Etymologically
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Bühne

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Pronunciation

Forms

Bühne f (genitive Bühne, plural Bühnen)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German büne (also bün), a word found only in German and Dutch: Middle Low German böne (“wooden gallery, platform, ceiling”) and Dutch beun.[2][3][4] No Old High German form is recorded.[5] Kluge traces its many senses to a starting point “board scaffolding, ceiling”.[2][4]

Its origin is not certain.[3][4][6] Kluge considers it most likely to belong with a pre-Germanic Proto-Indo-European *bʰun-, seen in Avestan būna- (“ground”) and perhaps Old Irish bun (“base, root”), which may be a variant of the word behind Boden.[2][6] Duden, Wahrig and Paul also allow for a connection with that word.[3][4][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Middle High German büne is recorded from about 1220/30, in Moriz von Craun, in the sense “ceiling, roof”.[6][8] Lexer gives the senses “raised floor of boards, stage”, “ceiling of a room” and “lath, board”;[9][5] Konrad von Würzburg uses it often.[9][5]

Semantic evolution

A Bühne was first any scaffold of boards, such as the platform of a quack doctor at a fair, or the scaffold of an execution (Blutbühne).[7][5] In the 18th century, shortened from Schaubühne, it was narrowed to the actor's stage, and soon stood for the art of acting and for the theatre itself (die Hamburger Bühne), and figuratively for any public arena (die politische Bühne).[7][3][2] In the west of the Upper German area it still means, as in Middle High German, the ceiling of a room and the space above it, the attic;[7][10] Adelung also records it in mining for the planks laid across a shaft.[7][10]

Theodor Siebs' Deutsche Bühnenaussprache (1898) made the pronunciation of the stage the model for standard German.[7] The word was borrowed into Dutch as bühne in the first quarter of the 20th century.[11]

Timeline

  • 1220/30 – Middle High German büne “ceiling” in Moriz von Craun.[6][8]
  • 16th century – the word is often spelt bin or bien.[5]
  • 18th century – Bühne, shortened from Schaubühne, is used of the theatre stage.[7][3]
  • 1898 – Theodor Siebs publishes Deutsche Bühnenaussprache.[7]
  • 1901–1925 – Dutch borrows the word as bühne.[11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The stage of a theatre, the raised acting area facing the audience: Nach der Pause kehrte der Sänger auf die Bühne zurück.[12][1]
  2. A theatre as an institution: Sie ist seit Jahren an der Bühne in Kassel.[12][1]
  3. (figurative) An arena of public life: die politische Bühne.[12][1]
  4. (mining) A wooden platform or landing in a shaft.[12]
  5. (metallurgy) A platform from which large furnaces are worked.[12]
  6. (regional) An attic or hayloft.[12][13]
  7. Short for Hebebühne: a lift platform.[12][1]

Word family

  • Schaubühne
  • Hebebühne
  • Freilichtbühne
  • Bühnenbild
  • Bühnenaussprache
  • Bühnenstück
  • Weltbühne

Usage notes

Etwas über die Bühne bringen is to carry something through successfully, and über die Bühne gehen to take place, run its course.[12]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 161
  3. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 175
  4. ^ a b c d Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
  5. ^ a b c d e Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 2, 508
  6. ^ 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. 5, 974
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  9. ^ a b Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 382
  10. ^ a b Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf, p. 1, 1250
  11. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  13. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org