Etymologically
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und

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Pronunciation

  • /ʊnt/[1]
  • Colloquial: /ʊn/, /ən/, [n̩][1]

Forms

und[1] Older spellings include unnd, unndt and vnd.[1][2] The Middle High German form unde died out in the written language in the 16th century.[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German unde, inherited from Old High German unti, inherited from Proto-Germanic *anþi, with the zero-grade variant *unþi.[4][1][5] The vowel varies in Old High German: Bavarian texts have anti, most other Upper German sources of the 8th and 9th centuries enti with umlaut, and mainly Franconian inti is probably its weakly stressed variant; unta and the like continue the zero grade and later ousted the other forms, so that Notker has only unde.[5]

The same conjunction is Old Saxon endi, Old Frisian and, Old English and (whence English and) and Middle Dutch ende (whence Dutch en); Old Norse enn (“and, but”) is related.[4][6] Kluge thinks it first had a contrasting sense, “on the other hand, opposite”, still traceable in Norse and German, and connects it with Proto-Indo-European *hanti (“on the front side, opposite”), seen in Hittite ḫanti (“separately”), Sanskrit अन्ति (ánti, “near, opposite”), Ancient Greek ἀντί (antí, “opposite, against”) and Latin ante (“before”), the locative of a root noun meaning “front, forehead”, which also lies behind Ende.[4][7] The EWA likewise derives the full-grade and zero-grade Germanic forms from the locative of that root noun, *h₂ent- (“front, forehead”),[5] which also gave Old High German andi (“forehead”).[8]

Pfeifer, by contrast, finds connections outside Germanic uncertain: he doubts a link with अथ (átha, “then, thereupon”) and considers comparing Tocharian B entwe (“then”) and starting from an extension of *en (“in”).[6] Wahrig and the Duden dictionary leave its origin open.[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German inti and its variants, recorded from the 8th century, meant “and”, but also “also, but, so, for, namely”.[4][11][5] The Hildebrandslied names its heroes in its first line as Hiltibrant enti Hadubrant.[2] Köbler, who counts about 5,500 instances, lists a runic inscription of the third quarter of the 6th century among the sources.[11]

Semantic evolution

Already in Old High German the word mostly just joined words, phrases and clauses, as it does today.[6] In Middle High German and older New High German, when it introduced a clause, it often came close to a subordinating conjunction with the sense “if”, “although”, “whereas” or “when”.[6] Repetition with und expresses increase or continuance (näher und näher, er lief und lief), while pairs like der und der “such and such” leave something unspecified.[2][10]

To end a list that is not complete, German now mostly uses und so weiter (from the 18th century); und andere goes back to the late 15th century and und dergleichen to the early 16th.[6] The short form un survives in imitations of popular speech, as in Fontane.[3]

Timeline

  • 8th century – Old High German inti, enti, anti and unti are recorded.[4][6]
  • 9th century – Forms with u- (unti, unta, unde) appear and later displace the others.[6][5]
  • Late 15th century – und ander is used to close a list.[6]
  • Early 16th century – First use of und dergleichen.[6]
  • 16th century – The old full form unde dies out in the written language.[3]
  • 18th century – und so weiter becomes the usual way to end a list.[6]

Meanings

Conjunction

  1. and: joins words, phrases and clauses in a list or sequence.[10][1]
  2. Joins a word to itself to express increase or continuation: es regnete und regnete “it rained and rained”.[10]
  3. Joins a clause to a preceding one, adding a sequel, a consequence or a contrast.[10]
  4. (colloquial) In elliptical questions, setting a person against an activity to express disbelief: ich und singen? “me, sing?”.[10][1]
  5. In sums: plus.[10]

Interjection

  1. So? And? Asking someone to go on or come to the point.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  3. ^ 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. 24, 405
  4. ^ a b c d e Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 941
  5. ^ a b c d e Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 5, 125
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
  7. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
  8. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  9. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
  10. ^ a b c d e f g Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  11. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling