Words from Old High German
9 words in Curio passed through Old High German on their way into English.
About Old High German
Earliest stage of the German language, within the High German group of West Germanic dialects · an earlier stage of a language still spoken today
Where
German-speaking lands of the early medieval period, brought under Charlemagne's single polity by 788
When
Speakers
No reliable count
No census of its speakers exists.
Family path
- Proto-Indo-European
- Proto-Germanic
- Germanic
- Old High German
- Middle High GermanOld FrenchOld NorseGerman
- English
Dashed: reconstructed, never written down
Where it came from
Old High German is the earliest stage of German, conventionally dated from around 500/750 to 1050. It was not one unified language but a family of West Germanic dialects that shared the consonantal changes known as the Second Sound Shift. Its earliest written traces are glosses from the latter half of the 8th century, notes in the margins of Latin texts made in monastic scriptoria.
Source: Wikipedia
Family
Old High German grew out of Germanic.
Languages that grew out of Old High German: German, Middle High German.
The words, A to Z
- fuchsia
This vivid pink-purple color is named after a man, not a mood or a flower itself.
- hollow
The empty space inside something once shared a root with the idea of concealment.
- hut
A tiny shelter's name traces back to the idea of covering yourself from the world.
- larch
This tree's name traveled through at least four languages before it ever reached English soil.
- mitten
That cozy hand-warmer might owe its name to either a cat or the concept of 'half.'
- quiche
A savory egg pie that shares a family tree with cake, and, thanks to a sitcom, once meant something else entirely.
- scale
One small word secretly hides three unrelated histories — a ladder, a shell, and a bowl all answering to the same name.
- waltz
A dance whose name is really just an old word for spinning around.
- zither
A flat, many-stringed instrument whose name has been plucked through four languages.