In an earlier answer to this question I concentrated on ambiguities in the word ‘read’, wherein I inferred (rather than stating directly perhaps) that just because our eyes pass over text, they cannot be really said to ‘read’ that text. I used a passage from a yet to be published book to show that reading is an aspiration towards communion with language users, when ‘reading is most worthwhile. The book is by the brilliant writer and reader, Derek Owusu, of life at its defining margins as its writer/reader tries to make sense of “blocks of text that are unclear like each word is fused into the next”. (See that blog using this link). I did this is because reading is a sense-making activity that etymologically derives the act of giving interpretive direction to another, or making sense of another to themselves (even by virtue of even simple cognitive tools like counting or making generalisations from examples of behaviour or appearance, only later being associated solely with writing and written text. In the following quotation I embolden the text that surprises us about English as a language specialised the term in which other languages did no, although I am fairly certainly that etymology is a racially and culturally tainted disciple that would not account, for instance, for Twi, which Owusu oft refers to.
read (verb): Middle English reden, ireden, “to counsel, advise,” also “to read,” from Old English rædan, gerædan (West Saxon), redan, geredan (Anglian) “to advise, counsel, persuade; discuss, deliberate; rule, guide; arrange, equip; forebode; to read (observe and apprehend the meaning of something written), utter aloud (words, letters, etc.); to explain; to learn through reading; to put in order.”
This is reconstructed to be from Proto-Germanic *redan, source also of Old Norse raða, Old Frisian reda, Dutch raden, Old High German ratan, German raten “to advise, counsel, interpret, guess,” from PIE root *re- “to reason, count.”
Cognate words in most modern Germanic languages still mean “counsel, advise” (compare rede). Old English also had a related noun ræd, red “advice,” and read is connected to riddle (n.1) via the notion of “interpret.” Century Dictionary notes that the past participle should be written red, as it formerly was, and as in lead/led. Middle English past participle variants include eradde, irad, ired, iræd, irudde.
The sense-transference to “interpret and understand the meaning of written symbols” is said to be unique to English and (perhaps under Old English influence) Old Norse raða. Most languages use a word rooted in the idea of “gather up” as their word for “read” (such as French lire, from Latin legere).
Sense of “make out the character of (a person)” is attested from 1610s. Musical sense of “perform (at first sight) from the notes” is by 1792. To read up “systematically study” is from 1842; read out (v.) “expel by proclamation” (Society of Friends) is from 1788. Read-only in computer jargon is recorded from 1961.
But in this offering I think we need more than to query the term ‘read’, but also the word ‘book’ or ‘books’. The etymology of the word ‘book’ could surprise you too, for it links back to the very trees as one of the places, after natural stone, on which the first writing may have been inscribed as runes or even earlier marks and glyphs with surplus associative meaning:
book (noun) : Middle English bok, from Old English boc “book, writing, written document,” generally referred (despite phonetic difficulties) to Proto-Germanic *bōk(ō)-, from *bokiz “beech” (source also of German Buch “book” Buche “beech;” see beech), the notion being of beechwood tablets on which runes were inscribed; but it may be from the tree itself (people still carve initials in them).
Latin and Sanskrit also have words for “writing” that are based on tree names (“birch” and “ash,” respectively). And compare French livre “book,” from Latin librum, originally “the inner bark of trees” (see library).
The sense gradually narrowed by early Middle English to “a written work covering many pages fastened together and bound,” also “a literary composition” in any form, of however many volumes. Later also “bound pages,” whether written on or not. In 19c. it also could mean “a magazine;” in 20c., a telephone directory.
The use of books or written charters was introduced in Anglo-Saxon times by the ecclesiastics, as affording more permanent and satisfactory evidence of a grant or conveyance of land than the symbolical or actual delivery of possession before witnesses, which was the method then in vogue. [Century Dictionary]
From c. 1200 as “a main subdivision of a larger work.” The meaning “libretto of an opera” is from 1768. A betting book “record of bets made” is from 1812. The meaning “sum of criminal charges” is from 1926, hence slang phrase throw the book at (1932). Book of Life “the roll of those chosen for eternal life” is from mid-14c. Book of the month is from 1926. To do something by the book “according to the rules” is from 1590s.
Paper is a product of trees, as we turn the pages of a book, we refer to each page as a ‘leaf’, just as we ‘leave’ through a book. There is a point in reading trees, not just as somewhere – buried in the sense of the word or the product we call ‘paper’ – that contains writing. They bear the scars of human presence and the latter’s need to appropriate nature with alien systems of possession.
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