Etymologically
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Lied

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Pronunciation

Forms

Lied n (genitive Liedes or Lieds, plural Lieder, diminutive Liedchen n or Liedlein n)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German liet, inherited from Old High German liod, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *leuþ (“song”), inherited from Proto-Germanic *leuþą (“song, lay”).[2][3][1] Kluge reconstructs a neuter whose singular meant a stanza and whose plural meant a whole song.[2] The same word is Old Saxon -lioth, found in compounds, Old Norse ljóð (“stanza, song”) and Old English lēoþ (“song”), continued in Dutch lied.[2][3][4] The verb Gothic 𐌻𐌹𐌿𐌸𐍉𐌽 (liuþōn, “to sing praise”), with 𐌻𐌹𐌿𐌸𐌰𐍂𐌴𐌹𐍃 (liuþareis, “singer”) and 𐌰𐍅𐌹𐌻𐌹𐌿𐌸 (awiliuþ, “thanksgiving”), shows that the noun also existed in that language, though it is not itself recorded there.[2][3]

Its origin is unclear.[2][3][5] The first sense seems to have been a song of praise, as the derived verbs Old High German liudōn (“to sing, recite”) and Old Norse ljóða (“to compose, sing”) suggest.[3][6] On that basis Kluge, Pfeifer and Duden consider a link with Latin laus (“praise”), which would make both words extensions of a sound root Proto-Indo-European *lē̌u-.[2][3][5][7] Pfeifer also considers a dental formation from *leubʰ- (“to like, desire, praise”), the root of lieb and loben, and Kluge too allows that the word may share a root with Lob.[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German liod is first recorded in glosses from 765, among them the Abrogans, and then in Otfrid, the Ludwigslied, Notker and the Physiologus.[7][8][9] It meant a song, especially a song of praise or a hymn, and glossed Latin carmen, canticum, cantilena and hymnus.[8][4]

Semantic evolution

The Grimms thought the oldest idea behind the word was the playing of the harp: Gothic liuþareis renders Greek ᾄδων “singer”, and an Old High German gloss explains Latin bardus with leodslaho, literally “song-striker”.[10] In Middle High German liet still meant a single stanza, so that a poem of several stanzas was diu liet, in the plural.[11][6][10] The word was also used for epic poetry recited in a chant, as the title Nibelungenlied still shows.[6][12] Early New High German applied it to everything from mocking songs and street ballads to love songs, hymns and, in the 17th century, the ode.[13]

Several phrases are old: wes Brot ich ess, des Lied ich sing (“whose bread I eat, his song I sing”) goes back to Middle High German, von etwas ein Lied singen können (“to be able to sing a song about something”, to know it from bitter experience) is recorded in 1529, and das Ende vom Lied (“the end of the song”, the outcome) is used by Lessing.[6][8] English took the word in 1852 as lied for a German art song.[14][1] The compound Volkslied is recorded in English from 1858.[15]

Timeline

  • 765 – Old High German liod appears in glosses.[7]
  • Middle High German – liet names a single stanza, and the plural diu liet a song.[11][6]
  • 1529 – First record of von etwas ein Lied singen können.[6]
  • 1852 – English borrows lied for a German art song.[14]
  • 1858 – Volkslied is recorded in English.[15]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A song: a poem, usually of several stanzas of the same form, sung to a melody, and also the melody itself: Die Kinder sangen ein Lied über den Winter.[12][1]
  2. An epic poem, as in the Nibelungenlied.[12][16]
  3. das Hohe Lied: the Song of Songs, a book of the Old Testament.[12]

Word family

  • Volkslied
  • Kunstlied
  • Heldenlied
  • Kinderlied
  • Liebeslied
  • Lob
  • loben
  • English lied

Usage notes

Von etwas ein Lied singen können is to be able to tell of something unpleasant from one's own experience, and es ist immer das alte Lied (colloquial) means that nothing ever changes.[12][6] Older German also wrote lied for Lid “lid, eyelid”, which Kluge derives from Germanic *hlida- “cover”, and for the word for a limb that survives as Glied.[17][18]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 577
  3. ^ 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
  4. ^ a b 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, p. 5, 1036
  5. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  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, 1336
  9. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 203
  10. ^ a b Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 12, 982
  11. ^ a b Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities
  12. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  13. ^ Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
  14. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  15. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
  16. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org
  17. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 576
  18. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 12, 981