mir

Forms

mir (dative singular of the personal pronoun ich; also the reflexive dative of the first person singular)^[2] Middle High German also wrote mier, mire and, in Central German, mer;^[3] mi is also found.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German mir, inherited from Old High German mir, inherited from Proto-Germanic *miz.^[4][5] The same form is Gothic 𐌼𐌹𐍃 (mis) and Old Norse mér, and Old English mē, Old Frisian mī and Old Saxon mī probably go back to it as well, with the loss of the final consonant in unstressed position.^[4][5][6] In High German the Germanic /z/ became /r/.^[5]

The stem is Proto-Indo-European *me-, used for the oblique cases of the first person, also in Sanskrit मह्यम् (máhyam), Ancient Greek ἐμοί (emoí) and Latin mihi.^[5][4] Germanic added a dative ending /z/ of uncertain origin, which Kluge takes as a case ending originally indifferent to number.^[5][4] The nominative ich comes from a different stem.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Kluge dates the first record to the 8th century.^[4] Old High German mir is the dative of ih “I”, which appears in glosses from about 765.^[8][9]

Semantic evolution

Besides its plain use, the dative served already in Middle High German as an ethic dative, which only marks the speaker's involvement and makes the speech livelier.^[9][10] Early New High German had phrases such as so mir got “so help me God” and mir ist “I think”, and the 16th and 17th centuries had elliptic mir nicht “far be it from me”, used by Fischart and Logau.^[10][11] Alemannic mir an, mira means “as far as I am concerned”, and Hebel used it.^[11]

The phrase mir nichts, dir nichts, “without further ado”, is explained as an ellipsis of two clauses, “it harms me nothing, it harms you nothing”.^[2] Several Yiddish phrases with mir, such as oi wez mir “woe is me”, passed into Modern Hebrew.^[12]

Timeline

• 8th century – Old High German mir is recorded.^[4]
• Middle High German – Use as an ethic dative is frequent.^[9]
• 15th and 16th centuries – mir for wir is common in Upper and Central German texts.^[13]
• 16th and 17th centuries – Elliptic mir nicht “far be it from me” is used.^[11]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. Dative of ich: to me, for me: Gib mir bitte den Schlüssel!^[2][1]
2. Reflexive dative of the first person: Ich putze mir die Zähne.^[2]
3. (colloquial) Ethic dative, showing the speaker's involvement: Grüß mir deine Schwester!^[2][9]
4. (colloquial) In mir nichts, dir nichts: without further ado, just like that.^[2]
5. (dialectal or colloquial) we.^[1][13]

Related words

• ich
• mich
• mein
• dir
• English me

Usage notes

Mir for wir “we” was frequent in Upper and Central German texts of the 15th and 16th centuries and is still widespread in Alemannic, Bavarian, Franconian, Hessian and Thuringian dialects.^[13][10] Wiktionary explains it from verb forms ending in -m before wir, which were then divided anew, a development that may go back to Old High German;^[1] Yiddish mir and Luxembourgish mir “we” are the same form.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
3. ^ a b Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 2158
4. ^ a b c d e f Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 625
5. ^ 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
6. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
7. ^ Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
8. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ a b c d Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 10, 2017
10. ^ a b c Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
11. ^ a b c Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 12, 2247
12. ^ Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
13. ^ a b c Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 12, 2248