Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-tj2md Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T11:08:29.271Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Words for “Fire” in Germanic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2009

Douglas P. A. Simms
Douglas P. A. Simms*
Affiliation:
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
*
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Edwardsville, IL 62026, USA, [dsimms@siue.edu]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article puts forth a comprehensive set of etymologies for “fire” words in the Germanic languages that descend from Proto-Indo-Euro-pean (PIE) +péh2-. I propose that all relevant cognates are derived from the PIE holokinetic inflection, that is, +ph2-ōr (nominative-accusative) ~ +ph2-un- (oblique), and that all variants in the Germanic languages arose as a result of analogical changes in the Proto-Germanic and later periods. Furthermore, these etymologies cast doubt on reconstructions that require the positing of +ū in Proto-Germanic or Proto-Indo-European. In addition to providing cause to review existing reconstructions, this article also provides a closer philological view of the evidence of cognates in Germanic.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
Journal of Germanic Linguistics , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , September 2009 , pp. 297 - 333
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Germanic Linguistics 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abrams, Christopher. 2007. The errors in The rhyming poem. The Review of English Studies 58.1–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armborst, David. 1979. Old High German (East Franconian) W as hiatus-filling glide: An example of the implications of rule unordering in the synchronic grammar of Old High German. Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik 46.26–32.Google Scholar
Bammesberger, Alfred. 1990. Die Morphologie des urgermanischen Nomens. (Untersuchungen zur vergleichenden Grammatik der germanischen Sprachen 2.) Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag.Google Scholar
Bartholomae, Ch. 1916. Got. Fōn, Gr. Πνϱ, usw. Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 41.272–295.Google Scholar
Beekes, Robert S. P. 1996. The etymology of Germ. Funke ‘Spark’. Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 46:1–8.Google Scholar
Braune, Wilhelm. 1987. Althochdeutsche Grammatik. 14th edn. by Hans Eggers. (Sammlung kurzer Grammatiken germanischer Dialekte A.5.) Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.Google Scholar
Brugmann, Karl. 1913–1914. Zur nominalen Stammbildung der germanischen Sprachen. Indogermanische Forschungen 33.300–313CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brunner, Karl. 1965. Altenglische Grammatik. Nach der angelsächsischen Grammatik von Eduard Sievers. 3rd rev. edn. (Sammlung kurzer Grammatiken germanischer Dialekte A.3.) Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buck, Carl Darling. 1904. A grammar of Oscan and Umbrian: With a collection of inscriptions and a glossary. Boston: Ginn & Company.Google Scholar
Campbell, Alistair. 1959. Old English grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Carlton, Terence R. 1990. Introduction to the phonological history of the Slavic languages. Columbus, OH: Slavica Publishers, Inc.Google Scholar
Craigie, William A. (ed.). 1931. Specimens of Anglo-Saxon poetry. Vol. 3. Edinburgh: I. B. Hutcheson.Google Scholar
Daab, Ursula (ed.). 1959. Die althochdeutsche Benedikterregel des Cod. Sang 916. (Altdeutsche Textbibliothek 50.) Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Vries, Jan. 1961. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Leiden: E. J. Brill.Google Scholar
Edmondston, Thomas. 1866. Etymological glossary of the Shetland and Orkney Dialect. With some derivations of names of places in Shetland. Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black.Google Scholar
Ettmüller, Ludwig (ed.). 1850. Engla and Seaxna Sc”pas and B”ceras. Anglosaxonum poëtae atque scriptores prosaici, quorum partim integra opera, partim loca selecta collegit, correxit. Leipzig: G. Bassii.Google Scholar
Finnur, J—nsson (ed.). 1965. Den Norsk-Islandske Skjaldedigtning. 4 vols. Photographic reproduction of the first 1912–1915 edn. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger.Google Scholar
Fortson, Benjamin. 2004. Indo-European language and culture: An introduction. (Blackwell Textbooks in Linguistics 19.) New York: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Fulk, Robert D. 1992. A history of Old English meter. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Gamkrelidze, Thomas A., & Ivanov, Vjačeslav V.. 1995. Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans: A reconstruction and historical analysis of a proto-language and a proto-culture. 2 vols. trans. by Johanna Nichols. (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 80.) New York: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerasimov, Ivan Alexandrovich. 2002. Vedijskoe svàr “solntse” (k voprosu o laringal'noj metateze). Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta 6.140–50.Google Scholar
Grein, Christian W. M. (ed.). 1858. Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Poesie. Vol. 2. Göttingen: G.H. Wigand.Google Scholar
Iverson, Gregory, & Salmons, Joseph. 2004. The conundrum of Old Norse umlaut: Sound change versus crisis analogy.” Journal of Germanic Linguistics 16.77–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jakobsen, Jakob. 1897. Det Norr⊘ne Sprog på Shetland. Copenhagen: Wilhelm Priors Hofboghandel.Google Scholar
Jakobsen, Jakob. 1928. An etymological dictionary of the Norn language in Shetland. London: David Nutt (A.G. Berry).Google Scholar
Klinck, Anne L. (ed.). 1992. The Old English elegies: A critical edition and genre study. London: McGill-Queen's University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klingenschmitt, Gert. 1994. Die Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse der indogerman-ischen Sprachen. In In Honorem Holger Pedersen: Kolloquium der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft von 25. bis 28. März 1993 in Kopenhagen, ed. by Rasmussen, Jens E., 235–251. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag.Google Scholar
Krapp, George P., & Dobbie, Elliot V. K. (eds.). 1936. The Exeter book. (The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 3.) New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Krause, Wolfgang. 1971. Die Sprache der urnordischen Runeninschriften. (Germanische Bibliothek. Reihe 3: Untersuchungen und Elinzel-darstellungen.) Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag.Google Scholar
Kyes, Robert L. 1967. The evidence for i-umlaut in Old Low Franconian. Language 43.666–673.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kyes, Robert L. 1969. The Old Low Franconian psalms and glosses. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Lehmann, Ruth. 1970. The Old English Riming Poem: Interpretation, text, and translation. Journal of English and Germanic Philology 49.437–49.Google Scholar
Lehmann, Winfrid P. 1986. A Gothic etymological dictionary. Based on the third edition of Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der Gotischen Sprache by Sigmund Feist: With bibliography prepared under the direction of Helen-Jo J. Hewitt. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macrae-Gibson, O. Duncan (ed.). 1983. The Old English Riming Poem. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.Google Scholar
Meiser, Gerhard. 1986. Lautgeschichte der umbrischen Sprache. (Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 51.) Innsbruck: Institut für Sprach-wissenschaft der Universität.Google Scholar
Patrizia, Lendinara. 1990. The survival of Indo-European words in Old Frisian. Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 31–32.285–310.Google Scholar
Pisani, Vittorio. 1927. Alcune parole indoeuropee per «fuoco» e affini. Rendiconti: Atti della Reale Accademia Nationale dei Lincei. Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche 6.411–423.Google Scholar
Pokorny, Julius. 1959. Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 3rd edn. Bern: Franke.Google Scholar
Rasmussen, Jens. 1989. Studien zur Morphophonemik der indogermanischen Grundsprache. (Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 55.) Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität.Google Scholar
RingeDonald, Jr Donald, Jr. 1996. On the chronology of sound changes in Tocharian, volume 1: From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Tocharian. (American Oriental Series 80.) New Haven: American Oriental Society.Google Scholar
RingeDonald, Jr Donald, Jr. 2006. From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic: A linguistic history of English, volume 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rix, Helmut, & Kümmel, Martin. 2001. Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben. 2nd rev. edn. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag.Google Scholar
Schindler, Jochem. 1975. L'apophonie des themes indo-europeens en -r/n. Bulletin de la Societe de Linguistique de Paris 70.1–10.Google Scholar
Schrijver, Peter. 1991. The reflexes of the Indo-European laryngeals in Latin. (Leiden Studies in Indo-European 2.) Atlanta: Rodopi.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmitt, Rüdiger. 1981. Grammatik des Klassisch-Armenischen mit sprachvergleichenden Erläuterungen. (Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 32.) Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck.Google Scholar
Seebold, Elmar. 1989. Friedrich Kluge: Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache. 22nd rev. edn. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Sievers, Eduard. 1886. Zum angelsächsischen Reimlied. Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 11.345–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sievers, Eduard (ed.). 1892. Tatian: Lateinisch und altdeutsch mit ausführlichem Glossar. 2nd rev. edn. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh.Google Scholar
Sihler, Andrew. 2000. Language history: An introduction. (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistics, IV.191.) Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sihler, Andrew. 1995. New comparative grammar of Greek and Latin. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Splett, Jochen. 1976. Abrogans-Studien: Kommentar zum ältesten deutschen Wörterbuch. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag.Google Scholar
Sveinbjörn, Egilsson. 1913–1916. Lexicon Poeticum Antiquae Linguae Septentrionalis: Ordbog over det Norsk-Islandske Skjaldesprog. Rev. by Finnur J—nsson. Copenhagen: S.L. M⊘llers Bogtrykkeri.Google Scholar
Vasmer, Max. 1964–1973. Etimologičeskij slovar’ russkogo jazyka. Trans. by O. N. Trubačeva. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo “Progress.”Google Scholar
Voyles, Joseph B. 1992. Early Germanic Grammar: Pre-, Proto-, and Post-Germanic Languages. San Diego: Academic Press, Inc.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walde, Alois. 1927–1930. Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der Indogermanischen Sprachen, herausgegeben und bearbeitet von Julius Pokorny. Berlin: W. de Gruyter & Co.Google Scholar
Watkins, Calvert. 2000. The American heritage dictionary of Indo-European roots. 2nd edn. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.Google Scholar
Winter, Werner. 1965. Tocharian evidence. Evidence for laryngeals, ed. by Winter, Werner, 190–211. London: Mouton & Co.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Francis A. 1899. The semasiology of words for “smell” and “see.” Publications of the Modern Language Association 14.299–346.Google Scholar