Etymologically
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Anfang

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈʔanfaŋ/[1]

Forms

Anfang m (genitive Anfanges or Anfangs, plural Anfänge)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German anevanc, inherited from Old High German anafang, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *anafangi (“grasp, embrace”).[2][1][3] The noun belongs to the verb anfangen, Old High German anafāhan (9th century), a particle verb formed from ana (“on”) and fāhan (“to catch, seize”), the ancestor of fangen.[4][2][3] The same formation is Middle Low German anevanc, Middle Dutch aenvanc, Old Frisian onefeng, Old English onfang and Old Norse áfang.[3][5] Wiktionary leaves open whether the Old Norse noun is a parallel formation or a loan.[1]

In the other West Germanic languages the particle verb means “to take hold of, tackle”, and this was probably the first sense in German too, but in Old High German the sense “to begin” is already fully developed.[4][2][6] Paul suspects that the verb was originally a legal word, “to lay hands on, seize”.[7] The base verb continues Proto-Germanic *fanhaną (“to catch”), which Kluge explains as a nasalized form of the root Proto-Indo-European *pāḱ- (“to fasten, hold”).[8] The /ng/ of the modern verb comes from its past tense, and spread into the present and the infinitive in the second half of the 16th century, as it did in the simple verb.[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German anafang is first recorded in the 9th century in the Lorsch Confession, which lists unrehtes anafanges “wrongful touching” among the sins confessed.[9][10][11] This sense “touching, grasping” is rare, while Notker uses the word for the beginning of a month or of an event.[5][2]

Semantic evolution

In Middle High German anevanc was also a legal term for laying hands on stolen goods in order to claim them back; later it survived only as a historical term.[9][12] Early New High German also used anfang for the creation of the world, for the origin or cause of something, and for the introit of the Mass.[12] Luther begins the Old Testament with am Anfang and the Gospel of John with im Anfang.[13] Goethe's Faust answers the biblical Im Anfang war das Wort with Im Anfang war die Tat.[7]

The plural Anfänge “first attempts, rudiments” appears in book titles such as Christian Wolff's Anfangs-Gründe Aller Mathematischen Wissenschaften (1710).[7] The adverb anfangs, originally a genitive, and the adjective anfänglich date from the second half of the 15th century.[2] The word was borrowed into Finnish as anfangi and into Swedish as anfang.[1]

Timeline

  • 9th century – anafang appears in the Lorsch Confession, meaning “touching”.[9][10]
  • 1227 – First record of Middle High German anevanc as a legal claim to stolen property.[9]
  • 1478 – Niclas von Wyle uses the adverb anefangs.[7]
  • Second half of the 16th century – The /ng/ of the past tense spreads into the present of anfangen.[2]
  • 1710 – Christian Wolff's Anfangs-Gründe uses the word for the rudiments of a science.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The origin or first coming into being of something: von Anfang an “from the very start”.[14][1]
  2. A start, starting point: einen neuen Anfang machen “to make a fresh start”.[14]
  3. The first part or early stage of something: die Forschung steckt noch in den Anfängen “the research is still in its infancy”.[14]
  4. The first part of a period of time, without article: Anfang Juni “at the beginning of June”.[14]
  5. The beginning of something in space, such as a road or a path.[14][15]

Word family

  • anfangs
  • anfänglich
  • Anbeginn
  • anfangen
  • Anfänger
  • fangen
  • empfangen

Usage notes

The proverb aller Anfang ist schwer “every beginning is hard” is recorded by Adelung.[15][14] The warning Wehret den Anfängen! “resist the beginnings” goes back to Ovid's Principiis obsta in the Remedia amoris.[16] Adelung notes that the plural is rare.[15]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
  3. ^ a b c Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 1, 225
  4. ^ a b Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 44
  5. ^ a b Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch (1952–), founded by Elisabeth Karg-Gasterstädt and Theodor Frings, Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag / De Gruyter; online awb.saw-leipzig.de
  6. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2007), 4th ed., Duden vol. 7, Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  7. ^ a b c d e Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  8. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 276
  9. ^ a b c d Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm, Neubearbeitung (1965–2018), ed. Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, 9 vols. (A–F), Leipzig / Stuttgart: Hirzel, p. 2, 861
  10. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  11. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 34
  12. ^ a b Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
  13. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 324
  14. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  15. ^ a b c Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
  16. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag, p. 119