Contact Admin. Search the history of over billion web pages on the Internet. It makes no attempt to be exhaustive, but seeks on the other hand to avoid the extreme of compression which withholds essential links in the chain of reasoning, so that the student is enabled to see how the proffered derivation of a given word is arrived at.
The introduction is an attempt to provide some of the essential information on which German etymology is based, and reference to this will often be helpful in making clear, the forms quoted from Sanskrit and other languages. A particular, and unique, feature to which attention must be drawn is the supplement by Miss Winder 1 giving the etymologies of a large number of MHG words which have disappeared from the modern language, but which are continually met with in the classical texts of the period.
It is a curious fact that no etymological dictionary of such words exists; this supplement is therefore a useful contribution towards filling a gap. February The language which this dictionary seeks to explain is the New. High German Literary Language neuhochdeutsche Schriftsprache.
This, like Standard English, is an abstrac- tion, and should perhaps best be regarded as the ideal language which educated persons from all parts of the German linguistic area aim at reproducing in speech and writing.
It has a special social position and function above and beside the numerous German dialects co-existing with it, and out of which, by a curious and complex process, it gradually emerged as a result of certain quite definite social and political conditions. It is important to note that this standard language — the language of books, newspapers, radio, churches, schools, and official institutions generally — has not been in existence for very long, even as an ideal, nor need it be assumed that it will necessarily always remain in existence : changed social conditions might lead to its disappearance or splitting-up.
