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Kind

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Pronunciation

Forms

Kind n (genitive Kindes or Kinds, plural Kinder, diminutive Kindchen n or Kindlein n or Kindelein n or Kinderl n)[1] The plural was originally the same as the singular, as it still is in some dialects;[2] Goethe wrote drei arme Kind “three poor children”.[2] The Middle High German form kint was still usual in writing around and after 1500.[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German kint, inherited from Old High German kind, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *kind, inherited from Proto-Germanic *kinþą (“child”).[4][5][1] Kluge and Pfeifer take Old Saxon kind and Old Frisian kind to be early borrowings from High German.[4][5] Gothic, Old Norse and Old English used other words for a child: the Grimms point to Old Norse barn and Old English cild, the ancestor of English child.[3]

It was originally a participle meaning “born, begotten”, from the root Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁- (“to beget, give birth”);[4][5][6][7] Kroonen reconstructs it as Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁-to-.[4][5][6][7] The same root is in Sanskrit जात (jātá, “born”), Latin nātus (“born”) (older gnātus), gignō (“to beget”), genus (“descent, kind”) and Ancient Greek γίγνομαι (gígnomai, “I am born, become”).[5][4] Formed from it with other suffixes are Old Norse kind (“race, kin”) and Old English cynd (“nature, kind”), the source of English kind, and König belongs to the same family.[5][6]

Kluge notes that the stressed full grade of the root is unexpected; the form one would expect may survive in the rare poetic kundr (“son, kinsman”).[4] Pfeifer rejects the old idea that the roots for begetting, for knowing and for Knie “knee” were once one, an idea built on kneeling birth and on the father acknowledging a child by setting it on his knee.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German kind is recorded from the 8th century, in the Hildebrandslied, Isidor, the Benedictine Rule, Tatian, Otfrid, Notker and the glosses.[8][9] It meant a child, a male child or son, a descendant, but also a young man, a boy, a pupil and the young of an animal.[8][10]

Semantic evolution

Middle High German kint could also mean a youth or a girl, a young noble, a page or a servant.[11] In Early New High German legal texts it meant an heir or descendant whatever the age, and in religious use a follower of a faith.[12] Paul notes that the word is still used as an affectionate name for grown girls, and in the plural as a familiar form of address; images such as Kind Gottes and Kind des Lichts come from the Bible.[2]

The adjective kindisch at first only referred to age; its negative sense “childish, silly” developed slowly, and Lessing and the young Goethe still used it neutrally.[2] Kinderstube first meant a school (15th century), then the children's room, and since the end of the 19th century good manners.[5][6] Friedrich Fröbel coined Kindergarten in 1840 for his school for small children.[5][2] Wunderkind was taken into English as wonder child (1896) and into Hebrew.[13]

Timeline

  • 8th century – Old High German kind is first recorded.[8][10]
  • 15th century – Kinderstube is first recorded, in the sense “school”.[5]
  • 1616 – Henisch records das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten.[2]
  • 1691 – Stieler records von Kindesbeinen an “from childhood”.[2]
  • 1840 – Fröbel names his institution Kindergarten.[5]
  • 1871 – Kinderhort is formed after Kindergarten.[5]
  • 1896 – English wonder child after German Wunderkind.[13]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A baby or small child, also one not yet born: Sie erwartet im Herbst ein Kind.[14]
  2. A child, a person who has not yet reached puberty.[14][15]
  3. A son or daughter, someone's offspring, whatever the age; in compounds also the young of an animal.[1][15]
  4. (familiar) A form of address, mostly in the plural: Kinder, jetzt wird gegessen![15][2]

Word family

  • Kindheit
  • kindisch
  • kindlich
  • Kinderei
  • Kindbett
  • Kindergarten
  • Kinderhort
  • Kinderstube
  • Kindeskind
  • Kindskopf
  • Christkind
  • Einzelkind
  • Stiefkind
  • Wunderkind

Usage notes

Das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten “to throw out the baby with the bathwater”, to reject the good together with the bad, is recorded by Henisch in 1616.[2][14] In compounds the forms Kind-, Kinds- or Kindes- and Kinder- are used;[2] Paul notes that northern German often prefers Kinder- where southern German has Kinds-, as in Kindermädchen beside Kindsmagd.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  3. ^ a b Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 11, 707
  4. ^ a b c d e f Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 491
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
  6. ^ a b c d Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 433
  7. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  8. ^ a b c Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 5, 515
  9. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 175
  10. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  11. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  12. ^ Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
  13. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
  14. ^ a b c Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  15. ^ a b c Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org