[XeTeX] Off topic (interesting) question

[Philip Taylor (Hellenic Institute)]

On 20/08/2022 10:21, Apostolos Syropoulos via XeTeX wrote:
>
> Someone claimed that English people (I say
> more generally English language speakers)
>  learn at school why you write history and
> not istory. Since I do not know I'd this holds, I
> am asking: Is this true? Does someone who
> has graduated from high-school know the
> reason why this happens?

No, the matter was never raised during the period that I was at school 
(1952–1963).  We were told that the subject was called "history" and 
that was that.  The OED 
<https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/87324?rskey=cuajcV&result=1#eid>has this 
to say —

*Etymology: *In Old English < classical Latin /historia/ (in 
post-classical Latin also /istoria/(7th or 8th cent.)) (see below);

subsequently reborrowed < (i) Anglo-Norman and Old French /istorie/, 
/estoire/, /historie/, Anglo-Norman and Old French, Middle French 
/estorie/, Anglo-Norman and Middle French, French /histoire/, Old 
French, Middle French /hystoire/, Middle French /histore/ account of the 
events of a person's life (beginning of the 12th cent.), chronicle, 
account of events as relevant to a group of people or people in general 
(1155), dramatic or pictorial representation of historical events 
(/c/1240), body of knowledge relative to human evolution, science 
(/c/1265), narrative of real or imaginary events, story (/c/1462),
and its etymon (ii) classical Latin /historia/ (in post-classical Latin 
also /istoria/ (7th or 8th cent.)) investigation, inquiry, research, 
account, description, written account of past events, writing of 
history, historical narrative, recorded knowledge of past events, story, 
narrative, in post-classical Latin also narrative illustration (from 
12th cent. in British sources) < ancient Greek /ἱστορία/ inquiry, 
knowledge obtained by inquiry, account of such inquiries, narrative, in 
Hellenistic Greek also story, account < /ἵστορ-/ , /ἵστωρ/ or /ἴστορ-/ , 
/ἴστωρ/ (ancient Greek (Boeotian) /ϝίστωρ/ ) (noun) judge, witness, 
(adjective) knowing, learned ( < an ablaut variant (zero-grade) of the 
stem of /οἶδα/ to know (see wit v.^1 
<https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/229569#eid14146062>) + /-τωρ/ , suffix 
forming agent nouns) + /-ία/ -y suffix^3 
<https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/231080#eid14065428>.
Old French forms in /e-/ arise as alterations of earlier forms in /i-/ , 
which was unusual in this position in Old French; Middle French forms in 
/h-/ show remodelling after classical Latin /historia/ .
Compare Old Occitan /estoria/ , Catalan /història/ (14th cent.), Spanish 
/historia/ (1220–50; also as †/estoria/ ), Portuguese /história/ (14th 
cent.), Italian /storia/ (1690; /a/1374 as †/istoria/ ). Compare story 
n. <https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/190981#eid20448430>
The Latin word was earlier borrowed into Old English as /stær/ (also 
/ster/ , /steor/ ) history, narrative, story (perhaps via Celtic; 
compare Early Irish /stoir/ , Middle Breton /ster/ ); the length of the 
stem vowel of the Old English word is uncertain, and the phonology is 
difficult to explain (see further A. Campbell /Old Eng. Gram./ (1959) 
§§507, 516, 545, 565, and (for a summary of views) A. H. Feulner /Die 
griechischen Lehnwörter im Altenglischen/ (2000) 248–51):

Philip Taylor

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