Heimat

Forms

Heimat f (genitive Heimat, plural Heimaten)^[1] The neuter gender was in use until the 17th century and survives only in dialects.^[2] Middle High German heimuote was a reinterpretation by association with muot “mind”;^[3][4] Early New High German also had heimet, heimut and, with a nasal, heimant.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German heimuote (also heimōte), inherited from Old High German heimōti, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *haimōdī (“homeland”), a word found only in German.^[2][1][5] It is usually explained as a derivation from German Heim + -ōti with the suffix that also forms Armut, Einöde and Kleinod, giving a meaning of roughly “ancestral seat”.^[2][5][6] Kluge calls the second element unclear, because the parallel Old High German heimōdil and Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌹𐌼𐍉𐌸𐌻𐌹 (haimōþli, “fields, home estate”) look as if they belonged to Proto-Germanic *ōþala- (“inherited property”) (see Adel), but their middle vowel does not fit.^[7]

The base Heim, Old High German heima, Proto-Germanic *haimaz, is also in Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌹𐌼𐍃 (haims, “village”) and Old English hām, from the Indo-European root of Lithuanian kiẽmas (“farmstead, village”).^[7] The modern ending, with its vowel changed as in Monat, is found from the 15th century and prevailed in the 16th.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German heimōti “homeland, native land” is first found in glosses of the late 10th or early 11th century and in Notker.^[8][7] Middle High German heimuote meant home, the place where one lives, and the dwelling house, from the Trudperter Hohelied (before 1150) on.^[9]

Semantic evolution

In Early New High German the word meant the place of residence or the seat of a family, then the land where one was born and grew up, and, in religious texts, the place of rest, usually heaven.^[4] An Augsburg glossary of the 15th century has haymat for Latin patria, Luther used Heimat, and Maaler (1561) has heimat and heimandt.^[3]

In the period of small German states it could mean much the same as Vaterland, and in the 19th and 20th centuries it became an emotionally and ideologically charged word; in wartime it was the opposite of the Front.^[10] After 1945 the refugees and expellees from the east gave currency to phrases such as alte Heimat, verlorene Heimat and to heimatvertrieben, which Duden first listed in 1961.^[10] Around 1896 Heimatkunst became a slogan against the literature of the big city.^[10] The word has been borrowed into Silesian and Slovincian.^[1]

Timeline

• Late 10th or early 11th century – Old High German heimōti in glosses.^[8]
• Before 1150 – Middle High German heimuote in the Trudperter Hohelied.^[9]
• 15th century – The form heimat appears.^[2][3]
• 16th century – Heimat becomes the usual form.^[2]
• 18th century – First record of the adjective heimatlich.^[2]
• c. 1896 – Heimatkunst becomes a literary slogan.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. home, homeland: the country, region or place where one was born or grew up, or where one feels at home: Hamburg ist ihre zweite Heimat geworden.^[6][1]
2. The place of origin of an animal, plant, product or technique: Die Heimat der Kartoffel ist Südamerika.^[6][1][11]

Word family

• heimatlich
• heimatlos
• Heimatland
• Heimatkunde
• heimatvertrieben

Related words

• heim
• Heim
• heimisch
• English home

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 d e Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 10, 864
4. ^ a b c Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
5. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag, p. 376
6. ^ a b c Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
7. ^ a b c Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 405
8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ a b c d Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
11. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org