Etymologically
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wie

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Pronunciation

Forms

wie (adverb, conjunction; not inflected)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German wie, inherited from Old High German hwio, inherited from Proto-Germanic *hwaiwa, probably the same word as Gothic 𐍈𐌰𐌹𐍅𐌰 (ƕaiwa, “how”).[2][1][3] The modern form has two Old High German sources.[3][1] One is ⟨(h)wio⟩, from older ⟨(h)weo⟩ (8th century) and ⟨(h)wēo⟩, which matches the Gothic word.[3] The other is hwē (about 800), matching 𐍈𐌴 (ƕē, “with what”); its long vowel became a diphthong, and when ⟨eo⟩ turned into ⟨io⟩ in the 10th century the two fell together.[3][1]

Old Saxon hwō, Dutch hoe, Old English hū and English how go back instead to an ablauting form Proto-Germanic *hwō, while Old Norse hví, hwī and English why continue *hwī, a variant of the form behind ⟨hwē⟩.[3][2][1] The Grimms' dictionary therefore counts three Proto-Germanic forms behind the German word and its relatives.[4] All of them belong to the interrogative stem Proto-Indo-European *kʷo-, also behind wer and was; the forms in ⟨-ē⟩ and ⟨-ī⟩ are old instrumental cases of it, like Latin quī (“by what, why”).[2][3][5] The second part of the Gothic form is uncertain: Pfeifer cites W. Schulze's comparison with Ancient Greek ποῖος (poîos, “of what kind”) and a compound meaning “having which course”, with a word for “course, way” that Pfeifer also finds in Old High German ēwa (“law”).[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German (h)weo is found in the 8th century, and wio is recorded in glosses of about 765 and then in Isidor, the Tatian, Otfrid and Notker, meaning “how, in what way, of what kind, how much, why”.[3][6][7]

Semantic evolution

As an interrogative it asks about manner and, before an adjective or adverb, about degree (wie teuer ist dieses Buch?), and such questions turn easily into exclamations of wonder.[8] The set greetings wie geht's? “how are you?” and wie geht's, wie steht's are recorded in 1582 and 1593.[8] The compound wieso “why” dates from the 16th century.[5]

In comparisons the word means “as, like”, and in colloquial southern German and Austrian use it also stands for “than” and, in Austria, “when” for a past event.[1][9] Dialects are split between southern wie and northern wo, wu, as in Low German, and Dutch and Frisian hoe.[4]

Timeline

  • 8th century – Old High German (h)weo is recorded.[3][2]
  • c. 800 – Old High German hwē appears beside it.[3]
  • 9th century – The forms (h)wio and (h)wie are recorded.[3]
  • 10th century – ⟨eo⟩ becomes ⟨io⟩ and the two Old High German words merge.[3]
  • 1582 – First record of the greeting wie geht's?.[8]
  • 16th century – wieso “why” is formed.[5]

Meanings

Adverb

  1. how: in what way, by what means (wie funktioniert das?).[9][1]
  2. To what degree, how much (wie teuer ist dieses Buch?); also in exclamations.[8]
  3. Wie?, wie bitte?: what did you say?[9]

Conjunction

  1. like, as: introducing a comparison.[9][1]
  2. (colloquial, southern Germany, Austria) than.[1]
  3. (colloquial, especially Austria) When, as (of the past).[1]

Word family

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 986
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 29, 1448
  5. ^ a b c Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 933
  6. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  7. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 393
  8. ^ a b c d Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  9. ^ a b c d Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag