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How God is always in ‘byes’
By Harold Raley
Contributor
Published November 1, 2009
Goodbye. Nearly all European languages have a reference to God in their farewells — adieu in French (to God), adiós in Spanish, adeus in Portuguese, addio in Italian — all having the same meaning. In English, “goodbye” was originally “God be with ye.”
“God” became “good” because of the expressions “good morning” and “good night.” Eventually, it contracted to “goodbye” and lately to “bye.”
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Both English and Spanish in the Western Hemisphere represent earlier versions of the languages.
During the Revolutionary War, Englishmen and Americans spoke with essentially the same accent and nearly the same vocabulary. American English is more conservative than British English and closer to the language of Shakespeare than modern British English.
For example, we say “gotten” and “forgotten,” which are considered archaic words in Great Britain.
As for Spanish, the spelling of Spanish words in Texas and other Southwestern states often shows an earlier version of the language — Mexia (modern Mejía), Truxillo (modern Trujillo), Texas and México (modern Tejas and Méjico, as spelled in Spain).
In addition, the English pronunciation of Texas and Mexico is similar to the 17th and 18th century Spanish pronunciation of the words. Back then, the “x” in Spanish was remotely similar to the sound in English.
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Many words that cause us to roll our eyes and dismiss people as country hicks were good English a few hundred years ago.
“It” was often pronounced as “hit” in older English; “hope” for “helped” is the old English form “holpen” and, not until modern times, did English speakers begin to pronounce the final “g” of verbs (beginning, doing, going, etc.) Many still don’t.
“You was” was acceptable in 17th century English. After English dropped thou and thee (except in prayer and poetry), people felt a need to distinguish between “you” meaning one person and “you” plural.
Other ways to make the distinction included the American Southern “you all,” “you’uns,” and northern “youse” and “youse guys.”
Harold Raley is a linguist, professor and writer who lives in Friendswood.
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