Etymologically
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sprechen

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈʃprɛçən/, [ˈʃpʁɛ-], [ʃprɛ-][1]

Forms

sprechen (class 4 strong, third-person singular present spricht, past tense sprach, past participle gesprochen, past subjunctive spräche, auxiliary haben)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German sprechen, inherited from Old High German sprehhan, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *sprekan.[2][1][3] The same verb is Old Saxon sprekan, Old Frisian spreka and Old English sprecan, today Dutch spreken.[2][3][4] It is found only in West Germanic; Icelandic spreka is a borrowing from Low German.[5][4] Beside it stand forms without /r/: spehhan and specan, which prevailed in English speak.[3][5] Pfeifer leaves this variation unexplained;[3] Kroonen derives it from an alternation in the old past tense, or from the influence of a related iterative verb.[4]

The further origin is uncertain.[6][7] Kluge mentions Welsh ffraeth (“witty, sharp-tongued”) and Albanian shpreh (“to express, teach”), whose meanings are not close enough, and otherwise suggests an expressive word related to Old Norse spraka (“to crackle”).[2] Pfeifer takes the verb as a sound word, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)p(h)ereg-, an extension of Proto-Indo-European *sp(h)er- (“to jerk, kick”), comparing Sanskrit स्फूर्जति (sphū́rjati, “thunders”), Ancient Greek σφαραγέομαι (spharagéomai, “to crackle, hiss”) and Lithuanian sprógti (“to burst”).[3] Kroonen sets up Proto-Indo-European *sprégʰ-e-, with spragėti (“to crackle”) and Latvian sprāgt, and explicitly separates the Sanskrit and Greek words.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German sprehhan is first recorded in glosses of about 765, and then in nearly all texts, from Isidor and the Benedictine Rule to Notker.[8][9] It meant “to speak, say, talk”, and also “to answer, preach, confess, declare, name”.[9][8]

Semantic evolution

Talking with someone was expressed with mit already in Old High German.[10] The accusative of the person, “to have a word with, see someone”, became common in Middle High German: in the Nibelungenlied Kriemhild si sunder sprechen began “began to speak with them in private”.[10] Hence den Arzt sprechen wollen and für niemanden zu sprechen sein;[10] nicht gut auf jemanden zu sprechen sein (18th century) goes back to the prince who was not in a mood to give audience.[10] A dative of the person, probably after French parler, appears in 1658 and remained mostly poetic.[10]

Among the derivatives, entsprechen “to correspond” is south-western German from the 16th century, probably after French répondre, and literary from the 18th;[6] besprechen has meant “to review” since the 20th century, and in older use also “to heal with charms”.[3][6] English took Sprechstimme (1922) and Sprechgesang (1925) as musical terms.[11] Czech, Polish, Serbo-Croatian and Ukrainian borrowed it, as in Polish szprechać.[1]

Timeline

  • c. 765 – Old High German sprehhan appears in glosses.[8]
  • 8th century – bisprehhan “to attack, blame” and zuosprehhan “to talk to” are recorded.[3]
  • 11th century – sprehhāri “speaker” is recorded.[3]
  • 16th century – entsprechen “to correspond” appears in south-western German.[6]
  • 1658 – A dative of the person is used, after French.[10]
  • 1922 – English borrows Sprechstimme.[11]
  • 1925 – English borrows Sprechgesang.[11]

Meanings

Verb

  1. (intransitive) To produce speech, be able to talk: Das Baby lernt gerade sprechen.[12][1]
  2. (intransitive) To speak in a certain way: leise sprechen, mit Akzent sprechen.[12]
  3. (transitive) To say, utter: kein Wort sprechen, ein Urteil sprechen.[12][1]
  4. (transitive) To recite: ein Gebet sprechen.[12]
  5. (transitive) To speak a language: Sprechen Sie Italienisch?[12][1]
  6. (intransitive) To talk about something, give a speech: über das Wetter sprechen, vor dem Stadtrat sprechen.[12][1]
  7. (transitive) To see and talk to someone: Kann ich die Direktorin sprechen?[10][12]
  8. (of things) To show, express: Aus seinen Augen sprach Angst.[13]
  9. (Switzerland, officialese) To grant, approve funding.[1]

Word family

  • sprachlich
  • sprachlos
  • English speak

Usage notes

Wir sprechen uns noch! “you'll be hearing from me” is a threat.[10] Für sich selbst sprechen is to need no further explanation.[12]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 871
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 d Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  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. 16, 2798
  6. ^ a b c d Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 805
  7. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
  8. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  9. ^ a b Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 307
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  11. ^ a b c Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  13. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org