The following are two questions I've been wondering about for a long time. I hope that someone here can be kind enough to answer them. Thanks!
1. Given the fact that the English words, morn, morning, morrow, tomorrow and the German word, morgen, are all etymologically related, how can we explain the difference in meaning between these words? Did the common ancestor of these words mean "morning" and later switched its meaning to "tomorrow," or just the opposite?
(Intriguingly enough, the German morgen means "tomorrow" as an adverb and means "morning" as a noun with the first letter capitalized)
2. The English morn, morrow, eve, and the German Morgen, Abend do not end with -ing/-ung. How and why did morning and evening get their -ing suffixes? And what does this suffix mean in terms of semantics?
Morning & Evening
Moderators: Dimitris, maneki neko2, Lorikeet, Enrico Palazzo, superpeach, cecil2, Mr. Kalgukshi2
An intriguing question, but I doubt the 'ing' suffix has a separate semantic content. It looks like 'morn' and 'eve' have become obsolete as they are archaic.
All - 'morn', 'morning' and 'morrow' derive from a common Germanic 'morgen' that survives in this form in modern German and in Flemish/Dutch. To me, it would seem that Old English disposed of the 'g' and cut off the tail of the word - obtaining 'morn'. 'Morrow' seems to be built on this fragment. I guess, the adoption of French behavioral patterns such as greeting people with some hint of the day's time made it necessary to differentiate between a 'morning' as the early part of the same day, and 'morrow' as the next day.
Do you speak German, Kevinlin? Your observations on German words were spot on!
All - 'morn', 'morning' and 'morrow' derive from a common Germanic 'morgen' that survives in this form in modern German and in Flemish/Dutch. To me, it would seem that Old English disposed of the 'g' and cut off the tail of the word - obtaining 'morn'. 'Morrow' seems to be built on this fragment. I guess, the adoption of French behavioral patterns such as greeting people with some hint of the day's time made it necessary to differentiate between a 'morning' as the early part of the same day, and 'morrow' as the next day.
Do you speak German, Kevinlin? Your observations on German words were spot on!
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kevinlin1222
- Posts: 10
- Joined: Thu Jan 08, 2004 11:51 am
No, I can't speak German yet. My German is just "at the budding stage." I'm just interested in etymology and naturally tend to compare German words with their English equivalents while learning German. Some pairs in the two languages mean just about the same, while others have very different meanings. It's the latter that catch my eye and arouse my deeper interest in Germanic.
As far as the word morrow is concerned, I think it has something to do with the following patterns:
German - English
folgen - follow
Tag - day & dawn
Galgen - gallows
eigen - own
In many cases there is a w where there used to be a consonant g, so I guess morrow lost its 'n' and changed (or silenced) its consonant g, in contrast to its "sibling" morn.
As far as the word morrow is concerned, I think it has something to do with the following patterns:
German - English
folgen - follow
Tag - day & dawn
Galgen - gallows
eigen - own
In many cases there is a w where there used to be a consonant g, so I guess morrow lost its 'n' and changed (or silenced) its consonant g, in contrast to its "sibling" morn.