay in the language a very long time and do not lose their faculty of gaining new meanings and becoming richer and richer polysemantically.

Other words live but a short time.

Obsolescent words are in the stage of gradually passing out of general use.

To this category first of all belong morphological forms belonging to the earlier stages in the development of the language.

-In the English language these are the pronouns.thou and its forms thee, thy and thine; the corresponding verbal ending -est and the verb-forms art, wilt (thou makest, thou wilt); the ending -(e)th instead of -(e)s (he maketh) and the pronoun ye.

-To the category of obsolescent words belong many French borrowings which have been kept in the literary language as a means of preserving the spirit of earlier periods, e. g. a pallet (==a straw mattress); a palfrey ( = a small horse); garniture (=furniture); to emplume (=to adorn with feathers or plumes).

* Obsolete words are those that have already gone completely out of use but are still recognized by the English-speaking community: e. g. methinks (=it seems to me); nay (=no).

* The third group, which may be called archaic proper, are words which are no longer recognizable in modern English, words that were in use in Old English and which have either dropped out of the language entirely or have changed in their appearance so much that they have become unrecognizable, e. g. troth (=faith); a losel (=a worthless, lazy fellow).

1) Archaic words are primarily and predominantly used in the creation of a realistic background to historical novels.

2) archaic words and phrases have other functions found in other styles. They are, first of all, frequently to be found in the style of official documents: In business letters, in legal language, in all kinds of statutes, in diplomatic documents and in all kinds of legal documents. They are used as terms.

3) It is the same with archaic and obsolete words in poetry. they are employed in the poetic style as special terms and hence prevented from dropping completely out of the language.

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