Etymologically
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Zukunft

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈtsuːˌkʊnft/, /ˈtsuːˌkʊmft/[1]

Forms

Zukunft f (genitive Zukunft, plural Zukünfte)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German zuokunft, inherited from Old High German zuokumft (“approach, arrival”), an abstract noun formed from kommen with zu, so that in the old language it normally meant “coming towards”.[2][3][4] The same formation is Middle Low German tôkumpst and Middle Dutch toecomste.[2][5] Old English used instead tōcyme.[5]

The second part, kumft, is the abstract noun of Old High German queman (“to come”), Proto-Germanic *kwemaną, made with a /ti/ suffix; in High German an /f/ was inserted between the old /m/ and the suffix, and the /m/ later became /n/.[6][3] Without this insertion the suffix is seen in Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌵𐌿𐌼𐌸𐍃 (gaqumþs, “assembly”).[6][3] The verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *gʷem- (“to go, come”), as in Latin veniō (“I come”) and Ancient Greek βαίνω (baínō, “I go”).[7][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German zuokumft is recorded once, in the glosses, meaning “approach, arrival”.[8][9] Kluge dates it to the 9th century, while Pfeifer and the previous edition of Kluge give the 10th.[2][3][10] In Middle High German zuokumft meant “coming, arrival”, also “attack, pursuit”, and only rarely “the future”.[3][11]

Semantic evolution

The spatial sense “approach, arrival” prevailed in Middle High German and lasted into the 16th and early 17th centuries.[5][11] It survived longer in the Church's phrase for the coming of Christ, Latin adventus, used up to Herder, and Adelung, around 1800, still knew it only there.[11][12] Goethe once used Zukunft for “arrival” in a passage where his first printing had Ankunft.[5] As the noun took on the temporal sense, Ankunft took its place for “arrival”.[5]

The modern sense appeared first in the adjective zukünftig in Middle High German, and in the noun only now and then in late Middle High German.[2] It was still rare in Early New High German (Luther does not have it) and became dominant only in the second half of the 18th century, as in Schiller's lines on the threefold step of time, where the future comes hesitantly (Zögernd kommt die Zukunft hergezogen).[11] As a grammatical term for the future tense it is recorded from Karl Philipp Moritz in 1782.[11][3]

Zukunftsmusik goes back to Richard Wagner's Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft (1850); it was used mockingly by his critics from the 1850s and soon came to mean something hoped for but scarcely realisable.[11]

Timeline

  • 9th century – Old High German zuokumft “arrival” appears in a gloss.[2][8]
  • 1309 – zukünftig is recorded in the temporal sense.[11]
  • Early 17th century – The spatial sense “arrival” goes out of general use.[5]
  • Second half of the 18th century – The temporal sense “future” becomes dominant.[11]
  • 1782 – Karl Philipp Moritz uses Zukunft for the future tense.[11]
  • 1850 – Wagner publishes Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft;[11] Zukunftsmusik follows in the 1850s.[11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The future, the time still to come and what it will bring.[4][1]
  2. A person's future life and prospects: Sie planen ihre gemeinsame Zukunft.[4]
  3. (grammar) The future tense.[1][13]

Word family

  • zukünftig
  • Zukunftsmusik
  • zukunftsträchtig

Usage notes

In Zukunft means “from now on”;[4] Zukunft haben is to have good prospects, and einer Sache gehört die Zukunft means that it will become important.[4] The plural Zukünfte is rare, used of alternative possible futures.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 1017
  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 c d e f Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  5. ^ a b c d e f Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 32, 476
  6. ^ a b Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 549
  7. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 516
  8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  9. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 411
  10. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2002), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 24th ed., Berlin / New York: De Gruyter
  11. ^ 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
  12. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
  13. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org