Why is it Christianity?

[Faithfree]

And not Christism, or Christology?

Why is it Buddhism and not Buddhianity?

Just wondering?

[Animavore]

Because someone who follows Christ is a Christian and not a Christist or a Christologist.

[Rum]

Better they should be called Idiotians.

[Faithfree]

Because someone who follows Christ is a Christian and not a Christist or a Christologist.

Then why isn't someone who follows Buddha a Buddhaian or a Buddhian?

[devogue]

Because someone who follows Christ is a Christian and not a Christist or a Christologist.

Then why isn't someone who follows Buddha a Buddhaian or a Buddhian?

Or a zolabudd?

[Dries van Tonder]

'Cause the gist lies in the "ist"

[JOZeldenrust]

And not Christism, or Christology?

Why is it Buddhism and not Buddhianity?

Just wondering?

Because when the custom of using -ism as a suffix to denote a system of though arose, probably somewhere during the eighteenth century, we already had a commonly used word for people of that particular religion. The more common a word is, the less likely it is to change. In fact in Dutch, if you look at words within the same word class, there's a pretty robust correllation: the chance of change to a word is inversely proportional to the square of the frequency of the word in everyday use. Don't know if that relationship holds for all languages, but it seems pretty likely.

So we didn't create a new word using the new productive suffix, because we already had a commony known word for the same thing. It's called Humboldt's principle.

[Berthold]

It's called Humboldt's principle.

The term is not googleable. I suppose the author is Wilhelm, not Alexander.

[JOZeldenrust]

It's called Humboldt's principle.

The term is not googleable. I suppose the author is Wilhelm, not Alexander.

I'm not sure the term is used this way in English linguistics. I used it as a rough translation from the use in Dutch linguistics.

Humboldt's principle holds that there is an incentive for language users to choose forms of a message (words, or sentence structures, or affixes etc.) so that a single form corresponds 1:1 with a single element in the propositional content of the message. So one word has one meaning, and all messages that refer to that meaning use that word.

That's not the only force acting on language change, otherwise there wouldn't be homonyms or synonyms, but it is an important influence.

If you look at it from an evolutionary/memetic perspective, discrete 1:1 correspondence of language forms and propositional content confers a reproductive advantage to a language form. It's likely that more people will use a certain language form, if it corresponds precisely to a propositional content, because it allows for precise communication of thoughts.

Other forces are for instance productivity: is a language form useful in a wide range of contexts? Almost any verb can receive the suffix -able to denote the possibility of performing the action corresponding to the verb. The suffix is useful in a wide range of contexts. It's productive. That confers a reproductive advantage over language forms that require a more specific context.

Or phonological ergonomics: a language form that is easy to pronounce and easy to hear is more likely to be widely used then one that is hard to pronounce or hear.

These different forces might work in different directions, so making quantitive predictions on anything but a very small scale is next to impossible, but for single word classes (in this case nouns) in a single, small semantic field (in this case "world views" or "systems of thought") I'm confident that it's mainly Humboldt's principle that caused us to use a relatively unproductive language form, the double suffix -ian and -ity, instead of the more productive suffix -ism.

Ergonomics are almost always neutral on the level of words, especially when affixes are concerned: affixes already have a form that is easy to pronounce and hear, because they are already established parts in the lexicon of a language, and as such must conform to the phonological constraints of that language. Sometimes it does play a role in the margin though, in the way affixes are changed to aid articulation. That happens in the case of "christianity" as well.

English has a marginally productive suffix -ty, denoting the propositional content "nominal use of an adjective that denotes a certain state of being". "Poverty" is the state of being poor. "Serenity" is the state of being serene. "Sanity" is the state of being sane, etc. Notice that in the case of "poverty", there's no "i" before the suffix. That's because the sound before the suffix is an "r". The sequence of sounds "rty" is easy to pronounce. The sequence of sounds "nty" is (a bit) harder to pronounce, because the methods of articulation require an awkward set of motions of the vocal tract: air has to flow through the nose to produce the "n", while the "t" requires a sudden start of flow of air through the mouth.

The sequence "mty" would be even harder to pronounce, as where "n" and "t" at least share a common place of articulation (their both coronal consonants), "m" is articulated bilabially. So now we have the tools to formulate an operationalised hypothesis about the influence of phonetical ergonomics on the use of the suffix -ty to denote the propositional content "nominal use of an adjective that denotes a certain state of being": the ergonomic strain of pronouncing the sequence of sounds "nty" is so great that, in the context of the use of the sequence in the suffix -ty, the sounds "n" and "t" will be seperated by insertion of the sound "i", as will happen with any sequence of sounds that causes even more ergonomic strain.

On first glance, this seems to work: "anonymity" indeed gets an "i", as does "stupidity" (the use of a sequence of "voiced obstruent" followed by "voiceless obstruent" is completely impossible in the English language). There is, however, the word "sovereignty", so my initial hypothesis has been falsified. It might well hold only for stressed syllables, or maybe the syllable "eign" is too light for the rule to apply. Any way, the tipping point of -ty versus -ity lies somewhere around the amount of ergonomic strain the sequence "nt" causes.

[JOZeldenrust]

It's called Humboldt's principle.

The term is not googleable. I suppose the author is Wilhelm, not Alexander.

I'm not sure the term is used this way in English linguistics. I used it as a rough translation from the use in Dutch linguistics.

Humboldt's principle holds that there is an incentive for language users to choose forms of a message (words, or sentence structures, or affixes etc.) so that a single form corresponds 1:1 with a single element in the propositional content of the message. So one word has one meaning, and all messages that refer to that meaning use that word.

That's not the only force acting on language change, otherwise there wouldn't be homonyms or synonyms, but it is an important influence.

If you look at it from an evolutionary/memetic perspective, discrete 1:1 correspondence of language forms and propositional content confers a reproductive advantage to a language form. It's likely that more people will use a certain language form, if it corresponds precisely to a propositional content, because it allows for precise communication of thoughts.

Other forces are for instance productivity: is a language form useful in a wide range of contexts? Almost any verb can receive the suffix -able to denote the possibility of performing the action corresponding to the verb. The suffix is useful in a wide range of contexts. It's productive. That confers a reproductive advantage over language forms that require a more specific context.

Or phonological ergonomics: a language form that is easy to pronounce and easy to hear is more likely to be widely used then one that is hard to pronounce or hear.

These different forces might work in different directions, so making quantitive predictions on anything but a very small scale is next to impossible, but for single word classes (in this case nouns) in a single, small semantic field (in this case "world views" or "systems of thought") I'm confident that it's mainly Humboldt's principle that caused us to use a relatively unproductive language form, the double suffix -ian and -ity, instead of the more productive suffix -ism.

Ergonomics are almost always neutral on the level of words, especially when affixes are concerned: affixes already have a form that is easy to pronounce and hear, because they are already established parts in the lexicon of a language, and as such must conform to the phonological constraints of that language. Sometimes it does play a role in the margin though, in the way affixes are changed to aid articulation. That happens in the case of "christianity" as well.

English has a marginally productive suffix -ty, denoting the propositional content "nominal use of an adjective that denotes a certain state of being". "Poverty" is the state of being poor. "Serenity" is the state of being serene. "Sanity" is the state of being sane, etc. Notice that in the case of "poverty", there's no "i" before the suffix. That's because the sound before the suffix is an "r". The sequence of sounds "rty" is easy to pronounce. The sequence of sounds "nty" is (a bit) harder to pronounce, because the methods of articulation require an awkward set of motions of the vocal tract: air has to flow through the nose to produce the "n", while the "t" requires a sudden start of flow of air through the mouth.

The sequence "mty" would be even harder to pronounce, as where "n" and "t" at least share a common place of articulation (their both coronal consonants), "m" is articulated bilabially. So now we have the tools to formulate an operationalised hypothesis about the influence of phonetical ergonomics on the use of the suffix -ty to denote the propositional content "nominal use of an adjective that denotes a certain state of being": the ergonomic strain of pronouncing the sequence of sounds "nty" is so great that, in the context of the use of the sequence in the suffix -ty, the sounds "n" and "t" will be seperated by insertion of the sound "i", as will happen with any sequence of sounds that causes even more ergonomic strain.

On first glance, this seems to work: "anonymity" indeed gets an "i", as does "stupidity" (the use of a sequence of "voiced obstruent" followed by "voiceless obstruent" is completely impossible in the English language). There is, however, the word "sovereignty", so my initial hypothesis has been falsified. It might well hold only for stressed syllables, or maybe the syllable "eign" is too light for the rule to apply. Any way, the tipping point of -ty versus -ity lies somewhere around the amount of ergonomic strain the sequence "nt" causes.

I was wrong on the last part, by the way: It's not an issue with articulating sequences of consonants. Last night I realized that there are words ending in an "r" sound that get -ity as a suffix: words like severity, or sorority, security etc. My current working hypothesis is that it's an issue of syllabic stress. All words that get -ity have the main accent on the syllable preceding -ity.

It might not actually be an issue with the English language: as far as I can see, the suffix is only used with adjectives with a Latin root, and the French translations of the words with suffix (sororité, liberté etc.) have the same instances of "i" insertion, so it's likely an artefact of the French root of many English words.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

All the good four letter words were already taken?

[Feck]

I think the generally used term should be Fuckwits