kein

Forms

kein (indefinite pronoun; feminine keine; used alone: keiner, keine, kein(e)s)^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German kein, a shortening of nekein and enkein, inherited from Old High German nihein, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *nehwain, originally “and not one”.^[2][1][4] The Old High German pronoun joins the numeral ein (“one”) to a conjunction Proto-Germanic *nehw (“and not, nor”), made of the negation Proto-Indo-European *né and Proto-Indo-European *-kʷe (“and”); it matches Latin neque and Oscan nep.^[5][4][1] Old High German had the variants nohein (8th century), nihhein (9th century) and nehein (around 1000).^[5] The same word is Old Saxon nigēn, Middle Low German gēn, Old Frisian gēn, Dutch geen and Yiddish קיין (keyn);^[2][5][4][1] Kluge explains their ⟨g⟩ by weak sentence stress, Pfeifer by grammatical change.^[2][5][4][1]

The modern form arose when the syllable-initial ⟨ch⟩ of nechein hardened to ⟨k⟩.^[2][6] But the Middle High German word also meant “any”, the sense of dehein, thehhein, whose first part is of unclear origin.^[2][7] The sources therefore see the modern word as a blend of both pronouns: the Duden, Paul and the Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch derive it from a mixture of “not one” and “any”.^[7][6][8] Behaghel derived it from ⟨dehein⟩ alone, and the Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch also takes chein as a shortening of ⟨thehein⟩ rather than of ⟨nehein⟩.^[5][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German nihein “no, none, nobody” is common from the beginning of the 9th century in glosses, the Tatian, Otfrid, Notker and other texts.^[4][10] The form chein first appears in the second half of the 11th century, in Williram of Ebersberg and in Otloh's prayer (after 1067), meaning “any”.^[5][4][11]

Semantic evolution

In Middle High German, sentences with a double negation often dropped the negative particle, so dehein “any” could itself mean “no”; around 1200 this began the decline of nehein, whose variant enkein last appears in the 16th century and survives in Swiss dialect nekein.^[5][4] Kein, usual from the end of the 12th century, had both senses, “no” and “any”, into the 16th century.^[5][8] Paul quotes Wolfram's ie ze keiner stunt “at any hour” and Luther's tiefer denn kein Abgrund “deeper than any abyss”, and the sense lingers after comparatives into the 18th century: Goethe has mehr als kein anderer Geist “more than any other mind”.^[6]

Derivatives built on adverbial genitives followed: keinerlei “no kind of” (14th century), keineswegs “by no means” (late Middle High German deheins wegs, 14th century; written as one word from the 16th) and keinesfalls “in no case” (first half of the 19th century).^[5][7]

Timeline

• 8th century – Old High German nohein.^[5]
• 9th century – Old High German nihein “no, none”.^[2][5]
• c. 1000 – Old High German nehein.^[5]
• After 1067 – chein “any” in Otloh's prayer.^[11][4]
• End of the 12th century – kein becomes the usual form.^[5]
• c. 1200 – Decline of nehein begins.^[5]
• 14th century – keinerlei and deheins wegs “by no means”.^[5]
• 16th century – Last records of enkein; the sense “any” fades.^[5][6]
• First half of the 19th century – keinesfalls “in no case”.^[5]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. Attributive: no, not a, not any: ich bin kein Fachmann “I am not an expert”.^[3][1]
2. Attributive, before mass nouns: not any: keine Zeit haben “to have no time”.^[3]
3. Before an adjective, turns it into its opposite: kein dummer Gedanke “not a stupid idea”, a clever one.^[3]
4. (colloquial) Before numbers: not even, less than: keine fünf Minuten “not even five minutes”.^[3]
5. Standing alone: nobody, none, nothing: keiner rührte sich “nobody moved”.^[3]

Word family

• keinerlei
• keineswegs
• keinesfalls

Related words

• ein
• noch
• Dutch geen

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. 486
3. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b c Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
8. ^ a b Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
9. ^ Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch (1952–), founded by Elisabeth Karg-Gasterstädt and Theodor Frings, Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag / De Gruyter; online awb.saw-leipzig.de, p. 5, 69
10. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 237
11. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling