wer
Pronunciation
- /veːr/, [veːɐ̯], [vɛɐ̯][1]
Forms
wer (interrogative, relative and indefinite pronoun; genitive wessen, older wes; dative wem; accusative wen; neuter was)[2][3]
Etymology
It is inherited from Middle High German wer, inherited from Old High German hwer.[4][5][1] The related words are Old Saxon hwē, Old English hwā and Gothic 𐍈𐌰𐍃 (ƕas), and today Dutch wie, English who and Swedish vem.[4][5][6] Kluge derives the German form from Proto-Germanic *hwiz, while the Gothic, Old English and Old Frisian forms go back to Proto-Germanic *hwaz.[4][6] Pfeifer and the Grimms' dictionary see it instead as a purely German new formation that took its /e/ from the genitive hwes, helped by the model of er and der; it keeps the final /r/ from Germanic /z/, which the other West Germanic languages lost.[5][7] Old Norse has no nominative masculine and uses Old Norse hverr (“which”) instead.[7]
The word belongs to the interrogative stem Proto-Indo-European *kʷi- / Proto-Indo-European *kʷo-, also found in Hittite kuiš, Ancient Greek τίς (tís), Latin quis, Old Irish cía, Lithuanian kàs and Old Church Slavonic къто (kŭto).[4][5] The same stem underlies was, wann, wie, wo and welcher.[4][3] Initial /h/ was lost in Old High German from the 9th century.[5]
Earliest recorded meaning
Old High German (h)wer is recorded from the 8th century, in the Hildebrandslied, Isidor, the Benedictine Rule, Otfrid and Notker, as an interrogative “who, which”, with a genitive “what kind of”, as a relative and as an indefinite “someone”.[4][8]
Semantic evolution
German has only the masculine and neuter forms, wer and was, which distinguish persons from things rather than genders.[3] The old genitive wes survives in the proverb Wes Brot ich esse, des Lied ich singe, in weshalb and weswegen, and in wes Geistes Kind, after Luke 9:55; otherwise it was replaced by wessen.[3] Middle High German used swer as a generalizing relative “whoever”, from older so wer so; in late Middle High German the simple wer took its place, as in the proverb Wer wagt, gewinnt.[3]
In colloquial German wer means “somebody”, and also “somebody important”.[3][2]
Timeline
- 8th century – Old High German (h)wer is recorded.[4][5]
- 9th century – Initial h- begins to be lost.[5]
- Late Middle High German – Simple wer replaces the relative swer.[3]
Meanings
Pronoun
- (interrogative) who, which person: wer hat angerufen?; also in rhetorical questions.[2][1]
- (relative) whoever, the one who: wer zuletzt kommt, macht das Licht aus.[2][1]
- (colloquial) Someone, anyone: hat wer meinen Schlüssel gesehen?[2][1]
- (colloquial) Somebody important: in der Stadt ist sie wer.[2][3]
Word family
- irgendwer
- Werfall
- Wemfall
- Wenfall
- weshalb
- weswegen
Related words
References
- ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
- ^ 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
- ^ a b c d e f g Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 982
- ^ 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
- ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
- ^ a b Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 29, 71
- ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 380