Ausland

Pronunciation

• /ˈaʊ̯slant/^[1]

Forms

Ausland n (genitive Auslandes or Auslands, no plural)^[1]

Etymology

It is a back-formation from Ausländer and ausländisch, introduced in the second half of the 18th century, perhaps as a revival of an older word with a widened sense.^[2][3][1] By its parts it is aus and Land.^[1]

That older word was the late medieval Middle High German ûzlant (“outlying land”), with Middle Low German ûtlant and Middle Dutch ûtelant beside Old English ūtland (“foreign land”) and the plural Old Norse útlǫnd (“foreign lands”); it is recorded until the 15th century and then disappears.^[2] Old Saxon already had the adverbial genitive Old Saxon ūtlendes (“abroad”) in the 10th century.^[2] Otfrid's Old High German ūzlenti (“shore”) is another formation.^[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The older word meant land outside the bounds of a parish or dike: a document of 1300 from Zürich lists vineyards mit allem dem uzlende, es sin wisen oder aker (“with all the outlying land, whether meadows or fields”).^[2] The modern sense “foreign country” first became current with Klopstock in 1768.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Ausländer (1235, “outsider”) and ausländisch (14th century) are much older than the noun they produced.^[5] Luther and the early dictionaries still have no Ausland for “foreign parts”, and Adelung in 1793 noted that it was usual in Upper and Low German but strange in High German, although the language needed it.^[4][6] Its counterpart Inland is younger still: Schubart wrote Des Auslands Schreck, des Inlands Stolz (“terror of foreign lands, pride of the homeland”) in 1786.^[5]

The old local sense lived on: in the North German marshes Ausland was land exempt from the work on the sluices, paying money instead, and Uthland is still the name of the islands and Halligen of North Frisia, latinised as Utlandia from 1187.^[2][4][6] Plural forms of the modern word are found only until the 18th century.^[2]

Timeline

• 10th century – Old Saxon ūtlendes “abroad”.^[2]
• 1187 – Utlandia names the North Frisian islands.^[2]
• 1235 – Ausländer in the sense “outsider”.^[5]
• 1300 – Uzlende “outlying land” in a Zürich document.^[2]
• 1768 – Klopstock uses Ausland in its modern sense.^[5]
• 1786 – Schubart sets Ausland against Inland.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Foreign countries, the territory outside one's own state; abroad: im Ausland arbeiten, ins Ausland ziehen.^[3][1][7]
2. Foreign countries as a whole, their governments or peoples: Kritik aus dem Ausland.^[3][7]

Related words

• Inland
• Ausländer
• ausländisch
• Land
• English outland

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. 3, 1174
3. ^ a b c Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
4. ^ a b c Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 900
5. ^ a b c d e f g Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
6. ^ a b Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
7. ^ a b Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org