Leute

Forms

Leute pl (plural only, diminutive Leutchen n or Leutlein n)^[1] The singular liut “people, nation” was lost from the written language by the 15th century, leaving only the plural.^[2][3] Bavarian and Austrian dialects keep das Leut “people, folk”, and southern German das Leut can mean a (female) person.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German liute, inherited from Old High German liuti, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *liudi, inherited from Proto-Germanic *liudīz (“people”), the plural of a noun that survived into Old and Middle High German as Old High German liut (“people, nation”).^[4][5][1] Kluge reconstructs the Germanic noun as Proto-Germanic *leudi-, a full member of the tribal assembly, with the plural meaning “the people”.^[4] The same word is Old Saxon liudi, Old English lēode (“people”), Old Frisian liōde and Old Norse lýðr (“people”), and Latinised forms of it are recorded from the 7th century.^[4][6][7]

Outside Germanic it matches Balto-Slavic words for “people”: Old Church Slavonic людъ (ljudŭ, “people”), Lithuanian liáudis (“common people”), Latvian ļaudis (“people, men”) and Russian люди (ljudi, “people”).^[4][5] Related forms with an r-suffix mean “free”: Ancient Greek ἐλεύθερος (eleútheros, “free”) and Latin līber (“free”).^[4][6] Pfeifer and the Grimms' dictionary connect the root with the verb Old High German liotan (“to grow”), Gothic 𐌻𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌰𐌽 (liudan, “to grow”), from Proto-Indo-European *leudh- (“to grow up”), so that the people were “the offspring, those who have grown up”;^[5][2] Kluge gives this root only as a possibility.^[4] Paul and Kroonen take the original sense to be “free men”, the common people as against the unfree.^[3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German liuti is recorded from the 8th century meaning “people, nation”;^[5][8] Pfeifer dates the sense “population, crowd” to the 9th century and “subjects” to the 10th.^[5][8] The EWA lists a wide range of senses in the glosses, Isidor, Tatian, Otfrid and Notker: a human being, the members of a people, the crowd, the population of a country and the subjects of a ruler.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

Because the word was felt as plural in sense, the plural form took over and the singular disappeared; a vocabulary of about 1485 already glosses leuth as Latin homines.^[3][2] The old political sense of “the people” widened to “human beings” in general, as in Luther, and narrowed to a person's household or family (meine Leute, recorded by Frisch in 1741) and to the people working under someone, workmen or soldiers.^[3] Adelung, around 1800, noted that Leute was used of ordinary people and not of persons one spoke of with respect.^[11]

In compounds -leute serves as the plural of -mann: Kaufleute, Seeleute, Landsleute, Hauptleute.^[3] The singular survives only in leutselig, Middle High German liutsælic “pleasing to people”, which since the 16th century has meant “kindly towards common people” and is now often ironic, “condescendingly friendly”.^[5][3]

Timeline

• 7th century – Latinised leodis is recorded.^[4]
• 8th century – Old High German liuti “people, nation”.^[5][4]
• 10th century – First record of the sense “subjects”.^[5]
• About 1485 – Only the plural leuth is used for “people” in a vocabulary.^[3]
• 16th century – leutselig takes on the sense “kindly towards common people”.^[5]
• 1562 – Leuteschinder “slave-driver” in Mathesius.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. People, persons seen together as a group: auf dem Markt waren viele Leute.^[12][1]
2. People in general, others, the public: was sollen die Leute denken?^[12][13]
3. (colloquial) The people who work under someone, staff, crew or soldiers: der Meister lobt seine Leute.^[12][3]
4. (colloquial) One's family, relatives: meine Leute wohnen auf dem Land.^[3][13]
5. (colloquial) Used to address a group: Leute, jetzt geht's los!^[12][13]

Word family

• leutselig
• Leuteschinder
• Kaufleute
• Landsleute

Related words

• Old High German liut
• English lede

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include unter die Leute kommen “to become known”, etwas unter die Leute bringen “to spread something about”, in aller Leute Munde sein “to be talked about everywhere” and wir sind geschiedene Leute “we are finished with each other”.^[12] Land und Leute pairs the country with its inhabitants.^[3][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 12, 837
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 574
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
7. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 5, 1397
10. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter
11. ^ a b Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
12. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
13. ^ a b c Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org