Franke

Forms

Franke m (genitive Franken, plural Franken, feminine Fränkin or Frankin)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German Franke, inherited from Old High German Franko, inherited from Proto-Germanic *frankô.^[1][2] The same name is Old Saxon Franko, Middle Low German Vranke, Middle Dutch Vranke, Old English Francan (“Franks”) and Old Norse Frakkar (“Franks”), and the English word is Frank.^[2] The tribe is named from the 3rd century AD on by classical writers as Latin Franci, singular Francus, and Ancient Greek Φράγγοι (Phrángoi).^[2] The Old High German weak noun cannot itself be the source of the Latin plural, which would then have been latinised with an n-stem.^[2]

The origin of the name is disputed.^[3][4] Kluge takes it from an old Germanic adjective meaning “free”, the source of frank, so that the Franks were “the free ones”, perhaps those who resisted the northern tribes moving in.^[3] Pfeifer also starts from that adjective, but if it is related to frech “bold” the Franks called themselves “the bold ones”; they formed the free upper class of the Frankish kingdom beside the dependent Gallo-Roman population, and that is where the Old French sense “free” arose.^[4] Others connect the name with Old English franca (“javelin”) and Old Norse frakka (“spear”), so that the Franks were the people armed with this spear, as the Saxons have been explained from the Proto-Germanic *sahsą (“knife, short sword”).^[4][1] Wiktionary gives the Germanic word as of unknown origin, and notes that Latin framea (“a kind of javelin”) is often compared.^[1] The Grimms already linked the name with both frei and the adjective for “bold”.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German Franko is recorded from the 8th century in glosses and then in the Ludwigslied, the Würzburg boundary descriptions and Otfrid's Gospel book.^[2][6] In the plural it is the name of the people, in the singular a personal name or a single member of the tribe, and Otfrid also has in Frankōn “in the land of the Franks”.^[2][7] In Middle High German Franke appears from the Annolied (1077–1081) on.^[8]

Semantic evolution

With time the plain name stuck to the Franks who had stayed in Germany on the Rhine and Main, while those who had moved into Gaul came to be called Franzosen; poets still used Franke for the French, as Goethe and Schiller did.^[5] Adelung explains the second main sense: because the Franks under French rule were prominent in the Crusades, all European Christians in the East were called Franken from the time of Godfrey of Bouillon.^[9] He also records the regional form Frank without the final -e.^[9] Today the word chiefly means a person from Franken (Franconia) in northern Bavaria, the region named after the tribe.^[10][1]

Timeline

• 3rd century AD – The tribal name appears in Latin and Greek writers.^[2]
• 8th century – Old High German Franko is recorded in glosses.^[6][2]
• 863–871 – Otfrid writes of the Frankon in his Gospel book.^[6][11]
• 1077–1081 – Middle High German Franke appears in the Annolied.^[8]
• c. 1100 – With the Crusades the name spreads to all European Christians in the East.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. (history) A Frank, a member of the West Germanic people of that name.^[10][1]
2. An inhabitant or native of Franken, the region of Franconia in northern Bavaria: Der neue Trainer ist ein gebürtiger Franke.^[10][1]
3. (history) A Frank in the sense of any Western European Christian, as seen from the medieval Islamic world.^[1][9]

Word family

• Fränkin

Related words

• Franken
• Frankreich
• Franzose
• französisch
• frank

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 3, 520
3. ^ a b Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 314
4. ^ a b c 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 Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 4, 57
6. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
7. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 112
8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ a b c d Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
10. ^ a b c Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
11. ^ 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