Etymological dictionary

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An etymological dictionary (about " etymology " from Greek étymos "true", and logos "word") provides information about the history of individual words and also morphemes (parts of words that have a meaning or grammatical function). It represents the etymology of these words or parts of words, as far as known. With etymology it is meant that on the one hand the phonetic development of the linguistic units is represented, on the other hand also the development of their meaning.

More information on etymological dictionaries

In addition to the development of sounds and meanings of words and parts of words, the etymological dictionaries contain a lot more information:

  • As far as possible, information is provided on how long a word or part of a word has been in the relevant language. This information is given after centuries; With older vocabulary, there are also references to the language period from which a unit originates if more precise data cannot be determined.
  • You get a variety of references to the related languages ​​in which a word that is similar in terms of sound and meaning is used and what exact form it has there.
  • In many cases there are also indications of when which derivatives or compounds were used for a particular keyword .
  • In the more recent revisions of etymological dictionaries, more and more attention is also paid to foreign words: In many cases, one learns entire borrowing histories of individual words as well as a dating of when the relevant key word came from which other language into the receiving language. Basic information on the origin of loans can also be found in foreign dictionaries .
  • Some etymological dictionaries (e.g. Kluge 2002) contain references to the individual keywords so that the research situation can be followed up if necessary.

Notes on using etymological dictionaries

Etymological dictionaries cover only a relatively small part of the vocabulary of a language: the number of headings in the German dictionaries mentioned below only reaches a little more than 20,000 (Pfeifer 1995); that is less than 10 percent of the vocabulary of a language such as German or English, if you take our most extensive one-volume dictionaries for comparison, which contain over 200,000 headwords. Basic information on the history of words and parts of words is also available for German in Duden. Take the German Universal Dictionary (2007).

Despite the long tradition of research into etymology , a major problem is that the information given for many key words is uncertain; This is mainly expressed in the fact that different etymological dictionaries contain different information on the same keyword. In particular, older etymological works (from the Middle Ages to the end of the 19th century) are not fully reliable today with regard to their information on the origin of the word.

Statistical surveys

The Quantitative Linguistics tries language change with the Piotrowski law to explain. For this purpose, etymological dictionaries are examined according to the point in time and extent of word originations and transfers from other languages, as well as various etymological dictionaries of German.

literature

Etymological dictionaries of German

  • Duden editorial team: Duden, the dictionary of origin . Etymology of the German language. 5th edition. tape 7 . Bibliographisches Institut (Dudenverlag), Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-411-04075-9 .
  • Ursula Hermann. Knaur's etymological lexicon: 10,000 words in our contemporary language; Origin and history . Droemer Knaur, Munich: 1982, ISBN 3-426-26074-3 .
  • Rolf Hiersche : German etymological dictionary . Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, Heidelberg 1986–1990 (loose-leaf collection: only letters A – D). ISBN 3-533-03837-8 .
Editions of Kluge's Etymological Dictionary , 1883-2011

Dictionaries with etymological information

  • Duden. German universal dictionary. 6th, revised and expanded edition. Dudenverlag, Mannheim / Leipzig / Vienna / Zurich 2007, ISBN 978-3-411-05506-7 .
  • Helmut Genaust: Etymological dictionary of botanical plant names. Basel and Stuttgart 1976; 3rd, completely revised and expanded edition. Nikol Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-86820-149-9 .
  • Albrecht Greule: Deutsches Gewässernamenbuch: Etymology of the names of waters and the associated area, settlement and field names . De Gruyter, Berlin 2014.
  • Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper, Georg Objartel (eds.): Hermann Paul. German dictionary: history of meaning and structure of our vocabulary. 10th, revised and expanded edition. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2002.
  • Stephen Potter, Laurens Sargent: The new naturalist. A survey of British natural history: Pedigree. Essays on the etymology of words from nature. London 1973.
  • Dietmar Urmes: Etymological name dictionary. The dictionary of origin . Marix-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2006.
  • Josef Karlmann Brechenmacher : Etymological dictionary of German family names. (= 2nd, completely revised edition of German family names. Deriving dictionary of German family names. 5 volumes, Görlitz 1936) 2 volumes. Starke, Limburg an der Lahn (1957) 1960–1964; Reprint 1985, ISBN 3-7980-0355-6 .
  • Ernst Wasserzieher : Small etymological dictionary of the German language. Published by Bibliographisches Institut Leipzig, 1975

Other common etymological dictionaries

  • Robert K. Barnhart, Sol Steinmetz (Eds.): Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology . HW Wilson, Bronx (New York) 1988. Reprinted under Chambers Dictionary of Etymology .
  • Robert SP Beekes: Etymological Dictionary of Greek . I-II. Brill, Leiden / Boston 2010.
  • Michiel de Vaan: Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages . Brill, Leiden / Boston 2008.
  • Ernst Fraenkel et al.: Lithuanian etymological dictionary (LitEW). I-II. University Press Carl Winter, Heidelberg; Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1962/1965.
  • Hjalmar Frisk : Greek etymological dictionary (GEW). I-III, Heidelberg 1960-1972; Reprinted there in 1973 (= Indo-European Library , 2nd series).
  • Ernst Gamillscheg : Etymological Dictionary of the French Language (EWfS). 2nd edition. University Press Carl Winter, Heidelberg 1969.
  • Johann Baptist Hofmann : Etymological Dictionary of Greek (EEC). Munich 1950; Supplemented reprint there in 1966.
  • Guus Kroonen: Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic (EDPG). Brill, Leiden / Boston 2013.
  • Albert L. Lloyd, Rosemarie Lühr (Ed.): Etymological Dictionary of Old High German (EWAhd). I-V. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen / Bristol ( CT ) 1988–2014.
  • Manfred Mayrhofer : Etymological Dictionary of Old Indo- Aryan (EWAia). I-III. Carl Winter University Press, Heidelberg 1992/1998/2001.
  • Vladimir Orel: Russian Etymological Dictionary . Edited by Vitaly Shevoroshkin et al. Cindy Drover-Davidson. I-IV. Octavia Press / Theophania Publishing, Calgary (Canada) 2007–2011.
  • Marlies Philippa, Frans Debrabandere, A. Quak, T. Schoonheim, Nicoline van der Sijs (eds.): Etymologische woordenboek van het Nederlands (EWN). University Press Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2003–2009.
  • Julius Pokorny : Indo-European Etymological Dictionary (IEW). I-II. A. Francke, Tübingen / Bern / Munich 1957/1969 (1st edition), 2005 (5th edition).
  • Károly Rédei (Ed.): Ural Etymological Dictionary (UEW). I-III. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest; Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1986–1991.
  • Alain Rey (ed.): Dictionnaire historique de la langue française (DHLF). Le Robert, Paris 1992 (1st edition), 1998 (2nd edition in 3 volumes).
  • Axel Schuessler: ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese . University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 2007.
  • Sergei Starostin, Anna Dybo and Oleg Mudrak: Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages . Brill, Leiden / Boston 2003.
  • Walther von Wartburg , Hans-Erich Keller (Ed.): French etymological dictionary. A representation of the Gallo-Roman vocabulary (FEW). 25 volumes. RG Zbinden, Basel 1922–1967.
  • Alois Walde : Latin etymological dictionary. 3rd edition (revised by Johann Baptist Hofmann ). I-II. Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, Heidelberg 1938–1954 (= Indo-European Library , First Department, II. Row, 1), supplemented by a register volume by Elsbeth Berger, 1956; Reprints there in 1965/72, 1982 and 2007/8.

Web links

Wiktionary: Etymological dictionary  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ In addition: Karl-Heinz Best: Quantitative Linguistics. An approximation. 3rd, heavily revised. u. supplemented edition. Peust & Gutschmidt, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-933043-17-4 , pp. 13-15.
  2. Ludwig August Kraus : Kritisch-Etymologisches medicinisches Lexikon, or explanation of the origin of the Greek, Latin and Oriental. Languages ​​in medicine and in the art [...] expressions initially taken up with it as a collection of examples for every physiology of language. (2nd edition Vienna 1831) 3rd edition Göttingen 1844.
  3. ^ Karl-Heinz Best , Gabriel Altmann : Investigations on the regularity of loan processes in German. In: Folia Linguistica Historica. 7, 1986, pp. 31-42. Contains the trends in borrowing from other languages ​​into German; Database: complete evaluation of Duden. Etymology 1963. - Karl-Heinz Best: Where do the German foreign words come from? In: Göttingen Contributions to Linguistics. 5, 2001, pp. 7-20, Peust & Gutschmidt, Göttingen 2001, ISSN  1435-8573 . Contains overviews, broken down by centuries, of borrowings since the 12th century, database: complete analysis of Duden. Etymology 1963. In addition, the trend of all borrowings together from the 15th century on the basis of German Foreign Dictionary (1913-88, Schulz / Basler, Volume 7: Edited by A. Kirkness, 1988.). - Helle Körner: For the development of the German (loan) vocabulary. In: Glottometrics. 7, 2004, pp. 25–49, RAM, Lüdenscheid 2004, ISSN  1617-8351 (PDF full text ). Complete analysis of the trends in local vocabulary and borrowings in Duden. The dictionary of origin (2001). - Katharina Ternes: Developments in German vocabulary. In: Glottometrics. 21, 2011, pp. 25–53, RAM, Lüdenscheid 2011, ISSN  1617-8351 (PDF full text ). Complete evaluation of trends in local vocabulary and borrowings in Kluge. Etymological dictionary of the German language. 24th edition. 2002. (Best & Altmann 1986; Best 2001; Körner 2004; Ternes 2011)