English is sort of a sponge among languages. English words are borrowed from just about all other languages. “Sponge,” by the way, comes originally from Greek — except for the “sponge” that’s the heel part of a horseshoe; that comes from the Latin word for a supporting frame, like a bedframe. That’s what they’re talking about when you run into puzzling quotations like this one: “In shooing the fore feete, make your shooes with a broade webbe and with thick sponges.”
Other English words emerged along with the language itself, and have roots in Old English and the Germanic languages spoken before the independent-minded residents of the British Isles decided they were going to talk the way they pleased, and never mind what those people on the mainland (or those other people just ten miles down the road) had to say about it. “English,” by the way, comes originally from, well, English. Or more specifically, the Angles, who were the English before there were any English. It’s a word so old that the version of English it comes from is as incomprehensible as Hungarian (unless, of course, you understand Hungarian): “Wiþ utwærce genim unsmerigne healfne cyse, do englisces huniges iiii snæda to, wylle on pannan oþ þæt hit brunige.”
But there’s another source of English words: imitation. That’s when you hear something from an animal, or from objects in nature, and make up a word that sounds like what you hear. “Whoosh,” for example, is meant to sound like something rushing through the air. “Woof-woof” is meant to sound like a dog. English dogs, by the way, may have an accent, because dogs in China say “wong-wong,” Czech dogs say “huff-huff,” Arabian dogs say “hau-hau,” and Balinese dogs say “kong-kong.”
Inexplicably, there are some imitative words that have just about disappeared. Does this mean the natural sounds they imitate don’t occur any more? Take, for example, “zeep.” It’s “a high-pitched noise like that produced by friction or something traveling at speed.” So back in 1878, a book about beekeeping advised that “As soon as the cages touched the bees they [sc. the bees] made a ‘zeep’.” And in 1908, a naturalist named Burroughs observed “the bush sparrow stood out vividly… ‘Zeep,’ ‘zeep,’ came out of the dimness.”
Over the decades, “zeep” has been used to describe bullets flying past, katydids chirping, and crickets. “Zeep” appeared in the last half of the 1800s, about the same time as the similar “zip.” But for some reason, “zip” is now pretty common, while “zeep” is quite rare. Maybe it’s just because of the fast pace of modern life; with things zipping along so quickly, we don’t have time to stop and listen for those more extended “zeeps.”
