Heritage | Vocabulary

- [David] It's time to explore our roots, wordsmiths, our backgrounds, where we came from. Because the word I'm bringing you in this video is "heritage". Mind you, we're always exploring our roots when it comes to vocabulary. Huh? All right. Her-i-tage, it's a noun. It means a birthright. Traditions or goods granted to you by relatives or cultural ancestors. For example, I have Lithuanian heritage. Here's a map of the Baltic Sea. There's Lithuania. Some of my ancestors came from there. This country in Eastern Europe. That's part of my heritage. Let's talk about the derivation of this word. It comes from French. Many words in English do, because about 900 years ago, the French invaded England and took their language along for the ride. So heritage is itself of French origin. But we can break that down further into "heriter" which is a verb that means to inherit, to receive something from a relative and a-g-e which is a noun forming suffix. It's pronounced aj in French, in English, it's pronounced ij, right? Like an ij you scratch. It can turn verbs into nouns. For example, turning the verb to marry into the noun, marriage. So inherit plus a-g-e equals the thing you inherit, right? Herit-age, heritage. So we've got these two word parts. Can you think of words that sound similar to herit and a-g-e and ij that use those word parts? I'll give you 10 seconds to come up with a few. Doesn't have to be a lot. Okay, commence the music. (soft funky music) Here are some that I came up with. Inheritance, which is the property you inherit when someone dies. "Ance" is another noun forming suffix. Wreckage is a noun. It's what's left after something has been wrecked, right? The remnants of something that's been destroyed. We took the verb to wreck to destroy and added a-g-e to make it a noun, to make it wreckage. An heirloom. Herit and heir, h-e-i-r are related words. And an heirloom is a treasured piece of inheritance that passes down through a family. Let's use the word heritage in a sentence or two. Adewale's family heritage was writing. His mother is a screenwriter and his grandfather was a playwright. It's a family tradition for him, you see, there's Adewale, there's his mom and there's her dad. This is also a typewriter, for those of you too young to know what a typewriter is. It's the machine that goes clicky, clicky, click clicky, ding ding, ding. You make the words. I feel like that's self-explanatory. So that's being used for an individual or a family, right? A family context, Adewale's family. But let's use it in a wider national context. Many foods that we think of as uniquely American originated elsewhere. But we can claim Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme's turducken. A chicken stuffed inside a duck, stuffed inside a Turkey as part of our cultural heritage. Here I have drawn a handy cutaway diagram. You see in here in the middle, that's the chicken. This purple layer here represents the duck. And of course, this outer layer, the mantle of the earth represents the Turkey. And this represents a hungry individual who wishes to eat the turducken. But more to the point, what I'm trying to say is that the turducken represents something that is unique to America. It is part of the United States cultural and culinary heritage. It's part of our food heritage. Now, I have never had the buck wild pleasure of eating a turducken but I hear it is delicious. So support your local mad scientist chef, wordsmiths, and I'll catch you next time. You can learn anything. David, out.