was

Forms

was (pronoun, neuter; genitive wessen)^[2]

Etymology

It is the neuter of wer: inherited from Middle High German waz, inherited from Old High German waz (also hwaz), inherited from Proto-West Germanic *hwat, inherited from Proto-Germanic *hwat (“what”), inherited from Proto-Indo-European *kʷod.^[3][4][1] The same word is Old Norse hvat, Old English hwæt, Old Saxon hwat and Old Frisian hwet, and it survives in Dutch wat, English what and Swedish vad.^[3][4] The sound history of the Gothic neuter is disputed.^[3][5]

The Indo-European form is also Latin quod, with the dental ending of the neuter pronouns that is also seen in Ancient Greek τό (tó, “the”).^[4] It is built on the pronominal stem Proto-Indo-European *kʷo-, to which wie, wo and wann also belong.^[4][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German hwaz, waz is recorded from the 8th century; the initial h was lost from the 9th century.^[3][4] Old High German used it as an interrogative “what, which”, with a genitive “what kind of”, as a relative “that which”, as an indefinite “something”, and as an adverb “how, how much”;^[7] zi wiu meant “why”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

From Middle High German was could also mean “why” (Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht in Goethe's “Erlkönig”) and, in exclamations, “how much”.^[8] In Middle High German and Early New High German, and sometimes until the 18th century, it took a partitive genitive (waz râtes “what counsel”); this was replaced by welch or was für.^[8] It was formerly also used in asking the time: Was stund ist es? (Maaler, 1561), Was ist die Glocke? (Schiller).^[8]

Adelung objected to separating was from für in was für “what kind of”, common as it was in ordinary speech.^[9] In colloquial German was is used with prepositions where the standard language has a compound (an was for woran), and also for etwas “something”.^[2][1]

Timeline

• 8th century – Old High German hwaz is first recorded.^[3][4]
• 9th century – The initial h is lost.^[4]
• 1561 – Maaler records was in asking the time: Was stund ist es?.^[8]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. (interrogative) What: was ist das? “what is that?”.^[2][1]
2. (relative) That, which, after das, alles, etwas, nichts or referring to a whole clause.^[1]
3. (colloquial) Something, for etwas.^[1][2]

Adverb

1. (colloquial) Why, what for.^[1][8]

Interjection

1. (colloquial) What?, pardon?^[2][1]

Related words

• wer
• wie
• wo
• wann
• welch
• English what

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. 972
4. ^ a b c d e f g Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
5. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
6. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 928
7. ^ a b Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 374
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf, p. 4, 1393