Etymologically
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beide

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈbaɪ̯də/[1]

Forms

beide[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German beide, inherited from Old High German beide, from a group of Proto-Germanic *bai (“both”) and the demonstrative pronoun that became the definite article.[2][3][4] Old High German bēde arose from a group meaning “both the”, and the neuter beidiu likewise; the forms later mixed.[3][4] The simple word survives in Gothic 𐌱𐌰𐌹 (bai), in Old English bā and in the genitive Old Norse beggja.[2][5][6] Gothic already shows the word followed by the pronoun, as in “both (the) ships” (Luke 5:7), and has an extended form 𐌱𐌰𐌾𐍉𐌸𐍃 (bajōþs).[2][6][7]

The same compound form is Old Norse báðir, Old Saxon bēthia, Old Frisian bēthe and Dutch beide; English both was borrowed from Old Norse.[2][3] The /ē/ of Old High German “bēde” comes from the numeral zwēne (“two”), and dialect forms such as Bavarian bēd and bōd go back to the same model.[2][6]

Outside Germanic the word rests on a stem Proto-Indo-European *bʰ- with partly dual endings, but the syllables before it differ in ways that cannot be reconciled: Ancient Greek ἄμφω (ámphō) and Latin ambō point to *ambʰō, Lithuanian abù and Old Church Slavonic оба (oba) to another vowel, and Sanskrit उभ (ubhá) is hard to explain.[2][3][1] Kluge suggests that the word was at first enclitic and that its first syllable adapted to the ending of the word before it.[2][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German beide, bēde is recorded in the 8th century, in glosses from 765 on, then in the Hildebrandslied, the Tatian, Otfrid and Notker.[2][9][10] Besides “both” it already served in beide … joh and beide … endi “both … and”.[10] Otfrid has only the form with -ē-, the Tatian only -ei-.[6]

Semantic evolution

Like alle, the word was at first a predicative attribute, as in die Brüder sind beide Bäcker, and only later took the article before it (die beiden Gegner), so that it came to be used like an ordinary adjective;[11] Lessing still wrote beide diese Wesen.[11] Middle High German still told the genders apart (bēde, bēde, bēdiu), and New High German ended with one form beide for all of them.[7]

A neuter singular is found as early as Old Saxon, is rare in Middle High German (beideʒ) and became common only in Early New High German as beides, “both things”.[3][4] In the 16th and 17th centuries singulars such as beides Ufer and beide Hand were also used, and beiderseits remains from that use.[11] The variant beede lasted in writing into the 18th century and in the dialects to the present day.[8]

Timeline

  • 765 – Old High German beide in glosses.[9]
  • c. 830 – The Tatian uses forms with -ei-, while Otfrid has only forms with -ē-.[6]
  • Middle High German – ze beider sīt “on both sides”, later shortened to beiderseits.[3]
  • 16th century – The neuter singular beides becomes common.[3]
  • First half of the 17th century – beiderseitig “mutual” is formed.[3]
  • Second half of the 17th century – The shortened beidseitig appears.[3]
  • 18th century – The written variant beede goes out of use.[8]

Meanings

Determiner and pronoun

  1. The two together, both, stressing what two known persons or things have in common: Die beiden Schwestern wohnen in Köln.[12][1]
  2. Both, the one as well as the other: Sie hielt das Glas mit beiden Händen fest.[12][1]
  3. beides (neuter singular): both things: Er spricht Englisch und Französisch, und beides fließend.[12][11]

Word family

  • beides
  • beiderlei
  • beiderseits
  • beiderseitig
  • beidseitig

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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. 104
  3. ^ 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
  4. ^ a b c Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 137
  5. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  6. ^ a b c d e Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 1, 513
  7. ^ a b Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 1361
  8. ^ a b c Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm, Neubearbeitung (1965–2018), ed. Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, 9 vols. (A–F), Leipzig / Stuttgart: Hirzel, p. 4, 739
  9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  10. ^ a b Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 45
  11. ^ 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
  12. ^ a b c Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag