bislang

Forms

bislang^[1]

Etymology

It is shortened from the older bissolang, a fusion of bis “until”, so and lang “long”.^[2][3][1] Kluge dates it to the 16th century and marks it as a word of northern Germany.^[2][3]

Its first part is Middle High German biz, which probably grew together from Middle High German bī and Middle High German ze, the ancestors of bei and zu.^[2][3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The revised Grimm dictionary gives as its first quotation a verse by Gottfried August Bürger from about 1770–1780, where it means “until now”.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The Grimms' dictionary noted that the word was missing from all dictionaries but was much liked in the speech of business people, above all in Hanover, where it rendered Latin “adhuc”, “up to now”.^[6] Wiktionary describes it as at first chiefly northern German; it spread more widely in the 19th century but is still rare in Austria, Switzerland and South Tyrol.^[1]

The quotations of the revised Grimm dictionary show it in journalism and scholarly prose from the 19th century on, from Friedrich Engels in 1844 to newspapers of the 1980s and 2000s.^[5] The Duden dictionary still labels it regional and explains it by bisher.^[7]

Timeline

• 16th century – bislang is shortened from bissolang.^[2][3]
• c. 1770–1780 – Bürger uses bislang in verse.^[5]
• 1844 – Engels uses it in a newspaper article.^[5]

Meanings

Adverb

1. (chiefly Germany) So far, until now, hitherto; the same as bisher: Bislang hat sich niemand auf die Anzeige gemeldet.^[7][1][8]

Related words

• bis
• bisher
• lang

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 126
3. ^ a b c d Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
4. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 151
5. ^ a b c d 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. 5, 302
6. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 2, 47
7. ^ a b Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
8. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org