Etymologically
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denken

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈdɛŋkən/, [ˈdɛŋkən], [ˈdɛŋʔŋ̍][1]

Forms

denken (irregular weak, third-person singular present denkt, past tense dachte, past participle gedacht, past subjunctive dächte, auxiliary haben)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German denken, inherited from Old High German denken, also thenken, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *þankijan, inherited from Proto-Germanic *þankijaną (“to think”).[2][3][1] The same verb is Gothic 𐌸𐌰𐌲𐌺𐌾𐌰𐌽 (þagkjan, “to think, plan”), Old Norse þekkja (“to perceive, know”), Old English þencan, Old Frisian thanka and Old Saxon thenkian, and today Dutch denken and English think.[2][4][5] In the modern English verb the related impersonal verb for “seem” has merged with it.[2][6] The Scandinavian forms such as Swedish tänka and Danish tænke lack the assimilation of /nk/ to /kk/ seen in the Old Norse verb and were borrowed from Low German.[6][7]

Outside Germanic it corresponds exactly to Old Latin tongeō (“to know”).[3][4][2] Pfeifer and Duden trace both to a root Proto-Indo-European *teng- (“to think, feel”), also found as *tong-.[3][8][9] The Germanic verb looks like a causative, standing in ablaut beside the verb continued by dünken and beside Dank and Gedanke.[3][8] Kroonen, noting that the meaning is stative rather than causative, takes it, like the Latin verb, as an inherited present with o-grade of the root, and compares Tocharian B tankw (“love”).[4] Kluge sees the root as unclear at first, and suggests a link with Proto-Indo-European *teng- (“to pull, stretch”) (see Deichsel), which in Slavic also means “to weigh”: the Germanic verb would first have meant “to weigh up”, the Latin one the resulting state, “to know”.[2]

The past tense and the past participle go back to *þanht-, with loss of /n/ and lengthening of the vowel (Old High German dāhta, Middle High German dāhte), and the vowel was later shortened before the consonant cluster.[3][8][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German denken, thenken is recorded from the 8th century, first in glosses of after 765, and then in the Tatian, Otfrid, Notker, Williram, the Benedictine Rule, the Monsee fragments and the Murbach hymns.[2][3][9][10] It meant “to think (of), consider, reflect, imagine”, and also “to intend, be bent on” and “to pay attention”; the thing thought of stood in the genitive.[10][9]

Semantic evolution

The genitive object was gradually replaced by an with the accusative, as in Heine's Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht.[11] Only for remembering the past could the genitive still be used in the 19th century (denkst du noch der Zeiten…?), and that sense passed mostly to gedenken.[11] The content of thought stands in the accusative (etwas Gutes denken), and poets such as Klopstock and Goethe extended the bare accusative to the object as well (du denkst nur dich).[11] Directed at the future, denken with zu and an infinitive came to mean “to intend”.[11][12]

Derivatives record the history of thought and memory: nachdenken dates from the 15th century and nachdenklich from the mid-17th.[3][8] Denkzettel was in Middle Low German law a written summons or memorandum; in the 16th century schoolboys were hung with notes listing their offences, hence today's sense “a lesson, a punishment to remember”.[3][8] Denkmal was coined in the 16th century to render Greek μνημόσυνον (mnēmósunon, “memorial”), and partly Latin monumentum.[8] Denker “philosopher”, from the first half of the 18th century, follows English thinker; an Old High German thenkāri of the 11th century remained isolated.[3][8] The noun das Denken “a body of thought, a way of thinking” was formed in the early 19th century.[13]

Timeline

  • 8th century – Old High German thenken, denken.[2][3]
  • 11th century – An isolated Old High German thenkāri “thinker”.[3]
  • 15th century – nachdenken “to reflect”.[3][8]
  • 16th century – Denkzettel and Denkmal appear.[3][8]
  • Mid-17th century – nachdenklich “pensive”.[3]
  • First half of the 18th century – Denker, after English thinker.[3][8]
  • 1808 – Fichte uses das Denken for a whole body of thought.[13]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To think, to use one's reason, reflect: sie denkt immer sehr gründlich.[12][1]
  2. To be of a certain mind or outlook: er denkt sozial.[12]
  3. To assume, believe, suppose: ich denke, der Zug kommt gleich.[12][1]
  4. To have an opinion about something (über): wie denkst du über den Plan?[12]
  5. With an: to think of, not to forget, to remember: denk an die Fahrkarten![1][14]
  6. (reflexive, dative) To imagine: ich kann mir denken, warum er geht.[1][12]
  7. With zu and an infinitive: to intend: wir denken, im Mai umzuziehen.[11][14]

Word family

  • bedenken
  • gedenken
  • verdenken
  • erdenken
  • nachdenken
  • nachdenklich
  • denkbar
  • Denker
  • Denkmal
  • Denkzettel
  • Denke
  • denkste
  • Bedacht
  • bedächtig
  • denkwürdig
  • Gedanke
  • Dank
  • dünken
  • Andacht
  • English think

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include jemandem zu denken geben “to set someone thinking, make someone suspicious” and the colloquial retort denkste! “that's what you think!”.[12] The irregular past dachte and participle gedacht are those of a weak verb with loss of /n/; many Upper German dialects use the regular participle (ge)denkt.[6][7]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g 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. 190
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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 Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  5. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  6. ^ a b c d Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 2, 579
  7. ^ a b 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. 6, 649
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
  9. ^ a b c 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. 70
  11. ^ a b c d e 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 d e f g Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  13. ^ a b 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. 6, 658
  14. ^ a b Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org