jener

Forms

jener (demonstrative pronoun; feminine jene, neuter jenes)^[1][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German jener, inherited from Old High German jenēr, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *jain, inherited from Proto-Germanic *jainaz (“that over there”).^[3][1] Related forms are Gothic 𐌾𐌰𐌹𐌽𐍃 (jains), Old English geon, Old Frisian jen and Middle Low German jēne, and the same pronoun survives in English yon and English yonder.^[3][4][5] Forms without the initial /j/ are Old Norse enn and Old High German enēr, the latter used in the Bavarian and Alemannic area.^[3][5]

Kluge starts from a simple pronoun Proto-Indo-European *eno- (“that”), found also in Old Church Slavonic онъ (onŭ, “he”) and Lithuanian añs (“that”), to which a pronominal *yo- was prefixed in Gothic and Old High German, just as other elements were joined to it in Ancient Greek ἐκεῖνος (ekeînos) and Latin ille.^[3] Duden thinks the Germanic forms were reshaped under the influence of the relative stem and of *óynos (“one”).^[6] Pfeifer instead derives the word with an n-suffix from the pronoun stem that forms the relative Ancient Greek ὅς (hós, “who”),^[4] and Orel calls its origin not quite clear.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German jenēr, genēr is recorded from the 9th century, in Otfrid, the Paris conversations and Psalm 138, and enēr from about 1000.^[8][4][9] It pointed, as now, to a person or thing further away.^[4][8]

Semantic evolution

Jener points to what is further away, as dieser does to what is nearer;^[10] Paul notes that it can also refer to something known from a proverb or a familiar example, as in Lessing's wie jener zur Ohrfeige.^[10] In jener Welt and in jenem Leben mean the life after death, a use found in Luther and in Adelung.^[4][11] Spellings with ⟨i⟩ or ⟨y⟩ were usual until the 16th century, and ⟨j⟩ spread from the 15th; forms with ⟨g⟩ are frequent in East Central and North Upper German.^[12] Today it is mostly written or used in elevated speech.^[2]

Early New High German der jene was extended to der jeniger, der jenige (written as one word from the 17th century), which gradually took the place of der jene;^[4][10][6] Pfeifer dates it to about 1500, Paul to the 15th century, Duden to the 16th.^[4][10][6] jenseits (16th century) grew out of Middle High German jensīt “on that side”, and the noun Jenseits “the life hereafter” dates from about 1800.^[4][6]

Timeline

• 9th century – Old High German jenēr in Otfrid.^[3][8]
• c. 1000 – enēr without the initial j.^[4]
• 15th century – spellings with j spread.^[12]
• c. 1500 – der jenige appears.^[4]
• 16th century – jenseits.^[4][10]
• 17th century – derjenige written as one word.^[4]
• c. 1800 – the noun Jenseits.^[4][6]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. (formal) That, that one, pointing to a person or thing further from the speaker: Dieses Haus ist neu, jenes ist alt.^[2][1]
2. (formal) That, referring to a past time or to something already mentioned or known: seit jenem Abend.^[2][13]

Word family

• derjenige
• jenseits
• Jenseits
• jenseitig

Related words

• dieser
• English yon

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
3. ^ a b c d e Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 456
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 10, 2304
6. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
7. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b c Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 169
9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ 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
11. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
12. ^ a b Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
13. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org