historisch

Forms

historisch (strong nominative masculine singular historischer, comparative historischer, superlative am historischsten)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin historicus (“historical”), borrowed in the early 16th century,^[2][3] from Ancient Greek ἱστορικός (historikós, “historical; a historian”), derived from ἱστορία (historía, “inquiry, knowledge, history”).^[2][4] Pfeifer and Wiktionary describe the German adjective as formed after the Latin word with the suffix -isch.^[4][1]

The Greek noun belongs to ἵστωρ (hístōr, “one who knows, a witness”), which is normally connected with Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“to see, know”).^[5][4] Duden relates it to the verb οἶδα (oîda, “I know”),^[6] while Floyd takes the noun as “judge, arbiter” and connects it with ἵζω (hízō, “to sit”).^[5]

The noun Historie had been borrowed earlier, as Middle High German histōrje in the 13th century, from historia; it was gradually replaced by Geschichte, so that only Historiker and the adjective stayed in common use.^[5][4][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records, from 1527, come from Reformation writings about the Bible, in which words of Scripture are called historisch when they only report events: ettlich sint gantz historisch “some are wholly historical”.^[2] In this theological use, until the later 17th century, it referred to the literal sense of Scripture, as opposed to its allegorical, moral and anagogical senses, and was often used disparagingly in Reformation polemics.^[2] Paul gives 1575, in Fischart, as the first record.^[7]

Semantic evolution

From the early 16th century the adjective also meant “having history or past events as its subject, narrating”.^[2] Paul notes that it first applied to events and then to the reports of them: Goethe's Werther calls a letter ganz historisch, which the Grimms' dictionary explains as containing only report and no reflection.^[7][8] Adelung contrasted historical knowledge, merely knowing that something is so, with scientific knowledge.^[7]

In the 19th century the word deepened in step with Geschichte and geschichtlich: in the preface to his German grammar (1818) Jacob Grimm calls the study of grammar philosophical, critical or historical.^[7] From this use came the historisch-kritische Ausgabe (critical edition, 1867, for Schiller's works) and the historisch-vergleichende Grammatik.^[7] Historismus appears in Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel around 1797 and became more frequent from the middle of the 19th century.^[7]

Timeline

• 13th century – Middle High German histōrje is borrowed from Latin.^[5]
• 1527 – First record of historisch, in theological writings on the literal sense of Scripture.^[2]
• 1575 – Fischart uses the word.^[7]
• 18th century – The noun Historiker is formed.^[4][6]
• 1818 – Jacob Grimm calls one kind of grammatical study historisch.^[7]
• 1867 – A historisch-kritische Ausgabe of Schiller's works begins to appear.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Concerning history or past events; historical.^[9][1]
2. Belonging to history as it really happened or is documented, as opposed to legend or later images: der historische Faust.^[9][3]
3. Important for history; historic, momentous: ein historischer Tag.^[9][1]
4. Belonging to an earlier period; old: eine historische Altstadt.^[9][3]
5. (dated) Factual, reporting the facts only.^[9][8]

Adverb

1. historically.^[1]

Related words

• Historie
• Historiker
• Historismus
• English history

Usage notes

Historischer Materialismus is the doctrine of Marx and Engels that history is determined by economic conditions, and the historisches Präsens is the present tense used to narrate past events.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Schulz, Hans; Basler, Otto, et al. (1913–1988), Deutsches Fremdwörterbuch, 7 vols., Strasbourg / Berlin: Trübner / De Gruyter; 2nd ed., ed. Gerhard Strauß et al. (1995–), Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; via OWID, Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache
3. ^ a b c Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org
4. ^ a b c d e Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
5. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 419
6. ^ a b c Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2007), 4th ed., Duden vol. 7, Mannheim: Dudenverlag
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
8. ^ a b Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 10, 1580
9. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
10. ^ Duden. Das Fremdwörterbuch (2007), 9th ed., Duden vol. 5, Mannheim: Dudenverlag