Subject: LL-L: "Etymology" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 07.JUN.1999 (02)

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From: lone at studentergaarden.dk (Lone Elisabeth Olesen)
Subject: Etymology

Dear Lowlanders...

R. F. Hahn <sassisch at geocities.com> wrote:

>I am wondering about the origin of what appears to be an adverbial morpheme
>*_-dan_.  You seem to find it in the following words, among others:
>
>--
>Afrikaans:
>vandaan 'from' (< van 'from')
>
>Dutch:
>vandaan 'from' (< van 'from')
>
>Low Saxon (Low German):
>sodannig ~ sodennig 'so', 'in such a fashion' (< so 'so') [
>wodannig ~ wodennig 'how', 'in what fashion' (< wo 'how')
>
>Danish:
>sådan 'so', 'in such a fashion' (< så 'so')
>hvordan 'how', 'in what fashion' (< *hvor 'how'; cf. Swedish _hur_ 'how')
>
>Norwegian (Bokmål, Dano-Norwegian):
>sådan 'so', 'in such a fashion' (< så 'so')
>hvordan 'how', 'in what fashion' (< *hvor 'how'; cf. Swedish _hur_ 'how')
>
>Swedish:
>sådan 'so', 'in such a fashion' (< så 'so')
[...]
>I assume that Low Saxon _-dannig_ is derived from older _-dan_.
>
>I had always suspected the Scandinavian forms of having been derived from
>Middle
>Low Saxon (Middle Low German), considering also their absence in Nynorsk ("the
>other, new Norwegian" based mostly on non-Danish-based dialects, as opposed to
>the Danish-based Bokmål language).  This seems to be corroborated by the
>following statements in the excellent Norwegian web dictionary (for both
>languages) _Elektroniske ordbøker_ <http://www.dokpro.uio.no/ordboeker.html>:
>
>"sådan pron -t, -ne (norr svádan , fra lty, der -dan er pf pt av don 'gjøre') i

>faste uttr:
>sånn, slik ikke øl i en s- stund (H. Ibsen) / han kritiserer kommunens
>kulturpolitikk eller snarere mangel på s- / drikk og dans og s-t mer / de er
>musikere, og som s-ne verdsettes de høyt"
>
>"~dan adv (av lty wodan , av wo 'hvordan' og dan , besl med don 'gjøre') 1 på
>hvilken måte, hvorledes, åssen h- gikk det med deg til eksamen? / h- redusere
>skadevirkningene? 2 av hvilken beskaffenhet, hva slags (type) h- er han?"
>
>"lty" refers to "Low German," and the gist of the above statements is that
>_-dan_ appears to be an adverbial enclitic derived from Low Saxon _don_, i.e.,
>_doon_ = _doun_ < /dou-/ 'to do'.  If so, this would probably mean that
>there is
>no relationship between this and Low Franconian _-daan_.
>
>Any comments or insights?

I hope the following information can be of some use.
The Danish ethymological dictionary explains the suffix "-dan" to be a loan
from older Low Saxon.
An older Danish word "dont" means "something to be done/deed", also a loan
from the Low Saxon.

For Danish and Bokmål Norwegian "hvordan" at some point substituted an
older form. In17th century Danish can be observed "huorledis" - today
spelled "hvorledes" and considered oldfashioned. Swedish had "huruledes",
today "hur".
The New Norwegian has "korleis" and the dictionary you suggest at
<http://www.dokpro.uio.no/ordboeker.html> reads:

"korleis [hoss el. hossen el. koss] adv (av II kor og -leis ) spørjande: på
kva måte; *kor (II,1)
k- gjer du det? / vi visste ikkje k- ho var "

The suffix "-ledes" is the old nordic genitive ("-leithis") for the way in
wich something is done (mådens genitiv).
Danish "således" (=in this way, in such a way) is still in use within the
formal written language. In Danish, there seems to be a tendency to
understand the suffixes "-dan" and "-ledes" as being of almost the same
meaning:

sådan - således
hvordan - hvorledes
ligedan - ligeledes (=likewise/ the same)

New Norwegian and modern Bokmål have "sånn". It seems to be a contraction
of "sådan". Also the form "så'n" can be observed within spoken Swedish.

Further use of "sådan":
"Sådan" in Danish replaced the use of "slig" (= such).
New Norwegian, Bokmål Norwegian and Swedish still have "slik" for "sådan".
I am not sure wether "sådan" is not used in a more formal context within
these languages ?
Again, the dictionary at <http://www.dokpro.uio.no/ordboeker.html> has two
elaborated articles for "slik" in the Norwegian languages that state a use
corresponding to the Danish use of "sådan", "sådan som" (=in the same way
as) and "sådan noget" (=such/what a + sb.).

Greetings, Lone Elisabeth Olesen

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