27
votes
Accepted
Help translating the old German word hewrigenn
Hewrig/heurig (akk: heurigen) means "of the current year" or also "new", "young" (also here). This is still in use in Austria, for example for new wine or new potatoes. ...
- 14.9k
26
votes
Accepted
Need help to read Fraktur from a 18th century book
The sentence is:
Diese beyden letzten Dinge wollen wir indeß bey Seite setzen, um den Fall nicht zu sehr zu verwickeln. Aendert...
Some of the words had a different spelling in that time.
What you ...
- 7,187
25
votes
Accepted
What is the origin of the two past tenses in German?
I interpret the question as: How did the functional difference between a "narrative" and a "conversational" past come about? I assume the development of the forms is not relevant (i.e. the fact that ...
- 21.3k
20
votes
Warum “Flugzeug“, nicht “Fliegzeug“?
... wäre Fliegzeug dann nicht logischer?
Definitiv nein:
Ich bin gerade einige Verben durchgegangen, bei denen sich das Substantiv, das die Tätigkeit beschreibt, und das Verb im Vokal unterscheiden:
...
- 6,028
20
votes
Accepted
Origin of the word "Abenteuer"?
das Abenteuer
In 12th century the Old French word
aventure
was imported into the German language. In Middle High German it soon became
aventiure
and soon (still in Middle High German) v turned ...
- 110k
19
votes
Accepted
What or where is "Foriaul"?
The text is not in modern German, sure. But at first glance this short excerpt looks like it might be an older form of German like Middle High German, Early New High German, low German, or perhaps ...
- 7,237
17
votes
Is or was the word "gebenedeit" used in everday language?
From a native speaker's perspective:
No, gebenedeit (as well as the infinitive benedeien) is not a word used outside a religious context.
Interestingly though, the opposite vermaledeit is a ...
- 23.6k
16
votes
Accepted
What could the old German (or maybe Bayrish?) word gestu:ep mean?
According to the DWDS I tend to powdered spice ("gepülvertes gewürz") in the context with the mentioned cookbook. The spelling deviates somewhat with the search term with gestüpp. ...
- 2,512
15
votes
What is the origin of the rules about the capitalization of the first letter of each noun?
You are correct in observing that German is probably the only language to still capitalise common nouns. (Note the emphasis)
First of all, this is because capitalisation can only happen in scripts ...
- 38k
15
votes
Accepted
Evolution of the digraph “ae” in the German language during the centuries
All images are hyperlinks to their sources.
As with all historical typographic and linguistic developments, it’s much more easy to say what happened than why it happened. The following is a brief ...
- 21.5k
15
votes
Accepted
Does capitalization work differently in German than it does in English?
Yes, the rules of capitalization are different.
In English, only the beginning of sentences as well as proper names (of people, of organisations, of "special things" such as specific celebrations, e....
- 7,907
15
votes
Schrieb man früher "Beet" statt "Bett"?
Der Duden sagt Folgendes:
mittelhochdeutsch bet(te), althochdeutsch betti, auch: Beet; ursprüngliche Bezeichnung für das mit Stroh und Fellen gepolsterte Lager entlang den Wänden des germanischen ...
- 624
15
votes
Accepted
Why do translations of German books read so differently from other books?
The answer to your question is actually simple:
The books you are currently reading are books from late 19th (or early 20th) century; moreover they seem to tend to be written by statesmen (politicians ...
- 30.6k
13
votes
Mache dich, mein Herze, rein
Die Kommentare sagen es schon: Es ist eine direkte Anrede an "mein Herz", das rein werden soll, um Jesus ganz aufnehmen zu können.
- 57k
13
votes
Accepted
Is or was the word "gebenedeit" used in everday language?
»Gebenedeit« is the Partizip Perfekt of »benedeien«, and »benedeien« is a loanword from Latin. The latin origin is »benedicere«. It means »to bless« (»segnen« in German) or »to praise« (»preisen« or »...
- 110k
13
votes
Accepted
Etymology of "Mohn"
A quote from DUDEN Das Herkunftswörterbuch Etymologie der deutschen Sprache, 3. Auflage, 2001. ISBN 3-411-04073-4:
On Page 536:
Mohn: Der Name der alten Kulturpflanze (mhd. mān, māhen, ahd. māho,...
- 110k
12
votes
Mache dich, mein Herze, rein
Das ist in der Poesie ein klassisches Muster auch außerhalb des biblischen Kontexts; ich hoffe ein anderer Antworter hat den Fachbegriff dafür parat, einen fiktiven Stellvertreter zu benennen und den ...
- 24.3k
12
votes
Accepted
Why is "das Weib" grammatically neuter?
Since the etymology of Weib is unknown (1,2), there is also no way to explain its gender.
- 18.5k
11
votes
Why was Fraktur abolished in Germany?
Es gibt mehrere Theorien über den möglichen Grund des Verbots:
Deutschland wollte zu einer Weltmacht aufsteigen, und seinen Einfluß (kulturell, politisch) in der Welt sichern. Mit Schrifttum, das im ...
- 57k
11
votes
Accepted
Proto-Indo-European language or "Indogermanische Ursprache"?
We have these pairs:
English term - German term
Proto-Indo-European language = Indogermanische Ursprache
Indo-European languages = Indogermanische Sprachen
Proto-Germanic language = Urgermanische ...
- 110k
10
votes
Why doesn’t German have a present continuous tense?
It does not make much sense to ask why a certain language has this or that feature.
Why does english have just only one noun class (i.e. gender)? (with the exception of pronouns for persons; he, she, ...
- 110k
10
votes
Accepted
Casus in »Er satzte sich bei die Knechte.«
Der gleiche Text in Matthäus 26 lautet in einer Bibel von 1912
Petrus aber folgte ihm nach von ferne bis in den Palast des Hohenpriesters und ging hinein und setzte sich zu den Knechten, auf daß er ...
- 57k
10
votes
Accepted
What difference is there between “Geschlechtes” and “Geschlechts”?
There are a lot of German nouns whose genitive have two different forms, typically one ending on -es and one on -s. This has historic and etymologic reasons.
The older form of the genitive which was ...
- 38k
10
votes
Accepted
Was bedeutet Thée auf Deutsch?
Not until recently (in language history terms) the German spelling of tea indeed was
Thee
It is listed in old dictionaries, and was use by Goethe and Schiller too. The accent was unusual even then ...
- 69.7k
9
votes
Does German language have "possessive apostrophe"?
Your question has already been answered very well. But to add some more information about the meaning of German apostrophe: In German, an apostrophe is always the hint that one letter is missing (in ...
- 351
9
votes
Are German words starting with the letter 'p' really of foreign origin?
The claim comes from the fact that Proto-Indo-European has a glaring lack of sounds said to be a voice bilabial stop */b/ (this would also include that sound in initial position in a word). The reflex ...
- 91
9
votes
Accepted
German in Bach's Cantatas
Bach used a German spoken at his time (1685-1750) which is considered as Neuhochdeutsch but it is not spoken any more today. Nevertheless it is still understood.
In addition to this a lot of changes ...
- 69.7k
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