Word for the Wise : Library
As this year's annual American Library Association convention gets underway in New Orleans, we thought it an appropriate time to re-open the books (quietly, of course) on how the library came by its name.
Library derives from liber, a Latin noun originally denoting the inner bark of a tree that was used as paper before the introduction of papyrus. Technology advanced and papyrus paper displaced the bark, but the word liber was retained to refer to "a sheet of papyrus used for writing." It eventually acquired two additional senses: "a book, volume, or long document" and "a division of a long literary work."
The progression from Latin liber, meaning "book," to English library, meaning "a place in which literary, musical, or reference materials are kept for use but not for sale" seems a natural one. But at least some of the Romance languages didn't follow that semantic path. Both the French word librairie and the Spanish word libreria have meanings that decidedly involve sale, not just use: they mean "bookstore." So how did those languages name their libraries? They turned to Greek, of course, and borrowed that language's word for "bookcase." The French modified bibliotheke to create bibliotheque and the Spanish changed it into biblioteca.
You don't have to write a book, but do drop us a line. Our e-mail address is wftw@aol.com. Our street address is Word for the Wise, 318 Central Avenue, Albany, New York 12206.
Shawn Dudley is our audio engineer. Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and CD's including Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition.
Library derives from liber, a Latin noun originally denoting the inner bark of a tree that was used as paper before the introduction of papyrus. Technology advanced and papyrus paper displaced the bark, but the word liber was retained to refer to "a sheet of papyrus used for writing." It eventually acquired two additional senses: "a book, volume, or long document" and "a division of a long literary work."
The progression from Latin liber, meaning "book," to English library, meaning "a place in which literary, musical, or reference materials are kept for use but not for sale" seems a natural one. But at least some of the Romance languages didn't follow that semantic path. Both the French word librairie and the Spanish word libreria have meanings that decidedly involve sale, not just use: they mean "bookstore." So how did those languages name their libraries? They turned to Greek, of course, and borrowed that language's word for "bookcase." The French modified bibliotheke to create bibliotheque and the Spanish changed it into biblioteca.
You don't have to write a book, but do drop us a line. Our e-mail address is wftw@aol.com. Our street address is Word for the Wise, 318 Central Avenue, Albany, New York 12206.
Shawn Dudley is our audio engineer. Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and CD's including Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition.
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