Dorf

Forms

Dorf n (genitive Dorfes or Dorfs, plural Dörfer, diminutive Dörfchen n or Dörflein n)^[1] The plural in -er is found from the 13th century and prevails from the 14th and 15th; the older plural dorfe, dative dorfen, still occurs until the 18th century.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German dorf, inherited from Old High German dorf, thorf, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *þorp, inherited from Proto-Germanic *þurpą.^[3][1] The same word is Gothic 𐌸𐌰𐌿𐍂𐍀 (þaurp, “farmland, field”), Old Norse þorp (“farmstead, village”), Old English þorp (“village, estate”), Old Frisian thorp and Old Saxon thorp, continued in Dutch dorp and English thorp, now mostly in place names.^[3][4][5] In Old High German the ⟨f⟩ arose from a further shift of /pf/; in the Rhineland the unshifted /p/ was written until about 1200.^[6]

Outside Germanic it is usually compared with Lithuanian trobà (“house, building”), Latvian trāba (“hut”), Middle Irish treb (“house, homestead”) and Welsh tref (“town, home”).^[3][4][5] Pfeifer, Duden and the revised Grimm dictionary derive these from a root Proto-Indo-European *treb- (“beam construction, dwelling”) and add Latin trabs (“beam”), so that the first sense would be a building, a house.^[4][7][2] Kluge prefers to start from “clearing”, comparing Russian теребить (terebítʹ, “to clear, pluck”), and doubts that the word ever meant “beam”.^[3][4] Kroonen notes that it cannot be separated from Old Norse þyrpast (“to crowd, throng”), so that Germanic would have kept an original sense “to gather”.^[5]

The Germanic word also shows the sense “crowd, herd”, and a Latinised form of it in the Alamannic law may be the source of French troupeau and French troupe, and so of Truppe; both the connection and the French derivation are disputed.^[3][2][1] The Grimms derived it from Latin turba (“crowd”) and Ancient Greek τύρβη (túrbē, “disorder”), which Kroonen rejects.^[8][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German dorf is first recorded in glosses of about 765, then in the Tatian, Otfrid, Notker and Williram, meaning “village, farmstead, estate” and also “quarter of a town”.^[9][10] It named a rural, mainly farming settlement, rarely a single farm and usually a group, as distinct from a burg, a fortified or larger place.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Kluge thinks the sense “group of farmsteads” arose in newly settled lands, where for safety several farms were built together.^[3] Later the word also named the inhabitants; since the 12th century it has usually meant the smallest self-governing community, as opposed to Stadt, Markt and Flecken.^[6] In Swiss German z Dorf gehen means to go visiting, a usage Paul explains from scattered settlements where the village was the meeting place by the church and inn; the revised Grimm dictionary treats this masculine Dorf “gathering, visit” as a word of its own.^[11][2]

Derivatives include dörfisch “boorish” (first half of the 16th century), dörflich (16th century) and Dörfler (18th century); Middle High German dörper “peasant” lies behind Tölpel.^[4][7] Böhmische Dörfer, things one does not understand, is recorded from 1595 and spread during the Thirty Years' War.^[12] Potemkinsche Dörfer, sham façades, goes back to accounts of Potemkin around 1800, and das globale Dorf to the sociologist Marshall McLuhan.^[11][13]

Timeline

• c. 765 – Old High German dorf appears in glosses.^[9]
• 12th century – Dorf comes to mean the smallest self-governing community.^[6]
• 13th century – The plural in -er appears.^[2]
• 16th century – dörfisch and dörflich appear.^[4]
• 1595 – First record of böhmische Dörfer.^[12]
• 18th century – Dörfler “villager” appears.^[4]
• 1802 – The image of Potemkin's sham villages appears after Kotzebue.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A village, a small rural settlement: Sie wuchs in einem kleinen Dorf in der Eifel auf.^[13][1]
2. The inhabitants of a village: Das ganze Dorf kam zum Fest.^[13][14]
3. (figurative, pejorative) A backwater, a town without urban life.^[13][1]

Word family

• dörflich
• Dörfler
• dörfisch
• Kirchdorf

Related words

• Tölpel
• Truppe
• English thorp

Usage notes

Jemandem böhmische Dörfer sein is to be quite unintelligible to someone;^[13] potemkinsche Dörfer are a sham, something that does not exist;^[13] das globale Dorf is the world drawn together by mass communication.^[13] Auf die Dörfer gehen in skat is to lead side suits instead of trumps.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. 6, 1259
3. ^ a b c d e f Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 212
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 2, 725
7. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag
8. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 2, 1276
9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 75
11. ^ a b c Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
12. ^ a b Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
13. ^ a b c d e f g h Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
14. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org