LL-L "Etymology" 2009.01.15 (06) [E]
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L O W L A N D S - L - 15 January 2009 - Volume 05
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From: Marcus Buck <list at marcusbuck.org>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2009.01.15 (02) [E]
From: Joachim Kreimer-de Fries <Kreimer at jpberlin.de <mailto:
Kreimer at jpberlin.de>>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2009.01.15 (02) [E]
? - to greet = to tax the greatness, degree, power - ?
Goude dag un riikdom düs nigge jaar, Deyplanders,
Good day and richdom in the new year, Lowlanders,
shortly after it's beginning I made a discovery, accidentally, but I'm not
certain.
Please rebut/confute my speculation:
Are "to greet / gröüten / grüßen" and "great / graut / groß"
not only similar but also cognates in theyr original meaning?
Might be that is already self-evident for you or pure phantasy. How I came
to the finding:
In the Book »Plattdeutsche Briefe etc.«[1] of my favorite Westphalian author
F. W. Lyra from 1845, I found, at the and of the first letter:
"Grüüßet Liisken duusent mal van mi." (Say 1000 greetings from me to
Liisken)
Because Lyra was a master of Plaat, I wondered about this foreign, HiGerm
word and ask me if perhaps also "gröüten" could be only a loanword in LS.
That is not the case. I found in the Klöntrup Dictionary (made 20-30 years
before) the words »Grout« [greeting], »gröüten«. But it seems, that it was
not very usual to use it, at least not in alltheday's way of English
"greetings" or HiGerman today. (Perhaps, because the original meaning of
gröüten was still in mind?)
I had a look in Schiller-Lübben Middel Low German Dictionary and found:
grôt, grût (m.), grote (f.): Gruß, wese grot: gegrüßt.
Lübben's Handdictionary of MiLoGerman it looks as if Wf. »gröüten« [to
greet] and »graut, Grätte« [great(ness) etc.] are from the same radical:
be-groten: 1. begrüssen. 2. die Grösse von etwas festsetzen, taxieren,
schätzen.
[1. to greet so. 2. to rate, tax the greatness of sth.]
be-grotinge, Begrüssung.
groten, gruten, sw. v. grüssen, ansprechen, zur Bewillkommnung etc.,
ansprechen, auffordern zum Kampfe; Hunde hetzen.
[to greet, welcome so., speak to so., ask so. to fight] (!)
groten, sw. v. 1. gross machen, erheben. 2. die Grösse bestimmen, ansetzen,
taxieren.
[1. to raise sth., make great. 2. to determine, tax the
greatness/bigness]
Finally, consulting the "Online Etymological Dictionary"
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php>
gave
- for great:
O.E. great "big, coarse, stout," from W.Gmc. *grautaz (cf. O.S. grot,
O.Fris. grat, Du. groot, Ger. groß "great"). Originally "big in size,
coarse," it took over much of the sense of M.E. mickle, and is now largely
superseded by big and large except for non-material things. (...)
- for greet:
O.E. gretan "to come in contact with" (in sense of "attack, accost" as well
as "salute, welcome"), from W.Gmc. *grotja (cf. O.S. grotian, O.Fris. greta,
Du. groeten, O.H.G. gruozen, Ger. grußen "to salute, greet"), perhaps
originally "to resound" (via notion of "cause to speak"), causative of
P.Gmc. *grætanan, root of O.E. grætan (Anglian gretan) "weep, bewail," and
greet still means "cry, weep" in Scot. & northern England dialect. Grætan is
probably also the source of the second element in regret.
=> That is, again many similarities or even sameness (s. O.S. grot=great and
grotian=greet), but nothing is said about an identical radical.
My hypothesis is:
"to greet / gröüten / grüßen" and "great / graut / groß" have the same
radical.
Saxon »grotian ... groten« had originally the sense of »to tax degree,
power«,
then also »acknowledge/appreciate so.'s degree, greatness« and became
finally the notion - verb and noun - for the first interaction when
strangers, later any people came across / encountered / met each other.
This meaning had already long time ago become independent and unconscious of
the original meaning in many Germanic influenced languages like English,
Dutch and German,
finally becoming (at least in HiGerman) the introduction formula itself:
»Grüß dich, grüezi, grüß Gott« and even the complimentary close (!) of
letters etc.:
"Greetings", "Mit freundlichen Grüßen".
joachim
PS.
Distributed Proofreading of F. W. Lyra's Low Saxon Letters etc ...,
the main book of Westphalian language:
[1]Whoever is disposed to know somewhat more on classical Low Saxon and
Westphalian and is willing to contribute to a sooner completion of this
project should join us at:
http://www.pgdp.net/c/project.php?id=projectID49403e70a3d57&detail_level=4
To participate in the project, you have to click the Register link right at
the top (if not already participant in one the pgdp proofreader projects).
That's an interesting thought, but my etymological dictionaries indicate
this: source for "to greet" is Proto-Germanic *grōtjan meaning "to make sb.
cry". This developed to "cry, weep" in North Germanic and Scottish (Danish
for example "at græde"). In English and Continental West Germanic it took a
different way. It seems there was a semantic shift from "to make cry" to
"attack".
And now it seems, the natural thought of a Germanic when meeting another
person was not to exchange friendly words, but to attack the invader ;-) And
when the Germanics in the course of time became more moderate with
foreigners the meaning shifted to "challenge", "inquire" ("why are you
here?"), "ask" ("what's your way?") and finally to today's "greet". So the
underlying meaning was "to take the appropiate action when approaching a
foreigner". What exactly is "appropiate" changed over time. At least this is
what I took from the information in my Chambers and dtv etymological
dictionaries (English and German repectively).
(the dog-fighting meaning in Schüller-Lübben is a remnant of the early
meanings.)
"great" according to my dictionaries is from IE *ghrēud meaning "bruise",
"hackle". That's almost the opposite of "great" and "groot": split things
into pieces. But it seems in Germanic *ghrēud meant "to split things into
coarse pieces". A related word is "Grütt", "grits": "grain split into coarse
pieces" (as opposed to meal, which is grain split into very tiny pieces).
From this meaning of coarse pieces great took on to mean "massy", "thick",
then "wide", "long", "broad" and finally evolved to today's "groot". English
"great" took a further step cause "big" already covered some of the meanings
of what in Low Saxon is "groot".
So I don't think, "great" and "greet" are related. Both etymologies were
very interesting to me, cause they show, that meanings can evolve in very
awkward ways. But the original meaning of "greet" seems to be quite contrary
to "appreciate so.'s greatness" ;-)
Marcus Buck
----------
From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Etymology
Scots:
greet [grit] 'to cry'
great [grɛt] ~ [grɪt] 'great'
Old English:
grǽtan 'to cry'
great 'great'
Old Saxon:
grātan 'to cry'
grōtian 'to greet'
grôt 'great'
Old Frisian:
grēta 'to greet'
grât 'great'
Old German:
grazen 'to cry out'
gruozen 'to greet'
grōz 'great'
*Oxford English Dictionary*:
*greet*2
[Two distinct but synonymous words have here coalesced: (1) OE.
*grǽtan*(only in Anglian form
*grétan*), presumably a redupl. str. vb. with pa. tense **grét*, pa. pple. *
*grǽten* (a wk. pa. pple. occurs once in the pl. *begrétte*), corresp. to
OS. *grátan* (only once in pa. tense *griat*, v.r. *griot*) to weep, MHG. *
grazen* (wk.) to cry out, rage, storm, ON. *gráta*, pa. tense *grét* (Sw. *
gråta*, Da. *græde*), Goth. *grêtan*, pa. tense *gaigrôt*:OTeut. **grǽtan*,
f. OAryan root **ghrēd-*: *ghrōd-* found also in Skr. *hrād* to resound (cf.
GREET<http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/crossref?query_type=word&queryword=greet&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&result_place=3&xrefword=greet&ps=v.&homonym_no=1>
*v.*1); (2) OE. *gréotan* (pa. tense **gréat*, **gruton*, pa. pple. **groten
*) = OS. *griotan*, *greotan*; possibly evolved from a pa. tense of the
redupl. vb. *grātan*; possibly a compound with prefix **ga-* of the
synonymous str. vb. found in OE. as *réotan*. Prof. Sievers suggests that
both vbs. may descend from a common pre-Teut. root **ghrêud-*, the long
diphthong being differentiated into Teut. *ǽ* and *eu*.
The gloss '*mereo* [= *mæreo*], groeto' in the Corpus Glossary is
difficult to explain; most prob. *groeto* is simply miswritten for *gréto*(or
*gréoto*) owing to confusion with
GREET<http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/crossref?query_type=word&queryword=greet&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&result_place=3&xrefword=greet&ps=v.&homonym_no=1>
*v.*1]
*great*
[Com. WGer.: OE. *gréat* = OFris. *grât*, OS. *grôt* (MDu., Du. *groot*),
OHG., MHG. *grôz* (G. *grosz*):OTeut. **grauto-*:pre-Teut. **ghroudo-*.
(Wanting in Gothic and Scandinavian.)
On the assumption that the primary sense is 'coarse' (sense 1 below), some
scholars regard the word as cognate with ON. *graut-r* porridge, OE.
*grút*fine meal,
*grot* particle, *grytta* coarse meal, *gréot* sand, gravel, ON.
*griót*stones. But the connexion is not free from difficulty, as the
cognates of
these words outside Teut. point to a root meaning 'to pound', a sense from
which that of the adj. is not easily derived. It has been suggested (Stokes
in Fick *Idg. Wb.*4 II. 119) that a cognate of the Teut. adj. may exist in
the OIrish *gruad* (?:pre-Celtic **ghroudes-*) cheek (? lit. 'thick or
fleshy part' of the face; cf. sense 2 below, and the contrasted notion in
OE. *þunwang* lit. 'thin cheek', the temples). The prevailing senses in OE.
are 'coarse, thick, stout, big'; but the word also appears as an intensive
synonym of *micel*
MICKLE<http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/crossref?query_type=word&queryword=great&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&search_id=a3tI-fHvFdt-15717&result_place=1&xrefword=mickle>,
which in the later language it superseded. In OHG. *grôz* had the senses of
'big, awkwardly large', and of 'pregnant', but was also used as a synonym of
*mihhil* (though not with reference to length); in OS. *grôt* is recorded
only in the sense of 'great', in which it is less frequent (and possibly
more emphatic) than *mikil*. The development by which *great* has superseded
*mickle* (not only in Eng. but also in Du., Ger., and Fris.) may be
illustrated by reference to the mod. colloquial substitution of *big* for *
great*, and to the supersession of L. *magnus* in Rom. by *grandis* big,
full-grown (see
GRAND<http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/crossref?query_type=word&queryword=great&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&search_id=a3tI-fHvFdt-15717&result_place=1&xrefword=grand&ps=a.>
*a.*).
In this word, as in *break*, the influence of the preceding *r* has caused
ME. (ɛː) to be represented by (eɪ) instead of the usual (iː); cf. *broad*with (
ɔː) instead of (ɛʊ). The pronunciation (griːt) was, however, very common,
and approved by the majority of orthoepists, throughout the 18th c.; it
seems to have been merely an artificial fashion. Many modern dialects have (
grɛt), and others have metathetic forms such as (g(ʌ)rt); a common Sc. form,
esp. in senses 1 and 2, is *gryte* (greit).]
Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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