History of robot (Part 1)

Etymology

The word robot was introduced to the public at large by Czech writer Karel Čapek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), which premiered in 1921.[18] The play begins in a factory that makes ‘artificial people’ – they are called robots, but are closer to the modern idea of androids or even clones, creatures who can be mistaken for humans. They can plainly think for themselves, though they seem happy to serve. At issue is whether the “Robots” are being exploited and, if so, what follows? (see also Robots in literature for details of the play)[19]

However, Karel Čapek himself was not the originator of the word; he wrote a short letter in reference to an article in the Oxford English Dictionary etymology in which he named his brother, painter and writer Josef Čapek, as its actual inventor.[18] In an article in the Czech journal Lidové noviny in 1933, he also explained that he had originally wanted to call the creatures laboři (from Latin labor, work). However, he did not like the word, seeing it as too artificial, and sought advice from his brother Josef, who suggested “roboti”.

The word robot comes from the word robota meaning literally serf labor, and figuratively “drudgery” or “hard work” in Czech, Slovak and Polish. The origin of the word is the Old Church Slavonic rabota “servitude” (“work” in contemporary Bulgarian and Russian), which in turn comes from the Indo-European root *orbh-. Robot is cognate with the German word Arbeiter (worker).

(taken from en.wikipedia.org)

~ by Moses on May 21, 2008.