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I don't mean "üben" as in "exercise".
I mean "üben" as in da drüben. I suppose, for the contraction drüben made from darüben to appear, there should have existed a word üben. If so, what was it's meaning? Moreover, what was its connection with oben or hinten? What I mean:
I searched in Wikipedia, but there the page for darüben does not exists, as is provided here.
The word that describes a movement across (over) a border, towards the speaker is:
And in southern parts of Germany and in Austria there is also a very similar word that doesn't describe the movement, but the result of this movement:
This word is rarely used in northern parts of Germany, but very common in southern parts (Bavaria, Austria). Here are examples for the usage of both words:
For this word herüben also exists an old shorthand version: hüben. The words hüben and herüben both mean: on this side of the border (whatever the border may be).
So, if you have a word that describes the state of being on this side of a border (in Latin: cis), you also need a word for being on the other side of the border (in Latin trans). It would seem logical if this word was hinüben (because the movement across a border away from the speaker is: hinüber), but language is not always logical. In fact the word was: darüben.
So, the old word darüben meant the opposite of herüben, and is also was transformed into a shorthand version, which is drüben.
But from the pair herüben - hüben only the long version survived, and it only survived where it was created: in the southern parts of the german speaking region.
On the other hand, from the pair darüben - drüben the short version survived, and it even spread across all regions where you speak German. The long version darüben became completely extinct.
Btw: The word hüben (short of herüben) found a way to survive, but only in one fixed phrase which is hüben und drüben or hüben wie drüben. It means "on both sides".
As far as I found out, the naked preposition or adverb üben without any prefix never existed. Only herüben and drüben exist. (hüben exists as part of a phrase, and darüben maybe existed, but became completely extinct). But from the meaning of the existing words you can conclude that üben (if it existed) would mean "being on one side of a border".
If drüben is to be analysed parallel to dr+innen, dr+außen, dr+oben as dr+üben, this would make üben a cranberry morpheme. Just like the cran in cranberry, it does not occur independently and cannot be assigned a meaning.
As far as etymology is concerned, Pfeifer says:
drüben Adv. ‘auf der anderen Seite, jenseits’. In zusammengesetzten Ortsadverbien mit vokalisch anlautendem zweitem Glied vorkommendes mhd. nhd. dar- […] wird im Mhd. oft zu der-, dir- abgeschwächt bzw. (in vielen Fällen schon frühmhd.) zu dr- synkopiert; daher nhd. dran, drauf, drüber […] An das seit dem 13. Jh. bezeugte drüber schließt sich im Nhd. (nachweisbar erst Anfang des 18. Jhs.) die Lagebezeichnung drüben an (daneben im 18. Jh. gelegentlich darüben, daüben wohl als hyperkorrekte, nicht sprachübliche Bildungen).
[…]
Einfaches üben Adv. ‘jenseits’ als Entsprechung zu ↗über (s. d.) findet sich nur vereinzelt in obd. Mundarten (z. B. bei Frisch 1741 gebucht) […]
DWB says about üben:
der gebrauch war zu allen zeiten landschaftlich beschränkt. allgemein gebraucht dagegen die compp. z. b. hüben, herüben, drüben
So üben was never in general use; only the compounds drüben, herüben, hüben were. Note that, in present-day German, hüben is mostly used together with drüben, e.g. as hüben und drüben.
Drüben by itself, on the other hand, is in general use, for instance in da, dort drüben or drüben plus a prepositional phrase, such as drüben in den USA.
As Hubert already mentioned, herüben is not common outside of Bavaria and Austria.
